Japanese vs American Aircraft Carriers

Thanks for watching, remember to like & subscribe!

Aircraft carriers serve as a seagoing airbases, equipped with a flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying and recovering aircraft. Typically, they are the capital ships of a fleet, as they project air power worldwide without depending on local bases for operational support. Aircraft carriers are expensive and are considered critical assets. By the Second World War aircraft carriers had evolved from converted cruisers, to purpose built vessels of many classes and roles. Fleet carriers were the largest type, operating with the main fleet to provide offensive capability. Light aircraft carriers were fast enough to operate with the fleet but smaller and with fewer aircraft.

Escort carriers were smaller and slower, with low numbers of aircraft, and provided defense for convoys. Most of the latter were built from mercantile hulls or, in the case of merchant aircraft carriers, were bulk cargo ships with a flight deck added on top. Catapult aircraft merchant ships, were cargo-carrying merchant ships that could launch (but not retrieve) a single fighter aircraft from a catapult to defend the convoy from long-range German aircraft.

The aircraft carrier dramatically changed naval combat in the war, as air power became a significant factor in warfare. The advent of aircraft as primary weapons was driven by the superior range, flexibility and effectiveness of carrier-launched aircraft. They had higher range and precision than naval guns, making them highly effective. The versatility of the carrier was demonstrated in November 1940 when HMS Illustrious launched a long-range strike on the Italian fleet at their base in Taranto, signalling the beginning of effective and highly mobile aircraft strikes. This operation incapacitated three of the six battleships at a cost of two torpedo bombers.

In the Pacific Ocean clashes occurred between aircraft carrier fleets. The 1941 Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was a clear illustration of the power projection capability afforded by a large force of modern carriers. Concentrating six carriers in a single unit turned naval history about, as no other nation had fielded anything comparable. However, the vulnerability of carriers compared to traditional battleships when forced into a gun-range encounter was quickly illustrated by the sinking of HMS Glorious by German battleships during the Norwegian campaign in 1940.

This new-found importance of naval aviation forced nations to create a number of carriers, in an effort to provide air superiority for every major fleet. This extensive usage required the construction of several new 'light' carriers. Escort aircraft carriers, such as USS Bogue, were sometimes purpose-built, but most were converted from merchant ships as a stop-gap measure to provide anti-submarine air support for convoys and amphibious invasions. Following this concept, light aircraft carriers built by the US, such as USS Independence, represented a larger and more "militarized" version of the escort carrier. Although with complements similar to escort carriers, they had the advantage of speed from their converted cruiser hulls. The British 1942 Design Light Fleet Carrier was designed for quick construction by civilian shipyards and a short three-year service life. They served the Royal Navy during the war, and their hull design was chosen for nearly all aircraft carrier equipped navies after the war until the 1980s. Emergency situations during the war spurred the creation of highly unconventional aircraft carriers, such as the CAM ships.

The List of ships of World War II contains major military vessels of the war, arranged alphabetically

#navy #ww2 #wwii #warships

[jamesbriers]

Sending half your aircraft from each carrier resulted in them having to decide whether to launch the second wave after changing payloads or recover their returning planes. Couldn't do both at the same time. Throw in the piecemeal US attacks which required violent manoeuvring and CAP launches and chaos reigned on their flight decks. The book, Shattered Sword by Marshall and Tully gives an excellent description of Japanese carriers and their operations at Midway.

[petestorz]

Using Kido Butai, all 6 carriers, as a coordinated unit was innovative. USN doctrine used carriers as individual units, with minimal coordination. This showed, badly, at Midway. It wasn't until well into 1943 that the USN had enough carriers to show that they had learned. IJN AA weapons were largely stuck in the 1930s - slow to train and limited practical rate of fire - when planes were slower and less robust. The USN had the excellent 5"/38 and very decent 5"/25, but the 1.1" cannon was not great, and .50 caliber machine guns were too limited in range. Starting early in the war, the USN replaced the 1.1"ers with 40 mm Bofors and the .50s with 20 mm Oerlikons, which worked much better. WRT fighter direction, one of the lessons learned around Guadalcanal was the need for sensor displays, interpretation, and information integration, and the CIC was devised and refined. The IJN, apparently, did not coordinate information gathering and coordination to the same degree. All in all, the USN did better during the war at learning and evolving/innovating.

[Malbeefance]

Althought all the three big carrier builders of WWII had doctinal and design issues, I have to grant a lot of leeway. This was still the pioneering days of carrier warfare and nobody actually 'knew' anything. It was still all theory and guess work. So, naturally, bad ideas were going to be getting tried alongside good ideas.

[greendragon]

Thank you for another great video. The Asiatic Fleet, or the Forgotten Fleet as they're known during the beginning of the war, garnered heavy losses. But in doing so, it allowed the US to repair a lot of ships from Pearl Harbor to go out and fight and regain control of the war to include all the advancements that were made. My kids never had TV growing up and we would study different aspects of history, this being one of them with all the first aircraft carriers. My daughter is now 39 was so proud when she strolled in the first grade and told her teacher about the first aircraft carrier and the Asiatic Fleet in fact I'm going to send her this video❤

[davidpickens]

History will always remember the name, Enterprise

[jonathonhass]

Enterprise wasn’t one of the most decorated, she WAS the most decorated with 20 battle stars, 3 more than any other ship.

[clmk]

Says a lot about Japanese engineering when the only countries that had carrier vs carrier fights were the USA and Japan

[billotto]

It's the greatest shame on America that the Enterprise wasn't preserved as the greatest carrier of WW2. 😢😢😢

[ChuckJansenII]

The US Navy learned a lot of lessons. One lesson is how much of a difference a Padre could make in saving an Aircraft Carrier.
As you mentioned there were 7 CV's at the start of the war since Langley had been modified to be a seaplane tender and aircraft transport. Of the eight ships that carried or the one that once carried the CV hull designation 5 were sunk and they were sunk in order of their hull number.
Langley AV-3 (former CV-1) sunk 27 February 1942 Off Java Coast
Lexington CV-2 sunk 8 May 1942 Battle of the Coral Sea
Yorktown CV-5 sunk 7 June 1942 Battle of Midway
Wasp CV-7 sunk 15 September 1942 off Guadalcanal
Hornet CV-8 27 October 1942 Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands

[rudewalrus]

One error: The Val had a substantially _shorter_ range than the SBD - not longer.

[Guangrui]

the unarmoured flight deck albeit closed hangar combination was nothing short of a death sentence for those serving on the Japanese carriers, especially on the posts down in the belly

[admiralbeez]

No FDO (CIC), no radar, tiny islands without separate flag bridges, shoddy AA guns and terrible damage control, no useful aircraft radios, no folding wing fighters or dive bombers, poor reconnaissance and terrible CAP doctrine; the IJN were behind in so many areas of technology and doctrine. Add to that the IJN’s terrible pilot and aircraft replenishment pipeline. The IJN was doomed.

[Backwardlooking]

An excellent summary of. Thank you. 👍🏻🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[mikehenthorn]

Oh crap.
IJN doctrine was launch all planes to attack. Saving back only some fighters for defense.
They lost at Midway on the scouting phase.
They had slower elevators and had to prep planes in the hanger. They never could recover and arm another strike while being attacked. The log books show this.

[gruntforever]

The truly superb Japanese Air Crew actually made up for a lot of faults; once they were gone the IJN carrier force was truly a paper tiger.
I would argue that on Dec 7, the pilots of Kido Batai were probably the best group of pilots on earth

[Tucker_George]

I sure could go for a U-boat model right about now.

[dirkellis]

I would point out that the TBD devastator although quite advanced fur it's time in blueprint draw up phase and even in the prototype phase none the less became obsolete in production

[Not_So_Weird_in_Austin]

Efficency in the American fleet was not fixed till 1943. The total number of carrier aircraft on both sides was equal in numbers.

[Napoleon-lc]

"Kate" torpedo planes helped sink Lexington, Yorktown, and Hornet during 1942.

[SunnyJohn]

Get rid of that "CRITICALPAST" overprint and I might watch more of your videos.