Vanguard as a Carrier?

Re: Vanguard as a Carrier?

feeds@yuku.com (Zen9) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 23:56:09 GMT

They all did Freeloader.
Ark Royal and Eagle where substantialy modified.

Re: Vanguard as a Carrier?

feeds@yuku.com (emc) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:12:12 GMT

FreeloaderUK wrote:
as a carrier vanguard would have been useful but post-war she'd need a lot of new upgrades

Certainly: angled deck, steam catapults, improved radars, etc. On the other hand, about the only post-ww2 use for the Vanguard was as a royal yacht, and maybe tossing a few 15in shells at Egyptians in 1956.

Re: Vanguard as a Carrier?

feeds@yuku.com (FreeloaderUK) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:10:37 GMT

as a carrier vanguard would have been useful but post-war she'd need a lot of new upgrades

Re: Vanguard as a Carrier?

feeds@yuku.com (emc) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 19:00:48 GMT

I think it's pretty incontrovertible that the Vanguard was a waste of resources; had the RN chosen to build a carrier of similar size, their post-war strength would have been greater.

Re: Vanguard as a Carrier?

feeds@yuku.com (Zen9) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:45:40 GMT

There would of course have to be a refit of this Vanguard for steam catapult and angled deck, looking at this it would suggest that completion of the third Audacious ship (26% complete when work stops) rather than continuing with Centaur or Colossus types is the likely outcome. Thus Four large (for the RN) CVs obviating the need to upgrade the Illustrious class. This also undermines the Malta effort and the talk of such large ships in 1947.
But planning of the 1952 CV will still occure,...

Re: Vanguard as a Carrier?

feeds@yuku.com (Dave Bender) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:43:32 GMT

I am under the impression that HMS Vanguard was constructed to take advantage of 15"/42 guns and twin turrets in storage. If you are not going to build Vanguard as a battleship then you do not build it at all. Instead you build an additional Implacable class CV plus an additional CV air wing.

Re: Vanguard as a Carrier?

feeds@yuku.com (Obi Wan Russell) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:24:20 GMT

If the money spent on Victorious was spread about instead, then more of the light fleets could have been upgraded as Warrior was (modern radar suite/Lattice mast, angled deck, upgraded arrestor gear, and unlike Warrior's historical refit, a steam catapult). More modern carriers in the 50s would have been harder to dispose of politically (though not impossible by any means) and within the fleet they could have assumed most of the duties of the cruiser force which was in sharp decline at...

Re: Vanguard as a Carrier?

feeds@yuku.com (DonnieBaseball23) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 13:31:27 GMT

Arrangements were to have been similar to the 1942 CVs (Audacious/Ark Royal)--so you're talking an air wing of like 90 perhaps--Seafires, Fireflys, Barracudas. I'm sure as a conversion there would've been issues, but I guess one could argue at that point a mediocre carrier is worth far more than a v.good battleship.

With Vanguard complete as a large carrier, and Ark Royal and Eagle nearing completion, sounds like a great excuse to just scrap the other armored carriers...

Vanguard as a Carrier?

feeds@yuku.com (Zen9) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 10:46:48 GMT

What is the impact if the Future Building Comittee wins its case and Vanguard is completed as a aircraft carrier?

Likely on their projections for completion end of 1945.