Chapter 850 Alaska (3)
During World War II, the Japanese Navy built the world's largest "super aircraft carrier" at the time, the Shinano. It was indeed "super", with a full load displacement of 71,890 tons (standard displacement of 62,000 tons). This record was not broken until the commissioning of the USS Forrestal aircraft carrier ten years later.
At that time, the Japanese Navy was preparing to build a so-called "unsinkable" giant ship. In World War II, the attack on aircraft carriers was to use dive bombers to attack the deck and finally explode inside, or to use torpedoes to attack the position below the waterline. In view of these characteristics, the Japanese Navy installed a 75-100 mm fully armored flight deck for this aircraft carrier.
The entire aircraft carrier runway is all heavy armored decks, but they feel that it is not safe enough, so just below the armored deck, a 200 mm reinforced concrete mixed plate is installed again, which is enough to withstand a direct hit from a 1,000-pound (5KG) bomb. And armor plates are also installed at the waterline to resist torpedo attacks.
As a result, during the sea trials in 1944, the destroyer formation escorting it included the famous "Snow Wind" destroyer. Not long after it went to sea, the Shinano was ambushed by a US submarine and became a poor short-lived ghost, buried in the sea.
Compared with the exaggerated flight deck thickness of the Shinano, when aircraft carriers were first born, their flight decks were all made of wood, and there was no armor under the wooden deck, only structural steel.
Because wooden decks have many advantages (weight reduction, low cost, anti-slip, moisture-proof, heat insulation, and easy maintenance), this arrangement continued until the late 1930s.
But at the same time, wooden decks also have the disadvantage of insufficient protection.
To make up for this shortcoming, when the United Kingdom built (1936) the new "Glorious" class aircraft carrier, while adopting a new closed hangar design, the flight deck was upgraded to a steel deck with 76 mm armor protection. Its design idea is to fight in the North Atlantic with high sea conditions and the Mediterranean Sea surrounded by land. The demand for seaworthiness and protection is placed first, thus the world's first fully armored aircraft carrier was born.
The armored flight deck provides the "Glorious" class aircraft carrier with strong survivability, but at the same time it also sacrifices the number of carrier-based aircraft. Compared with the "Royal Ark" aircraft carrier with a wooden flight deck and double-layer hangar design (with 60 carrier-based aircraft), the "Glorious" class aircraft carrier has only a single-layer hangar and only 36 carrier-based aircraft, which is far lower than the number of nearly 100 carrier-based aircraft on aircraft carriers of other naval powers at the same time.
In contrast, the American Essex-class fleet carrier only laid a thinner 38mm thick armored deck (with a wooden deck on top), and strengthened the thickness of the hangar's horizontal armor to 76mm, greatly enhancing its horizontal protection performance; the number of carrier-based aircraft reached nearly 100, completely crushing the Shinano aircraft carrier (the Shinano's basic structure was the "Yamato" class battleship, without an optimized layout, with a huge displacement of more than 60,000 tons, and its designed aircraft were only 20 Gale carrier battleships and 27 Meteor carrier bombers, a total of 47 aircraft).
In the later stages of the war, the "Essex" class aircraft carriers withstood multiple attacks from Japanese torpedoes, bombs and "Kamikaze" suicide planes, and many aircraft carriers of the same class were damaged, but none of them were sunk by the Japanese. Among them, the USS Franklin was the most seriously damaged ship. During the air raid on the island country (the USS Franklin had been attacked several times in previous operations in the Mariana Islands, the Philippines, etc.), it was attacked by Japanese fighter planes. The first bomb penetrated the flight deck in the middle front, then exploded in the hangar, destroyed the front elevator, and almost killed all the personnel near the hangar. Only two people survived there. The second bomb penetrated the flight deck in the middle and rear, exploded in the hangar, and overturned the elevator at the stern. The communication system of the entire ship of the Franklin was almost completely interrupted, and the front and rear decks on the starboard side caught fire. Soon after, the anti-aircraft guns and aircraft ammunition began to ignite, causing multiple explosions in the next five hours. Finally, it survived with the full rescue of many friendly ships, successfully withdrew from the battlefield, and returned to the country for repairs under its own power.
The German "Essex" class aircraft carrier's defense capability was naturally not much worse. Although the bomb smashed through the 38mm thick armored deck and the 76mm thick hangar armor, smashed into the hangar and exploded, fortunately, the fighters and attack planes in the hangar had all taken off, and the explosion of the bomb did not cause any chain damage. The damage control team on the aircraft carrier put out the fire in the hangar without much effort.
At this time, the US military fleet was also at the end of its strength. In order to break through the dense anti-aircraft firepower of the German fleet, they lost nearly one-third of their fighters, and another one-third were intercepted by the German A-1 attack aircraft, and they could not protect themselves; and those fleets that finally broke into the center of the fleet were also subjected to more intense anti-aircraft firepower. Many US fighters were either blown up in mid-air or fell into the sea with long smoke.
But the remaining fighters still dived to drop bombs and torpedoes under the German artillery fire.
At this time, the German fighter planes that rushed back finally rushed into the battlefield and killed all the American fighter planes in one breath.
At this time, the German fleet was in ruins.
Among the two main aircraft carriers of the fleet, in addition to the bomb that hit the hangar, another bomb also hit the flight deck of the first one. However, this was a small bomb that could not even penetrate the 38mm thick armor. It exploded on the deck and blew a big hole. As a result, the two bombs blew two pits, one large and one small, on the straight deck. Fortunately, the angled deck was not damaged, and the fighter planes could still land.
The second aircraft carrier was hit by two torpedoes on the side, and the explosion of the torpedoes tore two large holes in the underwater armor on the side of the aircraft carrier. Seawater rushed into the hull of the aircraft carrier frantically, flooding multiple watertight compartments. Although the Essex-class aircraft carrier has many watertight compartments, it can't withstand so much seawater pouring in, and the hull tilted slightly; the captain had no choice but to order the watertight compartments on the other side to be filled with water to keep the hull balanced.
Fortunately, the two aircraft carriers are not in danger of sinking and should be able to return safely to the nearest port of Adak Island.
The rest of the warships suffered heavy losses. Two cruisers, three frigates, and five destroyers sank, and the rest were also injured. The casualties were countless.
"These damn bastards!" Colonel Bergman's face was extremely dark. Although their achievements were brilliant, the Imperial Navy's aircraft carriers had never suffered such a huge loss since the outbreak of the war.