Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (PMN1) — Tue, 20 May 2008 10:14:37 GMT

During World War I, Powerful and Terrible had most of their armament removed and served a(s) troop transports and later accommodation ships.

10ft shorter and a bit wider than USS Langley, she would cut down nicely to a faster carrier. Jupiter could only manage 15kt as a collier, while HMS Powerful had a top speed of 22kt without losing weight.

Their machinery was unreliable.

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (perfectgeneral) — Tue, 20 May 2008 04:38:30 GMT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Powerful
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Langley

During World War I, Powerful and Terrible had most of their armament removed and served a(s) troop transports and later accommodation ships.

10ft shorter and a bit wider than USS Langley, she would cut down nicely to a faster carrier. Jupiter...

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (perfectgeneral) — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:14:23 GMT

So by the 30s, the British would have experience with operating a fast carrier with large airgroup (say 70-80 aircraft), a fast carrier with mediumsized airgroup (around 40-55 aircraft, at a guess), a medium-speed aircraft carrier with small airgroup, and slow aircraft carriers with small airgroups (and some experience with a fast carrier with tiny airgroup - the Vindictive had 6 or 7 aircraft). I wonder what conclusions...

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (Pengolodh) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:57:14 GMT

NewGolconda wrote:
This is all on the wrong track.

Courageous and Glorious were good interwar carriers with 1930's types. Furious to a lesser extent. They gave the RN good experience with operating fast carriers with fairly large airgroups, sometimes operating together in groups!

Any 1920's conversion of a WWI battle cruiser is going to be unsatisfactory in several respects.

...

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (No1catman) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 12:49:54 GMT

Personally I think it a shame that HMS Tiger as a Battlecruiser was scrapped - but then you have odd gun calibre of 13.5 in. (can't remember what the Japanese did with the Kongo re. gunsize).
However, rather than scrap it, couldn't it have been gutted and converted to an aircraft carier? Granted, there would be problems on the 'finance'; but it might have been cheaper than starting from scratch. And it was shorter than the Glorious Class 704 ft., against 786 ft., yet...

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (StewartG) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 10:22:59 GMT

The problem with this question is that it really boils down to "how different would everything have been if everything had been different"?

The answer is "as different as you want them to be."

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (Joshua Kintner) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:58:12 GMT

As alternatives to the Glorious class and Furious, how would full length coversions of the four Hawkins class cruisers come out, if they have been cancelled as cruisers and re-ordered as carriers in 1915-16?

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (NewGolconda) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 05:31:04 GMT

Beaufort was a marginal machine. The Taurus version had almost no chance of maintaining height with one engine shut down, unless the plane was brand new. Even the Twin Wasp version could only just climb one one engine brand new.

The botha was worse.

In effect it was a single engined bomber with twice the chance of failure.

Strengthening for accelerated take offs and arrested landings will add pounds to a machine with little more than a 2500lb offensive...

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (NewGolconda) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 05:22:05 GMT

This is all on the wrong track.

Courageous and Glorious were good interwar carriers with 1930's types. Furious to a lesser extent. They gave the RN good experience with operating fast carriers with fairly large airgroups, sometimes operating together in groups!

Any 1920's conversion of a WWI battle cruiser is going to be unsatisfactory in several respects.

The interwar opportunity for the RN was that they were entitled to treat Argus/Hermes/Eagle/Furious...

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (Admiral Beez) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 04:47:02 GMT

Zen9 wrote:

Question, could a Beaufort bomber operate from a carrier?

It shouldn't be impossible. Per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Beaufort the Beaufort has a loaded weight of 21,230 lb (9,629 kg), with 2 x Bristol Taurus 14-cylinder radial engines 1,130 hp each, and a wingspan of 57 ft 10 in, and length of 44 ft 2 in. This compares reasonably well with the later...

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (Zen9) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:52:39 GMT

If the UK goes for all four is that assured they will all become carriers?
After all Hood was continued with as a big gun warship, which would leave the RN with just three hulls, combined to 120,000tons.

Planning is definately 5 CVs.

Decades later I note the Davenport limited carrier studies tend to 35,000tons standard load, and are much shorter than the Hood, though wider. Could we see Study Y types being produced rather than an lengthened or new drydock?

...

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (PMN1) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:00:33 GMT

You said the other Hood class had been laid down, is that correct?

Well, Whitley says they were laid down..

Anson 9th November 1916

Howe 16th October 1916

But all suspended 9th March 1918.

I would imagine they'd be built with an open hanger though considering the weather they might actualy be closable off from inside to keep the worst of the weather out....

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (Zen9) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 23:48:27 GMT

You said the other Hood class had been laid down, is that correct?

As for the rest that depends bunkerage would be small compared with the 1952 effort but likely large compared with Ark Royal I suspect.

What was the range of the Hood class again?

I would imagine they'd be built with an open hanger though considering the weather they might actualy be closable off from inside to keep the worst of the weather out.

Where next is the key question once...

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (Admiral Beez) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:40:36 GMT

I'd like to think that such big Admiral-class carriers would be designed with very large bunker fuel and avgas capacity to allow the ships to operate in the deeper regions of the Empire.

With long endurance and a capability to embark Beaufort torpedo bombers along with hopefully the development of a good, long range fighter, the Admirals would rule the seas.

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (Zen9) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:08:56 GMT

Seems a focus on the development of mass air strikes in the late 20's, as opposed to the RNs tactics of operating aircraft in small groups.
But that does'nt mean the RN with large CVs is going to follow the USN precisely. Considering the RN practice a focus on larger aircraft able to loiter for longer is a linear development.

Side issue, Amagi class hulls where set for 41,200tons, Akagi started life as a carrier with a limited figure of 33,821tons at her trials, though...

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (Admiral Beez) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 05:28:53 GMT

Did the USN ever conceive of operating medium bombers (as regular USN fleet deployments, not Doolittle B-25 one-offs) from the Lexington or Saratoga? They'd be about the same size of the Admirals/Hoods.

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (Zen9) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:01:45 GMT

It seems that during the Treaty negotiations the UK pressed the need to limit induvidual ships to 25,000tons a a total of 125,000tons which is five such vessels. Clearly this was their planning basis for carriers at the time. A number that reoccures from time to time like the number 60.

The US pushed for a induvidual limit of 40,000tons allowing them the reconstruction of the two battlecruisers to carriers, so that would be 80,000tons, at this time the US was also pushing for a...

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (PMN1) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:21:03 GMT

Anyone want to hazrad a guess as to the aircraft complement of Furious and Glorious/Courageous if US practices had been followed?

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (Admiral Beez) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:12:03 GMT

Zen9 wrote:
So can these Hood types be completed at lower tonnages or is there some wiggle room during the Treaty negotiations?

First of all, all four Admiral-class battlecruisers were Laid down in 1916. If they were converted to carriers during construction, all four would have been completed by 1920. Britain will not scrap these four new ships to comply with the WT, and thus they will likely push for changes...

Re: Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (Pengolodh) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:03:30 GMT

Carrier tonnage at Washington was 135,000 tons for USA and the UK. A carrier based on a Hood-type hull would almost certainly have lower standard displacement than a Hood-type battlecruiser - that was the case for the American conversions, and I'd guess a Hood-conversion would probably end up in the same ballpark. Based on that reasoning, I don't think Hood-conversions or G3-conversions would eat up tonnage limits faster than a Lexington-conversion.

Let us assume that in...

Glorious, Courageous, and Furious: Canceled

feeds@yuku.com (seasick) — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 04:13:33 GMT

Admiral Fisher is relieved and the Admiralty cancels the three 'light cruisers'. Glorious is reordered as an aircraft-carrier. Using the original design of the Glorious as a base (material already ordered), and rebuild it as an aircraft-carrier. The ship was laid down days before the reorder. What changes should be made to the ship so that it could be a good CV? A RN Lexington?

--- Mark V.

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