Warship Appreciation Thread

[Harlock]

Famous image of Enterprise after a kamikaze hit. She survived but missed the last stages of the war. It is notable for giving an idea of how much damage these ships could endure, at the top of the fireball you can see about half of Enterprise's forward aircraft elevator.
That is fifteen tons of steel launched 400 feet straight up, yet Enterprise was able to hold her speed and station until relieved and was repaired in time for what would have been the invasion of Japan.

Notable also for being the last Kamikaze hit on a carrier

 

[Spartan303]

Famous image of Enterprise after a kamikaze hit. She survived but missed the last stages of the war. It is notable for giving an idea of how much damage these ships could endure, at the top of the fireball you can see about half of Enterprise's forward aircraft elevator.
That is fifteen tons of steel launched 400 feet straight up, yet Enterprise was able to hold her speed and station until relieved and was repaired in time for what would have been the invasion of Japan.

Notable also for being the last Kamikaze hit on a carrier

Holy moly!

 

[paulobrito]

Gives a new meaning to the word elevator...

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Holy moly!

And the crazy thing is that they repaired her by early August of 45 and back to peak condition at that

 

[BF110C4]

And the crazy thing is that they repaired her by early August of 45 and back to peak condition at that

And that she could say without exaggerating that she survived worse.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

And that she could say without exaggerating that she survived worse.

Unlike her sisters which took torpedoes that killed their engines due to them not being of an alternated layout which pretty much screwed them, mind you had said damage occured closer to a friendly base they probably would have survived(what with land based air being available to cover their recovery by the USN)

 

[BF110C4]

Unlike her sisters which took torpedoes that killed their engines due to them not being of an alternated layout which pretty much screwed them, mind you had said damage occured closer to a friendly base they probably would have survived(what with land based air being available to cover their recovery by the USN)

Being fair the damages Yorktown and Hornet took were worse, much worse than Enterprise suffered, especially in Yorktown case, with she getting hammered by the japanese at Coral Sea, cramming weeks of dry dock in a few days of desperate emergency repairs, being hit by the survivors of the japanese carrier force so hard that the pilots believed they sunk not one but two different carriers and then getting the torpedoes that finally killed her.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Being fair the damages Yorktown and Hornet took were worse, much worse than Enterprise suffered, especially in Yorktown case, with she getting hammered by the japanese at Coral Sea, cramming weeks of dry dock in a few days of desperate emergency repairs, being hit by the survivors of the japanese carrier force so hard that the pilots believed they sunk not one but two different carriers and then getting the torpedoes that finally killed her.

Honestly it's still amazing that Yorktown probably could have been saved if I-168 hadn't found her. The tug that would have hauled her home was nearly there when she got hit. Mind you I doubt she would have been available until November of 1942 at the earliest

 

[Spartan303]

Honestly it's still amazing that Yorktown probably could have been saved if I-168 hadn't found her. The tug that would have hauled her home was nearly there when she got hit. Mind you I doubt she would have been available until November of 1942 at the earliest

She most certainly could have. Those carriers were built tough

 

[Zachowon]

I was told by someone that the US was thinking of trading the Essex for the British counterpart, which I find hard to believe if the class before the Essex was as durable as the Yorktown, Enterprise, and the Hornet have shown to be...

 

[Knowledgeispower]

She most certainly could have. Those carriers were built tough

Heck even when she was hit by I-168's torpedoes she took a long time to die. It helped that one of her crew had the bright idea of filling the aviation fuel lines and tanks with C02 when he saw what happened to Lexington and took his idea to Yorktown's skipper, who then had the crew install the systems needed while en route to Pearl for repairs after Coral Sea. After the unparalleled success the system(several fuel lines were hit and didn't go boom or burn fiercely)was at Midway it was implemented throughout the fleet and undoubtedly saved a lot of lives.

 

[Spartan303]

Heck even when she was hit by I-168's torpedoes she took a long time to die. It helped that one of her crew had the bright idea of filling the aviation fuel lines and tanks when he saw what happened to Lexington and took his idea to Yorktown's skipper, who then had the crew install the systems needed while en route to Pearl for repairs. After the unparalleled success the system(several fuel lines were hit and didn't go boon)was ar Midway it was implemented throughout the fleet and undoubtedly saved a lot of lives.

Ya see, I never knew that. That's the kind of thing I love to learn about.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

I was told by someone that the US was thinking of trading the Essex for the British counterpart, which I find hard to believe if the class before the Essex was as durable as the Yorktown, Enterprise, and the Hornet have shown to be...

The Yorktowns and Essexes were good at absorbing damage but then so was the Illustrious class. Mind you there's no way the USN designs probably would have survived the 1000kg bombs a few of the Illustrious class were hit with.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Ya see, I never knew that. That's the kind of thing I love to learn about.

They filled the avagas lines and tanks with CO2 if you're curious

 

[Zachowon]

The Yorktowns and Essexes were good at absorbing damage but then so was the Illustrious class. Mind you there's no way the USN USN designs probably would have survived the 1000kg bombs a few of the Illustrious class were hit with.

Diffrent design ideals. The USN knew what they were dealing with, and won the war with it. The RN knew what they needed, and won the War with that

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Diffrent design ideals. The USN knew what they were dealing with, and won the war with it. The RN knew what they needed, and won the War with that

Of course there's a reason why the USN became really interested in Armored Carriers after they patched up the some of the RN's. Any one of their carriers of the time probably would have been sent to the bottom. Mind you the USN did like its big air groups so they built the Midways instead of the smaller designs of the RN and never looked back in terms of the size of the carriers its actually built

 

[Harlock]

Happily with later designs you can have both

 

[Zachowon]

Of course there's a reason why the USN became really interested in Armored Carriers after they patched up the some of the RN's. Any one of their carriers of the time probably would have been sent to the bottom. Mind you the USN did like its big air groups so they built the Midways instead of the smaller designs of the RN and never looked back in terms of the size of the carriers its actually built

That is why I still found it wierd someone argued the USN would replcae the Essex class with the Illustrius just because of the armored flight decks, not accounting for how survivable the Essex was, and how it was lighter and could store more aircraft.

Happily with later designs you can have both

Of course!

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Happily with later designs you can have both

Well once you cross the magical size limit of the around 55,000 tons many things are possible. Well unless you're the RN and your design needs to also be your helicopter assault ship if need be since the politicians aren't going to build you a replacement for Ocean, that effectively makes the design 10,000 tons smaller in terms of sortie generation and Airwing size. Or stick a bunch of offensive missiles on it like the Russians did which again effectively makes the design smaller.

Mind you the USN went way too far with Midway's major rebuilt in the 60s(and the first attempt to fix her stability problems made it worse, they figured out how to fix it but the Cold War ended before the work was planned to be done and the USN didn't want to spend a fair chunk of change on ship that was due to be decommissioned within a year or so anyways(and then Saddam gave her an extra six months in service due to invading Kuwait)) and she actually nearly capsized in the 80s during a storm.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Also fun fact Midway's rebuild in the 60s was only marginally less expensive than building the JFK was. Mind you since McNamara had JFK converted midway through construction from being powered by 4 reactors to being conventionally powered(which made her not the easiest ship to maintain(and caused structural problems that the USN never could fully fix) there's a reason why the USN decommissioned her 12 years ahead of schedule and it wasn't the cost a 15 month refit although that was the excuse given), so the USN would have been better off building another Kitty Hawk rather than ruining Midway