History of the Supercarrier
POD is that the atomic bomb program is delayed six months, resulting in first atomic bomb test in February of 1946. Japan surrenders in October of 1945 due to starvation, economic collapse, and continued air raids (most of which simply serve to bounce the rubble).
Genesis
The modern supercarrier finds its origins during the Second World War. As the war began drawing to a close, the United States Navy sought to leverage the lessons of the war to produce a new carrier, intermediate between the Essex and Midway classes, suitable for mass production. In addition to incorporating the lessons of the war, this would also serve to retain the industrial base, avoiding the potentially disastrous consequences of letting it, and the collective knowledge that it represented, dissipate and needing reformation.
At the same time that this effort was beginning in May 1945, the Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) began studying the possibility of new level bombers with heavier payloads than the currently operated or planned Avengers or Skyraiders could carry. Dedicated level bombers (in contrast to torpedo bombers such as the Avenger and Dauntless which were capable of level bombing as an additional mode of operation; the Norden bombsight, famous for its use on Army Air Force bombers, was developed for the Navy and carried by the TBF Avenger) had seen some experimental use from carriers, most notably in the 1942 Doolittle Raid, but these had been only experimental sorties, incapable of returning, and the aircraft, not being navalized, were not suitable for incorporation into a carrier air wing.
One of the chief problems that had faced the Navy during the war was that the range and payload of carrier planes was severely limited. As testing of captured German Type XXI submarines, a submarine that naval intelligence expected to be mass produced by the Soviet Navy very soon (peculiarly, not done for several years and in lower numbers than expected), made clear that current anti-submarine warfare doctrine and technology was not capable of coping with the threat, a greater reliance on direct attack of the submarines and their bases would be required. However, experience fighting the Nazis had also shown that the two thousand pound bombs that were the maximum that carrier-based aircraft could carry were not capable of penetrating the heavily armored U-boat pens that the Nazis constructed and the Soviets sure to imitate. These, and certain other targets, required the twelve thousand pound Tallboy bomb in order to destroy. It was around this weapon that BuAer began development of the VG bomber program, to emerge as the AJ Savage, in December of 1945.
In February of 1946, in an isolated test site in the Nevada desert, the United States detonated the world's first atomic bomb, testing a plutonium implosion type weapon. This test started a new and turbulent period for American naval design and strategy in general that lasted until the beginning of the Korean War. This new weapon promised the destructive potential of a thousand heavy bombers compressed into a single bomber. To the members of the BuAer working on the VG development program, it promised a new way of ensuring the relevance of naval aviation and keeping scarce post-war budget dollars.
Public debate over the new weapon was fierce with a strong number in favor of banning the weapon entirely, in line with previous (and equally unsuccessful) attempts to ban chemical and biological warfare). Even opinion within the Navy was itself divided, with a number of officers subtly suggesting to the public that the Navy would be better able to use atomic weapons than the Air Force.
The divisiveness of the debate meant that there would be no political decision on atomic weapons until after the detonation of the first Soviet atomic weapon in 1950 and only a few weapons were built for research purposes during this time. However, the need to be prepared for their potential employment proved the final strike against the 1945 “Super Essex” design. In the lean post-war years, the idea of a mass-producible carrier design was seen as irrelevant and although the design was much larger than the Essex, it was not capable of handling the VG bombers that BuAer was proposing. Designed for the F7F Tigercat and the AD Skyraider, even a navalized bomber would only be transportable in the same sense as the B-25s of the Doolittle raid.
However, certain features of the abortive design study found their way into the supercarrier design that replaced it, USS United States. Chief among these were the reliance upon catapults for carrier operations, deck-edge elevators, and the most distinctive feature of the early supercarriers, a flush deck with no island.
More to come with gratuitous plane porn in the meanwhile.
Savage refueling a Cutlass
POD is that the atomic bomb program is delayed six months, resulting in first atomic bomb test in February of 1946. Japan surrenders in October of 1945 due to starvation, economic collapse, and continued air raids (most of which simply serve to bounce the rubble).
Genesis
The modern supercarrier finds its origins during the Second World War. As the war began drawing to a close, the United States Navy sought to leverage the lessons of the war to produce a new carrier, intermediate between the Essex and Midway classes, suitable for mass production. In addition to incorporating the lessons of the war, this would also serve to retain the industrial base, avoiding the potentially disastrous consequences of letting it, and the collective knowledge that it represented, dissipate and needing reformation.
At the same time that this effort was beginning in May 1945, the Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer) began studying the possibility of new level bombers with heavier payloads than the currently operated or planned Avengers or Skyraiders could carry. Dedicated level bombers (in contrast to torpedo bombers such as the Avenger and Dauntless which were capable of level bombing as an additional mode of operation; the Norden bombsight, famous for its use on Army Air Force bombers, was developed for the Navy and carried by the TBF Avenger) had seen some experimental use from carriers, most notably in the 1942 Doolittle Raid, but these had been only experimental sorties, incapable of returning, and the aircraft, not being navalized, were not suitable for incorporation into a carrier air wing.
One of the chief problems that had faced the Navy during the war was that the range and payload of carrier planes was severely limited. As testing of captured German Type XXI submarines, a submarine that naval intelligence expected to be mass produced by the Soviet Navy very soon (peculiarly, not done for several years and in lower numbers than expected), made clear that current anti-submarine warfare doctrine and technology was not capable of coping with the threat, a greater reliance on direct attack of the submarines and their bases would be required. However, experience fighting the Nazis had also shown that the two thousand pound bombs that were the maximum that carrier-based aircraft could carry were not capable of penetrating the heavily armored U-boat pens that the Nazis constructed and the Soviets sure to imitate. These, and certain other targets, required the twelve thousand pound Tallboy bomb in order to destroy. It was around this weapon that BuAer began development of the VG bomber program, to emerge as the AJ Savage, in December of 1945.
In February of 1946, in an isolated test site in the Nevada desert, the United States detonated the world's first atomic bomb, testing a plutonium implosion type weapon. This test started a new and turbulent period for American naval design and strategy in general that lasted until the beginning of the Korean War. This new weapon promised the destructive potential of a thousand heavy bombers compressed into a single bomber. To the members of the BuAer working on the VG development program, it promised a new way of ensuring the relevance of naval aviation and keeping scarce post-war budget dollars.
Public debate over the new weapon was fierce with a strong number in favor of banning the weapon entirely, in line with previous (and equally unsuccessful) attempts to ban chemical and biological warfare). Even opinion within the Navy was itself divided, with a number of officers subtly suggesting to the public that the Navy would be better able to use atomic weapons than the Air Force.
The divisiveness of the debate meant that there would be no political decision on atomic weapons until after the detonation of the first Soviet atomic weapon in 1950 and only a few weapons were built for research purposes during this time. However, the need to be prepared for their potential employment proved the final strike against the 1945 “Super Essex” design. In the lean post-war years, the idea of a mass-producible carrier design was seen as irrelevant and although the design was much larger than the Essex, it was not capable of handling the VG bombers that BuAer was proposing. Designed for the F7F Tigercat and the AD Skyraider, even a navalized bomber would only be transportable in the same sense as the B-25s of the Doolittle raid.
However, certain features of the abortive design study found their way into the supercarrier design that replaced it, USS United States. Chief among these were the reliance upon catapults for carrier operations, deck-edge elevators, and the most distinctive feature of the early supercarriers, a flush deck with no island.
More to come with gratuitous plane porn in the meanwhile.
Savage refueling a Cutlass