On Thursday, in article
<memo.20080306104707.3392A@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
prd@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Paul Dormer" wrote:
> In article <fqnhb2$7n0$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, kfl@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Keith F.
> Lynch) wrote:
>
> > Okay, I guess I should have said allied lives. Americans tend to
> > think of the European Theater as an allied effort, but the Pacific
> > Theater as just US vs. Japan.
>
> The Duke of Edinburgh (husband to the Queen) served in the Pacific War.
> I saw him being interviewed on TV about his experiences many years ago.
>
> He mentioned that he was on the bridge of his ****p with an American
> officer standing next to him. There was a British aircraft carrier
> alongside his ****p. Suddenly, a kamikaze plane crashed into the deck
> of the aircraft carrier. The American officer started to panic,
> expecting a big explosion.
>
> Turned out that US aircraft carriers had wooden flight decks. He was
> expecting the plane to go right through and blow up the magazine.
>
> British aircraft carriers had armoured flight decks. The duke said
> that what happened next was, after the smoke had cleared, a number of
> ratings appeared with brooms and swept the wreckage over the side.
There's an interesting bit of naval architecture in all this, which
apparently explains some of the secrecy still surrounding the
construction of modern US carriers. The British designs had the armoured
flightdeck as part of the hull structure--the "hull box"--and by the end
of the war several carriers, which had taken battle damage, were having
problems with things such as shaft alignment. It's like bending the
chassis of a vehicle.
The US carriers, with the wooden flightdeck, had the hangar space
outside the hull box, and this also avoided problems with aircraft
lifts. The big hole in the flightdeck didn't affect the hull structural
strength.
When the US Navy introduced armoured flight decks, which means protected
hangar space, they seem to have done something clever to minimise
effects on the key structure of the hull box. And deck-edge lifts, while
they have implications on the structural strength, seem to include
similar clevernesses.
Whether it works in combat, I doubt anyone can be sure, unless we're
doing serious computer simulations.
And, paradoxically, the wooden flight deck was reparable. Yes, you had
the ****p out of action, and you had a hangar fire, but the USN did have
very good firefighting. Repairing that damage might not need the same
major ****pyard resources that an armoured flightdeck, holed or just
buckled, would need.
--
David G. Bell -- SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.
On the horizon, a carrier task force of the Salvation Navy was
turning into the wind, preparing to launch Zeppelins.
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