Jerry W. Loper
Airman 1st Class
- 121
- Oct 2, 2007
Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
Definitely with the launch of the Essex class.I would say that USN light cruisers were clearly better that those of IJN and USN had better carriers, DEs, MTBs (PTs) and subs.
Juha
Lots of secondary sources including Wikipedia suggest Yorktown class CV airwing size was about 90. Sounds fishy to me, as if they are all just quoting each other. I'd like to see the official USN specifications for U.S.S. Yorktown.
Unlike Japan, the U.S. was not chronically short of aircraft and pilots. So if airwing size was 90 why didn't U.S.S. Yorktown have 90 aircraft prior to the Coral Sea battle?
According to my source Enterprise had 3 Corsairs, 32 Hellcats, 23 Dauntless and 15 Avebgers = 73 a/c in June 44
Shokaku, Zuikaku and Taiho had then altogether 71 Zekes, 90 Judys, 10 Zeros and 54 Jills = 225 a/c, so Shokaku and Zuikaku probably both had 5-7 a/c more than Enterprise at that point
Out of curiosity, why would only 3 Corsairs be carried? I would have thought it would have been an even number of Corsairs.