British carrier aircraft

[fallenkezef]

Will WG go with British only aircraft ir will we get the lend lease? Towards the end of the war we used US aircraft as our carriers where in the pacufuc supporting the Anericans and it made logistics easier

[JeeWeeJ]

Well, the Brits did have some pretty good homemade CV aircraft:Supermarine Seafire, Hawker Sea Fury and Sea Hurricane, deHavilland Sea Musquito and the likely British tier X jet the deHavilland Sea Vampire.

 

Yes, the Brits did use lendlease aircraft (most notably the Corsair, given that it was the Brits that figured out how to make it work properly on a CV), but I think they have plenty of goodness from their own factories to use. 

[tajj7]

Hopefully we'll get FAA planes like Sea Hurricane, Seafire, Seafury, Sea Hornet, Fairey Fulmar, Swordfish etc. 

 

The most interesting thing will be to see how much of a beating British carriers can take. 

[Philipp_ab_exterminatore]

I really hope the British carriers only have British planes. Would be a shame to have the American planes ion them to as the British had such a diverse range of extremely good planes

[Kampfgruppe_H]

I really hope the British carriers only have British planes. Would be a shame to have the American planes ion them to as the British had such a diverse range of extremely good planes

 

You could be talking about real life.....why did we get rid of our lovely harriers for these useless overpriced F-35s???

[anonym_MfZ6T7iwWpUC]

Hopefully we'll get FAA planes like Sea Hurricane, Seafire, Seafury, Sea Hornet, Fairey Fulmar, Swordfish etc. 

 

The most interesting thing will be to see how much of a beating British carriers can take. 

 

Am I correct in thinking the RN used steel decks where the US used wooden ones? I am sure I read that somewhere a while back.

[fallenkezef]

 

Am I correct in thinking the RN used steel decks where the US used wooden ones? I am sure I read that somewhere a while back.

yup, we had armoured decks. There is a video knocking about of a Kamikaze skidding right off the flight deck of a British carrier. Our CV's had a reputation for taking a beating, the Germans sank Ark Royal 3 times before she actualy went down

[JeeWeeJ]

 

Am I correct in thinking the RN used steel decks where the US used wooden ones? I am sure I read that somewhere a while back.

 

Yes, RN ships had a fully armored flightdeck. This made them more resilient against bombs or kamikaze attacks (which prompted an USN Admiral to stay the order the Brits gave after a kamikaze attack would be "sailors, man your brooms!"), but this came at the cost of limited hangar space.

So it would be my assumption that RN CVs will be much harder to kill compared to IJN or USN CVs, but carry a much smaller strikegroup.

[Hauptbahnhof]

 

Yes, RN ships had a fully armored flightdeck. This made them more resilient against bombs or kamikaze attacks (which prompted an USN Admiral to stay the order the Brits gave after a kamikaze attack would be "sailors, man your brooms!"), but this came at the cost of limited hangar space.

So it would be my assumption that RN CVs will be much harder to kill compared to IJN or USN CVs, but carry a much smaller strikegroup.

 

Not only did it limit the hangar/strikegroup, but it also weakened the structure of the ship. Another reason British Carriers appeared to suffer less damage was actually since they carried less planes, ammo and aviation fuel then American counterparts, so less fuel for fires.

 

 

"In fact, the British designs failed.  Off Okinawa, the resistance of the British carriers seemed impressive but in reality the damage they took was severe.  Having the hangar inside the hull girder made the hull structure weak and the ships were deformed by comparatively minor damage. Note how quickly nearly all the armored carriers were scrapped postwar - surveys showed they had irreparable hull damage.  In contrast, the Essex's, which suffered much more severe damage, lasted for decades."

 

Further reading:

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-030.htm

 

 

 

[caldark]

The UK was not in a good financial position after the war so was basically unable to afford repairs on the carriers.. the US could afford to repair theirs..

The illustrious carriers had mostly taken quite a bit of damage from operating in europe then in the pacific.. I would not call them failed designs at all they lasted through the war taknig quite a bit of a beating..

[dumbo11]

Yes, RN ships had a fully armored flightdeck. This made them more resilient against bombs or kamikaze attacks (which prompted an USN Admiral to stay the order the Brits gave after a kamikaze attack would be "sailors, man your brooms!"), but this came at the cost of limited hangar space.

So it would be my assumption that RN CVs will be much harder to kill compared to IJN or USN CVs, but carry a much smaller strikegroup.

Given WoWs mechanics, that's the description of an utterly useless CV...

[Dai2]

LOL taiho is armored, so RN will get taiho , but smaller and less cool?

[Peffers]

There's plenty of home grown aircraft and CV designs, including blueprint.

 

 

 

 

Remember the Brazilians were operating a Brit WW2 light carrier well into 2000s.

 

the Brits were the first to have a full flight deck, land a jet on a CV, have steam catapults, angled decks, optical landing.  As for the use of fighters as catapult launch I am only aware that the British did this using CAMs.

[Znail]

CW had pretty bad naval airplanes for some odd reason. Land based airplanes had a much higher priority and were much better. On the other hand so did none else have carriers in the EU front, so they did ok as long as they were not intecepted by land based aircrafts.

[Tugnut]

best sea plane ever... ye old string bag

 

[Kais_S012]

while we had alot of fighters used by the air arm alot where multi role the Fairey albacore for eaxmple which I would presume to be tier 5/6? was both a torpedeo and Dive bomber, the Blackburn Firebrand was a fighter bomber (Tier 8 i guess) capable of lugging a torpedo too.

 

how would they go about deciding which plane would be what and where on the Tech tree? the SeaHurricane is potentialy tiers 4-6 due to how many variations were made, the SeaFire tiers 5-7 easily possibly higher if wargaming keeps jets USN only (wouldnt put it past them)

 

then theres the question of Wing numbers. what was the standard number of planes in a RN Fleet Air Arm wing?

[Battledragon]

Possible Fighters: Sopwith Pup, Gloster Nightjar, Parnall Plover, Fairy Flycatcher, Hawker Nimrod, Gloster Gladiator, Blackburn Roc, Fairy Fulmar, Hawker Sea Hurricane, Fairfy Firefly, Supermarine Seafire, Hawker Sea Fury.

Possible Torpedo Bombers:  Sopwith Cuckoo, Blackburn Dart, Blackburn Shark, Fairy Swordfish, Fairy Albacore, Fairy Baracuda, Blackburn Firebrand, Westland Wyvern

dive bombers are tricky as most royal navy torpedo bombers could double up as dive bombers.  the only dedicated dive bomber only type (apart from lend lease) I can find is the Blackburn Skua.

[fallenkezef]

Shame the cut off point seems to be 1948. I dream of sending Buccaneers off on a bomb run.

[Peffers]

Vampires and Hawker Sea Hawks though

[mr3awsome]

Note how quickly nearly all the armored carriers were scrapped postwar - surveys showed they had irreparable hull damage.

 

Well they were scrapped nearly a decade after the war, at a time where the Audacious class and Centaur class were becoming operational, at a time where the Royal Navy was downsizing because it didn't have to cover all its interests by itself and a time when the ships themselves were pretty worn out.

British war build ships, which all the armoured carriers were, at least to some degree, tended to have short service lives, due to the way that they were built.

This is more prominant in the last two ships, but the other four also had quite active wartime careers, which meant they wore out quickly, and being poor the RN was unable to refit them in the style of Victorious.

[Shepbur]

I highly doubt we'll be seeing any sea hawks flying around... Vampires possibly, but i'd be suprised if they went much further than that. The british did make a fair few good carrier aircraft, but there were also a fair number of bad ones... the Seafire is probably one of the worst in the category, it had an annoyingly short range (similar to that of the hurricane, which was also a bit of a mis-fit for the sea), and was very difficult and dangerous to land, having to throw your nose up as you approached meant you could barely see the top of the island, let alone the flight deck you were meant to be aiming for. And things didn't really improve all that much up to the later marks, if anything it got worse thanks to the longer nose and larger props being placed on the aircraft meant that you had even less visibility than before. Many of the british bombers of the air arm were slow and old, and were easy targets for pretty much any sort of fighter resistance, and for the first half of the war were terribly under equipped (in terms of bombing ordnance) to have any real impact on larger, armoured ships (they were still using biplanes in 1943)

 

Infact the only really decent aircraft the FAA ever used throughout the whole war which were modern, fast and capable machines were those from america. And it's not really much of a surprise really, seeing as america were the ones fighting over large oceans and distances, requiring good sea-worthy aircraft with low maintenance and good visibility upon landing. The british were too focussed with what was 15-20 miles away across the channel to throw a load of money into carrier aircraft development. (That being said, some of the best aircraft produced by the british post-war were designed for carrier operations)

 

 

That all being said, i'd be very suprised if we don't end up seeing Gladiators, Rocs, Fulmars, Swordfish, Skuas, Martlets, Seafires, Sea Hurricanes, Barracudas, Fireflies, Beaufighers, Mossies and Hurricats for the battleships.

(I can't remember how many warships were equipped with Hurricats, but i think i remember there were at least 3-4 used...?)

[Philipp_ab_exterminatore]

Your all making want the Royal Navy even more 

[tajj7]

 

Am I correct in thinking the RN used steel decks where the US used wooden ones? I am sure I read that somewhere a while back.

 

Yeh fully armoured flight decks, great resource on them here - http://www.armouredcarriers.com/

 

JeeWeeJ, on 08 July 2015 - 11:43 AM, said:

 

Yes, RN ships had a fully armored flightdeck. This made them more resilient against bombs or kamikaze attacks (which prompted an USN Admiral to stay the order the Brits gave after a kamikaze attack would be "sailors, man your brooms!"), but this came at the cost of limited hangar space.

So it would be my assumption that RN CVs will be much harder to kill compared to IJN or USN CVs, but carry a much smaller strikegroup.

 

Not only did it limit the hangar/strikegroup, but it also weakened the structure of the ship. Another reason British Carriers appeared to suffer less damage was actually since they carried less planes, ammo and aviation fuel then American counterparts, so less fuel for fires.

"In fact, the British designs failed.  Off Okinawa, the resistance of the British carriers seemed impressive but in reality the damage they took was severe.  Having the hangar inside the hull girder made the hull structure weak and the ships were deformed by comparatively minor damage. Note how quickly nearly all the armored carriers were scrapped postwar - surveys showed they had irreparable hull damage.  In contrast, the Essex's, which suffered much more severe damage, lasted for decades."

Further reading:

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-030.htm


 

 

 

Meh that's mainly a myth.  They were a very successful design for what they were designed for which was operate in much rougher seas of the atlantic and north sea. 

 

The armoured carriers were scrapped after the war because of downsizing and because Illustrious and Formidable had pretty much served non-stop throughout the war without needed repairs and re-fits.

 

They were much tougher than US carriers and showed that in battles against the Japanese, there is an example where a US carrier the Bunker Hill (Essex class) and British Armoured carrier Formidable (Illustrious class) both got hit by Kamikaze attacks carrying 500 lb bombs.

 

This is what happened to the Bunker HIll -

 

 

 

And this is the Formidable 

 

 

 

Bunker Hill had to return to the US for repairs and never recovered. 600 men on board lost their lives

 

Formidable had the dent filled in with quick set concrete and was operating planes again within 2 hours, 9 sailors lost their lives. She was hit by a subsequent Kamikaze later in the day and a fault with the guns of Corsair set the hanger on fire but despite two kamikaze attacks and being on fire she still continued be operational. 

 

A guy here - http://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/30583-britains-armoured-carriers/ has done massive research into but basically debunks most of the myths about the flaws of British Armoured carriers, sure the design did compromise the amount of planes but make no mistake they could and did take a beating.

 

You have to remember the Illustrious class were treaty carriers designed in 1937 and Illustrious and Formidable fought pretty much throughout the war in several theatres and were basically worn out. However considering Britain could not afford to make loads of ships like the US so having hardy carriers that could survive multiple attacks and still remain operational were a great resource for the Royal Navy. 

 

 

 

 

[P34NuT_MW]

So is there any news when we can start seeing British Carriers in the Game??

[Spuggy]

I hear WG want to try something new with the Bbritish CV line so the torpedo bombers are going to drop bouncing bombs instead of Torpedos. You might get lucky and hit or more likely your torpedoes" will bounce over the targets ship!