It's 1948...or maybe 1945. What would you do with Implacables / Illustrious carriers ?

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Archibald

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As said in the tin. With perfect hindsight (Victorious horror story) the Centaurs look like a much better long-term bargain...
Could some of the six Illustrables be passed to a foreign navy ?
How could the Victorious siliness be strangled in the craddle ?
Long term effects ?

Gentlemen, start your engines !
 
Archibald said:
As said in the tin. With perfect hindsight (Victorious horror story) the Centaurs look like a much better long-term bargain...
Could some of the six Illustrables be passed to a foreign navy ?
How could the Victorious siliness be strangled in the craddle ?
Long term effects ?

Gentlemen, start your engines !
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If they had a proper assessment of what was needed and how profound the changes in 1947, they'd have set in motion the process of designing and building new carriers. Starting 1948.

Yet here is the irony. Type 984, CDS, steam catapults and increasing aircraft size, weight and minimum speeds. Were already on the way and obviously so.

Strictly the 1952 Carrier process should have started in 1948.
 
The period up until the Korean War in 1950 were lean years for defence.
The UK had come out of the war in bad shape.
Yet even the Labour Government did not draw the conclusion that a world role was now going to be hard to sustain.
Knowing now how badly placed we were, I would have scrapped as much tonnage as possible. The fleet carriers lost their US supplied aircraft with the end of the war.
I would have disposed of them, except perhaps the three Audacious class, and even these would have been built slowly.
The Centaurs would become the workhorses of the RN after Korea.
Zen has suggested that Hermes had certain advantages.
The problem of the growing size of aircraft does not become apparent until the Forrestal class prompts large aircraft like the Phantom and Vigilante. The RN looked longingly at the Forrestal and the CVA01 is born.
If in 1961 the RN had only had Hermes, Centaur, Bulwark and Albion available and no prospect of a bigger ship, would it have looked more sympathetically at the Grumman Tiger, the Crusader or even the P1154.
 
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DWG said:
Ideally, scrap them as soon as possible to get the Irresistibles (Ark Royals) and Maltas into service, but there's probably not the money for that.
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By 1948, the starting point here, the Maltas and the original Eagle have been consigned to the history books. The 3 Centaurs are launched but laid up incomplete. Work on Albion doesn’t restart until spring 1950 and Centaur until early 1951 (not sure when work restarted on Bulwark). Hermes is still on the slip with work suspended (it doesn’t restart until 1949 for launch in 1953).

Eagle (ex Audacious) has work to complete her begun again in 1948 after a halt of nearly a year. Ark is still on the slips and two years away from launch in a yard with plenty of merchant work to keep its workforce busy.

Looking at the Illustrious/Implacables:-

Illustrious - refit for most of 1948 then back to trials and training until laid up at the beginning of 1955.
Formidable - laid up until sold for scrap in 1953.
Victorious - Home Fleet training ship from Oct 1947 to June 1950 with a hangar full of classrooms and a reduced complement. Then to reconstruction.
Indomitable - laid up in Reserve from mid-1947 to early 1950 then given a limited modernisation to become operational again until Oct 1953.
Indefatigable - laid up until mid-1949 then conversion to a training ship, which duties she carried out between mid-1950 and late-1954.
Implacable - operational carrier 1948 to late-1950 when replaced by Indomitable, then converted for use as a training ship until laid up Oct 1954.

So from 1948 to Oct 1953 we only have one of them being used as an operational carrier at any point in time and another in a trials and training role. The others, when in use, are operating with reduced levels of manning as training ships or are laid up. If those ships are not used for training, others will need to be. So it has to be asked just how much money would actually be saved by scrapping them all in 1948?

In 1948 it is the light fleets, not the Armoured carriers, that are forming the core of the fleet. Vengeance, Glory (in reserve for 22 months in 1948/49), Ocean, Theseus, Triumph and Warrior (returned from the RCN in May 1948 and used for rubber deck trials until mid 1949 then laid up until the Korean War). They are cheaper to operate and as the Centaurs/Audacious enter service, gradually replace the Armoured carriers in secondary roles.

The fundamental problem in 1948 is money, or the lack of it. No money for new designs and no money to complete the ships already part built.

In 1948 however the things that changed carrier design in the 1950s are still in the future: angled deck (tests on Triumph in 1952 but the idea had been around for a few years), steam catapult (experimental rig in Perseus from 1950) and the mirror landing sight (first trialled 1954). So with hindsight, was 1948 the right time to be planning a new design.

In fact when you look back, the best solution would have been to do nothing in 1948-50. Leave the Centaur/Audacious laid up part complete. Save the money and build a new design in the early 1950s to incorporate all the new design features. A carrier design truly fit to see service in the jet age.
 
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1948 is a good start for the 'process', actual sketches would be tentative and subject to many meetings before anything progresses. It would likely be 1950 or later before real detailed design work.
A lot of below flight deck design would be relevant to a revised flight deck after 1952.
If memory serves an appropriate slip was available for 1953, but it's in '48 when it would likely need to booked as it was in '52 booked for a cruise liner.
Assuming laid down in '53, work might halt in '54 and restart with a new flight deck design.
 
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If money were to become available in 1948 it would be better spent on new infrastructure to support a modern large carrier fleet than on new ships themselves. Ever since 1943 the thing that has hamstrung all carrier designs until CVF has been a lack of adequately sized dry docks.
 
EwenS said:
If money were to become available in 1948 it would be better spent on new infrastructure to support a modern large carrier fleet than on new ships themselves. Ever since 1943 the thing that has hamstrung all carrier designs until CVF has been a lack of adequately sized dry docks.
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It's more than that, they needed to increase the facilities to develop plant, props and shafts over 50,000shp. Ideally to new limits of 70-80,000shp.

They need drydocks of over 1000ft by 140ft, and without gate constructions or lock constrictions.
Really warfs set up for ships of that length too.

But most of that could have been done after WWI. In fact the US did do just that in effect expanding capacity and propping up their industry.
 
Let's however iterate that in the period, the modernisation of Victorious was supposed to happen after Formidable and that once Formidable was dropped the question ought to have been asked whether it was worth it for Victorious only when Implacable was going to require a different design to fit the desired systems.
Had Illustrious and Formidable been in better state.....
Had Implacable been built to same design as Formidable.....

Lets also factor in the systems creep that meant waiting for the prototype Type 984, CDS/DPT. Which was expected in March '53 to take upto 1958.
In Oct 1950 estimated completion 3 years in April '54
In Oct 1951 estimated completion was 4.5 years march '55
November '52 completion in Jan '56.

Worse...limitations on skilled staff to do these modernisations meant until Victorious was completed, another modernisation would only drastically slow existing progress.

But by June '52 the modernisation plan was dropped leaving only Victorious.

And so since the RN had these limitations, in finance and staff, it was arguably simpler and easier to start anew.

That said perhaps if they'd known all this in '49, they might have just completely rebuilt Formidable and then moved onto Victorious in '57-'58. Which might have gone much more speedily and efficiently.
Or they might have opted for more limited modernisations.
 
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So just thinking out loud. Say a proper survey is done of Victorious it is found the boilers are problematic and the reconstruction is cancelled. The first obvious short term effect would look to me to be taking in hand Hermes for completion in 1950 to cover the gap created, so Hermes is completed around 1953 to the same/similar standard with Centaur. That's the cheapest option hence...

But by the same token you are done with existing hulls by then and presumidly you still want one more carrier in service by 1960. So is this actually creating an opening for a medium carrier starting construction by around 1956-57? The 30 million from Victorious should go quite a way towards financing it but won't suffice by themselves.
 
Hobbs in “The British Carrier Strike Fleet since 1945” writes that in 1947 an Admiralty Committee decided that only a full reconstruction of the armoured carriers was worthwhile as it would give them another 20 years of useful life. At that stage it was “hoped” to reconstruct all 6 in the order Formidable, Victorious, Indomitable, Illustrious, Implacable and Indefatigable. It was recognised at that stage that some had a considerable number of unrectified defects that would complicate the reconstruction process. Treasury and Admiralty approval of the first 2 was obtained by Jan 1948, with the design process starting in Feb and completing in June 1950 with Victorious being taken in hand in Oct.

Hobbs gives an entirely practical reason, but one at odds with the suggested order noted above, for starting with Formidable & Victorious. There were 3 Illustrious as a homogeneous group, then 2 Implacables then the stand alone Indomitable. So more bang for the buck from each design process. Dropping Formidable still leaves the opportunity to benefit Illustrious at a later date, but she was in active use in 1950 so wasn’t immediately available. But she too had her problems. The decision on Formidable is timed in early 1950 by Friedman.

The damage uncovered in the Formidable survey was serious. Her flight deck was distorted, she had prop shaft defects and internally not all the kamikaze and fire damage from May 1945 had been fully repaired. Illustrious also suffered from centre prop issues. Rumours of hull damage in both ships dating back to 1941 have also circulated over the years.

As for the timescale and to add to the above, in March 1953 estimated completion was sometime in 1958. The electronic fit was expected to take 3 years at that point. June that year saw formal approval of the angled flight deck and reboilering. 1954 saw more modifications for guided weapon storage. 1955 improved airborne radar servicing arrangements and 1956 improved aircraft servicing facilities caused by a new generation of aircraft also caused design changes. And in all this the airgroup fell from a planned 55 to 38.

The problem according to Friedman, when it came to Implacable was one of space. Her 4 shaft machinery occupied 40% of her underwater volume compared with 30% for Victorious. That in turn demanded more crew space for the extra men required to man it. To try to regain space they looked at using the upper hangar deck for the new hangar but that meant raising the flight deck by 9ft and adding bulges which would then have limited the number of places she could dock. Then the attempts at cost cutting began and the realisation that the expensive bits were the very necessary bits of the project to make a worthwhile carrier. And so it went round and round until about Feb 1952. Then, as noted above,in June 1952, the Admiralty decided to can the reconstructions beyond Victorious.

Implacable was scheduled to commence reconstruction in April 1953 for completion in 1956. But other work meant that this was going to have to be push back to April 1955 start. And all the finance, skill and capacity problems noted by Zen couldn’t be overcome.
 
Lascaris said:
So just thinking out loud. Say a proper survey is done of Victorious it is found the boilers are problematic and the reconstruction is cancelled. The first obvious short term effect would look to me to be taking in hand Hermes for completion in 1950 to cover the gap created, so Hermes is completed around 1953 to the same/similar standard with Centaur. That's the cheapest option hence...

But by the same token you are done with existing hulls by then and presumidly you still want one more carrier in service by 1960. So is this actually creating an opening for a medium carrier starting construction by around 1956-57? The 30 million from Victorious should go quite a way towards financing it but won't suffice by themselves.
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I’m not following you. Completion of Hermes in 1950 is impossible. The rest of the class, unmodified, didn’t complete until 1953/54

Work on Hermes, having restarted in 1949 for completion in 1953, was delayed so that she could be fitted with steam catapults. Then it was decided that more could be done with her leading to her 4th redesign in 1953/54. That gave her 2 steam cats, angled deck, Type 984/CDS and 31 aircraft. More redesign in 1957 to increase the aviation fuel stowage.

The design process for a new carrier begun in 1952 rumbled on throughout the decade until it became CVA01 in the 1960s

The problem in the 1956/7 timeframe is that you run into Duncan Sandy’s defence cuts and the upheaval to the defence industry, and in particular the aviation industry that that produces. All sorts of projects including a next generation of carrier fighters gets canned. What kind of carrier is then needed? Everyone has to go back to square one.
 
This all raises the question over Illustrious, after all, why wasn't she moved up to next in line after Victorious? By the time this could be decided ('49-'52) they knew the likely timescale and that she'd potentially go into dock after '56.
A repeat Victorious was the cheapest easiest option of modernisations even at the risk of having to crack her open down to the center shaft to fix any warping.
Assuming a 5 year refit (arguably a worst case scenario) and ISD of 1963, this would take her to 1983....
 
Post 1956 we have long term plan of Guided Weapon Carrier a.k.a Cruiser-Carrier Hybrid. 3 of which were kept on the plans until 1960.
In fact killing this expanded the requirement to 5 CV instead of 3 CVGWS.
Armed with what is likely NIGS replacing DLI Fighters (suggesting F.177 was doomed the moment Sea Slug MkIII turned into NIGS), but retaining Strike and ASW and maybe FAW-CAP.

This interrelated issue suggests had Sea Slug MkIII stayed as just that and not spiralled into NIGS absurdity, the F.177 might arguably have continued post '57. After all it was viewed as the better system compared to Lightning 'at the time'.
 
The first suggestions that the armoured carriers should be reconstructed post-war actually dates to 1945, it's about generating requirements for all the then extant carriers rather than designs, I took the following notes related to the illustrious class:

6 x twin 4.5" with independent RPC
6 x sextuple bofors (each with its own CRBF)
12 x STAAG mountings

There is also reference to air weapons stowage too (e.g. Uncle Tom).

The reconstruction sequence given by Hobbes was actually driven by the perceived need for modernisation, Illustrious had been partially modernised in 1945 so was seen as one of the most modern ships in the active fleet, hence she came after Formidable, Victorious and Indomitable in the proposed sequence. The shrinking carrier force would have allowed the RN to be much pickier about which ships it rebuilt, thus Formidable could be discarded. To link back to this post, the 1954 medium carrier might be seen as direct replacement for the previously planned Implacable reconstruction within the 3 x trade protection, 2 x striking fleet force that then constituted the RN wartime fleet.
 
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A good case could be make that the six Ill-dom-able were doomed by the following facts.

Six ships, three different subclasses differing by their HANGARS. The six were divided into 3 - 2 - 1 (instead of 2 - 2 - 2) and on top of that...

Of the largest subclass (3): Illustrious, Formidable, Victorious - two had been so badly crippled in WWII, they were pretty worn out.

Indomitable remained a loner with a different hangar.

And the last two - Implacables - had the worst hangar of the lot, the one needing the largest reconstruction.

The Implacable/Indefatigable rebuild was to include stripping the ship down to the lower hangar deck then rebuilding with a 17ft 6" hangar (at least) and a gallery deck above that, as in Victorious.
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This essentially mean: 4 out of 6 could be modernized, but since they belonged to three different classes (!) with three different hangars (!!) each reconstruction would more or less been a one-shot not applicable to any other of the lot.

So yes, this was completely hopeless...

No suprise Victorious was the one and only to be rebuild ! It was essentially the ONLY one with the CORRECT HANGAR and NOT CRIPPLED in WWII ! And since even the reconstruction of this one went bad, the others stood no chance afterwards...
 
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To make a long story short - whatever carrier that wasn't crippled in WWII (Illustrious, Formidable) had the wrong hangar size / shape / whatever (Indomitable and the two Implacables !)

Leaving Victorious as the lone with the "right" hangar and in a shape "good enough" to endure a rebuild. Well, not even quite: since they found during the rebuild that the turbines were screwed up !

That's the Murphy Law as its best, really. Or "how to turn a perfectly good fleet of 6 big carriers into a complete mess that can't be upgraded properly."

For example, had Illustrious and Formidable not been eviscerated (by Stukas and by Kamikazes) during WWII, at least one of the two could have been rebuild like Victorious was. Perhaps Formidable: and don't forget, that Kamikaze destruction come in spring 1945. Had that kamikaze crippled illustrious instead, it would have been the final nail in the coffin from the elder in the fleet, leaving Formidable at Victorious level of good shape.

Alternatively, it seems pretty stupid to build six ships while reworking the hangar(s) two times - resulting in THREE different hangars schemes for SIX ships.
Even more in 3 - 1 - 2 batches rather than 2 - 2 - 2. WTF was Indomitable left a loner ?

Oh well... as said earlier in the thread, and elsewhere - forget these six, bet the short-term fleet on the Colossus "lights" and the long-term fleet on Centaurs & Audacious.

Of course, hindsight is always 20/20.

Geez... what a mess the RN had in their hands, by 1948 !

They must have felt very alone... despite the 1949 "revolt of the admirals" drama, at least the USN had a colossal budget and a decent carrier fleet with all the Essex plus the Midways. Their unique big trouble was to get the first supercarrier - either USS United States or Forrestal - funded and build.
 
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Perhaps the really deep question was why build a heavily revised design instead of either just building repeat Illustriouses or a properly new design as per Audacious....
Did Implacable actually deliver any real benefits in actual war over Illustrious?

Makes me wonder how much more beneficial it would have been to just keep cranking out Illustrious class carriers.
 
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Hell of an idea. You said in three lines what I said in a bazillon of words. :p

Build three or four exactly identical Illustrious, stop right there, shift toward Audacious (since Centaurs are in the "light" category along Colossus).
 
So, I've been thinking about it for a couple days, and what I think the Royal Navy needs to do is to step back and conduct a thorough evaluation of their carrier fleet before making any decisions. Take the time and do it right. And they need to realize that their existing carrier fleet is totally unsuitable for modernization.

This is strictly my opinion, but I think the British fell into the trap of hyper specializing their carrier fleet for the war they fought in WWII with little to no thought of what would happen after. Their carrier designs were focused on fighting the Germans in the North Sea and the Italians in the Med with little to no consideration of operations in other theaters. Somewhere along the way, the UK lost sight of what the primary purpose of an aircraft carrier was (to deliver air power from the sea) and became mission fixated on keeping the Germans out of the Atlantic and the Italians bottled up in the Med. Now, weather they realize that by 1948, I don't know. I think in some ways, they stayed mission fixated and simply swapped "Soviets" for "Germans and Italians."

What I would do? Pause construction of Eagle and Ark Royal to give you time to design and build them to a common standard. Do the same with the Centaur class. Pause them while you work out a common design standard that can maximize those ships. I also plan on only completing 3 of the class and offer to complete the fourth for whoever is willing to pay for it. This gives you five brand new carriers in service within 10 years.

Despite what I said earlier, you do need to modernize the existing carriers a bit to cover the gap until the new ships are online. But what you don't do is break the bank doing it. Pick and choose which ships you want to keep until the new ones are ready, and give them the bare minimum needed to keep them viable for the next 5-10 years. That means no major hull surgery or alterations. At most, they get hydraulic or early steam cats, new arrester gear and maybe an angled deck (despite the way it looks, adding an angled deck is actually a cheap and easy upgrade that can be done in under 6 months).
 
And yet at the time, they thought that the 'year of maximum danger' was 1957. This was in 1945 and onwards until '56, when the Defence Review should have happened.
They thought it was then that the Soviets would launch WWIII.
 
And then Korea happened and we panicked.
Superpriority, rearmament, fast track modernisations. Suddenly the US got cosy again.
And it when it seemed that we weren't having WWIII early, we were left with a lot of bad rushed decisions and their consequences.
 
SSgtC said:
So, I've been thinking about it for a couple days, and what I think the Royal Navy needs to do is to step back and conduct a thorough evaluation of their carrier fleet before making any decisions. Take the time and do it right. And they need to realize that their existing carrier fleet is totally unsuitable for modernization.

This is strictly my opinion, but I think the British fell into the trap of hyper specializing their carrier fleet for the war they fought in WWII with little to no thought of what would happen after. Their carrier designs were focused on fighting the Germans in the North Sea and the Italians in the Med with little to no consideration of operations in other theaters. Somewhere along the way, the UK lost sight of what the primary purpose of an aircraft carrier was (to deliver air power from the sea) and became mission fixated on keeping the Germans out of the Atlantic and the Italians bottled up in the Med. Now, weather they realize that by 1948, I don't know. I think in some ways, they stayed mission fixated and simply swapped "Soviets" for "Germans and Italians."

What I would do? Pause construction of Eagle and Ark Royal to give you time to design and build them to a common standard. Do the same with the Centaur class. Pause them while you work out a common design standard that can maximize those ships. I also plan on only completing 3 of the class and offer to complete the fourth for whoever is willing to pay for it. This gives you five brand new carriers in service within 10 years.

Despite what I said earlier, you do need to modernize the existing carriers a bit to cover the gap until the new ships are online. But what you don't do is break the bank doing it. Pick and choose which ships you want to keep until the new ones are ready, and give them the bare minimum needed to keep them viable for the next 5-10 years. That means no major hull surgery or alterations. At most, they get hydraulic or early steam cats, new arrester gear and maybe an angled deck (despite the way it looks, adding an angled deck is actually a cheap and easy upgrade that can be done in under 6 months).
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Brilliant. Well in this case - screw Illustrious and Formidable, WWII wrecked them. Of the four remaining... what can be done ? Victorious is now a one-off. So is Indomitable (and that 1953 fire... ding dong, it is dead, Jim). Screw them, too ? And keep the Implacables, build later.

So maybe - Victorious plus Implacables and all the Colossus, up to 1955. Then gradually pivot the fleet toward two Audacious and three or four Centaurs. Thats seven carriers if the third Audacious is build.

From 1960 then gradually wind down that fleet according to the many crisis in that era. If Invincibles are bound to happen, then the Harrier is all the more important.
The neat thing with Buccaneer is that it can fly out of Centaurs as much as Audacious. Air Defence by contrast is very tricky. By this point I wonder about a Buccaneer ADV ! Mixed with Harriers.

Once the Audacious are gone - probably 1980 - keep a mixed fleet of Centaurs and Invincibles, Harriers and Buccaneers. The last two Centaurs with a mix of Buccaneers and S-3 Vikings (as suggested in other threads) would be good enough.
 
It occurs to me that had the RN had better plant machinery coming along as per the AH Centaur thread.
That the drive to fit four sets into a modified Illustrious hull wouldn't exist as with 135,000shp to 150,000shp on three sets, would deliver sufficient improvement to just lengthen the Illustrious class.

So in fact the irony of better plant machinery for Centaurs could be simpler Implacables that are easier to modernise as well.
 
Archibald said:
So maybe - Victorious plus Implacables and all the Colossus, up to 1955. Then gradually pivot the fleet toward two Audacious and three or four Centaurs. Thats seven carriers if the third Audacious is build.

From 1960 then gradually wind down that fleet according to the many crisis in that era. If Invincibles are bound to happen, then the Harrier is all the more important.
The neat thing with Buccaneer is that it can fly out of Centaurs as much as Audacious. Air Defence by contrast is very tricky. By this point I wonder about a Buccaneer ADV ! Mixed with Harriers.

Once the Audacious are gone - probably 1980 - keep a mixed fleet of Centaurs and Invincibles, Harriers and Buccaneers. The last two Centaurs with a mix of Buccaneers and S-3 Vikings (as suggested in other threads) would be good enough.
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Well, the new ships would be entering service probably between 1954 and 1958. So the first of the old carriers can be sent into reserve around that time. I would probably put the light fleets into reserve and scrap the AFD boats. The light fleets are more useful as ASW assets should the Cold War go hot and they're going to be attractive to smaller countries wanting carriers. Selling them brings in some much needed money to the treasury.

Also, by rationalizing the designs into two common classes, instead of a bunch of "one offs," you can more easily maintain the fleet and don't have to keep piles of similar but different parts in stock. By doing that, you get a better maintained fleet that isn't making the treasury scream every time a custom part had to be ordered for a repair. That part is now in stock and costs much less. Now, instead of a broken down and barely operational fleet, you've got ships that can actually reach their designed life span and serve for 30-35 years in the RN (budgets permitting). That means Eagle and Ark Royal can probably serve up through the Gulf War and either decommission in 92/93 or get a SLEP and soldier on through 2010 or so.
 
zen said:
Perhaps the really deep question was why build a heavily revised design instead of either just building repeat Illustriouses or a properly new design as per Audacious....
Did Implacable actually deliver any real benefits in actual war over Illustrious?

Makes me wonder how much mote beneficial it would have been to just keep cranking out Illustrious class carriers.
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To understand what happened you need to go back to 1935/36. Ark Royal III with 60 aircraft was designed with war against Japan in mind. The Abyssinian crisis changed the RN’s focus to the Med. And the concern was that in pre-radar days there would be little chance of intercepting land based bombers in time with the few fighters a carrier could carry. So what was seen as needed was a means of protecting its own aircraft and the Illustrious class was born with 4 ships ordered in the 1936 and 1937 programmes and laid down in 1937. The long term plan after that was to order a single carrier per year.

The instruction to the designers when the 1938 programme carrier was planned was to build a faster Illustrious by forcing the machinery plant. Why the need for speed? That seems to have been lost in the mists of time. But look at the battleship programme. The Illustrious class offered a speed advantage over a KGV but not over a 1938 Lion class. The problem was the EinC at the Admiralty said it couldn’t be done without a new 4 shaft machinery layout.

But this was all to be achieved on the 1936 London Treaty carrier limit of 23,000 tons standard displacement which Britain wanted to try to stick to despite it effectively being dead in the water after the Japanese withdrew from it.

After that it was decided to increase the aircraft hangar capacity from 33 to 48 leading to the lower hangar, which could then only be half length to ensure space for the extra workshops and accommodation, to keep within that tonnage limit again. The sacrifice was the level of protection and thinner hangar protection.

The 1938 carrier, Implacable, was laid down in March 1939 with a planned completion date of Oct 1941. The 1939 carrier, Indefatigable, was ordered in June and laid down in Nov 1939 with a planned completion date of June 1942. Then war breaks out, crises arise, priorities keep changing, war experience forces changes to the design and yards struggle to find the manpower to keep to schedule. And finally the new machinery layout experienced problems that had to be solved before they could be accepted for service. The result is 2-3 years of delays.

Then, as Indomitable was already delayed due to her armour coming from Czechoslovakia, the opportunity was taken to redesign her to incorporate as many features of the 1938 carrier design as possible I.e the extra half hangar.

There was a 1940 carrier planned. It began life as a repeat Implacable but couldn’t have been laid down before about March 1941. Then it was modified in light of war experience. Then the design was scrapped and a clean sheet of paper design emerged as the much larger Audacious class with orders placed through 1942 with Audacious laid down in Oct and the 1940 carrier itself, Ark Royal IV, in May 1943.

The Japanese abandoned the London Treaty carrier limit when they laid down the Shokakus in 1937/38 at 26,000 tons.

The US repeated the 20,000 ton Yorktown class in Hornet in 1939. It was only in Feb 1940 the US ordered the 27.000 ton Essex class with the first being laid down in April 1941 for completion in early 1944. They only laid down 3 before Dec 1941.

The Implacables did deliver one advantage, aircraft numbers - 72-81 compared with 55 for Illustrious/Indomitable. But they were restricted to operating Seafires as in 1943/44 Britain couldn’t get enough Hellcats from the US. But they were too late for the Med war.
 
How good would a Buccaneer with Phantom radar and AIM-7 Sparrow, be ? A pretty desperate move but just think "SHAR FA.2" - engine and airframe were limited for sure, BUT Blue Vixen and AMRAAM ruled the skies...

The light fleets are more useful as ASW assets should the Cold War go hot and they're going to be attractive to smaller countries wanting carriers. Selling them brings in some much needed money to the treasury.
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And there were a LOT of them (sixteen ?). France alone, maybe we should have taken two of them instead of the Bois Belleau and Lafayette. Arromanches felt a little alone...
 
So in essence AH new plant from mid-to-late 30's entering 1938 CV and capital ship program would resolve this.
With less mass and volume taken to get to say 150,000shp, by virtue if 50,000shp per shaft, then simplest expedient is to lengthen Illustrious class to drydock limits. At the time for BWL of under 96ft should fit a reasonable number of drydocks and the locks at Portsmouth. This length figure would be at best 850ft overall at flight deck.
But this is sufficient to stick to single hangar deck yet deliver increased aircraft capacity.

That said tonnage limits by treaty, suggest less than 850ft.
Assuming something like 730ft LWL, for overall length of 760ft as per Indomitable.
But an Indomitable with less volume taken by machinery.
But Irresistible
 
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This said if we have 100,000shp on two shafts, a ship like Illustrious now has less volume taken up with machinery as well. Costs less and can be kept inside treaty limits more easily.
With hull volume more available for fuel or magazines or workshops.
 
Archibald said:
How good would a Buccaneer with Phantom radar and AIM-7 Sparrow, be ? A pretty desperate move but just think "SHAR FA.2" - engine and airframe were limited for sure, BUT Blue Vixen and AMRAAM ruled the skies...

The light fleets are more useful as ASW assets should the Cold War go hot and they're going to be attractive to smaller countries wanting carriers. Selling them brings in some much needed money to the treasury.
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And there were a LOT of them (sixteen ?). France alone, maybe we should have taken two of them instead of the Bois Belleau and Lafayette. Arromanches felt a little alone...
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There were 10 Colossus. Perseus & Pioneer were completed as aircraft maintenance ships in 1945 for the BPF with structures on the flight deck and workshops in the hangars and saw little/no service postwar. Colossus to France in July 1946 and Venerable to Netherlands in 1948. The 6 Majestics were different internally and were all laid up part complete in 1946.

The Canadians had agreed to man 2 light carriers for the Pacific war from 1945 with Warrior and Magnificent earmarked for transfer. As things worked out they took Warrior on loan at the start of 1946 then replaced her with Magnificent in 1948, as by then they could only afford one carrier, and then bought the Powerful in 1952 to be refitted with an angled deck for completion in 1957. Warrior returned to Britain in 1948 and Magnificent in 1957.

Postwar the Aussies wanted into the carrier game and bought 2 Majestics in 1947. The straight deck Terrible as Sydney and the rebuilt angled deck Majestic as Melbourne. Delays to Melbourne saw Vengeance loaned to Australia between 1952 and 1955.

The part complete Hercules was then sold to India in 1957 as the Vikrant. The sole remaining ship Leviathan became a parts source for the RN ships until scrapped, still incomplete, in the early 1960s.

The problem with the Colossus class come the 1950s was their inability to take heavier aircraft such as the Gannet as their decks were not designed for the weight. The Majestics were built stronger and those ships of both classes that got angled decks were strengthened further. For the RN that only meant Warrior as refitted in 1955 before being sold to Argentina in 1958 as a defence economy.

So by the mid 1950s the surviving RN ships would all have needed substantial money spent on them to operate the new generation of fixed wing aircraft. It was also one reason for the development of the Short Seamew A/S aircraft from 1951 which proved a failure. The A/S helicopter was in its infancy in those days. The first operational unit was only trialled on Ocean and Theseus, which were training ships by then, from early 1956. The Whirlwind HAS 7 entered service in 1957 but was limited to operating as either a hunter or a killer. The AS helicopter in the RN doesn’t really come of age until the Wessex HAS 1 reaches service in 1961 capable of all weather operation as both hunter and killer.
 
The use, modernisation, sale and retirement, etc. of carriers through the 1950s was a complicated dance aimed at ensuring a relatively small number were available at any one time to meet the wartime force level goals should conflict with the Soviet Union breakout whilst progressively moving towards a stable fleet of "Standard A" vessels. The gap between vessels designed between 1935 and 1945 and Standard A as described in the early 1950s is what drove the very extensive re-constructions, both actual and proposed. The 1952 carrier deliberations serve as an example of what was wanted, Hood has produced a wonderful Shipbucket drawing of Design D.

Warrior's time was just about up in 1957 anyway, having spent time as the trials and training carrier before being dispatched to support UK nuclear tests, she was no longer a frontline ship. She could have been used as a Commando Carrier though the evolving fleet structure ensured that the Centaurs would ultimately be able to take that role.

The Seamew is odd. That it was to be operated from escort carriers is often used as a throwaway remark but suffers from the flaw that there were no escort carriers (aside from Campania). More likely, it was intended that the RNVR squadrons equipped with it would be mobilised to operate from the trials and training carrier and the various ships in reserve (e.g. Illustrious in 1955/56).
 
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The limits of the Colossus and Majestics affected A/S helicopter development too. The whole reason for the 17,000lb AUW limit for the Bristol Type 191 was because of the weight limits of the deck lifts of these ships. Bristol couldn't keep the weight under control and the Admiralty couldn't raise the limit further without writing off any potential use of those ships for escort duty. The RN wanted to keep Type 191 off the fleet carriers due to its size. Frustrated they axe Type 191 and turn to a lighter - but less capable - mix of hunter-killer teams of Whirlwinds until Wessex arrives.
Gannet was too heavy and Seamew was dogged by problems and wasn't really capable except as a weapons delivery platform. Then it was axed.

So the Colossus and Majestics by 1957 had no utility or aircraft left! It was better to sell them off for some monetary gain. Using the four Centaurs was the only option but with so many fleet carriers now scrapped (the I's) or undergoing rebuild or refit or still not completed meant that they had to fill in for the fleet carriers. The whole commerce protection carrier role was dead.

To return to the 1930s capital ship rebuilding programme, it must be remembered that that programme took the best part of a decade and might have lasted until 1943-44 had war not intervened. Surely the Admiralty must have realised that any programme to rebuild the armoured carriers would have taken the better part of the 1950s to complete, not an entirely feasible idea if they were to complete to a reasonably common standard or keep abreast of rapid advances in aviation, nor cheap.
 
And so we should mention the debate between DNC and DAW over such carriers and what can be squeezed out of them.
But because the aircraft cease to be Venom/Vampire, Attacker and Sra Hawk. But instead became Sea Vixen and Scimitar.....
Even if you completely rebuilt them to cope with weights. They just didn't hold enough.
 
In the USA, Ted Heinneman expressedly designed the Skyhawk for this reason - to break the cost / weight escalation. Fact is, he was tremendously successful.
Could a naval Hawker Hunter become GB Skyhawk ?
 
Hood said:
The limits of the Colossus and Majestics affected A/S helicopter development too. The whole reason for the 17,000lb AUW limit for the Bristol Type 191 was because of the weight limits of the deck lifts of these ships. Bristol couldn't keep the weight under control and the Admiralty couldn't raise the limit further without writing off any potential use of those ships for escort duty. The RN wanted to keep Type 191 off the fleet carriers due to its size. Frustrated they axe Type 191 and turn to a lighter - but less capable - mix of hunter-killer teams of Whirlwinds until Wessex arrives.
Gannet was too heavy and Seamew was dogged by problems and wasn't really capable except as a weapons delivery platform. Then it was axed.

So the Colossus and Majestics by 1957 had no utility or aircraft left! It was better to sell them off for some monetary gain. Using the four Centaurs was the only option but with so many fleet carriers now scrapped (the I's) or undergoing rebuild or refit or still not completed meant that they had to fill in for the fleet carriers. The whole commerce protection carrier role was dead.
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This is distinct from the trade protection carriers included in the early 1950s force structure for which full-on Standard A carriers were felt to be necessary. Instead, it seems that the various Majestic/Colossus class vessels, and one assumes anything else laying around with a flat deck, would host mobilised RNVR squadrons in wartime to become ASW carriers. Between 1955, when 1834 (Sea Fury) Squadron was disbanded, and 1947 the RNVR had five fighter and six ASW squadrons. The fighter squadrons were operating Attackers and Sea Hawks by 1957 and the ASW squadrons Gannets and Avengers, the Seamew was to replace the Avenger. The RNVR and any serious interest in a large reserve fleet went in 1957.
 
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Archibald said:
In the USA, Ted Heinneman expressedly designed the Skyhawk for this reason - to break the cost / weight escalation. Fact is, he was tremendously successful.
Could a naval Hawker Hunter become GB Skyhawk ?
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Maybe, but it was Hooked Swifts that were to be trialled and considering they were structurally strong airframes.....

But I suspect the Gnat and it's evolutions was the solution after the DH.127 fell to DH's DH110.
 
PMN1 said:
So what we want is for the Colossus to be Majestics, the Majestics to be Centaurs and the Implacables to be Audacious.....with Y300 type machinery and A/C electrics all round. :)
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Yeap!
But what we really want is Ark Royal to be the 900ft long carrier study of 29,000tons deep load instead of the 800ft long Scheme.
 

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