Implacables or illustrious ?
- Thread starter hms malta
- Start date
Both have limitations, but I'd go with the younger class with less combat usage and damage.
Yeah years younger, slightly faster, and lacking the combat wear and tear the Illustrious class had built up. I think I remember reading that Illustrious suffered from her heavy bomb damage even after the repair work in the States.
IIRC the plan in the real world was to modernise Implacable and Indefatigable to the same standard as Victorious in her 1950-58 refit, but the refits were cut under the 1954 Defence Review.
Saphroneth
Banned
It's a bit of a tricky question - I'd say reconstructing an Implacable is better all else being equal (younger, larger ship) but the problem the Implacables had was those low hangars. It depends what you put in them, but I think it's entirely possible that you'd need to jack up the hangars to make them workable for postwar aircraft (which would essentially mean building a new ship in a lot of ways).
I suppose you could cut the hangars into a single one? Is that sane?
If the hangar deck height thing is too much of an issue then just rebuild the less damaged Illustrious to Victorious level.
I suppose you could cut the hangars into a single one? Is that sane?
If the hangar deck height thing is too much of an issue then just rebuild the less damaged Illustrious to Victorious level.
If it had been up to me (with the benefit if hindsight) I would have scrapped the lot and completed the third Audacious or built a 1952 Carrier instead of rebuilding Victorious.
I've got my copy of Friedman out and it looks as if the upper hangar would become the main hangar deck of the rebuilt ship and the flight deck raised by a total of 9 feet - gallery deck plus increased clear hangar deck height.
Victorious had her hangar raised from 16ft to 17 1/2 feet so my guess is that the Implacables would have been raised from 14 feet to at least that.
Yes. And, 2 BS Mk 4 steam catapults, the Type 984 radar, the Comprehensive Display System, Direct Plot Transmission, later known as a data link, and it would have been rearmed with twelve 3" guns in six twin mountings, but they might have been the same type fitted to the Tiger class rather than the American guns fitted to Victorious.
History showed the Implacable two level hangars had limmited height, inadequate for more modern larger aircraft, so the higher cealing of the single decked Illustrious was more favourable.
Hangar Illustrious: 16 feet
Hangars Implacable: 14 feet
Hangar Illustrious: 16 feet
Hangars Implacable: 14 feet
Pangur
Donor
I read some where that ships that were built later in the war used a poorer grade steel so if the true thats got to be in the mix as well
Saphroneth
Banned
I doubt it's important - the Audacious class were certainly late war construction (first in class launched 1946) and they nearly saw the Falklands!
Given that the planned reconstruction would have taken place from the hangar deck upwards I doubt the differing hangar heights of the Illustrious class and the Implacable class would have mattered.
With hindsight would it not have been better and cheaper in the long run to have simply built new carriers commencing in 1950, selling off or putting the old prewar carriers into long term reserve as the new builds replace them.
Yes.
I wrote in an earlier post that the third Audacious class should have been completed instead of rebuilding Victorious. I can't remember who wrote From Vanguard to Trident, but he claimed that the ship was 25% complete when she was cancelled, which was IIRC in 1946.
Up that point the plan had been to modernise all 6 armoured carriers and complete all 3 Audacious class. By 1948 when the Nine Year Plan and Revised Restricted Fleet were worked out, the plan was to complete 2 Audacious class and modernise 4 armoured carriers. Then in 1954 it was cut back to Ark Royal, Eagle and Victorious.
It's also worth noting that the rebuild of Victorious took 8 years at a cost of £20 million, but that's a bargain compared to the £28 million it cost to complete Hermes, which had an air group of 16 aircraft plus AEW and ASW in 1959, when Victorious had 24 plus AEW and ASW, plus a heavier armament and the same standard of electronics.