You keep putting too much into the armor of the Illustrious, when it has been proven that the armor only barely helped it and in one instance actually showed the structural flaw besides the armor. The Ark Royal was not lost due to a design fault, but to a torpedo which has been proven time again that ships could only be theoretically protected by its armor below the waterline to a torpedo hit. It is a good thing that the Illustrious was never hit by a torpedo, especially a Japanese torpedo. If a kamikaze hit below the waterline could put her out of service then imagine a Long Lance hit. I brought up those battleships because of their armored capability. The armor of the Illustrious could not even compare to that of the Yamato and its counterparts. Thus i am saying that the trade off of armored hangers for speed, range, strike capability, maintanence capabilities proves precisely what the advantage the Illustrious had. Slightly better passive protection then the Yorktown class, and much worse strike, ASW, escort, and CAP capabilities.
Please show me where it was proven that armouring schemes only barely helped these carriers survive. Where is it proven that time and again torpedoes could not be defended against? In fact there are many instances that torpedoes dont have much effect. I can go through plenty, but cant be bothered writing them up to be honest, so I will just cut and paste and article from wiki instead....its relating to wwi, but it does illustrate what I am talking about....
"Essentially, the bulge is a lateral compartment at the waterline level that is isolated from the ship's internal volume. It is part air-filled, and part free-flooding. In theory, a torpedo strike will rupture and flood the air-filled component of the bulge and the water-filled part will dissipate the shock and absorb explosive fragments, leaving the ship's main hull structurally intact. Transverse bulkheads within the bulge limit flooding throughout the entirety of the structure.
The bulge was developed by the British Director of Naval Construction, Eustace Tennyson-D'Eyncourt, who had four old Edgar-class protected cruisers so fitted in 1914. These ships were used for shore bombardment duties, and so were exposed to inshore submarine and torpedo boat attack. Grafton was torpedoed in 1917, and apart from a few minor splinter holes, the damage was confined to the bulge and the ship safely made port. Edgar was hit in 1918, this time damage to the elderly hull was confined to dented plating. The Royal Navy had all new construction fitted with bulges from 1914, beginning with the Revenge-class battleships. Older ships also had bulges incorporated during refits. The Royal Navy had its large monitors fitted with enormous bulges. This was fortuitous for Terror, which survived 3 torpedoes striking the hull forwards and her sister Erebus, which survived a direct hit from a remotely-controlled explosive motor boat that ripped off 50 feet (15.25 m) of her bulge.
Later designs of bulges incorporated various combinations of air and water filled compartments and packing of wood and sealed tubes. As bulges increased a ship's beam, they caused a reduction in speed, which is a function of the length to beam ratio. Therefore, various combinations of narrow and internal bulges appeared throughout the 1920s and into the 1930s. The bulge had disappeared from construction in the 1930s, being replaced by internal arrangements of compartments with a similar function."
My understanding regarding the Kamikaze hit b in April 1945 was that it had little or no effect on the ship....are you saying she was knocked out at that time???? if so its news to me...
You also mention the Long Lance torpedo. I never ever said that the Illustrious class were safe against these weapons. A Long Lance is a destroyer launched, 24 inch weapon with a practical range of 15000 yards, a warhead size approaching 1500 lbs, and a speed in excess of 40 knots. What I said was that she was designed to withstand torpedoes of up to 18 inch capacity, which typically had a warhead of 350 lbs, and a range of about 2000 yards. there were no air launched Japanese Long Lance torpedoes that I know of. All of a sudden we have jumped from the sublime to the ridiculous
I never even claimed that the Illustrious were proofed against 21 inch torpedoes. Whilst on this subject, I also never made any claims about the protection of the rudder, the driveshafts, or the miniing effects of magnetic exploders. My claim is simply that they were designed to withstand against a contact hit on the torpedo protection belts. If the hit occurred where it was expected (and likely) to hit, the Illustrious would have little difficulty in defeating an 18 inch torpedo with a contact exploder.
I also never said that putting more aircraft was not a good idea, in fact was at pains to say that the illustrious was able to increase her air groups to respectable number as at the end of the war (it was actually a max operating total of 57 to use the vernacular of the other guy, in my vernacular, the operational maximum was 52). What I did take to task was the actual numbers carried into battle by the Yorktowns, and I see that once again we are touting numbers of around 91. Before we get into this myth once again....please tell me exactly which battles these ships carried into battle 91 (and I anticipate 91+ )aircraft into battle. The answer, in fact is less than 80. They had max operating capacity of just over 80, apparently, and an Operational maximum of about 75 (in my book) maybe 80 (according to others), but not 91...so lets keep the numbers to what they actually should be, and not what we would like them to be. The Operational maximum for the Illustrious was 42-52, to the Yorktowns 71-83 . But what the RN needed was survivability over numbers....and it got that with the illustrious. You are at pains to tell me the vulnerbility of the Illustrious class generally, and then make up spurious arguments about Long Lance torpedoes in the 18 inch category. In terms of its general strength and durability, I rest on the war record of the class as a whole....not one loss despite the most ferocious attacks made against them.....in terms of torpedo protection, unproven, no claims about protection against Long Lance, but in design terms has a theoretical protection up to 18 inch torpedoes.
Your claims about much worse ASW protection???? how did you arrive at that conclusion. My understanding is that training for aircrews in asw training was never formalized for the squadrons on the USN fleet carriers (at least not until very late in the war), and that asw weaponary on the fleet carriers was pretty basic. The efforts of the British fleet carriers were also pretty ordinary at the beginning of the war but by 1941 had been lifted to repectable levels. Crews had been trained on how to search for u-Boats, the strike aircraft were carrying ASV radar able to detect a surfaced or partially surfaced U-Boat, and weapons had been developed to allow some airborne attacks to be made. This is a genuine question...what information do you have on confirmed or likley kills of U-Boats and submarines by US Yorktown class carriers. I know of none....they certainly dont appear on any of the class's battle honours....but perhaps you some additional information that I have not seen.
