FYI: The Invasion Fleet For Japan

Discussion in 'Warfare / Military' started by APACHERAT, Aug 26, 2015.

  1. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Its existence kept secret throughout the war, the US naval base at Ulithi was for a time the world’s largest naval facility.

    15 battleships, 29 carriers, 23 cruisers, 106 destroyers, and a train of oilers and supply ships...

    The following is from "Warbird Information Exchange" and normally I wouldn't start a FYI thread except for the over 50 photos, the vast majority I believe have never been published before.

    Some interesting photos, one being Marine F-6-F Hellcats with nose art. How many Navy or Marine fighters have you ever seen with nose art ?

    I'm just going to post the first few paragraphs of the article then go to the link and enjoy.

     
  2. Strasser

    Strasser Banned

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    I'm still awed by the organizational and logistical skills of that generation to this day, including the Brits as well, who are usually under-rated in the history books; the depth of talent and dedication all down the command chain required to pull that off successfully will probably never be equaled. The short time period in which all this and the rest of the effort was accomplished was truly singular in history.
     
  3. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The thread title is wrong, I borrowed it from the link from another website, it should be "The Invasion Fleet For Okinawa."

    Many of those photos I've never seen published before.

    The largest invasion fleet in history was the Normandy D-Day invasion. But the fleet was under three different flags, British, U.S. and Canadian.

    The largest amphibious invasion fleet under one flag was the invasion of Iwo Jima.

    The Okninawa invasion fleet was under two flags, by the time of the Okinawa battle the British had entered the naval war in the Pacific and the Royal Navy was there.

    Unlike American aircraft carriers that had wooden flight decks, usually teak, the British aircraft carrier had armor flight decks and fared better against the Japanese Kamikaze attacks off of Okinawa. The U.S. Navy would follow suit after the war with armor flight decks.
     
  4. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Actually, the flight decks of most carriers in that era (other then the British) were unarmored. The Essex class did indeed have an armored flight deck, as did the later Midway class. But these were also full sized battle carriers.

    Most of the carriers involved in the war were escort carriers. Like the USS Suwannee (CVE-27), the ship my grandfather served on. Converted from an oil carrier, it was intended as a small, cheap, almost disposable carrier to escort supply convoys and to assist smaller flotillas. Normally converted in only 6 months, there was simply no time or material to make those into fully armored carriers.

    The closest thing today to an escort carrier is probably the LHA class amphibious ships. Lightly armored, they would stand almost no chance if struck by a modern equivelent of a kamakazi attack.
     
  5. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    HYour feed back is appreciated Mushroom, but you have armor decks and steel decks.

    I've been deployed on Essex class aircraft carriers during my tour of duty off shore of Vietnam when I was TAD with BLT 1/26 & 2/26. the USS Valley Forge and the USS Princeton, both fleet attack aircraft carriers during WW ll and they had teak decks.

    All Essex class carriers had teak decks so did all battle ships and gun cruisers. But was below the teak decks of the BB's, and cruisers ? Armor plating.

    What was just below the teak decking of the of the Essex class carriers ? Steel plating, not armor plating.
    But having a wood deck was a fire hazard even though there was a steel or armor plating beneath the deck.

    The last U.S. Navy warship to serve with a teak deck was the USS Long Beach, the first nuclear surface warship, the CGN-9 and it had no armor plating., just steel.

    The pre Essex class carriers during WW ll like the USS Wasp, Yorktown class and the Ranger had teak decks with usually 1.5" of armor plating below the teak deck. The last U.S. Navy carriers to have armor protected flight decks with teak planking.

    The British during WW ll just didn't have wood deck flight decks on their carriers.

    But what's a warship without a teak deck ? A ship without real sailors, no holey stones or a crew who know how to use a swab.

    It's pretty bad when a U.S. Marine knows how to master a swab today more than today's American sailor. In fact, the vast majority of those serving in the U.S. Navy today aren't real sailors. Not even the uniforms they wear today are the uniform a sailor would be caught wearing.

    (*)(*)(*)(*), not even today's U.S. Navy warships are real warships, but PC warships that are dependent on technology and can't fight without that technology.

    I LOVE TEAK WOOD


    But cultural-marxism (Political Correctness) says, if you like teak wood, you are a racists. I (*)(*)(*)(*) you not. It has something to do with rain forest so I was told.
     
  6. Korozif

    Korozif Banned

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    There was also a question of weight and mass distribution and how many airplanes they needed to carry. For exemple the HMS Illustrious carried 41 planes while the USS Enterprise CV-6 carried 70 to 80 planes.
    British WW2 carrier carried fewer plane, and for the most part outdated planes like the Fairey Swordfish and Gloster Sea Gladiator, both biplane, for a big part of the conflict.
     
  7. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I hate using Wikipedia but this is interesting and WW ll historians rarely mention it. Notice the photo, you would think it was taken at the U.S. Navy ancbhorage at Ulithi. It shows six British fleet carriers in the Pacific in 1945.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briti...British_aircraft_carriers_at_anchor_c1945.jpg

    Excerpts:

     
  8. Korozif

    Korozif Banned

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    By 1945 they had made progress, but for half of the war their carrier force was pretty much obsolete. Not enough AA and too few planes on them and those were obsolete as well. They wouldn't have survived against the Japanese armoured deck or not if they had been at midway instead of the US carrier. It got better when they got some Grumman Wildcat and Hellcat.
     
  9. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Well when compared to all other carriers that served during WW ll they weren't obsolete. Compared to the U.S.Navy's Essex class carriers, nothing comparable to any other carriers of any other navy. The Essex class carriers served into the 1970's.

    The British fast carrier, the main carriers of the Royal Navy when the keels were laid down were restricted by the Washington Naval Treaty restrictions. These British carriers were the HMS Illustrous, Indomitable and Implacable class carriers. Six in total.

    The Essex class carriers first keels weren't laid down until April of 1941 and America was able to build these carriers very quickly. For example the first carrier was the USS Essex from keel laying in April of 1941 to launching in December of 1942.

    Where as the British HMS Implacable, the keel was laid down in February of 1939 and wasn't completed until August of 1944.

    One thing the Royal Navy didn't see back in the late 1930's was the American F-4U Corsair. The hangers on these British carriers were only 14 feet high, to low for the Corsair but the Corsair could operate from these carriers, the aircraft just had to remain on the flight deck.

    On the Wiki link I provided above there is a photo of a one of these fast British carriers with British carrier base Supermarine Seafire fighters, the naval carrier base version of the Spitfire. A Spitfighter with folding wings and a hook. http://www.aviastar.org/air/england/supermarine_seafire.php
     
  10. Korozif

    Korozif Banned

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    They were still smaller and carried less planes than the USN one. The illustrious carried only 36 planes, half of what a USN carrier carried. Her obsolete biplanes were only replaced in 1942, half way into the war, by the US wildcats. In fact the Illustrious only received the super marine sea fire in 1947, two years after the war...
     
  11. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    All of the British fast fleet carriers would go through modifications and upgrading during the war and by 1944 all were carrying 60 aircraft.

    The best "light fleet carriers" of all times has to be the British Colosus class carriers at just over 13,000 tons. They only carried 36 aircraft.
     
  12. Korozif

    Korozif Banned

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    And that is still less than the US one. You have to understand that you have to compromise when you are building a ship. If you put more armor you have to take less of something else. You can't also put too much weight on top of the ship or it will become unstable which for a carrier is a big thing when trying to land on it.

    Just face the reality of it. The British carrier played only a marginal role in the one theater where they would have been useful, the Pacific theater. In europe their success is also questionned sincein their engagement in that theater was when they only had outdated biplane to offer. They were totaly outclassed in Norway and only the incompetence of the Italian air and naval force gave them a limited victory at Tarrento.
     
  13. Strasser

    Strasser Banned

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    The Soviets were still using biplanes for night bombing runs throughout WW II; whether or not some equipment is useful or not depends on the situations it's being used in, not its age or tech level. The Royal Navy had plenty of other things to do than produce the latest and greatest carriers; no need to with the U.S. production giant carrying that load. Many served well in support roles. In any case, the Brits didn't produce many. Their newer designs didn't make it out before the war was over.

    http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/uk_fleet.htm

    Nazi Germany's aircraft carrier.

    [​IMG]

    http://www.militaryfactory.com/ships/detail.asp?ship_id=Graf-Zeppeli-Flugzeugtrager-A
     
  14. Korozif

    Korozif Banned

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    The point is that having an armor deck didn't make them better than the US carrier if that armored deck came at a price of reduced aircraft available or obsolete aircraft available.

    A biplane carrier fighter was obsolete at the start of WW2 because their enemy were already using better. Norway proved this.
    The swordfish as a torpedo plane was ok against the Bismark since it didn't have any air cover or effective AA as this wasn't really a priority on european naval design. But they wouldn't have even made it to their effective range against the Japanese.
     

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