Brit carrier deck

Someone more knowledgable will no doubt put you right, but I'm sure Royal Navy carrier decks were steel all through, and after, WWII.

Regards

Pat Macguire

s e morrison makes bitter note of that in his two ocean war survey. bitter at u.s. wood decks.

they didn't loose any carriers to kamikaze, if i remember correctly. and i believe they didn't pack their decks as much. after late 43, the u.s. had enough carriers and should have learned that teak was not too smart. i have often wondered why the lessons weren't applied.

Yes, the British may not have as many planes packed aboard but they survived kamikaze attacks better. I am pretty sure that they were still using the same ships in Korea.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

British carrier decks were steel and, if I'm not mistaken, armoured. One British carrier took a kamikaze on the flight deck and was back in operation that day after welding a patch of the deck. HTH.

British carriers were designed from the outset with an armoured deck because they were expected to be taking plunging shellfire in the crowded waters of a European naval war.

US carriers were never retro-fitted because it would have meant taking a much-needed carrier off the line for a unacceptably long period of time, if it was possible at all. Remember, the structure of the carriers was designed to take a wooden deck, not a heavy armoured deck, so adding one would have involved rebuilding much of the top of the carrier. It would also have had the effect of moving the center of gravity much higher in the ship, causing the ship to pitch and roll more - about the worst thing you can have in a carrier!

ok, but why weren't new carriers built with steel decks? totaly new designs do seem to get done in wartimes.

snipped-for-privacy@some.domain (e) wrote in news:ntlBd.1867543$ snipped-for-privacy@news.easynews.com:

It's a trade off. Armored flight decks impose restrictions. Among them is fewer aircraft because of, I believe, smaller hangar decks and flight decks. You make a decision based on what you expect your ships to face. It was pretty clear that noone was going to get into gun range of an American carrier. So you are left with the threat of bombs. One Brit carrier was swarmed by Stukas in the Med and despite the armored deck was put out of action. By going to a wooden deck you could carry more aircraft meaning more fighters, to. And I believe it was the intent from the begining to surrond the carriers with a phalanx of support ships to provide AA fire. Also torpedos may have been considerd a greter threat anyway. Hornet, Lexington and Wasp all succumbed to torpedos. Yorktown had been bombed but was on her way home when torpedoed.

Seeing as aircraft were the main battery of the aircraft carrier I reckon we just optimized for quantity and used that as the defense. Seemed to work anyway.

what was the first metal deck u.s. carrier?

SNIPPED WELL OVER 50 LINES OF EXCESS CRAP........THAT'S A NOT SO SUBTLE HINT.......

I'm not sure if it the Midway class but for sure the post war angle deck conversions of the Essexes were metal decks.

So, if I read the comments correctly, the British carrier decks of WW-II and the Korean War were made of metal instead of wood and, if so, looked nothing like a US carrier deck. That would mean using the Just Plane Stuff resin US WW-II carrier deck would be out.

TIA......Bill.

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Bill,

Despite the stuff said on this thread already, the British Carriers that took part in the Korean war were all of the Colossus class of Light Fleets. Although all had metal decks, they were not armoured. Only the 3 Illustrious class and her near sisters were armoured. The ships involved were HMS' Triumph, Theseus, Glory and HMAS Sydney. If you want true accuracy, only the Trumph carried Seafire Mk 47s into action in Korea. All the others had Sea Furies embarked.

The surface that you want is just plain metal, with some markings on it. Plenty of pictures on the web, just google HMS Colossus.

Graham Holmes

In reference to your dillemma about posts not showing up; you're not alone. Both of our posts from January first just showed up today, the eleventh. Where does a post hide for ten days? Of course this probably won't appear till the twenty-second. Cheers,

The Keeper (of too much crap!)

FWIW Your post has shown up on Starpower.net here in Baltimore, Maryland at 4:24 P.M. on Jan.11.

Bill Shuey

never heard of any kamikaze attacks on the British Pacific Fleet. anyone recommend a good book on the British side of the PTO?

Craig

if you're talking the ballentine history's of the violant century softbacks, i have the carrier war one. good reference.

I used to have a Ballantine book on the carrier war in the Pacific and there was a chapter in there on British ops. Beyond that there was a book in the high school library that had a chapter on the strikes on Balikpapan but I can't help you with a title. It was one of those WWII story collections that were popular during the '60s.

Bill Banaszak, MFE