XPav
Posts: 550
Joined: 7/10/2002 From: Northern California Status: offline
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Admiral DadMan [B] Suppose that because the Treaty expires in 1936, the US decides to continue to build on the last two hulls slowly, so that they are completed after the Treaty's expiration. This pushes the three [I]Yorktowns[/I] back and they don't get commissioned until 1942 (May, July, September). [I]Ranger[/I](CV-4) of course never gets built as a ground-up CV. [I]Wasp[/I] too never gets built, as she was a stopgap. What do you think? [/B][/QUOTE] From a game standpoint, sounds ok, but.... From a historical standpoint, there are problems. Just in time for this thread :D, I recieved Friedman's Design and History of US Carriers. From reading about the early carriers, the thing that's evident is that they had no idea what would actually turn out to be a good idea. In the 20s, they thought Lexington and Saratoga were far, far too big. That's the whole "a few big carriers" vs "lots of small carriers" argument that pops up a lot (and is always won by the big carriers). Of course, as it turned out, they were the right size for WW2, while Ranger, the smaller alternative, was barely adequate. Wasp, the other smaller carrier was shortchanged in protection, and we all know how that turned out for her. The problem is trying to come up with a good historical rational for the US to throw caution to the winds and spend lots of money on large carriers when they didn't have any real knowledge that they would work out.
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