Japanese Air Parks

[John 3rd]

Been doing some re-reading with some old friends (Sunburst, Kaigun, and Shattered Sword) and it was mentioned in all of them the Japanese decision to not go with air parks on the decks of their carriers. The reasons are never really clearly stated. Dioes anyone have any source material where this is discussed? Would love to read more on the topic.

This simple decision vastly served to limit the aircraft carried. If--a BIG IF--they had chosen a different route what might a Japanese CV/CVL been able to carry? Would this have allowed a relatively minor addition of 10% to their air groups? 20%? 30%? I have no idea but am thinking on the topic.

Thoughts?

[Dili]

Depends of what kind of planes you want to put in the deck park, you can put more Zeros, they are lighter and need less run distance and are smaller.

Here is a top view of Akagi http://foobuggy.com/images/Hasegawa_Aka ... 50_a14.jpg

[John 3rd]

NICE model. Is that yours?

Makes sense regarding what types of planes.

On a similar but different topic: Does anyone know why the japanese didn't more fully look into folding wings on their aircraft. Kaigun raises that very point in a section I read last night.

[wdolson]

American metallurgy was more advanced than Japan. The US led the world in alloys by the start of the war. In the 1930s the US had made many advances in strong light alloys that allowed planes which had to pull high stresses on the wings to have folding wings. These were recent developments on the eve of war which is why the F4F-3 and SBD didn't have folding wings, but the F4F-4 and later did as well as the SB2C. Torpedo bombers could have folding wings because they didn't have to pull any high stresses on the wings. The Navy didn't have Douglas redesign the SBD because it was considered obsolescent at war's start with a replacement that would be ready for service by mid-1942 along with the TBF. The SB2C ran into a lot of problems and was delayed much longer than anticipated and the SBD proved to be good enough to get by until it was finally replaced completely in fleet service by late 1944.

Japanese metallurgy had caught up enough with the Americans to give the Grace folding wings. They may have reverse engineered some alloys recovered off American wrecks that fell into their hands.

Nobody else did alclad but the US during the war. Aluminum alloys used in aircraft are very strong, but are nowhere near as corrosion resistant as pure aluminum which forms a layer of aluminum oxide on the surface that prevents further corrosion. The US developed alclad which was an aircraft aluminum allow with a layer of pure aluminum on the surface. This allows US planes to be bare metal and saved a lot of weight in paint. No other country used alclad which is why even Japan and Germany were mostly painting planes right up to the end. A few German planes (mostly Fw-190Ds and Ta-152s) near the end had some areas that were left bare metal, but they started corroding very soon after delivery. The Japanese quit using primer near the end and the paint flaked off their aircraft very badly.

Bill

[Dili]

No not my model John 3rd

[el cid again]

I do not allow air parts on ALLIED carriers either. ALL aircraft on deck are at risk in a storm. Japanese aircraft,
with less durability, are probably even more at risk on average. That may be the reason they didn't do it. But
in game terms, players pretty much ignore the weather, and have no practical means to evade it: IRL Allied carriers
would suspend operations if required - and not follow the planned course. Since there is no game way to do that,
better to limit the planes to what can be struck below. FYI and IMHO.

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Been doing some re-reading with some old friends (Sunburst, Kaigun, and Shattered Sword) and it was mentioned in all of them the Japanese decision to not go with air parks on the decks of their carriers. The reasons are never really clearly stated. Dioes anyone have any source material where this is discussed? Would love to read more on the topic.

This simple decision vastly served to limit the aircraft carried. If--a BIG IF--they had chosen a different route what might a Japanese CV/CVL been able to carry? Would this have allowed a relatively minor addition of 10% to their air groups? 20%? 30%? I have no idea but am thinking on the topic.

Thoughts?

[Dili]

The Japanese were going to do deck parks in later war if they had enough airgroups. One of the deck parks was to be an exclusive search squadron of 6 C6N1 aicraft.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Dili

The Japanese were going to do deck parks in later war if they had enough airgroups. One of the deck parks was to be an exclusive search squadron of 6 C6N1 aicraft.

That is logical. Search planes would spend a lot of time flying - and need to be able to take off quickly if new
information indicated something needed to be checked out. Being in the air means there is no risk of loss on deck.
Being on deck means they can fly off quickly when needed. The C6 was also a long range plane - it could fly to
land or another carrier if needs be.

[John 3rd]

That is interesting. I use a Recon Variant of the Kate in my Mods as well as the Recon Judy that comes in later.