Aircraft Carriers - From Kite Carriers to Conversions (1800-1928)

So this month's special Patreon video request was a history of

aircraft

carriers

to the USS Nimitz. Now obviously I'm not going to be able to do all of that at once, but I guess this is therefore the beginning of a somewhat long series. something akin to the origins and development of destroyers, which we've done in two of the three sections so far. That said, let's move on to the first part of the history of

aircraft

carriers

, the use of ships as platforms for air warfare or reconnaissance. It was not new at the time of the First World War, which is when most people think of the initial development of aircraft carriers, and the use of vessels for this purpose goes back quite some time, with some efforts even made in the early of the 19th century with use. of

kite

s to launch propaganda messages and then to launch several incendiary balloons, which could technically be considered the world's first air attack in this regard, so it could be considered that the world's first naval air attack was launched by the ship of the Austrian navy SMS a volcano that launched a series of incendiary balloon attacks on Venice and managed to land a bomb on the city as balloons became increasingly common for observation purposes in the second half of the 19th century, the use of Boats for this purpose became increasingly common with Americans led the way with a small barge used to tow Union Army observation balloons in the American Civil War, as it was discovered that operating in the deep interior of the United States United it was much easier to transport the balloon, its gas generators, the rope crew, etc. via ship rather than trying to transport everything over the inhospitable rolla terrain that still characterized large areas of the American continent, while these balloon-carrying ships reached their peak towards the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries as mobile and immobile observation .

Since they gave their working ships a significantly greater line of sight, they generally tended to be decommissioned or put to other uses by the end of World War I, although they would see a brief resurgence in World War II supporting airships and balloons in anti. - Submarine and anti-aircraft roles These uses of shipping for aerial purposes, apart from the first ships designed to carry heavier than airplanes, appeared around 1910 at this time, surprisingly most of the development was done by the Navy French together with the Royal Navy. The Japanese Navy and the US Navy, with some contributions from other navies, these early ships were aircraft carriers rather than the more conventional flat-topped aircraft carriers we might imagine today, so they tended to resemble ships. cargo, sometimes with hangars on the side. deck and sometimes with large hatches leading to a hangar inside the hull and the seaplanes were lifted out into the water by cranes, where they did their own take-off and landing operations before coming back on board the ship.

This was mainly due to the recognition value. and, to a small extent, the strike value of aircraft had been recognized quite early, but the first aircraft were very short range, so for most powers that possessed navies they had to go anywhere beyond from its own shores, aircraft would not really be part of the equation when it came to ground units as the ground unit could never keep up with the fleet, however the aircraft carrier offered the possibility of taking aircraft with you and thus use its greater capacity for recognition wherever it was in the world. The first aircraft carriers were led by the French, passing through the then HMS Hermes, which was first a protected cruiser and later became an aircraft carrier in the Royal Navy, the USS Mississippi in the US Navy and the WAC amia in the Japanese Navy.

Shortly after, the First World War broke out. Thereafter would see the first offensive use of ship-launched aircraft with the Japanese steep line carrying out amia work carrying out what is technically the world's first naval raid launched by heavier-than-air aircraft in September 1914 during the siege of Tsingtao. This would be followed three months later by the Royal Navy sending three aircraft carriers they had converted from small cross-Channel steamers to launch a seaplane attack on Zeppelin's base at Cooks Haven, which like the Japanese efforts was a success. mixed. Mostly more aircraft carrier operations were carried out. by the British and, surprisingly, by the Russians during World War I, but again, these are not the aircraft carriers we all know and love.

This is simply the preliminary and that brings us to the genesis of the actual flat deck aircraft carrier, which is the main topic of this video and indeed this series of videos again, the first ideas for an aircraft carrier were published by the French, similarly to the French leaders on the aircraft carrier front, specifically in 1909, this rather far-sighted comment was made by a French inventor in a book. called lava sea in militare said that a ship carrying aircraft is indispensable these ships will be built according to the plan they are very different from those currently used first of all the deck will be free of all obstacles it will be flat as wide as possible without putting jeopardize the nautical lines of the hull and it will look like a landing field, although of course he was absolutely right and his conclusions were widely read in naval circles at the time of the development of the flat-deck aircraft carrier, heavier than the air, would leave the French at this point for a considerable period, instead a number of firsts would be achieved in the development of the ship, the first being the first, if you don't like, to be carried out by the US Navy .

November 1910 a rather dangerous takeoff from the downward inclined ramp. on the bow of the ship which was designed to give it a little more speed, however, it did not return to the ship and landed nearby on a conventional runway, leaving the landing aboard the ship for the following year, when in January 1911 it would become In the first pilot to land on a ship, although both takeoff and landing had been stationary, this time there was a temporary landing structure on the stern of the USS Pennsylvania and he had considered that if he did not stop quickly enough he would crash directly into the back part.

On the mast was a simple braking system consisting of a series of ropes with heavy sandbags attached to which the aircraft was expected to cling, which was a direct predecessor to the hook and arresting wire system that was still They use today's aircraft carriers, as it has been established that you could actually take off and land with a wheeled aircraft on a warship. The next stage was to try to do it when the warship was underway, that is, a moving target. The takeoff part of this was actually easier on a moving ship since, although there was obviously pitching and rolling to account for the ship's forward motion it provided a bit of extra airflow over the wings of the plane, which made it easier to take off and land on a moving warship; however, it was more of a challenge as his track obviously kept moving away from At this point there was also smoke from the ship's chimney to contend with and the rather interesting turbulence generated by the ship's superstructure.

However, the first successful takeoff of a moving warship took place in May 1912, taking off from the Royal Navy battleship HMS Hibernia. while happily cruising at about 15 knots while the much easier to convert aircraft carrier remained the most common aircraft transport vessel during the First World War, what was arguably the first modern aircraft carrier in concept also emerged in the First World. War, this was the first aircraft carrier, HMS Ark Royal. She was a hybrid of sorts who could transport and launch both seaplanes and a wheeled plane using cranes and a small flight deck on the bow of the ship, however, she was unable to recover the wheeled plane.

Seaplanes, of course, could land alongside and climb back on board, but the wheeled plane, once launched, had to go and land on more conventional runways and then be recovered back onto the ship by crane and barge, for such an early ship, she would have a surprisingly long career surviving on active service until the latter part of World War II in various roles; However, this early stage of development would see World War I developing a number of mission profiles for which aircraft carriers would become quite well known, including reconnaissance aircraft and submarine patrols and even naval attacks when it attempted to launch a bombing mission against the A former German battlecruiser, in addition to conducting a series of raids against land targets during the war, the British were virtually the only Navy that was able to achieve significant advances in aircraft carrier technology, this was due to several reasons.

While the Japanese had their aircraft carrier, their overall involvement in naval surface warfare was relatively small and with little or no air opposition in the areas in which they were operating in the WAC. Amia was perfectly usable, the German Navy was theoretically supported by a Zeppelin arm and in any case operated at relatively short ranges and had much bigger problems to worry about than diverting money and a valuable hull towards an experimental type of warship, the French, of course. They were primarily involved in ground warfare so their Navy was largely neglected, the Russians were in a similar situation and the US Navy was still incredibly short of cash by Congress and was more concerned with trying to amass some sort of of strength to support herself.

Keeping up to date with the latest developments in battleship technology, this left the Royal Navy as the only force that needed such a vessel to have the money to afford it and the technology to deploy it, while the Ark Royal was acquiring valuable experience, was necessarily limited by its design and its size, but even the Royal Navy could not afford to disconnect a major hull to convert it into an aircraft carrier which was still necessarily an experimental vessel, but they were very lucky as Fischer had managed to build HMS Furious and any questions you may have about HMS Glorious and HMS Brave and they would be many and valid, there was an even bigger white elephant in the making, HMS Furious, while Brave and Glorious was gone with a couple of angry twin 15-inch turrets. had been designed with a pair of monstrous 18-inch cannons and if you've seen any of the videos covering the various failures of the glorious and brave, you'll know that putting an even heavier and even more violent weapon on such a hull of the design was a recipe for disaster, the Royal Navy widely agreed and furious it would never be completed with its 18-inch armament fore and aft, instead it would be launched and put into service with its single 18-inch gun. aft instead, but the forward part of the ship was converted to have a large flight deck, which, by the way, made the Furious the most heavily armed aircraft carrier for surface gun engagements in the history of the world.

In this configuration, the Furious would become the first ship to receive a successful aircraft landing. While the ship was underway, Squadron Commander Dunning of the Royal Navy Air Service managed to achieve this feat on 2 August 1917, however it was fraught with risk as he had to fly alongside the ship through turbulence. The funnel then slid its plane around the front of the ship, circling the superstructure, and then landed it on a very short stretch of the deck. How dangerous this was became evident 5 days later, when Dunning attempted another landing, except during the slip wind trapped under his Dunning would not be able to use the Furious's forward deck to land.

The ship was returned to the shipyards and rebuilt with the 18-inch aft gun removed and a separate landing platform installed at the rear; Instead, these two decks were connected by a pair of humpback ramps that ran on either side of the ship's superstructure and which, if you folded the plane's wings to allow the plane to move from the landing pad to the forward deck ready forthe takeoff; However, while this design was not as dangerous as the first design, there will still be a major problem with wind turbulence created by moving air. the superstructure of the ship and of course the stream of hot exhaust gases coming from the ship's funnel, which made the landing an interesting experience to say the least, in addition to the fact that both decks were relatively short and therefore Therefore, only light biplanes could operate, although the rear deck was also found to be a relatively suitable landing site for small aircraft as modeled here in this format.

Furious was able to launch a series of air attacks, including a relatively successful one on another German Zeppelin base, this time in tandem when Sopwith camels launched from the ship were able to destroy several airships and balloons, as well as their hangars; However, the Camel, which was a relatively heavy fighter for that day, was unable to use the aft deck for landing, so the ship was unable to perform the full range of the aircraft carrier. operations with some of the aircraft diverting towards Denmark and two of the others abandoning their aircraft alongside the ship to be recovered without a camel as the First World War drew to a close, it was quite obvious that the aircraft carrier was indeed a useful part of the future battle. fleet and several different aircraft carriers were under construction, none of these however were purpose-built aircraft carriers, there were several

conversions

, chief among them was HMS Argos in The first ship to have a full length flat deck which was converted from Linna's data collected from this ship was partly used in the design of a conversion of the former Chilean battleship Alma Dante Cochran (now HMS Eagle), as she was also converted into an aircraft carrier.

Initially, unlike the Argos, which had no superstructure, the Eagle was designed to have two islands, one on each side of the flight deck, but after review of the data provided by the Argos flight paths, this was removed. the port island, so the Eagle would only have a starboard island. establishing a trend of sorts that would continue to this day, this was quite an important innovation as, based on data from HMS Furious and HMS Argos, it was observed that most of the time, when pilots were bought into their landing , they tended to turn left for several humans. reasons and this was the main factor behind the removal of the port island instead of the starboard island.

Also in 1918 work on the first purpose-built aircraft carrier rather than a conversion had begun with the laying of the keel of the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes. in several nations now began to follow strong and fast and the following year the Japanese aircraft carrier Hosho was installed as if on the first purpose-built aircraft carrier by the Japanese Navy in 1920, the US would begin its aircraft carrier fleet with the conversion of the Kolya USS. Jupiter to the aircraft carrier USS Langley and finally the Furious, having provided good service and data so far, was tasked in 1921 with removing the superstructure and funnel and installing her own continuous flight deck, at this point looking like the Royal Navy. was going to retain an important leading aircraft carrier technology, as most of the aircraft carriers under construction, which to be fair included the Hermes, were around the 10,000 ton displacement mark, give or take a few thousand tons and with a length of between 550 and 600 feet, generally the only exceptions to this are HMS Eagle converted, as we said before, from a battleship which loaded her with just over 20,000 tons and 667 feet long, which was a bit Largest and topping the chart was, of course, HMS Furious, which was slightly heavier at 22,500 tons and over 700 feet long, giving the Royal Navy the two largest aircraft carriers in the world by a considerable margin.

It is interesting to note that while these ships carried a variety of armaments, each of them still carried a number of surface weapons, either four five or six inch guns, as it was still envisaged that an aircraft carrier could well having to defend against a surface attack. This was to the extent that some of the aircraft carriers at the time had surface guns but did not have any anti-aircraft guns, which seems somewhat paradoxical given their role, although it must be said that most of them had some form. of air defense, several experiments were still being carried out to determine exactly how an aircraft carrier should operate with ships such as the Langley Argus and the Furious. once completed as a full deck aircraft carrier with no superstructure above the flight deck, while other aircraft carriers such as Hermes Eagle and Howe, as shown, all had island arresting equipment on the starboard side, although with the carriers Full length now available this was not the case.

A lot was needed to make sure the plane stopped, as landing speeds and plane weights were still quite low in this period, it had more to do with making sure the plane at Tanvir on the side were also stopping. testing other features, such as aperture. vowels versus closed hurricane bells, whether or not it served any useful purpose having the deck pitched as Furious when put into service had a deck that sloped gently upward in the aft section and gently downward in the fore section. forward the idea was that a plane that was landing would land uphill and slow down faster, while a plane that was taking off would taxi downhill and therefore gain a little more speed before passing over the front in the HMS Furious, the largest of the Prix Washington treaty carriers so additional features were being tested.

The secondary flight deck as an aircraft carrier was long enough that the hangar deck at the front could be opened to allow lighter aircraft, such as fighters, to take off directly from there, theoretically doubling its launch capacity. The main flight deck ended in an unusual and distinctive elliptical shape with highly rounded edges, this was the result of wind tunnel testing which suggested that this particular shape would minimize turbulence compared to a flat-edged deck or the more pointed decks that aligned with the shape of the ship's branches that would appear on many others. aircraft carriers in this period, but as the 1920s dawned a major change was occurring in the carrier world in the form of the Washington Naval Treaty, although the Washington Naval Treaty was designed primarily to regulate fleets based on surface cannons of the various participating nations, especially when it came to issues such as the size a battleship should have and the size of its cannons.

It also established regulations for aircraft carriers that limited their displacement, excluding a number of possible negotiated

conversions

, and also established an upper limit on the total displacement of each nation's aircraft. carrier fleet within which they could of course build as many carriers as they wanted, the displacement limit of 27,000 tons was however considerably larger than even HMS Furious. It also limited aircraft carriers to no more than 10 heavy guns of a maximum caliber of 8 inches, which determined that the battle carrier concept also contained a number of revealing clauses, for example, the aircraft carrier was also defined by a lower limit. displacement of 10,000 tons, which meant that aircraft carriers of 10,000 tons or less that were currently in service did not actually count towards the treaty and any aircraft carriers then in service or under construction were declared as an experiment and not counted towards the treaty. total displacement of the aircraft carrier, there was one more clause that would be the most important change in aircraft carrier construction at that time, which was that each signatory would be allowed to take advantage of the gaps in the existing capital ships for converging carriers and with these the limit of Displacement would rise to 33,000 tons with several large warships built at the time now having to be cancelled.

This clause had been inserted mainly at the request of the American delegation who had several Lexington-class battlecruisers nearing completion, supported by the Japanese who also had the large Amagi-class battlecruisers under construction, the British in theory could also have taken two of their g3-class battlecruisers for conversion, but as these ships had only just begun, while the AMARG easy and the Lexington were somewhat more advanced, they really did not feel like facing the expense of building these colossal ships with the hull upwards, whereas the hull of a Margies would be quite damaged in an earthquake and would therefore need to be repaired. be scrapped, her sister ship, a G car would continue the conversion process with the hull of the Tosa-class battleship, replaced by a make in the transport conversion process, this would give the Japanese two very different fleet carriers, although both would be Unlike the Americans who were able to take the two most advanced Lexington-class battlecruisers, Lexington and Saratoga, and begin work on reducing them to a pair of sister aircraft carriers, the British would instead accept fewer mediums. glorious and brave sisters for conversion.

Although individually these ships displaced considerably less than a Lexington or an Amagi they were still quite sizable, the French also managed to squeeze an aircraft carrier out of this with the hull of the Normandy class battleship converted into an aircraft carrier but to be completely honest. The less said about it the better, although these new larger aircraft carriers were of considerable size, they did not come close to consuming the total displacement assigned to each nation in the Washington Naval Treaty, so designs would begin in the middle and end of the 1920s for more aircraft carriers will use this displacement but we will see them a little later but now the era of full size fleet carriers had arrived although I said they were all conversions the purpose built aircraft carriers at this time are now second line units.

As they were smaller, slower, and could accommodate significantly fewer aircraft, while this conversion work was being carried out, the Japanese aircraft carrier Hosho had her small starboard island removed and was converted into a level deck aircraft carrier. Instead, there is sometimes a bit of disagreement as to what constitutes the first purpose. built aircraft carrier in the world with discussions between Hermes and hosho going back and forth to be honest the answer can be read either way hosho was the first purpose built aircraft carrier to enter service in december 1922 however hermes was the first to to be designed and laid down as Hermes was laid down in 1918 and sheet in 1919 as we have already covered, but the construction of HMS Hermes was repeatedly delayed because the Royal Navy wanted to see what the outcome of the trials with HMS Argos and HMS Eagle would be. and was therefore only commissioned in February 1924, anyway this series of conversions pushed the United States out of the background and was the only one of the three Washington Naval Treaty powers to enter into such a treaty without a purpose-built aircraft carrier in either country. in service or under construction to possibly have the most powerful aircraft carriers in the world, although the Japanese ACOG comes in second place, the simple fact of the matter is that thanks to the sheer insanity of the design of the Lexington class as battlecruisers, in reality There were quite a few.

Good carriers were incredibly long, incredibly fast, and the light protection and other construction that would probably have doomed them to being short and farri and as battlecruisers were perfectly serviceable for an aircraft carrier, in fact the only major negative that could be pointed out at Lexington and Saratoga this time was the fact that they had a significant 8-inch armament that was right at the limit of Washington's naval treaty allocations and I used a lot of weight that could probably be better used elsewhere, cargo suffered from being a She became a battleship much like HMS Eagle and therefore had significantly lower speed than a G Lexington Saratoga, brave, glorious or furious car due to her physically smaller size and the fact that that the British did not and did not practice deck parking as a way to store aircraft.

By tying aircraft as spares to the top of the hangar roof, the Brave, Furious and Glorious could carry far fewer aircraft than Japanese or American carriers, but on the plus side, the Furious was a useful fleet unit, but the British had managed to classify it asan experimental unit since it was under construction at the time of the Washington Naval Treaty and thus, in terms of the largest fast aircraft carriers, they managed to get three of the plus Eagle deal, while the Americans had Lexington and Saratoga and the Japanese They also had a gear in the cargo like HMS Furious, Glorious and Brave, they came out of their conversions with a rounded elliptical front on their flight deck that was also somewhat shorter than the overall length of the ship, allowing the hangar upper part had a small secondary flight.

On deck, this feature was even more pronounced on the two Japanese aircraft carriers, as both hangar decks opened into two small flight decks, resulting in a three-level staggered appearance when they first left the dock, for On the contrary, the Lexington completed its conversion with the bow completely closed. and a full length flight deck like that of HMS Hermes, and this perhaps also explains her larger aircraft complement, as there was a bit more space on the forward hangar deck, so let's complete this first video with a Take a look at some of the most important features of each of these first generation fleet carriers, if you want to know more about the career statistics of each of these carriers, etc., most of them already have five minute guides that , hopefully they will appear as cards at this point in approximate order of ascending usefulness. towards the more useful ineffective ships we will start with HMS Eagle, as we mentioned before she was a converted battleship and as a result suffered from a top speed of around 24 to 25 knots although initially in the 1920s this was not much of an obstacle Considering the relatively low takeoff speed of biplanes at the time, this would of course affect their operability as the aircraft became heavier and required for higher takeoff speeds as time went on, it also limited their strategic usefulness. for, of course, he could not proceed to his destination anywhere near. as fast as other aircraft carriers could do in an emergency, on the other hand, her bow was built up to the flight deck, making her somewhat more seaworthy than many other aircraft carriers of this era thanks to the fact that she could open path. through rough seas without significant amounts of water that could risk entering the hangar deck or at least slow the ship with an overall length of 667 feet six inches, it was also the shortest of the full-fleet aircraft carriers. which were present in the 1920s and obviously This would also limit their ability to operate aircraft in the future.

Her overall air group consisted of a couple of squadrons and a few loose aircraft. The next was furious, which of course had gone through numerous design iterations as an aircraft carrier and, as a result, the capability of it. It suffered somewhat compared to its half-sisters, however in its post-Washington form it was still relatively fast at 30 knots and could take more aircraft than Eagle with a total capacity of three squadrons, although it was normally divided into flights of six aircraft. instead of entire squads. Since certain types of aircraft, such as Scouts, were considered not necessary at full squadron strength, it was a true flat top with no island and its funnels had channels to expel exhaust through vents in the rear. from the flight deck or from the sides. of the ship when landing operations were underway, this was however not particularly satisfactory as the number of channels required, the fact that it was introduced into the hangar decks contributed to the rear of the ship looking like an oven when the funnels were in full operation, which was not very pleasant and, in any case, the smoke.

The exhausts that were vented still caused problems with turbulence and visual distortion for aircraft approaching to land, a problem that would have to be addressed in later retrofits. Its upper hangar had doors in the front that allowed access to a small secondary flight deck which at this stage of the transport's development allowed it to continue launching aircraft that had relatively light payloads, such as fighters, scout planes and slightly attack aircraft. loaded, while landing procedures were carried out on the upper flight deck, it could also launch seaplanes from this lower flight deck. although they did have to oil the deck, which I'm sure led to many amusing occurrences, as this reduced the coefficient of friction, allowing the wooden floatplane floats to slide relatively easily down and away into the air, then you have brave and glorious.

Like the Furious, they could reach around 30 knots, but unlike her half-sister, they could carry substantially more aircraft again, this time with an overall squadron-force capacity. She needed to redirect the exhaust from the ship's original funnels design, which was largely responsible for the increase in hangar space, allowing for the transport of more aircraft, as just mentioned, as did her half-sister, They also had an open hangar deck with a short flying off ramp, which again allowed light aircraft operation during landing operations, the ship's pilots also had a much easier landing time overall, as the Funnel arrangement built into the island meant that the smoke and turbulence caused by said funnel were generally high enough. far from the flight deck that aircraft could land without interference again in a manner similar to Furious they had a theoretical squadron capacity both brave and glorious at this point they would generally operate aircraft flights and each flight consisted of six cells rather than four squadrons By the same reasons Fury mentioned above, we have the Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga.

It was never intended as an aircraft carrier at the time of the Washington Naval Treaty. Instead, the Japanese were supposed to convert the hulls of the battlecruisers Amagi and ACOG II, unfortunately into a huge Tosa class. Instead, this resulted in a number of limitations, which is why Kagura appears on this list before Akagi II, such as the fact that, as a former battleship hull, despite the Tosa-class's original higher speed in Compared to the Admiral Letour, a class that had helped make HMS Eagle, she was still limited to around 28 knots, even after the enlightenment process that necessarily arises when removing the heavily armored turrets, bar stakes and belts. main armor of all non-British aircraft carriers, the charge was furious upon completion, with no island and with huge channels carrying the smoke from her funnel away from the original location of her planned funnels, unlike furious systems, she did not have to do it. switch between two different options, but the two huge logs running on either side of the ship were equally successful in removing the steaming turbulence from the plane and this proved quite problematic in operations such as the glorious, brave and furious charge which also accepted the idea of launch planes. from its hangar decks, although it was a step further than the British, as both main hangar decks could launch aircraft in a three-tier step system which obviously included loading from the upper flight deck, it also possessed a third auxiliary hangar deck further down the ship, although it was relatively limited in size unlike British ships, however the forward part of her various flight decks was not elliptical and was rarely used to decrease turbulence, as which doesn't seem like this distinctive multi-level approach to the flight decks was in any way. an earlier cross-pollination, but rather an example of convergent evolution in ship design, once completed, it could carry 60 aircraft, an even brave and glorious figure reflecting the larger hull size of the Tosa-class battleship, even in comparison with the large light cruisers on which the British had based their concerns, although their overall theoretical capability was somewhat limited by the multi-step approach to the flight decks which of course consumed valuable volume that could have been used for storage. of aircraft, something that would be addressed later, next we have the The Japanese aircraft carrier was the key to the car, thanks to it being a converted Mark II class battlecruiser, it was even longer than the cargo and, because it was A battlecruiser, it had much more engine power to begin with, making it the fastest of all aircraft carriers.

So far we have considered that in its initial carrier form a corgi proved capable of reaching just over 32 knots and since the rotating funnel arrangement that had been tried in hosho had not been successful, the car key was given a different form of funnel system compared to Russia. and cargo, as this was still very much an experimental field in the case of a G car, this took the form of two funnels mounted on the starboard side near the front of the ship, one was curved downwards so significant enough to direct its escape towards the ocean and the second, just behind, reached flight deck level, although it was not an ideal arrangement compared to the brave and glorious funnel design and, as we will soon see in the American conversions, it was significantly superior and used a significantly smaller offset. and space compared to the cargo-carrying system, he completed it with a three-level flight deck system, the two lower flight decks being extensions of the upper and lower primary hangar decks and, like Kaga , had a small third supplementary hangar deck below the two main ones. hangar decks that were primarily used for storage of spare and reserve aircraft, it should be noted of course that Akagi completed its testing before loading, so when we say it was like kaga, that's just in context from this video where we have already talked. cargo actually it should be said that the cargo was like a car key since the car key tried all these things first also in common with both the cargo and the furious a G car completed without any island superstructure as completed again thank you Due to the loss of storage volume caused thanks to the tiered flight deck system, a G car could carry 60 aircraft, although being a larger ship thanks to being a NEX battlecruiser, these aircraft were transported with much more comfort and space and then were loaded unlike almost any other aircraft carrier of this period. of which carried some type of anti-surface weaponry, the akagi was not carried on frames alone or alone, but was a mix of the two, at most its 8-inch guns were frames, but it also had a pair of twin turrets mounted. on the flight deck protruding from its upper hangar deck, which meant that taking off pilots had to take off between the two gun turrets, a feature only shared with cargo and then we came to the two converted aircraft carriers of battlecruisers that definitely take the top. points when it comes to this first generation fleet carriers USS Lexington and USS Saratoga, now to be fair, basing them on Lexington class battlecruisers gave them an advantage to begin with as they were by far the most large used in conversions, but They had a number of other features that contributed to them taking the top spot beyond simple size.

They were the fastest of all the aircraft carriers we've mentioned, with just over 33 knots top speed thanks to the rather incredible amounts of engine power they had. Expected to carry the Lexington-class battlecruisers, they were also the only aircraft carriers of this period, with the exception of HMS Eagle, which went with the multiple flight deck and multiple hangar arrangement, instead they had a unique and enormous hangar that ran the entire length of the ship. which, together with the completely enclosed bow giving them significant seakeeping, meant that they could carry the largest air group of any of the aircraft carriers we have mentioned so far, these two carriers could carry 78 aircraft each, although this was would increase even more later.

As a result of having a single huge hangar, as opposed to the two or, in some cases, three hangars on other aircraft carriers, there was an enormous amount of overhead space and some enterprising officer realized very quickly that spare aircraft could simply tie yourself to the beams and beams that were on the sidetop of the hangar and the bottom of the flight deck, which increased the theoretical carrying capacity of the aircraft carrier beyond this original number of 78, although of course these spare aircraft did not count towards what the transport could actually put. as a strike package, since they would have to be shot down only when the planes were written off due to combat damage accidents or never returned due to losses;

However, it did provide the carriers with a significant amount of reserve airpower to supplement their standard service squadrons, allowing them to launch multiple attacks at full strength, assuming that nothing went horribly wrong and that only normal losses were suffered, simply by going down. winching the planes that were stored overhead and sending them out to make up the numbers, unlike all the others that carried their anti-surface weapons completely In boxes or a car key case, in a mix of windows and turrets, the weaponry Lexington's anti-surface tank was carried exclusively in turrets with what was effectively a heavy cruiser with 8-inch guns mounted in four twin turrets in pairs of super-firers at each end of the superstructure which took the form of a starboard side island, although the The island itself was a relatively small structure supported by a single colossal funnel that lifted the massive output of the ship's power plant into the sky, far away from the flight deck and making this class of aircraft carrier, thus the Better and easier to operate airplanes both on takeoff and landing.

They also included a basic flywheel-driven catapult system, although this turned out to be a relatively unnecessary feature thanks to the relatively light payload and short takeoff distance of aircraft. In the 1920s, thanks to their unusually heavy, almost The same non-funnel portion of the island was occupied by concerns of fire control and guidance of the twin eight-inch turrets, as was space for flight operations when operating in northern waters, one One of the most favored locations for the crew to operate on these aircraft carriers was an observation deck that was actually built into the forward shell of the funnel, as the warm ascending gases from the funnel kept this area nice and cozy even in the worst weather conditions. .

Although for quite obvious reasons it was a relatively unpopular position when operating in these somewhat warmer climates of the Central Pacific, also unlike virtually all other fleet carriers we have considered so far, the Lexingtons did not need their main armor belt was significantly reduced. Thickness-wise, one could argue that this was a poor reflection of the original Lexington-class battlecruiser, as the armored belt was completely inadequate for a main gun jewel, but on the other hand it meant that all they had to do was shave the top a little to reduce the overall weight and the Lexington's existing armor belt could remain in place, thus reducing costs, while on virtually all other aircraft carriers of the era the main armor plate had to be removed by complete and in its place an overall thinner armor plate was installed, then the fleet's carrier forces were left to the As a result of the Washington Naval Treaty, the three major navies were a somewhat eclectic group with a variety of capabilities.

Japan was left with the smallest air group overall, with a total combined air group of 120 aircraft, although this was not entirely unexpected as Japan had of course been allocated less tonnage in the treaty compared to that of the Royal and US Navy, of course, it is worth repeating that we are only talking about aircraft carriers in this comparison, so we do not include Hosho Hermes Langley and Argos in this calculation, interestingly, largely thanks. Due to the fact that they managed to include Furious and Eagle in the experimental category, so they did not need to be counted, the British actually had the largest carrier strike group available with a combined total of 162 aircraft available compared to the 156 aircraft. available on the American fleet's aircraft carriers, the British also had the most hulls available, as both the Japanese and Americans each had to carry fleets, while the British had made out with the two most furious brave classes and , of course, Eagle, but of course as You can guess from the fact that they had doubled the number of holes compared to the US Navy, but only six more aircraft and their individually combined attack package, each aircraft carrier of The Royal Navy was significantly weaker in terms of overall attack power and of course with those 8-inch guns on the Lexington also had anti-surface combat capability, apart from the overall technical leadership that the Royal Navy initially had thanks to having developed carrier technology for much longer, the only other advantage of this Royal Navy multi-hull approach was the fact that it could have a carrier in more places and than the other two powers, but in the end, if you were going to appear in a single place with an aircraft carrier, a Lexington was by far the most capable unit you could.

Of course, this was the dawn of the fleet carrier and therefore each of these ships came with various flaws and problems that needed to be rectified by xandrie modernization fits into the next few years as well as obviously each nation's transportation tactics need to be developed, but that is a topic for another video, the next video will cover the lessons learned from modernizations and reefs. It is inherent to the aircraft carriers that we have been discussing in this video and then we will look at the 1930s aircraft carrier construction program implemented by the three nations, but that is a video for another time, so we will leave you today with thanks for listening. and I hope to see you again in another video.

That's all, thanks for watching. If you have a comment or suggestion for reviewing a boat, let us know in the comments below. Don't forget to comment on the pinned post for questions about dry docking.