From: Ryan Gill (rmgill@mindspring.com)
Date: Fri Apr 08 2005 - 13:50:41 PDT
At 1:22 PM -0700 4/8/05, Mil-Veh Co. wrote:
>It's true the British carriers did carried less planes
>than the U.S. carriers due to the heavy deck armour,
>however this was the trade-off in consideration of,
>"It's better to live to fight another day." ( I
>support that kind of thinking! )
The armored deck was placed at the landing deck
or on the floor of the hangar deck specifically
because of the CG requirements. They carried a
larger air wing because of this.
>Think of how many planes/crew were lost because
>Japanese bombs easily passed throught the thin wood
>deck and exploded deep into the vulnerable areas,
>i.e., Yorktown, battle of the Coral Sea. Toward the
>end of the war everyone was scrambling to armour the
>carrier decks and naturally all carriers decks are now
>armoured, so that ought to tell you something.
Actually, the Essex class carriers had armor 1.5
inch on the hangar deck. Not on the upper deck.
The Midway's had 3.5" of deck armor but this
required a larger hull with a lower freeboard to
compensate for the added top weight. This added
top weight produced a very wet ship, with more
crowding and less hangar space (minimal height).
This prevented more modern aircraft being
operated as their lives went on. In fact the
Essex class ships could operate more modern
aircraft that the Midways could not due to that
armored flight deck.
http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/us_fleet.htm
>Quite bluntly the British were right on this one and
>years ahead of the Japanese and American.
Even armored decks weren't proof against bombs
from dive bombers. This is evidenced by the
battleships sunk on Dec 7th. It wasn't just
torpedoes.
Further, the British Malta Class departed the
British pattern of a smaller hangar deck with an
armored flight deck to much more like the US
carriers.
>As to the 75mm punching holes in the Tiger, well I
>suppose an odd shot might stop one, but that's the
>exception, not the rule. However, I have observed
>what happens to a Sherman's 2" armour when hit by an
>88. Few crewmen survived a single hit by an 88, many,
>many Tigers were unaffected by multiple hits from a
>75.
This tended to happen to any Allied tank, US or British
--
--
Ryan Gill rmgill@SPAMmindspring.com
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I speak not for CNN, nor they for me.
But I do work there and still like the company.
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