QQ from re-reading "Shattered Sword"

[ny59giants]

I'm re-reading "Shattered Sword" and am just past the dreadful 5 minutes when three Japanese CVs are hit.

1) Why are the Japanese CVs not fully enclosed on each end of the flight deck?? They have the hull stop short on each end and have the metal supports there while the Americans have the nice curved hulls that reach up to end of the flight decks.

2) When reading about the damage to the bridge and the officers on Akagi, is there any website or a short reply about the evolution of the 'islands' on CVs?? I know the Americans were bigger, but by how much?? It would seem that both Akagi and Kaga were big enough to have larger 'islands' and have better communications set up in them.

3) When did Zeros start to get radios in them?? I forgot how hap-hazardous it was for Japanese carrier CAP at this point in the war. While they were better than the Americans in getting a large strike coordinated, their CAP was more a hit and miss affair controlled by each CV.

Thanks!!

[dr.hal]

In response to #3, according to Zimm in his book "Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions", it was only a few months before Pearl Harbor. It was particularly difficult for fighter pilots to operate due to the fact that it required a lot of concentration and the frequency would "drift" requiring re-concentration. That's fine if you have a rear seat gunner, but as the Zeros didn't have one, it was particularly difficult. Additionally, the sets were not insulated against the vibrations of an aircraft very well and failed all to often....

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: dr.hal

In response to #3, according to Zimm in his book "Attack on Pearl Harbor: Strategy, Combat, Myths, Deceptions", it was only a few months before Pearl Harbor. It was particularly difficult for fighter pilots to operate due to the fact that it required a lot of concentration and the frequency would "drift" requiring re-concentration. That's fine if you have a rear seat gunner, but as the Zeros didn't have one, it was particularly difficult. Additionally, the sets were not insulated against the vibrations of an aircraft very well and failed all to often....

It is not that the planes did not have radios. Most carrier zeros did. However, they were delicate and frequently failed. The bigger issue was that the Japanese really had no ship to aircraft vectoring doctrine in place. The Americans were really just as bad but improved very rapidly. However, this improvement goes hand in hand with better radar and radios. Something the Japanese never really got right.

[crsutton]

As for #1 I am guessing that it was to save weight. Those ships were way high out of the water and all that extra steel would not have helped. Plus, as the ship narrows that forward and rear space really done not add much storage. I don't think any of their planes had folding wings at that time. Just a guess.

[sprior]

The islands were/are on the starboard size because the torque on the early rotary engines tended to pull to planes to the left.

The Japanese islands are smaller because they don't include funnels/stacks, the boiler exhausts were trunked below the flight deck. The first British carriers tried that but experiments showed that the airflow across the flight deck was not affected by the vertical funnels.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

As for #1 I am guessing that it was to save weight ...

Weren't most of the older IJN CVs cruisers with flight decks added? Also, Akagi was supposed to have a triple flight deck forward!

They had to scrap that idea and she went back for another costly refit.

[JeffroK]

Were they not a left over from the days when flight ops could take place from the hanger deck??

I've seen pics of RN & USN Carriers with aircraft appearing from this level.

[spence]

The bigger issue was that the Japanese really had no ship to aircraft vectoring doctrine in place.

It effected surface combat as well. It was not until the war was nearly over that the Japanese were studied the idea of setting up a Combat Information Center (CIC) on their warships. The value of radar information is that the commander can get a look-down view of every threat around him, can see the direction and imminence of the threat (like in a wargame). The Admiral standing stolidly out on the bridge staring into the blackness of a tropical night might be very inspirational to the helmsman but the Admiral may have no idea where the "bad guys" are (Cape Esperance). He might not even know where his own guys are (The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal). The Americans had problems in those battles as well as the Japanese. In large part that was because the American Admirals were just as tied to standing stolidly out on the bridge wing instead of paying attention to their radar plots (to be fair they did not put themselves on the ships which had SG radar: the first radar that actually provided the look-down view of the situation).

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

It is not that the planes did not have radios. Most carrier zeros did. However, they were delicate and frequently failed. The bigger issue was that the Japanese really had no ship to aircraft vectoring doctrine in place ...

According to Sword, IJN carrier doctrine placed the flight officer in sole control of not only the flight and hanger decks ops, but the CAP as well! This responsibility was made all the more daunting by the fact that Zero pilots rarely used their radios; apparently they would react to other pilots, or even the direction of their own flack, a tactic one poster on these forums described as "Nelsonian".

I actually wrote about this and other problems in published letter to The History Channel Magazine titled "Japan's naval shortcomings at Midway" (Sept/Oct 2012).