US WWII Aircraft Carrier Production

[NUKE]

I remember reading in Churchill's "abridgement" of his 6 volume "Memoirs Of The Second World War" ( really good book btw) something about American war production and again heard something on the History Channel last night.

They say the US began WWII with 3 aircraft carriers ( IIRC) and ended the War with 79 aircraft carriers. If that is true, that is pretty amazing. Can you imagine what kind of production and organization that would require?

Add to that all the other war equipment we produced during that time, and it really amazes me how much was produced in so short a period. I wonder if we could do that today if required?

Back then, with that kind of production capability and being removed from direct threats to production, it seems that the Japanese really underestimated the US.

[Gunslinger]

I allways look at WWII (personal observation not fact) and think they went at it with a "blank check" so to speak.

I know alot of Americans took rationing and baught war bonds but still almost all the major auto manufacturers retooled for tanks/airplanes and such.  

Nuke if think that's an interesting fact about the carriers look up the stats for the liberty ships....(IMHO top five reason for victory in WWII)  They mass produced LOADS of these things and they carried billions of cargo to europe in the face of Uboat wolf pacts....but we seemed to produce faster than they could sinkem.  

It is amazing but I dont think we could replace a squadron of F16/15s in the time that it took to replace a bunch of 51s  Course warfare is different now so who knows

[Gyro/T69]

Add to that all the other war equipment we produced during that time, and it really amazes me how much was produced in so short a period. I wonder if we could do that today if required?

Doubt it. The skill sets needed are being lost. Just read an article in Stamping monthly concerning Tool & Die becoming a dying art in this country.

Don’t worry; I’m sure China will build us all the tanks, Cvs and other hardware we may need to defeat them in any future conflict.

English guys, help me out here. Was it Capt Kidd or Blue Beard hung in a steel cage out side of Portsmouth harbor to remind folks it’s a bad idea to be a pirate? That’s a future fate I’d enjoy introducing to a number of our CEOs.

[Jester]

Hey Nuke,

Actually the US started the war with 7 carriers:

Lexington, Saratoga, Ranger, Yorktown, Enterprise, Wasp and the Escort Carrier Long Island.

An Eighth carrier - Hornet - was commissioned right after Pearl Harbor. The first Essex Class CV - Essex - was not commissioned till Dec. 42.

Don't know where you got the "79" number but it is WAY to low.

Starting with the first ESSEX CLASS FLEET CV commissioned in Dec. 42 the US Commissioned 12 more Essex Class CV's that saw combat and a further 12 that were building during the war that were finished afterward,

The US also fielded 11 CVL's (Fleet Carrier-Light) built on Cruiser hulls that saw combat.

To top that off - the US built over 100 CVE's (Escort Carrier) built on merchant hulls for both the USN and Royal Navy.

And lastly, 3 Midway class CVB's (Fleet Carrier-Large) were started during WW2 and finished shortly after the war.

[Jester]

Captain Kidd

After they hung him his body was hung in hoops & chains from a gibbet at Tilbury Point on the lower reaches of the Thames estuary.
(Actually a common end for pirates)


After they killed Blackbeard, Lt. Manard had his head cut off and slung from the bowsprit of his sloop as the returned to port. It was there transfered to a spike on the gate of Goverment House, Jamaica.

[WilldCrd]

Originally posted by Jester
Hey Nuke,

Actually the US started the war with 7 carriers:

Lexington, Saratoga, Ranger, Yorktown, Enterprise, Wasp and the Escort Carrier Long Island.

An Eighth carrier - Hornet - was commissioned right after Pearl Harbor. The first Essex Class CV - Essex - was not commissioned till Dec. 42.

Don't know where you got the "79" number but it is WAY to low.

Starting with the first ESSEX CLASS FLEET CV commissioned in Dec. 42 the US Commissioned 12 more Essex Class CV's that saw combat and a further 12 that were building during the war that were finished afterward,

The US also fielded 11 CVL's (Fleet Carrier-Light) built on Cruiser hulls that saw combat.

To top that off - the US built over 100 CVE's (Escort Carrier) built on merchant hulls for both the USN and Royal Navy.

And lastly, 3 Midway class CVB's (Fleet Carrier-Large) were started during WW2 and finished shortly after the war.

last night the history channel had a show about WWII carriers and only names Enterprise, Lexington, and Hornet as the only 3 operational Carriers at the start of the war at the time i thought that was odd because i thought we had more namely the Yorktown, Saratoga, and wasp.
Didn't know we had the Ranger as well

IIRC the "79" refered to full carriers and didnt include escort carriers

[Fishu]

I think main difference between todays and WWII production is higher quality stantards.
Workers require more and customers wants high quality.
Meanwhile products are also more complicated.

You could basically build a P51 in a small workshop, while you need a factory filled up with precision tools to build F16.

Back then people didn't either pay so much attention to structucal stress or flaws in metal.
Heck.. you could've belly landed in a plane and it could been brought back to service few months after.
Also spare parts were scavenged from planes which weren't worth repairing.

Like one B17 was built up of two different B17's - one had front section totalled and the other tail section -> hey, let's combine intact sections of the two planes!
Made a good mix.. you see the other was olive drab and the another unpainted aluminium


Of course soviet union is a grand example of low quality & high production output.

It's amazing what you can do when you care less about the quality.

[Jester]

Would probabily take two or three WW2 Essex Class CV's to equal the material, time and workmanship to equal what is put into one of the modern Nimitz Class CVN's.

Even then they couldn't equal the firepower of one of the NIMITZ CLASS CVN's - this is just figureing the conventional weaponry and not bringing out the nuclear stuff.

Really makes you think.

[Gixer]

US Production during the war was amazing but it was also helped by the fact that they were one of the few countries in the war not being bombed every day and night.



...-Gixer

[Sixpence]

Originally posted by Fishu
It's amazing what you can do when you care less about the quality.

Actually, the T-34 was both quantity and quality

[Chairboy]

How do you measure quality of contruction?  Is it based on the tolerances of the manufactured parts?  Or is it measured on the in-field reliability?

This is an issue that software engineers have to put up with all the time.  You can have a fully standards compliant, ISO9000, maximum quality piece of code that just isn't reliable in the field.  You can also have a piece of code that's full of GOTOs, inelegant design, pieces of pascal hastilly casted to compile and no comments that can live for decades in the field as the reliable, star performer.

The brilliance of the T34 design was, in part, that the designer took into account the tooling, education, and materials and gave a tank that remained high quality, even if there was a 1/32cm lip on half of Cupola-spindle interchange 12-4 on some tanks and not on others.

[NUKE]

I was mostly impressed by the carrier production.... now it takes , what, 5-10 years to produce one carrier?

Ships are a massive production undertaking.

The US war production, as I pointed out in my first post, was not affected directly by outside forces....but we still kicked into a rate of production of war supplies that may have been unequaled in history.

[Fishu]

Originally posted by Sixpence
Actually, the T-34 was both quantity and quality

T-34's construction was simplified and it had no luxuries for the crew, like most western tanks.
There was also less advanced equiptment.
and so on...

This all reduces the production time significantly, along with lower production quality requirements.
Due to design it still worked good, even if there was no high quality workers etc.

[midnight Target]

Quality is conforming to requirments... nothing more nothing less.

Do not confuse it with weight, reliability, brilliance, beauty etc.

[-tronski-]

Originally posted by NUKE
I was mostly impressed by the carrier production.... now it takes , what, 5-10 years to produce one carrier?

Ships are a massive production undertaking.

The US war production, as I pointed out in my first post, was not affected directly by outside forces....but we still kicked into a rate of production of war supplies that may have been unequaled in history.

The real test of american industrial might (imo) during WW2 were the liberty ships

The german heavy panzers (Tiger/Panther) are an excellent example of when over the over-engineering and complexity out weigh it's benefits compared to the T-34's.

 Tronsky