How the Casablanca-class Aircraft Carriers Shook Up World War II

The National Interest ^ | June 26th 2021 | unknown

[Larry Lucido]

How do you launch them?

[kiryandil]

How do you launch them?

Some say that Matthew McConaughey is the only one who knows the answer to that question...

[Larry Lucido]

That would figure.

[going hot]

same as the planes, with steam. They just don’t fly as good.

[glorgau]

Yep, my father served on one in the Pacific. He liked the military so much that he enlisted in the Army after the war and became a career guy.

[GreyFriar]

The “Casablanca Class” light/jeep carriers definitely had an important role to play in WWII, but they complimented the Essex Class fleet carriers and could not have been a replacement for them. The Casablana’s carried all their aircraft on the flight deck and did not have a hangar deck. An improved Casablanca class, did have a small hangar deck. The Casablanca’s carried up to 20 aircraft, while the Essex’s carried 60+.

[alexander_busek]

A weapon’s weapons system that you are not prepared to risk losing is not useful in war. I worry our multi-billion carriers would be like the Yamato or the German battleship fleet in WWI. Confined to port for the whole war because they were not expendable.

Recommend that you read this Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_in_being

Regards,

[Gaffer]

Eighteen American shipyards built 2,710 Liberty ships between 1941 and 1945 (an average of three ships every two days), easily the largest number of ships ever produced to a single design.

[Tallguy]

In WW II the Germans had great tanks. But they were expensive, and complicated.

---

The German tanks had great guns & crew space. Some had good mobility. Some had good armor arrangements. But by the end of the war the quality of the engines and transmissions was crap. Many of their heavy tanks had gotten so overweight that they’d break down or throw a track if maneuvered too aggressively (which is kind of what a tank is for).

Turns out the “Best Tank” is the one you have.

Another questionable stat was “It takes 5 Shermans to knock out a Tiger”. Leaving aside how many times US Shermans actually were confronted by a Tiger tank (there weren’t very many of them) the reason the number is 5 is because Shermans operated in Platoons whereas a lone German tank might be dug into an ambush position without other supporting tanks. Hence, 5 to 1.

[Tallguy]

Aircraft carriers have always been fragile things and if you push them too close to a coastline you risk losing them to land based aviation. This was true in WW2 as it is today. By 1945 the threat was the Kamikaze which tactically operated like a modern cruise missile.

What gets missed with all the attention on the glamorous aircraft carriers are the submarines. While US Carrier groups were making grand sweeps against Japanese held islands, individual US submarines were successfully blockading the Japanese Home Islands. That’s the kind of dirty blocking & tackling that doesn’t get much attention, but is vital to winning a war. In any modern war in the Westpac area US submarines will be carrying the load from Day one.

[oldvirginian]

“The US and Soviet tanks were simpler and cheaper, and so were much easier to mass-produce. Allied quantity beat Axis quality.”

The US tanks had to be designed to load onto a ship, cross the stormy Atlantic and be unloaded. Logistics demanded a smaller, lighter tank that ended up being more nimble than anything the Germans had.

The Russians had to design their tanks so the average uneducated peasant could be trained to not only drive and fight one but also repair one. Simplicity was the key for the Russians.

[ealgeone]

True. OSHA would screw the whole thing up.

[oldvirginian]

“We’re making a torpedo run. The outcome is doubtful, but we will do our duty.”
Lt Commander Robert Copeland