Earlier development of the angled flight deck?

IOTL, the angled flight deck and the steam catapult stick out as the two post-WWII carrier innovations. So, what if someone had seen the merits of an angled flight deck earlier? Say, during the 1930s?
 
I think one problem is that there would be an additional tonnage penalty to pay during the 1930s which would keep the idea on the shelf. Since the tonnage of aircraft carriers is still governed by international treaties one probably won't see very many powers testing out new ideas.

What is also going to make the angled flight deck more efficient is the moving of the elevators from the centerline to the sides of the flight deck.
 

Bearcat

Banned
I think the advent of jets - whose high landing speeds made the old solution of the crash barricade impractical - helped to drive the innovation of the angled deck.

So unless you pair this with early development of jet aircraft by one of the carrier powers, I doubt anyone is willing to take the plunge of the additional expense.
 
There is also the question of size. An angled deck works better in a big carrier, the treaty-limited WW2 ships weren't big enough to benefit from the idea.
Although they do help offset the island weight issue..:)
 

Markus

Banned
Guys, the Essex class carriers were post-treaty designs free from any legal limitations and they did get angled decks after the war. ;)
 
Guys, the Essex class carriers were post-treaty designs free from any legal limitations and they did get angled decks after the war. ;)

Yes, but the original post is talking about the 30's - hence treaty-limited ships. The Essexes were way over the treaty limit.
 

Markus

Banned
Yes, but the original post is talking about the 30's - hence treaty-limited ships. The Essexes were way over the treaty limit.

I interpreted "So, what if someone had seen the merits of an angled flight deck earlier?" as someone getting an idea, not so much as having an operational carrier already. So get the idea in the early 30, do some testing, in 36 the treaty limitations are de facto history and the design of larger CV can begin. IOTL the work on the Essexes was started in 38, large scale commissioning began in 43. That could have been 36 and 41 as well.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
They work better but they weren't quite dropped either; the Majestic class of 43 was a mere 13.200 tons and were basically Colossus with angled flight deck and steam catapult on. They were well within treaty limits unless someone wanted to look too long at their 18.000 tons full load. Centaur, too, was well under treaty limits at 22.000 tons (and I doubt an inspector would have looked too closely at the fact that its full load was at the "no more than two of those" level, or they might I'm not sure really). I'm not sure it would be feasible in 36 without the same levels of experience at building dedicated carriers, though.
 
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If I remember correctly, weren't British carriers of the era a little bit heavier, as they preferred to put more armor on them, while American carriers were a bit lighter, due to having less armor? I could be wrong of course, but that was my general impression- and a change in priorities could lead to the tonnage offset being found that way.

In addition, there is the loophole, if you will, of experimental ships- the USS Langley and IIRC USS Ranger did not count against total American tonnage as they were not designated fleet units.

EDIT: And to clarify, I was talking about someone thinking up the idea in the 30s, not necessarily of it hitting the production lines then.
 

Markus

Banned
In addition, there is the loophole, if you will, of experimental ships- the USS Langley and IIRC USS Ranger did not count against total American tonnage as they were not designated fleet units.

That´s wrong. Ranger wasn´t an experimental carrier and the treaties did not make exceptions for ships designated experimental in the first place. Hence Langley´s conversion to a seaplane tender to use her tonnage for a fleet carrier, Yorktown IIRC.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
That´s wrong. Ranger wasn´t an experimental carrier and the treaties did not make exceptions for ships designated experimental in the first place. Hence Langley´s conversion to a seaplane tender to use her tonnage for a fleet carrier, Yorktown IIRC.

...

"The flight deck is in case the seaplane spontaneously evolves wheels."
 

archaeogeek

Banned

I'm just being amused at the way all those little reclassifications where used as loopholes; at least it wasn't like the japanese and just lying about the specs of Yamato I guess. I'm just puzzled at how seaplane tenders got away with not being considered a subset of carrier in 22.
 

abc123

Banned
The angled deck is invented by Britain because they had small carriers and did not have money to make big carriers, while aircrafts were bigger and bigger with evry new generation.
;)
 

Markus

Banned
I'm just being amused at the way all those little reclassifications where used as loopholes; at least it wasn't like the japanese and just lying about the specs of Yamato I guess. I'm just puzzled at how seaplane tenders got away with not being considered a subset of carrier in 22.

They are entirely different. A carrier can land and launch planes while under way, a tender needs to stop for recovery, maybe for launching too. It´s more like a mobile aircraft maintanance facility. And wheeled a/c were superior to seaplanes already.
 
I would think that the two most likely early carriers to which the angle flight deck could be tried with would be HMS Furious and Vindex since they were both equipped with a 'flight deck' that had to work around a superstructure in 1918.

The more I think about it I'm surprised that there was not suggested it especially for Furious. She would have an angled flight deck aft to retrieve planes and a regular flight deck forward of the stack superstructure. One could probably consider seeing both Courageous and Glorious converted into hybrid carrier-cruisers in the 1920s.
 
What about an angled deck for the Lexington and Saratoga?

According to Friedman's, the Lexingtons, even as built, were fairly overweight (indeed, the only reason the design worked on the tonnage it did was through some creative interpretation of various treaty provisions related to modernization against air & submarine attack as well as the calcuation of displacement) and had marginal stability- they were built with blisters already installed, which were replaced with larger blisters in Saratogas big WW2 modernization.
 
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