CynicAl
Posts: 327
Joined: 7/27/2001
From: Brave New World
Status: offline
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I still have some problems with the idea of finishing up the fifth and sixth Lexington class in the mid-30s. First, as previously mentioned, the WNLT specifically required that ships not allowed under the treaty be scrapped. That included ships under construction at the time. I just don't see the US being allowed to keep the keels around, slowly working on them until time for the "construction holiday" to expire - that's directly counter to the spirit of the treaty. (Yes, other nations cheated, some quite blatantly. But none of them had a pennypinching US Congress breathing down their necks to encourage treaty compliance and - more importantly - thrift.) Second, I'm not certain the USN would want the ships after they sat, incomplete, in drydock for 15+ years - time and the elements can be very unkind to exposed metal. (Think Charles de Gaulle.) No, I think any Lexingtons not converted by 1930 never will be. But that could be okay.
Try this:
The four Lexington class CVs enter service in the late 1920's (2 in 1927, 1 in 1928, 1 in 1929). So by 1930, with these four to play with, the Navy no longer has a great deal of interest in old, slow Langley. In an effort to make something useful out of her, they send her back to the yards for a more complete conversion. Strip her down to the waterline, lengthen and blister the hull, install a new machinery plant... rebuild her as a "real" CV (CVL?). (See some of the Italian BB rebuilds during this period - literally anything is possible. Bonus 1: it might well be easier to sell Congress on the idea of refitting Langley than on building an entirely new ship. Bonus 2: as an "experimental carrier," Langley didn't count toward US treaty compliance.) What emerges from the yards in about 1933-34 is somewhere between the RL Ranger and Independence in size and capability. She'll spend the war doing what Ranger did.
In late 1933, the US lays down its first carriers designed as such from the keel up: CV-6 Ranger and CV-7 Enterprise, the RL Yorktown class. (Note: IRL, CV-5 was laid down the month before CV-4 commissioned, CV-6 the month after. There wasn't a lot of time for "lessons learned" to be incorporated into the design phase, and not much more time during construction.) The two Ranger class CVs commission in 1936 and 37 respectively; by then, their successors are already being planned.
Three years of exercises with the Lexingtons and the refitted Langley led BuShips to the conclusion that when it came to carriers, bigger was better. So they decided to expand on the most modern design available to them - the brand-new Rangers. Work commenced immediately on a design for a super-Ranger displacing 30,000 tons, and the first of the new Yorktown (RL Essex) class was laid down at the start of 1940 and was destined to be completed in mid-1942.
But Newport News needed something to do in the years between 1937 and 1940, and warclouds loomed on the horizon east and west. So the Navy ordered two more Rangers, to a slightly modified design, to fill the gap after CV-7. These two ships became CV-8 Wasp and CV-9 Hornet, and entered service in early 1940 and mid 1941 respectively. (Deliberately skipping the RL Wasp - it was basically a stripped-out [iYorktown, trying to get its weight down enough to squeeze one more flight deck in under the Treaty tonnage cap. That extra weight was badly needed, though; Wasp was significantly less effective than her cousins. Here, the US decides that going 5k tons over the total CV tonage limit is barely acceptable. Hornet is laid down when the outbreak of war in Europe invalidates the treaties.)
So on December 7, 1941, the USN has:
1 Langley class:
CV-1 Langley
Greatly improved by her extensive rebuilding, but still small, slow, and vulnerable.
4 Lexington class:
CV-2 Lexington
CV-3 Constellation
CV-4 Saratoga
CV-5 Constitution
Big, fast, and tough, but inefficient and in need of overhauls.
4 Ranger class:
CV-6 Ranger
CV-7 Enterprise
CV-8 Wasp
CV-9 Hornet
Fast, efficient, flexible, and in very good condition, but still vulnerable (especially to underwater damage). These ships will most likely be the core of the carrier fleet until the Yorktown and her sisters arrive.
The Yorktown will commission on July 4, 1942, the first of a new breed. Eight will arrive in the time period covered by UV:
CV-10 Yorktown (7/42)
CV-11 Essex (11/42)
CV-12 Bon Homme Richard (4/43)
CV-13 Intrepid (4/43)
CV-14 Kearsarge (6/43)
CV-17 Randolph (9/42)
CV-18 Bunker Hill (12/42)
CV-19 Oriskany (4/43).
Bear in mind that these dates refer to comissioning: the ships would still have to shake down, work up, and transit to the theater; that's likely to put the actual availability dates back by months.
BTW, I can't believe nobody's picking apart my alt-IJN building plan. What gives?
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Some days you're the bug.
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