Quick mods to the Courageous class

Admiral Beez said:

At this stage I'm more interested in how without hindsight the original 1925-1928 conversion could have been improved upon, rather than redoing the ship in the 1930s.

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Without Hindsight I am not sure what changes would be made. The stern round down and the forward Flying off deck were pretty much used by the Japanese. So the need for change is harder to spot.
The Courageous class does have a hull problem. They were a bit shallow and had very little parallel sections, that is they had a lot of taper on both the bow and stern that almost meet in the middle.

This makes higher top weight a bit harder to balance.
Just having more hanger space doesn't mean that much more capability if you have don't increase the aviation fuel stowage and magazine space for bombs/torpedoes.
The ships range/endurance were short in any case. In part due to the old engines which were not as efficient as newer engines/boilers of the 1930s.

The Courageous class were built to use Fairley Flycatcher (400hp) the Fairley III (570hp) and Blackburn Dart (under 500hp) and even with 48 planes the fuel storage would last fairly well. Even a 20-50% increase in the power of engines isn't too bad. Starting to use 850-1300hp engines and the increase night flying sucks down fuel at a much higher rate.

The 4.7in AA guns were not up to WW II standards by a large stretch but by 1926-28 standards they were actually pretty good. Again we need hindsight.
At least the Courageous class were not saddled with cruiser guns. But that means you don't have anything to take out and swap anything for.

You could change things a bit but without hindsight you don't have a clear path and you are stuck with the old hull and engines which are not going to solved by any conversion short of a complete rebuild. Any changes are not going to change capabilities by much.

Admiral Beez said:

As an aside, I was surprised to see how much of the aft space beneath the flight deck was taken up by the captain in Hermes. Below we see Captain's sleeping cabin, bathroom, day cabin and dining room. That's a lot of luxury on a carrier the size of a wartime CVE, but I suppose deemed necessary for a foreign station. I imagine this was a good place during the interwar China station tours. If I'm redesigning the 1925 rebuild of the Courageous trio the captain will be getting less space, with the focus being on whatever the ships need to maximize CAG size and overall capability.

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Ever heard the expression "the loneliness of command"?

Hermes wasn't designed for operation on a foreign station. That represents a fairly standard functional allocation of space on a warship of the period. Even something like a destroyer allocated spaces for the same functions. I also don't think that the space is quite as large as you suppose. These compartments were on the main deck. They are where the row of portholes are on the ships stern in this photo. Note how much flare there is on the hull around that area. That impacts the floor area available.


You need to remember that the captain was not, and is not, just one of the other officers. He only entered the wardroom by invitation. He ate, slept and worked (other than when required on the bridge or in other parts of the ship) in those spaces, separate from the other officers. He had his own steward to attend to his needs. Entertaining guests, whether at home or overseas was and is only a small part of his job. Move forward and you see similar allocations of space in warships right up until today with the QE class.

Just looking at the plans of the Illustrious class there are compartments allocated for the same purposes. Lower gallery deck aft, just inboard of the Port 4.5" battery, held Captain's WC, bathroom, day cabin, sleeping cabin, and deck below you find his office. In that case there were also a matching set of spaces for any admiral that might be aboard. I suspect the Courageous class would also have contained space for an admiral.

If you examine ships plans in detail, particularly carriers, you will find all sorts of cabin space allocated for various administrative functions that were absolutely necessary for the smooth running of the ship and its air group. Do you want to remove these as well?

The USN were and are no different. An Essex had a captain's pantry, state room cabin, bathroom on the gallery deck just forward of the island all duplicated for carrying an admiral.

Even looking at the plans for the Casablanca class CVE you will find spaces on the gallery deck occupying the space between 3 of the supporting beams for Captain's pantry, cabin, stores, bath and stateroom and running nearly one third of the way across under the flight deck.

A ship is not just a working vessel. It is home to her crew. But with rank comes increased responsibility and some privileges. I doubt many would grudge the captain a few luxuries.

Admiral Beez said:

scrap the aft rounddown and forward hangar level flying off deck.

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The original round down was not that large.


It was extended in Glorious only in the 1930s.

Why so quick to condemn its existence? The RN carried out extensive wind tunnel trials from as early as 1916 to determine the best shapes for fight decks, islands etc. It was not done on some whim. And when the RN did away with them in WW2 the aircraft were of an entirely different design era.

And simply disposing of the round down may not achieve the effect you desire. Landing on Unicorn in 1943 has been described as like falling off a cliff, such was the airflow around her stern.

So the problem may not be as simple as you believe.

Admiral Beez said:

Maximize hangar width.

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Discussed before. Using the whole hull width for hangar has an immediate effect on the overall strength of the hull. The historical conversion used the flight deck for strength, so reinforcing the original rather weak hull. But you need to keep the flight deck connected to that lower structure. Moving the hangar walls out removes other structure between the ships side and the hangar wall in the historical design.

The design emerged as it did for good reasons, and you seem to want to hand wave away the problems it was clearly designed to solve.

As I've said before interwar, especially the 1920s, was early days in carrier development and carrier aviation generally. What was found to work in WW2 wasn't necessarily apparent in 1925. And that starts with the Battleship still being the mainstay of a fleet, with the carrier as a bit player.