WI no Aircraft Carriers

[NHBL]

Eliminate the REASON for the CV...

If the great War led to the outlawing of airplanes as weapons of war, then there would be no carriers for them, aside from the liners that would carry a plane and launch it as they approached their destination to get the mail there a day earlier.
Alternatively, if there was no Great War, then the airplanes would develop much more slowly, and the military potential might not be realized for some time. When it was, it would be seaplanes from battleships and cruisers that would be important.

After all, in peacetime, there's only so much naval budget available, and a carrier is a waste of money that could go for cruisers and the like. So--no aircraft carrers for a while afer the war starts in (perhaps) the 20's or 30's.

 

[M79]

I still think the Japanese will develop them just because so much of the Empire is small islands with minimal space for airstrips. As a power projection tool on the ocean, carriers are tough to beat.

 

[David S Poepoe]

That was just one of four questions.

I think whe have to go back to 1911.

Maybe we should go back to 1906 when Langley died.

Whitehead's conquest of the air with the development of heavier-than-air craft wasn't derailed by the crash of the Wright Brothers' aircraft. The British successfully used carrier launched aircraft to attack the zeppelin sheds outside Wilhelmshaven in mid-1918.

Seems pretty obvious to me that the US Navy didn't scrap and turn its back on the destroyer since seven of them were lost running aground on the California coast in 1923. Nothing suggested so far would remotely stop the development of the aircraft carrier.

 

[Neroon]

I think at the latest the Carrier concept would be tried again after someone manages to sink one or more Battleships with land based air power out of range of the other sides land based fighter cover. Fleets would then want some way to bring fighter cover with them.

 

[esl]

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/navy/onr_rdpart2004_pierce_sustain_disruptive.pdf

Looking at this flow diagram...not sure what the main article was about,but it suggests that a critical carrier deck disaster in 1922 could have shifted the entire focus away from the emerging new concept carriers with hugh plane capacity based on enlarged deck operations and forced it to refocus on the smaller capacity carriers with much greater emphasis on internal protection and armor etc.

Then there's the thorny issue of what the Battleship pundits might do with such an event in the Battleship vs Carrier debate. To this day many beleive the start war position was Battleships more important than carriers. In may ways Pearl Harbour forced the Americans in the direction of large deck Carriers, over Battleships.

Against this back drop the focus of these small carriers would be on scouting role . With little abiltity to achieve large strike capacity, these would be limited to cruiser size armored warships providing long range scouting and limited fleet defense to chase off enemy scouting patrols.

From that perspective seaplane carriers would be a cheap alternative especially if they can launch hugh seaplane bombers, like the German catapult ships of the 1930s.

 

[jkay]

I think the biggest difference would be the name of the surprise bringing the US into WWII. Instead of being a Pearl, it'd be on the way to exercises. Without the carriers, my guess is the fleet've been surprised first by the rather more subs and BBs/cruisers they'd've built instead. There still would've been plenty of loss.

Though carriers are a little better at sea domination, they're no better at bombardment than the BB was. The runway space and capacity is hardly better than a village airport. No bombers! 95% of bombweight delivered by the US since the invention of thecarrier has been delivered by land-based platforms.

It seems to me that scouting and bombing are the biggest things airplanes give, and carriers help marginally with either (OK, it's maybe 10% better at scouting).

 

[esl]

I think the biggest difference would be the name of the surprise bringing the US into WWII. Instead of being a Pearl, it'd be on the way to exercises. Without the carriers, my guess is the fleet've been surprised first by the rather more subs and BBs/cruisers they'd've built instead. There still would've been plenty of loss.

Though carriers are a little better at sea domination, they're no better at bombardment than the BB was. The runway space and capacity is hardly better than a village airport. No bombers! 95% of bombweight delivered by the US since the invention of thecarrier has been delivered by land-based platforms.

It seems to me that scouting and bombing are the biggest things airplanes give, and carriers help marginally with either (OK, it's maybe 10% better at scouting).

While I agree with the concept of domination, more than half the naval battle is finding the enemy so scouting is extremely valuable. Lets not forget that during the war the carrier launched torpedobomber followed by divebombers became quite effective at sinking crippling enemy warships...especially as semi armor piercing bombs were developed through the war.

 

[David S Poepoe]

Though carriers are a little better at sea domination, they're no better at bombardment than the BB was. The runway space and capacity is hardly better than a village airport. No bombers! 95% of bombweight delivered by the US since the invention of thecarrier has been delivered by land-based platforms.

You seem to be both wrong and missing the point. The only way a carrier can bombard an area (or target) is the use of its guns. Carrier based aircraft carrying out bombing missions. Carrier based aircraft are better than battleships since they have the range and accuracy that heavy guns, at maximum elevation, don't. What the heck does 'runway space and capacity is hardly better than a village airport' mean? We aren't trying to float an international airport.

 

[Peter Cowan]

No carriers.. so no Pearl Harbor (no Taranto either and how might that affect the RN in the Med ?). All that happens is the Japanese attack the US in the Philipines and Marianas by air from Formosa and amphibious landings as per OTL. Then, when the US fleet sorties across the Pacific it is met by land based air and the Japanese battlefleet. Whoever won that battle would probably win the war.

As an aside, now that we have reliable air-to-air refuelling and long range cruise missiles are carriers going the way of the WW2 battleship?

 

[David S Poepoe]

As an aside, now that we have reliable air-to-air refuelling and long range cruise missiles are carriers going the way of the WW2 battleship?

Probably not. It will most likely be shown that medium size carriers work perfectly fine, but the supercarriers of the Nimitz class add additional flexibility that may cost too much. What will probably be replaced or supplemented soon would be the rise and increased use of pilotless aircraft.

 

[Shimbo]

With aircraft carriers being so useful and their evolution being unlikely to be put off by a few crashes (did the innumerable crashes stop the development of land based aircraft?) I think we have to step back a bit to prevent their evolution. What if we prevent the evolution of heavier than air aircraft? I think the way to do that is to prevent the production of high power to weight engines and the way to do that is - no petrol!

Then we could have steam-powered battleships ruling the waves and steam-powered airships ruling the skies instead. Yay!

 

[Alexius]

The question is, what do you mean by "no aircraft carriers"?

If you mean "no planes landing on a deck", then seaplane carriers would work just as well. They did build a supersonic seaplane at one point (the F2Y Sea Dart) and the Schneider Trophy planes were very fast indeed. Add retractable floats, and you've lost less speed than you lose from mounting drop tanks and rockets.
Also, if the seaplane is catapult-launched, then it could be launched with the floats up, and have them dropped by gravity when the pilot wanted to land. This means there is no need for an expensive Ursinus-type mechanism or for the work of the pilot cranking up the floats.

 

[jkay]

More than half the naval battle is finding the enemy so scouting is extremely valuable.

Yep. Before carriers, the handfuls of sea planes carried by fleets were IMHO about 90% as effective. Not AS effective, but close. E.g., that didn't make SUCH a huge difference.

Lets not forget that during the war the carrier launched torpedobomber followed by divebombers became quite effective at sinking crippling enemy warships...

I already conceded sea dominance.

And I'll also agree that carriers come in handy for many things in 3rd-world hotspots, simply because enemy airforces tend to be small and weak.

What carriers CAN'T do so well is carry enough big bombers and bombs to have more that limited effect on land. Even one half-decent, well-equipped land-based airport will outcompete even a fleet for heavy bombing. In WWII, Saipan was essential to the plan, despite the vast hordes of carriers and naval airplanes constructed.

Nor are carriers good at contesting air dominance against well-equipped, land-based air forces.

no Taranto either

Why not? Instead, there would've been some traditional BB duel which the Italians still would've lost. They didn't fight very well. Churchill thought most Italians were unenthusiastic about the conquering business.


One POD that might sink carriers would be Gen Billy Mitchell being court-martialed before he could arrange for his famous BB bombing demo.

Maybe I'm just sour on carriers because they aren't worth building for conquering things in Civ. ;-)

 

[David S Poepoe]

One POD that might sink carriers would be Gen Billy Mitchell being court-martialed before he could arrange for his famous BB bombing demo.

That POD wouldn't work in a month of Sundays. The British were experimenting with carrier based aircraft before Mitchell's demonstration, they were planning an air raid on Wilhelmshaven in 1919. Also, Mitchell's sinking of the Ostfriesland was done by landbased bombers.