Aircraft Carriers

I found this post about the RFA Argus in another forum;

Does anyone have any information on what is actually being done to Argus during her SLEP at A&P Falmouth? There's an article on the web mentions new generators, but that's about it for solid information.

Rumours abounded when I was on her last year, but until she comes out of drydock sporting a new stealth superstructure, Seawolf VLS salvaged from the new Forts and a couple of AK-130 turrets, what's the best information in the public domain?

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Obi Wan..Do you have any information that you can share on this? Is this real? Or just speculation by a RN "dreamboy?" If not what do you know Master Jedi Obi Wan?

Good picture page of RFA Argus

bd popeye said:

Is this real? Or just speculation by a RN "dreamboy?"

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I think the guy was being sarcastic, popeye, because of the lack of concrete information concerning what work is being carried out.

I was picking up a load on Falmouth quay a couple of years ago, and all of 50ft away from me was RFA Wave Ruler undergoing refit at A&P's yard. Falmouth is mostly a fishing port, although large vessels can berth there (Wave Ruler is larger than Argus at 31,000tons) and refits of commercial vessels alongside aren't a problem, but a major reconstruction? I didn't see anything to suggest the yard could handle such a huge task. A SLEP refit effectively renewing the existing ship without any major structural changes on the other hand is well within their capacity. I expect she will transfer to Pompey or Guz for the VLS and Stealth Superstructure to be installed!

That is of course if both yards mange to finish work on Captain Nemo's Nautilus and the Flying Dutchman in time...

Jedi master Obi Wan sez;

That is of course if both yards mange to finish work on Captain Nemo's Nautilus and the Flying Dutchman in time...

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:roll: Now that is funny.

Hey Obi Wan I heard Dath Vaders Star Cruiser was in Falmouth?? Truth or fiction?

Don't know if this is a good place to ask but i have got a few question on carriers. Just wondering when and where did carrier was created???
Another small question that i got is what was the size of the carrier that the american used at the first trial?

ahho said:

Don't know if this is a good place to ask but i have got a few question on carriers. Just wondering when and where did carrier was created???
Another small question that i got is what was the size of the carrier that the american used at the first trial?

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Nov. 14, 1910 - Eugene Ely, 24, a civilian pilot, took off in a 50-hp. Curtiss plane from a wooden platform built over the bow of the light cruiser USS Birmingham (CL-2). The ship was at anchor in Hampton Roads, Va., and Ely landed moments later on Willoughby Spit.



Jan. 18, 1911 - At 11:01 a.m., Eugene Ely, flying a Curtiss pusher, landed on a specially built platform aboard the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania (ACR 4) at anchor in San Francisco Bay. At 11:58 a.m., he took off and returned to Selfridge Field, San Francisco.



Jul. 11, 1919 - The Naval Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1920 provided for the conversion of the collier Jupiter into a ship specifically designed to launch and recover airplanes at sea — an aircraft carrier — later to be named Langley. The engineering plans for this conversion were modified in November and included catapults to be fitted on both the forward and after ends of the "flying-off" deck.



Mar. 20, 1922 - USS Langley (CV 1), converted from the collier USS Jupiter (AC 3), was placed in commission at Norfolk, Va., as the Navy's first aircraft carrier. The ship's executive officer, Cmdr. Kenneth Whiting, was in command.



Langely was 11,500 tons, was 542 feet long, was armed with 4 five inch guns, had a crew of 468 and could carry 55 aircraft.

After conversion to a sea plane tender in 1936, Langley was mainly employed in the Pacific for the rest of her days. She was sent to the Far East in 1939 and was still there when the Pacific War began in December 1941. Through the early months of the conflict, she supported seaplane patrols and provided aircraft transportation services. While carrying Army fighters to the Netherlands East Indies on 27 February 1942, Langley was attacked by Japanese aircraft. Hit by several bombs and disabled, she was scuttled by her escorting destroyers.

By comparison, the Japanese launched their first aircraft carrier, the Hosho, in December of 1922, nine months after the Americans. The Hosho displaced 10,500 tons, had a crew of 550 and could carry 26 aircraft. She saw action in the Battle of Midway, providing modest air coverage to the Japanese main fleey (not the carrier task force). She was relegated to training duties near the home islands in 1943 and survived the war and was scrapped in 1947.

ahho said:

Don't know if this is a good place to ask but i have got a few question on carriers. Just wondering when and where did carrier was created???
Another small question that i got is what was the size of the carrier that the american used at the first trial?

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Just a quick note to correct any false impression that the Americans invented the carrier (!), four years before the USS Langley entered service the Royal Navy commisioned HMS ARGUS in october 1918 as the worlds first flush deck carrier, just missing war service. Argus (and Furious) had retractable charthouses that could be raised when not flying off aircraft and lowered during flying stations. Both Argus and Furious were paid off in 1944 due to being worn out and because newere ships were entering service in numbers;


Prior to Argus, during the war the incomplete Battlecruiser HMS Furious was converted in 1917 to a partial aircraft carrier by losing her forward armament and replacing it with a 'flying off deck' and a hangar underneath accaessed by a hatch forward of yhe original bridgework. There was no lift so a crane was used to bring aircraft up on deck. Commander Dunning carried out the first landing on a carrier underway on this ship by sideslipping around the superstructure and touching down almost vertically in the headwind. A 'landing on' deck was then added, but because the bridge and funnel were still in place so turbulence made landing impossible. Thus flush deck designs became popular (Argus and USS Langley) and post war Furious was completely rebuilt as a flush deck carrier between 1921 and 1925 with two hangar decks, two lifts and an extra flyng off deck at the forward end of the upper hangar. By the start of WW2 the forward flying off deck was disused as it was too short for modern types and was fitted with several AA gun mounts instead;


The small 'island' in the last pic was added in 1939, while her funnel uptakes had been trunked aft discharging at the stern and encroaching on upper hangar space. Also during WW1, conversion began on an unfinished battleship building for Chile which was renamed HMS Eagle, and construction began on the worlds first purpose built carrier HMS Hermes. Work on both slowed after the Armistice (stopping altogether for a while) putting back their original 1919 completion dates to 1923 although Eagle put to sea in 1920 for a series of trials to test the concept of the 'Island' superstructure. Both Eagle and Hermes were converted with only a single hangar deck which limited the size of their air groups; at the start of WW2 Hermes could only operate a sqn of 14 swordfish torpedo bommbers and no fighters, and she had no aircraft aboard at all when lost to Japnese air attack in early 1942. Eagle could carry about 21 aircraft, a mix of swordfish and Fulmar fighters when she was sunk in the Med (also in 1942) by four torpedos whilst ecorting a Malta convoy;


Hermes at 12'000tons was too small. Eagle was 26,000tons but as a converted battleship was too slow for fleet ops. The Washington treaty allowed two capital ships to be converted into carriers, so Furious' two sister ships HMS Glorious and HMS Courageous were selected. Their conversions between 1924 and 1928 (Courageous), and 1930 (Glorious) followed Furious' pattern but included an island with integral funnel, freeing up hangar space and were much better ships all round; Their loss early in the war was a result of faulty tactics (Courageous was sunk in september 1939 by a U-Boat while on patrol, looking for U-Boats!) and failure to maintain air patrols over and ahead of the carrier (as Glorious was returning from evacuating British forces from Norway she ran into the German Battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau who sank her with 11inch gunfire);

Well done guys. The UK did invent the aircraft carrier and the angle deck and the steam catapult. Thanks RN!!

But the USN perfected it and the operations there of. No other nation in the world can put to sea multipile CV's battle groups and operate them safely and effeicently. No one.

Stennis and Lincoln, Lexington CV-2,Enterprise CV-6, Ranger CV-4 & Yorktown CV-5 Enterprise and Ranger survived WWII. Enterprise recieved 22 battle stars for action during WWII.

One of the reasons for the advent of the CV was Washington Naval Treaty the of 1922



Basically it limited the size of capital ships. Espically battle ships. Many BB's from many nations had to be scrapped. the US converted two battlecruises under construction into CV's. Lexington and Saratoga.

From the article;

Aircraft carriers were addressed specifically by the treaty. In addition to total tonnage limits, rules regarding maximum vessel size were imposed. Only two carriers per nation could exceed 27,000 tons (27,400 t), and those two were limited to 33,000 tons (33,500 t) each - this exception was in fact made to allow the reuse as carriers of certain battlecruisers being built, and gave birth to the USS Lexington (CV-2). The number of large guns carried by an aircraft carrier was sharply limited—it was not legal to put a small aircraft on a battleship and call it an aircraft carrier

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I think it would be fair to say that the true Genesis of the Aircraft Carrier comes as a synthesis of several nations developments, and it has always been dogged by the unimaginative 'Forces of Conservatism', who seek to preserve the status quo (the Battleship lobby, the submarine lobby, land based aviators, the usual suspects). While most of the features of the modern CV were British in origin, it was the USN and the IJN who showed the world the devastating firepower of the Carrier Battle group and the value of large air wings and the utility of mobile airpower.