Talk:Armoured flight deck

Table

The article states that the Essex class carriers had 2.5" of flight deck armor, and that armour strakes on the Illustrious class aircraft carriers were main deck armour. Are these facts correct? Kablammo 15:30, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

• More specifically, weren't the Essex carriers unarmored on the flight deck (aside from a few inches of Douglas fir)?

Fixed. Source for Essex armor: [1] Kablammo 22:00, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

• The figures given for Illustrious look OK, but horizontal deck armour is not a strake, is it? (E.H.H. Archibald in The Metal Fighting Ship in the Royal Navy, 1860-1970, gives the RN carriers' armour at 3" flight deck, 2.5" main deck, and 4.5" sides and hanger sides.)

Fixed per source.

• How much of the low freeboard of the Midway class was due to later modifications?

Source for low freeboard: [2] 21:48, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

• I believe that the fuel purging system came about after the experience of the Lexington lost at Coral Sea. Whether the wooden flight decks in fact were a serious risk may be questionable-- the carriers which were lost or seriously damaged suffered explosions below the level of the flight deck. There is footage of planes which crashed on landing spilling burning fuel; it was easily extinguished and flight operations resumed.
• The article would benefit from more citation to authorities, especially for comparisions, such as between US and UK, and other judgments or conclusory assertions. I'm not saying they are wrong, just that they should have citations.

Kablammo 20:05, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I should probably explain that I created this article as a spin off of Flight deck. While it was there, it took up quite a bit of space. I've actually asked some of your questions myself, and believe much about the info presented could use cleaning up. Personally the only info I'm confident about is the difference in size between British and American carrier air wings as a direct result of where the armored deck is placed.

Though I do plan to fix this article in the future you are of course welcome to as well :) (I've gotten distracted working on the Attack on Pearl Harbor.) Anynobody 21:47, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I've added a lot of additional info, and touched upon the differing design requirements of each navy. I've also added some information regarding the severe financial restrictions that faced the post-war RN, and how these effected the ability to repair war damages carriers. A simple discussion of numbers of aircraft carried does not explain the differing operational doctrine of the USN and RN, and use of a permanent deck park on USN carriers, which is largely responsible for the larger USN aircraft complement. 70.71.251.142 (talk) 03:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Strength Deck?

How about some explanation of this term? It's used, but not defined or linked. 68.83.72.162 (talk) 08:39, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

"American damage control took days or even months"

I'm a bit skeptical of this - it seems to be confusing full repairs with damage control; in almost every case the immediate damage control was finished within hours. The difference seems to be that in most cases, American carriers finished the day's operations if they were able to, then pulled back for repairs. Most documentation seems to indicate that kamikaze damage that completely ruined a carrier's ability to operate aircraft was rare (cases like Enterprise where a kamikaze hit the ship's elevator, something that a British carrier would not have quickly recovered from either), most of them say that normal flight operations were restored within hours. Iceberg3k (talk) 14:59, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

That said, Formidable's survival of her 4 May 1945 kamikaze hit is a tribute to the toughness of her construction, I doubt there are many ships of any type that could have survived damage like that and still continued their mission. Iceberg3k (talk) 15:02, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Link to other discussion

This article has been a subject of brief discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships#Carrier_armor.2Farmour. Project members and participants there have been invited to continue the discussion here. As stated there by TomTheHand, these essays may be useful in improving the article. (They likely are the uncited sources for parts of it). Kablammo 15:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Protection against NAval Gunfire

I think I remember reading an account of the Guadalcanal Campaign in which it was claimed that the wooden decks of the American carriers allowed them to be penetrated by heavy Japanese gunfire, whose armour-piercing ammo did not explode, thus protecting the US carriers from extensive daage. Can anyone confirm this, and, if so, maybe incorporate it into the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.129.147.169 (talk) 19:11, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Circumstances

As a result, in the late 1930s, the FAA did not have any modern high-performance aircraft at its disposal, indeed its first monoplane, the Blackburn Skua, only flew for the first time in 1937. So what? When did the USN get its first monoplane? The SBN had its first flight in 1936, the biplanes fighters were retired in 1940 and SBCs were still on CV in 1942.Markus Becker02 (talk) 14:36, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

As best as I can tell the USN got it's first monoplane in 1937 and it first flew in 1936. To my knowledge, this was the TBD Devastator. (There are several other candidates including the BT-1 and SB2U, but neither of these was much if any earlier. The F2A was almost certainly later.) In any case, no navy had much of a jump. The IJN introduced the A5M at about the same time as the Devastator, and I believe that was Japan's first naval monoplane. I'd actually be inclined to say that this difference is so small as to be irrelevant to the discussion. SymphonicPoet (talk) 06:54, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

The Royal Navy had planned to be operating the Fairey Firefly and Fairey Barracuda by 1942, but these plans fell apart after the Fall of France and the necessity to give RAF aircraft priority for production and development. Interestingly, the Sea Hurricane, which was pressed into naval service had a rather better record, in RN service in 1941-42, than the Martlet (Grumman F4F), especially during Operation Pedestal, when they served together.Damwiki1 (talk) 08:12, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Arguing with the photos

Photo captions are not the place to argues points. Anyway, much of this article is synthesis, mkaing points sthe original source probably did not make. I'm seriously conidering AFDing hte article, as I doubt it will ever be neutral. - BilCat (talk) 08:24, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I've had concerns about this article for years. The lack of references is a major problem. I don't think that it would pass an AfD though, as it is on a viable topic. Nick-D (talk) 09:08, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this article probably doesn't need to exist, there is usually a brief but totally acceptable mention of the differences in the carrier articles themselves.

As to the question of arguing points in a caption, I tend to think they (captions) should be as brief as possible but there will always be exceptions. In this case someone appears to be saying that British carriers could store aircraft in their overheads, which is not correct according to the source given. On page 62 Roberts says they could store spare fuselages (some minus their tail sections) but does not say complete aircraft.

To sum up, if this article isn't deleted, and the editor insists on citing Roberts in the caption, it should read like this:Anynobody(?) 21:42, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Diagram of British armoured vs American unarmoured designs, illustrating differences in hangar capabilities. Though armoured British carriers could carry several spare fuselages in their hangar overheads, some minus tail sections, they could not store entire aircraft.

USN carriers could not carry complete aircraft in their overheads either. The hanger height was insufficient for this and the aircraft had to be partially disassembled for overhead storage, typically by removing their props and rudders.Damwiki1 (talk) 20:32, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

current attempts at Vandalism

It would appear that there is a concerted attempt to vandalize this article. This has been reported and hopefully the page will be protected from further attacks. Damwiki1 (talk) 08:06, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Done :) EyeSerene^talk 08:46, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Recent 'wave' of dubious quotations by Damwiki1

I see that some explanations for my recent edits is needed:

1) Dubious 'quotations' by Damwiki1 from Friedman's 'U.S. Aircraft Carriers':

a) p.259-261 - Refers to Forrestal class projects, as existed prior to the adoption of an angled flight deck. No mention if Forrestal class, as realized, possessed flight deck armor. As I've mentioned earlier.

b) p.271 - refers to "CVA 3/53, a "project of an carrier of about Midway class size" and "CVA 10/53, a modified variant of CVA 3/53 project".

c) p.280 ("The USN DCNO (Air) in discussing follow on designs to the Forrestal class: "The only saving available was armor: "a couple of inches of armor plating is hardly more than splinter protection against modern weapons, yet it imposes a tremendous penalty in topside weight plus the necessity for massive support structure. If not eliminated, this armor could at least be dropped to hangar deck levels..." ") directly refers to elimination or removal of armor from the flight deck of the project, while not directly dealing with the details of previous classes. (However - this is perhaps the most relevant quotation, as for the CVA 66, which is dealt with here, was based upon modified CVA 64.)

2) Added online references - mostly non descript webs, hardly any concerned with the construction of the ships in any depth; and IMHO mostly not in compliance with respective Wikipedia guidelines. I don't see any rationale for removing maintenance templates under unconvincing pretences of 'vandalism', as these webs need checking, in each respective case.

3) Own research by Damwiki1 - if the 'ref' given by him refers to 3in armor, treating it as "at least 1.5 in" is way beyond wp:NOR#Synthesis.

I hope someone will deal with these issues, as that's not for the first time D

Thank you.--14:43, 12 November 2010 (UTC)