Author Topic: CV that was as tough as AH's one... (Read 428 times)

hazed- · « **on:** January 02, 2003, 11:18:06 AM »

Recently started reading 'war in a stringbag' by Charles Lamb (isbn 0-304-35841-x)
In it he describes the attack by the LW stuka pilots on the British aircraft carrier Illustrious.The amazing thing is the first bomb to hit the ship went right through the deck lift while it was in the down position(1 deck lower) and exploded in the hanger! Several others were near misses which damged her steering and made it an incredibly tough job for the crew to navigate her to the relative safety of a Malta port.
The bomb was seen by the author as it went in and he described it as a 500lber and looking the size of a telephone box.Later in the book a German pilot describes this, and some subsiquent attacks, and says each stuka had a single 500kg bomb when they attacked at sea.

Whilst the Illustrious was in the harbour at Malta the Germans attacked it day and night for almost 2 weeks.They hit the ship a further 4 times...I'll quote the book which has a part written by the German pilot:

'But now we got strict orders to do our best to make this ship sink.We went to Cantania air station and there loaded 1000kg bombs.With these bombs under the belly we needed about 1 1/2 hours to reach an altitude of 3000 m [about 10000 feet].Four of thes bombs we suceeded in dropping on the deck of Illustrious, but she did not sink for our bombs were not able to penetrate the armoured decks below and because of numerous bulkheads'

So there you have it! amazingly Illustrious was hit with some 10,000 lbs of bombs and didnt sink! It in fact was repaired during this time and slipped out one night to sail at 26 knots to Alexandria on the 26th of january.So I guess the next time we complain that the CV is too tough or should go down with less hits we should remember the Illustrious and her armoured decks!

The other point of course is the 1.5 hours it took the stukas to get to 3000 meters! this suggests the 1000kg bomb was a lot tougher to carry than our AH version.Or does it take that long to climb in AH? I know it takes ages but i cant recall it taking 1.5 hours!

still time does slip by while playing AH.

Karnak · « **Reply #1 on:** January 02, 2003, 03:27:37 PM »

What version of the Stuka was it? It might have had a much less powerful engine.

As to carrier durability, keep in mind that USN and IJN carriers did not have armored decks. That was unique to RN carriers.

The downside was that RN carriers didn't carry nearly as many aircraft as USN or IJN carriers.

Soulyss · « **Reply #2 on:** January 02, 2003, 04:08:15 PM »

From what I've been able to get out of reading up on the carrier battles in the pacific that simply stating X amount of damage should sink a cv doesn't work. Some cv's take incrediable amounts of punishment and refuse to go down, others relatively little. There are many variables that come into play where did the bomb hit, how many decks did it penetrate, where was the cv's aircraft compliment at the time? was their fuel or ord stowed near the blast? etc. etc.

Two bombs dropped on 2 identical ships, lets say both hit and penetrate into the hangar deck. But one ship has all it's planes in the air, the other has them all below decks getting refueled or whatnot. One ship will probably sail away the other probably will not. So on and so forth.

Would love to see AH some day where all this was factored in and modelled.

Greg Stelmack · « **Reply #3 on:** January 02, 2003, 04:35:26 PM »

It might be nice to see partial CV / BB / CA damage like we have for planes: rudder stuck in current position so it can't turn, hangar deck damage (certain planes unavailable), etc. Let some hits damage, but then up the damage required to actually sink it.

hazed- · « **Reply #4 on:** January 02, 2003, 08:16:13 PM »

I have to say now that you describe it a new improved damage model would be cool.
i especially like the idea about the more damage the less planes (or ordinance/fuel maybe?) are available.

It might not be as difficult as it sounds? I hope not then maybe it would be a good addition

In fact its just given me an idea....

What if we use the perkbombs idea. Make a new armour peircing bomb that is the only type that can actually penetrate the hull of a CV rather than just cause damage to guns or resources.With the AP bombs you can actually sink it
Make it expensive and then the suicide bombers wont bother to dive in and die for no reason.
Might be a bit too unrealistic to have HE 1000lbers not be able to sink a ship though, and might be a bit gamey but after reading about how much these Ships took in damage its quite amazing so maybe it wouldnt be so rediculous to model into the game?.

Pongo · « **Reply #5 on:** January 02, 2003, 08:43:15 PM »

Hazed..could you believe how the Brits threw away their first carrier....trolling for Uboats...

hazed- · « **Reply #6 on:** January 03, 2003, 06:08:31 PM »

Pongo amazingly stupid move.

Then theres the fact they put the Illustrious in range of the stukas when it could have stayed out of range and flown a standing patrol over the convoy as mentioned in the book.

And we should never forget the sending of the Prince of Whales into the Indian ocean/Pacific theatre as a deterrent only to see it sank by torpedo planes almost as soon as it arrived!

Truelly incompitent waste of precious resources and lives.

Beefcake · « **Reply #7 on:** January 04, 2003, 07:36:58 PM »

What was the name of the US CV that was crippled 50 miles of the coast of Japan and still managed to sail all the way back to New York? Was it the Frankin? From the photos I saw of her I'm amazed she didn't sink.

BenDover · « **Reply #8 on:** January 04, 2003, 07:53:17 PM »

why did it go to new york?

Why not LA or whatever ports on the west coast, or even peal harbor, or somewhere in the philipines, etc?

Ripsnort · « **Reply #9 on:** January 06, 2003, 09:48:16 AM »

Talk about battle damage, the USS Franklin

Karnak · « **Reply #10 on:** January 06, 2003, 10:41:16 AM »

Franklin's survival was amazing, but she never fought again.