Iowa vs Tirpitz

There were 3 divergant Carrier Philosophies in WW2
The Japanese, the UKs and the American.

The Japanese Doctrine started out pre-War as carriers supporting the BB Line. They were pleasantly surprised when Yamamotos novel idea to use them all together as a Strike Force proved so devastatingly sucessful at PH. Rather similar to the Germans grouping their panzers into divisions and finding out the force was multiplied. The Japanese didnt successfully apply their newly discovered strategy again. Their next real attempt at Midway was flawed when they lost the advantage of surprise, and deployed their forces so far apart that they couldnt provide mutual support.

The Americans realized that carriers could operate independantly of the BBs, but Japanese victories dictated that the carriers were used defensively and committed piecemeal until the Carrier Raids of mid 43. When the US converted the Lex and Sara they opted for large wing rather than thick armor. This was more because of economics than Doctrine. The Navy didnt think they'd get more carriers anytime soon (correct) so they packed em with as many planes as possible.

The British had no Operational Requirment for a Strike Force of Carriers. They had a huge advantage in numbers of BBs over the Germans or Italians. Their driving factor was ability to operate within range of land based bombers (primarily in the Med) rather than support Fleet movements far out in the Pacific. Putting heavy armor high up on the ship (flight deck) meant a small short hangar or stability issues.

Operationally, the US wooden decks were easier to damage, but much easier to repair (Hornet, Yorktown) The British armored deck resisted small bombs and kamakaze strikes, but once buckled, the armor needed an extensive port repair. (Illustrious, Indomitable)

PS - someone stated that US damage control was unparalled - I disagree. The RN did more successful DC just on Ark Royal than the US did on all its ships put together. Well, it did a lot anyway. Saving the Franklin was pretty spectacular, but maybe they should have abandoned ship. I know that goes against US Naval Religion.
 
PS - when the Americans designed the Midways with armored fight decks, it wasnt so much to imitate the British. They just extrapolated the growth of aircraft weights and realized that a deck that would be able to land the next generation of attack planes would be thick enough to qualify as "armored". Midways were just so large and over-engined that the weight penalty was less of a problem.
 
You seem to be laboring under the impression that the U.S. carriers (and their IJN counterparts) lacked ANY armored decking at all. This is not the case at all. Both nations had armored decks, the USN and IJN simply put the armor under the hanger deck. This armored deck worked very well, as can be seen by the rather remarkable resistance that American carriers showed to crippling bomb damage (the experiences of the Yorktown being only the most well known).

This is not to say that the American carriers were perfect designs, far from it. While extremely resistant to bomb damage (a combination of the armored lower deck and the open bay design) they also proved to be disturbingly vulnerable to torpedo damage (ALL the fleet carriers lost by the USN in WW II succumbed to torpedo damage, although Hornet proved herself to be very hard to kill indeed).



Perhaps it would make more clear that I never stated that USN (and IJN) carriers lacked armor, but the placing inside the vessel, rather than on top of it made the difference, as mentioned before. The Armored Hangar of a British design was mentioned to protect the contents from too much damage, while a small bomb of any sort could wreck havoc under parked planes in the hangar on a wooden flightdecked carrier. It simply is the missionprofile inteded for the carrier that makes the fdifference in design, as the USN and IJN focussed on the vast Pacific and the Royal Navy on the inshore waters in Mediteranean and Northsea.

Some examples for Armored carriers struck were HMS Illustrious, HMS Formidable and HMS Indomitable, who all took bombhits of larger AP types from divebombers (both Ju-87 and Ju-88 type), while all survived, without too much itnernal damage, especially to propulsion and so on. Most IJN carriers were compeltely destroyed by bombs alone, which caused uncontrollable fires inside the ship's hangars and lower decks. Both USS Princeton and USS Franklin were struck by a single bomb, which almost destroyed the ship by secodnary fires and explosions for the Franklin, while Princeton was blown up partly by this secondary damage, when her after bombstore went up. (more wooden decked carriers were seriously hit by a few bombs and forced to make long periods in repair, such as Shokaku, Zuiho, Enterprise, etc.)
 
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