Could we ever see you review movies depicting Naval engagements say Battle Of The River Plate 1955 or other motion picture films pertaining naval warfare in future videos?
Alternate question. With a 4 inch armoured flight deck as built, what would a late era Malta aircraft group look like? I would imagine similar to Ark Royals final air group with E2s instead of Gannets, but could F14's have made it into the hangers if they had lasted long enough (provided the lifts could accommodate them)
I realize this is outside your normal time frame, but there have also been a number of references to the Unpleasantness in 1982 and, in this video, that the Malta class carriers might have been a big enough stick to prevent the invasion from being attempted. However, the RN was significantly weakened as a result of the 1966 Defense White Paper which, from my reading, included a section from the RAF calling the utility of the RN carriers in question in comparison with RAF aircraft. Would it be fair to say that the 1966 Defense White Paper and resulting cancellations lead directly to the Falkland Islands War, and that the RAF position is conclusively refuted by the experiences of that war?
@@kemarisite The RAF had lied to get the carriers canned as they basically lied with maps showing Australia 500 miles closer than it actually was the 2nd question is easy 'the RAF position is conclusively refuted by the experiences of that war?' Yes it was and fatally as well as the RAF couldn't protect the 2 Sheffield Class Batch 1 Destroyers, 2 Amazon Class Frigates, 1 Round-Table Class Landing Ship Logistics and 1 Commercial Container Ship that got sunk
How many more ships would the Royal Navy needed to send 1 or 2 Malta Class Carriers down there and what ships from the Fleet sent would have been increased? Irl this was the 1982 Falklands Task Force 1x Invincible Class Light Aircraft Carrier 1x Centaur Class Light Aircraft Carrier 1x Bristol Class Destroyer 1x Sheffield Class Batch 2 Destroyer 4x Sheffield Class Batch 1 Destroyer 2x County Class Batch 2 Destroyer 2x Broadsword Class Batch 1 Frigate 6x Amazon Class Frigate 1x Leander Class Batch 3A Frigate 3x Leander Class Batch 2 Frigate 2x Rothesay Class Frigate 2x Castle Class Offshore Patrol Ship 3x Hecla Class Survey Ship 2x Fearless Class Landing Platform Dock 6x Round-Table Class Landing Ship Logistics 2x Fort Rosalie Class Replenishment Oiler 2x Tide Class Replenishment Oiler 2x Ol Class Fast Fleet Tanker 1x Rover Class Small Fleet Tanker 5x Leaf Class Fleet Support Tanker 2x Regent Class Ammunition Cargo Ship 1x Ness Class Fleet Stores Ship Civil Ships 5x Trawlers 2x Ocean Liners 1x Steamship 8x Roll-On & Roll-Off Ferries 5x Container Ship 7x Freight Ship 13x Oil Tankers 3x Diving Support Ship 2x Ocean Salvage Tug 1x Fleet Maintenance Ship 1x Mooring Tug Submarine Force 2x Swiftsure Class Nuclear Fleet Attack Submarine 2x Churchill Class Nuclear Fleet Attack Submarine 1x Valiant Class Nuclear Fleet Attack Submarine 1x Oberon Class Attack Submarine
I think the fate of the Maltas is one of best examples of why the phrase "It's easy to be wise in retrospect" exists. The Admiralty of the late 40s made all the moves that seemed politically and militarily expedient at the time, but their decision making was based on the assumption that the construction of new ships further down the line was a given.
I can also understand why they didn't foresee the rapid changes in aviation which were coming, helicopters and jet aircraft were just starting to reach operational status.
Such a shame these were never build, especially the HMS New Zealand. Had she managed to acquire supernatural protection as her predecessor did she might well still be with us today.
Though they cancelled the " Malta Class ", the British still had an aircraft carrier named Malta. The only difference was that, well... It was an unsinkable rock, that existed since the dawn of civilisation. Hence the name. Proud that you covered this topic, because I never heard about it. Great video, From her name sake, Malta 🇲🇹 😊
For some reason you sent a lot of people whose first Australian born generation were funny as hell, some really good lost comedies from the 70's 80's and 90's, as well as overrepresented in the variety shows that were popular at the time, must of been the work ethic.
The UK Ministry of Defence is proposing more cuts to the kingdom's armed services, including withdrawing two frigates before their replacements are completed. Drach could be obliquely criticizing the postwar UK governments for false economy.
Hey Drac, would you take a stab at talking about the three key things that make up the modern carrier? - Angled Flight Deck - Fresnel Lense Landing System And finally - The steam catapult I know going into modern day and cold war era ships is a bit out of your scope, but all of the Midways were retrofitted with these features, and all new US Carriers would have them from day one.
I would add AWACS aircraft to make it four key things that make up the modern carrier. The experience of WWII taught the hard lesson that a blind carrier often becomes a dead carrier, and the ship's own radar has limited reach due to its low elevation. Putting some radar way up in the air and out to a long patrol radius gives the carrier that much more warning of any hostile visitors. Interestingly all four of these "modern" carrier features would seem to have been perfectly feasible during WWII with existing technology, but nobody had thought to implement them. On the off chance that anyone with pull is reading this, I'd also like to see a kind of alternate history retrospective: what could WWII carriers and their air groups have been like if, without assuming any more technology than they had available at the time, a few of these newer forehead-smackingly-obvious-in-hindsight ideas had been introduced earlier. For example, it seems the USA had the technical ability to build a Midway-sized carrier sooner and equip it with an angled flight deck. Such a ship would have been able to handle a twin-engined heavy fighter/fighter-bomber/torpedo bomber like the Grumman F7F Tigercat or perhaps a more medium-bomber-type version closer to a B-25. The real F7F only just began reaching service at the end of WWII but could easily have been developed sooner given that it used the same engine (Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp) as the P-47, F6F, and Corsair which all entered service in large numbers with plenty of war left to fight. Grumman seems to have slow-walked the F7F's development because there were no carriers in service large enough to handle it, as it needed the Midways. Even if angled-deck carriers only flew the existing single-engined inventory, just think of all those USN pilots and Airedales (deck crew) killed or injured by airplanes that missed all the arrestor cables on the straight decks of the time and jumped the barrier as well, thus crashing into parked airplanes at the front of the deck. Sometimes while still carrying bombs. Not to mention all the airplanes damaged or destroyed by hitting the crash barrier as intended even if no harm came to personnel. Surely at least some of those crash landings could have been harmless bolters on an angled deck. The fact that angled decks were made standard on USN fixed-wing carriers just as soon as the idea could be copied from its British inventor suggests the idea would have been just as obviously a better solution no matter how early some genius could have thought of it. Think of all the airplanes that had to crash or ditch at the end of the Battle of the Philippine Sea when the straight decks became fouled with too many airplanes landing in the dark. An angled deck lets a carrier land a lot of airplanes quickly while keeping the landing strip clear. No matter how full the rest of the deck gets with airplanes waiting for elevator rides to the hangar deck, the angled landing strip retains its full functionality, unlike a straight deck which grows progressively shorter and deadlier as the deck fills up with landed aircraft. Having the ability to launch and land heavier airplanes could have been transformative. Picture the long-range striking power of the Doolittle Raid but with the ability to recover and re-use the strikers. Under a ceteris paribus (all else being equal) Leyte Gulf scenario, Halsey could have fallen for Ozawa's feint while still being able to send dozens of twin-engined fighter-bombers all the way back to aid the overmatched ships of Taffy 3 (without having to get his fleet carriers some distance south first) and give Kurita a nicer going-away present than he got in real life after he retreated his battleships from the American tin cans. That might have saved the trouble of having to sink the Yamato later. Might as well clear the whole to-do list in one battle. Another benefit would have been in searching for enemy fleets. The limited range of everything in the USN carrier-based aircraft inventory (single engines all) sometimes made it hard to find the Japanese carriers before their strike was already incoming. The ability to launch something bigger with two engines would not only have expanded the search radius, but also made a primitive AWACS option possible for finding enemy fleet units at night from very long distances. For example, Halsey might have been able to chase Ozawa's decoys while keeping his proto-AWACSes scanning the San Bernardino Strait just in case that pesky Kurita got any ideas to turn around and sneak through at night. Then instead of the Taffy 3 carriers first detecting Japanese battleships from shell splashes already bracketing them, they could have had at least an hour or two to prepare a proper anti-ship aircraft strike and start putting some ocean between themselves and Kurita's battlewagons. History could have thus been robbed of the most glorious battle in US naval history but I'd imagine none of the ~1000 US sailors who gave their lives for Halsey's blunder would have minded remaining unknown and alive.
Looking at the thumbnail, I thought it was sheet music. "Huh, someone wrote sheet music to look like a ship? How creative. Must sound awful though" Until I saw the lower half and realised what I was actually looking at.
In hindsight, it always amazes me that angled flight decks didn't happen sooner. I can see the USN deliberately not considering them due to the Panama Canal limitations, but the British and IJN didn't have to design around the 110-ft Panama Canal locks. The current USN LHDs and LHAs are still design-limited by the Canal.
@@stewartellinson8846 The captain's Maori regalia was preserved, and returned to New Zealand in 2005. Had the carrier HMS New Zealand been built, it's very likely the piupiu would've still been worn by the captain any time the ship went to war. Ships in the Royal Navy always carry the history of their namesake, after all.
And yet still a better idea than what they'd _been_ doing up to that point. Because when you're trying to design an _aircraft carrier,_ it's not a bad idea to start by considering the _aircraft_ it's going to be expected to _carry._
It makes sense, since the size of aircraft was growing and after the war we'd see large jet aircraft get introduced that required bigger decks and hangars.
My sunday shot of Drachinifel complete....time to find a Drydock i haven't heard yet! Drachinifel is the best way to spend a rainy sunday morning. with a shot of whisky of course....... of course. Cheers me hearties!!!!
As interesting as it would have been to have a couple of Malta’s I don’t think that the RN’s initial plan (to utilise what they had) was unsound. The mistake was not going with the “1952” carrier which would have had the benefit of 7 years of jet experience and would therefore been a clean sheet design. The Malta’s had they been built would probably needed some fairly substantial modifications and reconstruction to have an angled deck,steam catapults etc. Given the RN record on reconstructions (look at the HMS Victorious refit) I imagine that it would over run, be over budget and end up with only one being undertaken and the other ship being used for spares!
Easier to rebuild a larger, roomier Malta than one of the Illustrious class. Probably would have been an easier sell too since it would be that most favoured word of the Treasury. Cheap.
I always have trouble getting the same level of excitement for Carriers as I do for conventional ships just because whether it's the hotness or a dumpster fire has more to do with it's aircraft load out than the ship itself
Btw the next video it will be about the project 23 Aka Sovetsky Soyuz class battleship, hopefully ( Project 24 is the enlarged class of the Sovetsky Soyuz battleship in cause if you didn’t know,)
The Island of Malta the unsinkable aircraft carrier …I wonder how many R/N Ships were lost in the defense of Malta 🇲🇹 in WW2 ,and aircraft … a whole lot of Similarities to the diurnal shift change siege of Guadalcanal …and some differences
Another good video,however the survival of the RN's carriers past the 1970's would have to mean a change of heart by Wilson's and Heath's governments. Alas, I fear that there would have been the same outcome.
Love your channel. I’m hoping you might do a video on Russia’s super cavitation torpedoes and how they would impact (sorry for the pun) carrier power projection.
its post 1950 so he wont. But- in short, they dont do much as a threat to carriers but more act as reminder of the russian traditon of Scary Nukes. the range and (lack of) accuracy of the skrell (sic) torpedo mean its a pointless thing with a none-nuke warhead- fire it to scare the crap out of all people listening to sonar in the vague direction of launch, kinda, but chances of direct hit are pretty much nil. Might get a few fish, thats it. Whereas if nuke tipped while you could launch it at a carrier group with vague degree certainty of getting a hit (ie, close enough for the big bang to muller SOMETHING.) once in range,and it would likely make a mess of anything floating above detonation point, (a nimitz class isnt going to float long on a shockwave and radioactive steam if one those detonates 200 feet below the suface and 800 horizontally, for starters.) But the surviving escorts are gonna kill the sub that launched it, and 10 minutes later all life on earth starts to die out as ww3 starts. (Or finishes? The skrell launch is arguably the start if its not officiially on go already, i suppose.) Which kinda limits the point as tactical weapon. But a lot of scary Russian weaponry is like that, scary, hard or impossible to counter once fired but seemingly pointless unless wishing to end up to turn half the planet to molten glass like stuff... (its all designed to make everyone think ¨dont f*ck with moscow, comrade, bad things happen if f*ck with moscow...¨ more than actually win a naval fight. you dont need to win a naval fight if everyone is cowed by your scary but impractical nukes...)
Wartime restrictions You can see impacted all of the Royal Navy plans I dont think any thing started post 1941 was completed before 1945 or 46 if not later.
Question for the drydock, how did stoking work on coal fuelled warships, especially around WW1? Was it as simple as lots of men with shovels, and if so how did the coal get from the bunkers to the boilers?
Its stokers shovel the coal into boilers, and trimmers bring the stokers the coal (shovels and lil wheelbarrows?) from the coal bunkers. So is stokers and trimmers in the black gang, not just stokers.
It wouldn't have happened...successive governments were intent on selling off assets and this class would have long been razor blades or somebody else's. You can always rely on UK politicians to wrongly prioritise virtually everything and screw up, relying on a nice popular war to bale them out of trouble, except lately they've run out of popular wars and so screwed even that up...
@@cogidubnus1953 Certainly unlikely that Vanguard would've been retained. Even with a much larger fleet carrier around, a battleship was no longer the ideal carrier escort ship. Had the Maltas been built, though, it would've probably been Eagle and Ark Royal that got the axe earlier than in reality on the premise that we've got these bigger and newer once so the Audacious-class are obviously redundant. Whether somewhat newer and dramatically more capable Maltas could've lasted to the 80s? Well Ark Royal in reality *almost* did, being decommissioned in 1979. So it's possible at least one Malta would've lasted that long. In this alternate timeline, the colossal waste of time and money that was the Victorious rebuild would've never happened (literally her conversion cost would've covered building at least 2 of the Maltas in a postwar angled-deck configuration, yet resulted in a near-useless carrier that could only handle 8 Sea Venoms and 8 Buccaneers), and the wartime carriers plus Eagle, Ark Royal, and the Centaurs would've been discarded sooner than in reality to appease Parliament's desire to turn warships into razor blades. So there's at least some chance Gibraltar and New Zealand could've lasted into the 80s.
@@RedXlV In early 1982 Invincible was all but sold to Australia, whilst Hermes was overdue decommissioning having been previously partially converted to an ASW Carrier. Had the Argentines waited a couple more months there would've potentially been no carriers at all as Illustrious was still not complete enough (despite an accelerated fitting out) to arrive in the Falklands until August 1982.. Edit: Governments are very good at wasting both assets and money...The Malta class if built would've been so potentially lucrative as to make them almost irresistible to an asset stripping government. The sixties seventies and early eighties were all asset stripping governments to some extent or another...which is why Britain ceased being "able to afford" a decent marine building industry or an aircraft industry for that matter. Dim-witted Vandals the lot of them.
Contrary to the prior statement: Vanguard would actually have been *the* ideal escort. She comfortably outgunned all Soviet surface ships and those of other potential threat countries, had a comprehensive AAA suite and top draw FCS', armour only the heaviest assets could deal with, and was well at home in heavy seas (unlike most smaller escorts). Like if we'd had the Mighty Ark or a Malta class around in 1982 though; Argentina would have given up had they been facing a Battleship. Like with our Nuclear Sub's (and their inability to detect & thus no hope of fighting them), they had nothing that could realistically hurt a ship of Vanguard's credentials; nor anywhere on the islands that would have been out of range of her guns. (25 miles with her 15"/42's, almost twice that of the Belgrano's guns, and no contest at all in punch) For the record though: the Rivadavias' (had they surrvived the '60's & been refitted [ *if* ]), would have stood no hope at all when faced with Vanguard either XD.
Just imagine the unholy grouping of _Hood, Vanguard, Ark Royal_ and _Malta_ all heading down to the Falklands to go _Belgrano_ hunting Edit: with a modernised HMS _By Jove_ following
VTOL jets like the Harrier are subsonic and have range and payload limitations. The USN jets are navalized land base aircraft and can be supersonic and usually have both longer ranger and heavier payloads. In fact some USN birds were denavalized for Air Farce use (see F4 Phantom II). The Harrier is an excellent bird but it is limited by the requirements of VTOL/STOL. If the RN could operate something like the USN birds from a carrier circa 1980 the Falklands War would have been fought differently by the RN as the carriers could have stood further out to the east. Also, there is nothing preventing a USN carrier from operating something like a Harrier but RN carriers of the 80's could not operate a F14 Tomcat. Think of what a couple of Maltas would have been like with probably a larger more capable air group in the Falklands.
I wonder if they would have been completed with those center flight deck elevators. I'd think they might of been redesigned with two additional edge elevators.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I do like the Maltas but they existed (or not) in the context of 1945. There was never a chance of their being built once the war ended.
@@blogsblogs2348 No. the UK was utterly broke in ways we cannot even imagine in 1945. We struggled to feed ourselves and building huge, unstarted carriers for a war that had ended was utterly nonsensical when there were actual real people who needed schools and so on.
@@stewartellinson8846 nope.. we produced excess food in 1945 and still had plenty of funds for adventures in lots of other lands and maintaining of vast fleets of aircraft etc.... between 1945 and 1960 the uk wasted an absolute fortune in infrastructure projects on unneeded development works... such as massive goods yards and fraudulent high rise living spaces that cost more than terraces but let communists and others steal peoples land for their own ends... I have studied this period extensively.... we spent billions on all kinds of projects whilst the use kept stealing our state secrets costing us 2 or 3 hundred million a pop..... so no we weren't that broke... the government splashed out on all kinds of things whilst preaching austerity... just like they do nowadays... saying they must put the pension age up etc... whilst spending 200 billion of a pile of bs nobody in their right mind would want....
@@blogsblogs2348 No we didn't. The UK was bankrupt by 1945 and survived on marshall aid. the UK hasn't been self sufficient in food since 1830; ratining continuing until 1954 and our rapid departure form india, the "export or die" policy, the continuation of rationing and rapid draw down of the military was evidence of the extremely shaky nature of the UK economy. the goods yards and other projects were evidence of the UK's failure to understand the modern world. hump goods yards were a response to the 1955 modernisation plant and a failure to forsee the end of wagonload traffic whilst it's telling that much of British "innovation" (eg concorde, blue pullman, brabazon, Saro proncess, VC10) was directed at "the elite" and the empire rather than the mass market world wide. we remained stuck in the 1920s. we also spent much of our marshall aid on a futile attempt to stay in the superpower club int he shape of a bomb with a union flag on it, leading to the collapse of much british manufatcting industry from 1960 on. Anyway, the fact remains that the Uk was broke in 1945 and building carriers for a war that had ended would have been a criminal waste of money whn people needed the homes which you seem to find so dislikeable. the UK pension age has been going up since the mid 1990s 9were you not listening to the news) as when the pension age was set in the 1940s, average age at death was 67 for males and 69 for females, these days it's 79 for males and 83 for females, with a post war baby boom to think about. Your comments about communists are guff by the way.
Well UK had the first ship built with an angled deck think it was HMS Ark royal. But the Yank's where not far behind converting old carrier's with angled flight decks. It was the brain chilled of Dennis Cammbell a royal navy flag officer. It was first tested on HMS triumph think she was a Colossus class.
@@tbalmer1207 Aye. A random doodle during a meeting on his part, changed the fortunes of naval aviation. Without him and other's innovations: carriers might have faded out of use postwar, or at least become a class below land airforces in comparative ability.
In a non nuclear paradigm, it could be argued that an Armoured Deck Malta was the way to go, with Operation Downfall, how many of the light fleets would have suffered in a same way as some of the Essex did, and sadly would have in the bloody battle for the home islands. Yes the Midways would come and be useful as other armoured deck carriers, to help with the attrition of the Japanese forces, a force of armoured carriers, the six British Fleet Carriers that were with re BPF with a couple or more of Audacious Class and a couple of Malta Class with the Midways would have given a good secure base for the invasion. After which who knows.
USN: "Damn, look at those armored flight decks shrug off kamikazes, screw the design tradeoffs!" *orders Midways* RN: "Damn, look at how many big planes fit in those high hangars, screw armored decks!" *orders Maltas* The grass is always greener on the other side of the hill......
Those are pretty much all thats available publicly for the Malta's, just have a good long hard search on google images. I printed off a punch of these same pictures in 1/700 scale the other day for a 1/700 Malta somewhere down the line. Also without giving it away you wouldn't happen to be "VG" if so I've seen your 1:192 Hermes progress shots and its superb!
@@NightHeronProduction No I'm not VG sorry.. But I'll like to see it. I'm (Joey45) a 3d artist and I did the Hermes for a game called DCS, Digital Combat Simulator.
ya high spped low level FAA over BA. so like a BB finally decide the weapons then build the ship around that, 1982 no need of the flights of the V bombers, but like you said earlier there might not have been a war, better all around i think
There wouldn't have even been a war.... The key components wouldn't have been Phantoms either...Buccaneers would have closed down the Argenitinian airbases very easily (have a look on Google Maps satellite images of Argentinian airbases...they're not much more than small regional airports with no resilience/redundancy. 1 bomb hit on the middle of the runway (and Buccaneer was equipped with Paveway and PaveSpike designation pods) for all of them and its over. At low level Buccaneer were practically impossible to intercept, even for F-15, and the night capability of Pave Spike would have left them pretty much invulnerable, particularly as they were also equipped with EW pods, add in their range and the Argentinian air force doesn't leave the ground. Here's the main Argentinian 'airbase' in the war....if you can call it that...Rio Gallegos. Remember this has had 40 years of building and development since 1982, it was way more basic in 1982. Rio Gallegos - www.google.com/maps/place/Rio+Gallegos,+Santa+Cruz+Province,+Argentina/@-51.6105057,-69.3155287,3117m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0xbdb6f952b21c66e5:0xab7c41f247647102!8m2!3d-51.6230485!4d-69.2168291 Compare it to a Western European airbase of similar vintage, have a look how vulnerable it is as well....5 km from the sea...similar story for all of the Argenitinian 'airbases' (most were in fact commandeered local airports). For some more Argentinian bases from 82 (Remember these satellite images are 40 years later, the bases were even more basic in 82): Rio Grande - www.google.com/maps/place/Rio+Gallegos,+Santa+Cruz+Province,+Argentina/@-53.7809576,-67.7532118,2494m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0xbdb6f952b21c66e5:0xab7c41f247647102!8m2!3d-51.6230485!4d-69.2168291 Puerto Santa Cruz - www.google.com/maps/place/Puerto+Santa+Cruz,+Santa+Cruz+Province,+Argentina/@-50.0187712,-68.5832365,1356m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0xbdc7a799f8014e21:0x2a7f23ac4181ca97!8m2!3d-50.0247276!4d-68.5243815 Puerto San Julian - www.google.com/maps/place/Puerto+San+Juli%C3%A1n,+Santa+Cruz+Province,+Argentina/@-49.3067935,-67.8063819,1458m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0xbdc4029c138d2ad5:0x982c40899e93e361!8m2!3d-49.3068942!4d-67.7298249 Comodoro Rivadavia (the most developed base, still incredibly basic by Western standards, and too far for use by fighter aircraft) - www.google.com/maps/place/Comodoro+Rivadavia,+Chubut+Province,+Argentina/@-45.7865838,-67.469591,2142m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0xbde4544de04824f5:0x5d9f7f8e3bb8ee4b!8m2!3d-45.8656149!4d-67.4822429 Trelew (too far for fighters, was used in the war by Canberra bombers and maritime patrol) - www.google.com/maps/place/Trelew,+Chubut+Province,+Argentina/@-43.2150244,-65.2717831,2740m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0xbe0144b6cf6769bb:0x9cbd6c76af132e0d!8m2!3d-43.2493016!4d-65.3076351 Some people think that the Vulcan raids on Port Stanley made the Argentinian's move their Mirage III up to Buenos Aires to protect the capital. This is totally false, the reason was far more prosaic, lack of AAR, shortage of fuel tanks and most of important of all, something that should be really apparent after looking at the bases....no space for them at the southern airfields. The Argentinian's literally had no available hard standing left to park aircraft on.....the small airfields were maxed out.
I should add...the RN could have sent in 2 pairs of Buccaneers, each equipped with the internal bomb bay tank, 1 Pave Spike pod per aircraft, 1 AN/ALQ-101 ECM pod and 2 x 1,000 lb Paveway. Drop 2 Paveways on each runway, with slight delays on the fuses, from medium altitude at night, each pair of aircraft attacking 2 of the southerly airfields in sequence, alternating lasing and dropping... And that's it...runways out of action for at least a week, probably longer, the whole exercise could be repeated at will...if you wanted to be really nasty drop some airburst bombs a few days later on the aircraft stranded on dispersal...Buccaneer had a huge range so you wouldn't have needed to be close to the coast either, and if you want more range you just send a Buccaneer with buddy-buddy AAR kit with each pair....the carrier/s could be 600-800 miles off the coast...
Not a single armored hanger/deck carrier survived in service beyond 1948 except HMS Victorious which cost so much to update with steam catapults and angle deck (the flight deck had to be removed so that the hanger could be increased to 17' clearance, so consider the cost of dealing with HMS Indefatigable's two 14' height hangers) that a follow-on program was abandoned. So no, an armored deck HMS Malta would not have survived into the 1990s much less been built.
@@michaelsnyder3871 The point is that according to DK Brown the Malta class was meant to be have an armoured deck(all modern fleet carriers have an armoured deck but not an armour belt)and thus would they were also being considered at at a time when angled decks were coming in so it is likely that they would have been built as armoured deck armoured deck carriers similar to the Forrestals
@@davidmcintyre8145 Carriers built after WW2 for larger aircraft had steel decks. It may be "parsing a word", but these were not "armored decks" like that of the British "armored" carriers or the "Midway' class intended to protect the interior of the ship from specified threats. They were usually constructed of a couple of inches of STS or HTS to increase the aircraft weights that could be operated. The adoption of jet aircraft also forced the movement to steel decks. This included the SCB 27 conversions of the "Essex" class. No US fleet carrier completed after the "Midway" class had an armored belt, though the "Ark Royal" class when completed in the mid-50s did. Armor belts were intended to protect ships from surface guns. All US carriers also have had deep and effective torpedo protection systems. And the continuing weights of carrier aircraft have driven the thickness of flight decks, but this is a response to aviation requirements not protection against threats. And yes, I have read D.K. Brown. I have also read Friedman, Burt and Roberts on both British carrier aviation and aircraft carrier design and development.
@@RCAvhstape Um. Brown Bess rifles first designed in 1722, still in use until 1854 by the British Army. Large stocks of the muskets were held in the Tower of London until 1841 when a fire destroyed them and new muskets had to be made. Rifles had been around for many years yet the British Army was still using smoothbore muskets up to the Crimean War. Your analogy appears faulty.
i am the 778th like and 6013th view. these are very important numbers i hope everyone can agree too bad they were cancelled they would have been formidable
The U.K. Was bankrupt coming out of WW2. So pinching pennies to protect taxpayers seem prudent. And with atomic weapons in infancy, emerging jet age, submarine threat, etc., building new warships as expensive as Malta was ludicrous. Even the U.S., with an GDP 5x the size as UK, needed funds to allocate spending to the peacetime economy resulting in the advances in the 1950’s.
Debt to GDP was high in 1946 but the UK was not bankrupt. No debts were defaulted. Debt as a % of GDP was rapidly reduced at the same time as social spending increased with things like the NHS public health services.
Problem is we don't know what would have replaced the F-4K Phantom 2 FG.1 and Blackburn Buccaneer S.2 fleet as both in the 1990s would be at the end of their lives unless the Blackburn Buccaneer S.2C/S.2D had been replaced by Hawker-Siddeley HS.1197 Buccaneers Blackburn Buccaneer S.2s might have been retained as a tanker plane
That's an interesting question. My guess would be the fleet air arm would buy the F18 super hornet or maybe even develop a navalised version of the Typhoon, but that second option is admittedly a bit unrealistic.
@@AWMJoeyjoejoe Keep in mind that Typhoon didn't enter service with operational squadrons until the mid-2000s, and a naval variant would have been even later. By then the RN Phantoms and Buccaneers would have been awfully tired. (And Rafale only beat that by a couple of years, so there's no help there.) Maybe with a pair (or even a quartet!) of big flight decks to fill, the RN would have put a higher priority on developing competitive aircraft to fill them. Or maybe they'd just buy Hornets. (Also, interestingly, quite possibly the Sea Harrier would never have happened.) But it's just too many butterflies to say anything with certainty.
@@Philistine47 The RN would have written some dog of a specification and the monkeys at Brough would have spent years and half the Aircraft development budget of the country to build it (Remember People, the Buccaneer S Mk 1 was a Dog of an aircraft, only saved by the RR Spey in the mark 2 format).
@@richardvernon317 Entirely possible. But replacing US-built F-4s with US-built F-18s might work, given the total absence of a credible domestic alternative.
Eeeh. At that size; we wouldn't have *needed* the Harriers XD. (at least not in the FAA) As it was the Centaur class proved ideal for those, and the Invincibles... slightly too small for an ideal CAP & strike force. (in the Falklands we lacked enough 'planes & space to do all that we needed to do with them)
Indeed. The _Malta_-class would still have had conventional catapults and arresting gear, so the STOVL characteristics of Harrier would have been extraneous. And apart from that, Harrier (and Sea Harrier) was a clear step backward in terms of aircraft performance - comparable to the USN's A-4 Skyhawk of the mid-1950s in terms of range/payload and speed. That doesn't mean the Good Idea Fairy might not have swung past the MoD to do its wicked work, forcing a navalized Harrier on the RN. But it would have been a big step down from the Phantoms and Buccaneers already in service.
@@Philistine47 Well sort of. The Sea-Harrier slaughtered ostensibly more capable fighters in the Falklands (being well armed with twin ADEN cannons & Sidewinders, plus an excellent radar, will do that), but certainly the FAA would rather of had the Phantoms to hand, and enough fighters [of any kind] to both defend the fleet and strike at the enemy. Didn't help either that while the SHAR was capable of using SeaEagle missiles by 1982; only one of the aircraft sent was officially outfitted to use them. (we wouldn't have needed the Sub's to sink the Belgrano, as the SHAR could have Buccaneer'd the threat)
@@jimtaylor294 The Argentine aircraft being loaded with bombs and operating at the edge of their range, without fuel to maneuver, had even more to do with it. If _Sea Kings_ could carry AIM-9L they would have done almost as well under those circumstances; had the circumstances been reversed, the Argie A-4s (never mind the Mirages!) would have swept the jump jets from the skies.
The Falklands War. Would Argentina have tried if the Royal Navy had even ONE Malta with contemporary jet fighter and attack aircraft available to send south? Considering that the much more powerful Soviets took the US equivalent Midway class seriously despite being elderly, smaller and with fewer aircraft than the succeeding Forrestal class, unless the Argies had a plan to cripple or sink the Malta, I tend to think they wouldn't be that foolish.
Funny the Brits: comromising their bomber design for the sake of fitting in old hangars, compromising their tanks to fit on narrow railways carriages, and when they finally design a carrier around the planes it had to carry, it gets cancelled.
Not really. The Stirling was also intended to be a troop transport, intended to move troops to far flung areas, with limited airfields, from which it would then supply bombing support. As a 1936 design, the Stirling was a leader in its field. The tanks were not designed to fit onto carriages, but onto the British loading gauge, which was smaller than European or American ones. Again, a down-side to being the first in the field. Carriages could easily be modified, but tunnels, platforms, and lineside features couldn't.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 Not really a counter... instead of making a bomber, they made a bomber-transport with rough field capabilities and poor self-defence (by the time it was in action). And once in action, the other capabilities didn't matter. didn't matter. And... Centurion. Suddenly a tank didn't have to be Morris Minor-wide. I get WHY these compromises were made. But, compromises they were.
would be good to see what would of happend at vering levels if the royal navy kept fixed wing capability up to the new QEC ie would we have baught f14 or replaced them with something else/ devolepd 3rd and 4th gen carrier fighters
The F-14 could not operate off of a Midway so I doubt it could operate off of a Malta. The answer is the F/A-18. The French Navy looked at the Hornet but decided to go with their own aircraft.
If modified *Malta* class running F4 Phantoms had been available in 1982 then Argentina would have never dreamed of invading the Falklands. The best wars are avoided by having a big mean stick to beat the other poor b*stard with.
-_- No the Argentine Military Junta were so unpopular and afraid of their people that they'd do it anyway!!! they'd not care what happens the only thing we can say with more certainty is that the British casualties probably wouldn't have been as high as they were historically
@@Knight6831 nah- they would have picked on Chile not UK. Different war if UK still has kerbstomp grade superiority. The Argie Junta go pick on perceived softer target of Chile instead.
Should have modified one of the light carriers to be a cheap testbed for angled flight decks etc. Then start a new design from scratch once it was apparent just how large aircraft would get... Thinking jets would only grow to 30,000 lbs when the Buccaneer was 30,000 lbs EMPTY & more than 60,000 lbs at gross weight.
Pinned post for Q&A :)
Could we ever see you review movies depicting Naval engagements say Battle Of The River Plate 1955 or other motion picture films pertaining naval warfare in future videos?
Alternate question. With a 4 inch armoured flight deck as built, what would a late era Malta aircraft group look like? I would imagine similar to Ark Royals final air group with E2s instead of Gannets, but could F14's have made it into the hangers if they had lasted long enough (provided the lifts could accommodate them)
I realize this is outside your normal time frame, but there have also been a number of references to the Unpleasantness in 1982 and, in this video, that the Malta class carriers might have been a big enough stick to prevent the invasion from being attempted. However, the RN was significantly weakened as a result of the 1966 Defense White Paper which, from my reading, included a section from the RAF calling the utility of the RN carriers in question in comparison with RAF aircraft. Would it be fair to say that the 1966 Defense White Paper and resulting cancellations lead directly to the Falkland Islands War, and that the RAF position is conclusively refuted by the experiences of that war?
@@kemarisite
The RAF had lied to get the carriers canned as they basically lied with maps showing Australia 500 miles closer than it actually was
the 2nd question is easy
'the RAF position is conclusively refuted by the experiences of that war?'
Yes it was and fatally as well as the RAF couldn't protect the 2 Sheffield Class Batch 1 Destroyers, 2 Amazon Class Frigates, 1 Round-Table Class Landing Ship Logistics and 1 Commercial Container Ship that got sunk
How many more ships would the Royal Navy needed to send 1 or 2 Malta Class Carriers down there and what ships from the Fleet sent would have been increased?
Irl this was the 1982 Falklands Task Force
1x Invincible Class Light Aircraft Carrier
1x Centaur Class Light Aircraft Carrier
1x Bristol Class Destroyer
1x Sheffield Class Batch 2 Destroyer
4x Sheffield Class Batch 1 Destroyer
2x County Class Batch 2 Destroyer
2x Broadsword Class Batch 1 Frigate
6x Amazon Class Frigate
1x Leander Class Batch 3A Frigate
3x Leander Class Batch 2 Frigate
2x Rothesay Class Frigate
2x Castle Class Offshore Patrol Ship
3x Hecla Class Survey Ship
2x Fearless Class Landing Platform Dock
6x Round-Table Class Landing Ship Logistics
2x Fort Rosalie Class Replenishment Oiler
2x Tide Class Replenishment Oiler
2x Ol Class Fast Fleet Tanker
1x Rover Class Small Fleet Tanker
5x Leaf Class Fleet Support Tanker
2x Regent Class Ammunition Cargo Ship
1x Ness Class Fleet Stores Ship
Civil Ships
5x Trawlers
2x Ocean Liners
1x Steamship
8x Roll-On & Roll-Off Ferries
5x Container Ship
7x Freight Ship
13x Oil Tankers
3x Diving Support Ship
2x Ocean Salvage Tug
1x Fleet Maintenance Ship
1x Mooring Tug
Submarine Force
2x Swiftsure Class Nuclear Fleet Attack Submarine
2x Churchill Class Nuclear Fleet Attack Submarine
1x Valiant Class Nuclear Fleet Attack Submarine
1x Oberon Class Attack Submarine
I see the old saying "nothings proves more expensive than a cost cutting measure" keeps true for most governments in most eras :).
It's a geometric truth that cutting corners just creates more corners.
"one often meets his destiny when trying to avoid it."
@@EnterAName5573 A curve is actually an infinite amount of corners.
The inability of civil service types to look past the next 3 budgets when making "long term" spending decisions is legendary....
@@EnterAName5573 Then, cutting just ads corners.
I think the fate of the Maltas is one of best examples of why the phrase "It's easy to be wise in retrospect" exists. The Admiralty of the late 40s made all the moves that seemed politically and militarily expedient at the time, but their decision making was based on the assumption that the construction of new ships further down the line was a given.
I can also understand why they didn't foresee the rapid changes in aviation which were coming, helicopters and jet aircraft were just starting to reach operational status.
The admiralty of the late 40's were too focused on fending off deeper cuts they feared were coming than fighting against the cuts as they happened.
Such a shame these were never build, especially the HMS New Zealand. Had she managed to acquire supernatural protection as her predecessor did she might well still be with us today.
Did the RN preserve the captain's tiki and skirt??
@@John-ru5ud I've heard that they are in a museum in New Zealand.
@@stuartaaron613They are, yes.
Takes all the Exocet hits off the Falklands. Captain: Sweepers, man your brooms.
@@nk_3332 I can imagine the Headline:
*"Missile hit our ship. Did 30p of damage." says C.O.*
Though they cancelled the " Malta Class ", the British still had an aircraft carrier named Malta. The only difference was that, well...
It was an unsinkable rock, that existed since the dawn of civilisation. Hence the name.
Proud that you covered this topic, because I never heard about it.
Great video,
From her name sake,
Malta 🇲🇹
😊
For some reason you sent a lot of people whose first Australian born generation were funny as hell, some really good lost comedies from the 70's 80's and 90's, as well as overrepresented in the variety shows that were popular at the time, must of been the work ethic.
Hmm. Audacious-Class last Saturday and the Malta-Class today. Is there something you’re planning Drach?
Perhaps a Visit to Taranto? Or Pearl Harbour?
Finally finishing the carrier development series?
@@Strelnikov403 hopefully
@@Strelnikov403 I'm really surprised he still hasn't covered the Independence Class.
The UK Ministry of Defence is proposing more cuts to the kingdom's armed services, including withdrawing two frigates before their replacements are completed. Drach could be obliquely criticizing the postwar UK governments for false economy.
Hey Drac, would you take a stab at talking about the three key things that make up the modern carrier?
- Angled Flight Deck
- Fresnel Lense Landing System
And finally
- The steam catapult
I know going into modern day and cold war era ships is a bit out of your scope, but all of the Midways were retrofitted with these features, and all new US Carriers would have them from day one.
Many of the Essex class were refitted with this stuff as well and served into the 1970s.
I would add AWACS aircraft to make it four key things that make up the modern carrier. The experience of WWII taught the hard lesson that a blind carrier often becomes a dead carrier, and the ship's own radar has limited reach due to its low elevation. Putting some radar way up in the air and out to a long patrol radius gives the carrier that much more warning of any hostile visitors. Interestingly all four of these "modern" carrier features would seem to have been perfectly feasible during WWII with existing technology, but nobody had thought to implement them.
On the off chance that anyone with pull is reading this, I'd also like to see a kind of alternate history retrospective: what could WWII carriers and their air groups have been like if, without assuming any more technology than they had available at the time, a few of these newer forehead-smackingly-obvious-in-hindsight ideas had been introduced earlier. For example, it seems the USA had the technical ability to build a Midway-sized carrier sooner and equip it with an angled flight deck. Such a ship would have been able to handle a twin-engined heavy fighter/fighter-bomber/torpedo bomber like the Grumman F7F Tigercat or perhaps a more medium-bomber-type version closer to a B-25. The real F7F only just began reaching service at the end of WWII but could easily have been developed sooner given that it used the same engine (Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp) as the P-47, F6F, and Corsair which all entered service in large numbers with plenty of war left to fight. Grumman seems to have slow-walked the F7F's development because there were no carriers in service large enough to handle it, as it needed the Midways.
Even if angled-deck carriers only flew the existing single-engined inventory, just think of all those USN pilots and Airedales (deck crew) killed or injured by airplanes that missed all the arrestor cables on the straight decks of the time and jumped the barrier as well, thus crashing into parked airplanes at the front of the deck. Sometimes while still carrying bombs. Not to mention all the airplanes damaged or destroyed by hitting the crash barrier as intended even if no harm came to personnel. Surely at least some of those crash landings could have been harmless bolters on an angled deck. The fact that angled decks were made standard on USN fixed-wing carriers just as soon as the idea could be copied from its British inventor suggests the idea would have been just as obviously a better solution no matter how early some genius could have thought of it. Think of all the airplanes that had to crash or ditch at the end of the Battle of the Philippine Sea when the straight decks became fouled with too many airplanes landing in the dark. An angled deck lets a carrier land a lot of airplanes quickly while keeping the landing strip clear. No matter how full the rest of the deck gets with airplanes waiting for elevator rides to the hangar deck, the angled landing strip retains its full functionality, unlike a straight deck which grows progressively shorter and deadlier as the deck fills up with landed aircraft.
Having the ability to launch and land heavier airplanes could have been transformative. Picture the long-range striking power of the Doolittle Raid but with the ability to recover and re-use the strikers. Under a ceteris paribus (all else being equal) Leyte Gulf scenario, Halsey could have fallen for Ozawa's feint while still being able to send dozens of twin-engined fighter-bombers all the way back to aid the overmatched ships of Taffy 3 (without having to get his fleet carriers some distance south first) and give Kurita a nicer going-away present than he got in real life after he retreated his battleships from the American tin cans. That might have saved the trouble of having to sink the Yamato later. Might as well clear the whole to-do list in one battle. Another benefit would have been in searching for enemy fleets. The limited range of everything in the USN carrier-based aircraft inventory (single engines all) sometimes made it hard to find the Japanese carriers before their strike was already incoming. The ability to launch something bigger with two engines would not only have expanded the search radius, but also made a primitive AWACS option possible for finding enemy fleet units at night from very long distances. For example, Halsey might have been able to chase Ozawa's decoys while keeping his proto-AWACSes scanning the San Bernardino Strait just in case that pesky Kurita got any ideas to turn around and sneak through at night. Then instead of the Taffy 3 carriers first detecting Japanese battleships from shell splashes already bracketing them, they could have had at least an hour or two to prepare a proper anti-ship aircraft strike and start putting some ocean between themselves and Kurita's battlewagons. History could have thus been robbed of the most glorious battle in US naval history but I'd imagine none of the ~1000 US sailors who gave their lives for Halsey's blunder would have minded remaining unknown and alive.
Thank you, Drachinifel.
Looking at the thumbnail, I thought it was sheet music. "Huh, someone wrote sheet music to look like a ship? How creative. Must sound awful though" Until I saw the lower half and realised what I was actually looking at.
Same here!
In hindsight, it always amazes me that angled flight decks didn't happen sooner. I can see the USN deliberately not considering them due to the Panama Canal limitations, but the British and IJN didn't have to design around the 110-ft Panama Canal locks. The current USN LHDs and LHAs are still design-limited by the Canal.
It was not necessary. Angled flight deck only became necessary with jet fighters.
Is there any good interpretations of what a fully realized angled flight deck version would look like?
Well those port side lifts would have been a problem... 😬
Guessing a almost completely rebuild above the hanger deck would have been needed.
But, alas, we shall never know.
Do I smell an alternative history segment coming?
Never heard of these ships. Thanks Drach for sharing!
interesting subject matter, excellent delivery of message. Thanks Drach!
I'd imagine all the Kiwis being so pumped with HMS New Zealand on the talks and papers, until it didn't
I wonder if the maori war regalia would have made a return for the captain of a HMS New Zealand carrier?
@@stewartellinson8846 I hope so!
@@stewartellinson8846 I pity the Argentinians if they were.
@@stewartellinson8846 More divinely-protected warships, please!
@@stewartellinson8846 The captain's Maori regalia was preserved, and returned to New Zealand in 2005.
Had the carrier HMS New Zealand been built, it's very likely the piupiu would've still been worn by the captain any time the ship went to war. Ships in the Royal Navy always carry the history of their namesake, after all.
Theoretical Carrier, designed around a theoretical Aircraft. Theoretical great Idea. Sure they didnt employ german Designers? Theoretical?
They were theoretically Germanic, does that count?
@@nonna_sof5889 in Theorie yes.
And yet still a better idea than what they'd _been_ doing up to that point. Because when you're trying to design an _aircraft carrier,_ it's not a bad idea to start by considering the _aircraft_ it's going to be expected to _carry._
@@ramal5708 in theory all the ww2 tanks, ships and planes were the best on earth, spoiler, the wasn't
It makes sense, since the size of aircraft was growing and after the war we'd see large jet aircraft get introduced that required bigger decks and hangars.
My sunday shot of Drachinifel complete....time to find a Drydock i haven't heard yet! Drachinifel is the best way to spend a rainy sunday morning. with a shot of whisky of course....... of course. Cheers me hearties!!!!
To help ensure Drach videos are under 5mins watch time ... do it 1.25 speed.
As interesting as it would have been to have a couple of Malta’s I don’t think that the RN’s initial plan (to utilise what they had) was unsound. The mistake was not going with the “1952” carrier which would have had the benefit of 7 years of jet experience and would therefore been a clean sheet design.
The Malta’s had they been built would probably needed some fairly substantial modifications and reconstruction to have an angled deck,steam catapults etc.
Given the RN record on reconstructions (look at the HMS Victorious refit) I imagine that it would over run, be over budget and end up with only one being undertaken and the other ship being used for spares!
Easier to rebuild a larger, roomier Malta than one of the Illustrious class. Probably would have been an easier sell too since it would be that most favoured word of the Treasury. Cheap.
Thanks for the video, I have always wanted to know more about the Malta class.
I get up early just for this !!
So relaxing on a Sat night with a beer and a Drachinfel vid
Best drink fast as it's a short one...
@@scottgiles7546 Beer for the Beer God 🍺
I read ''HMS Melta'' and thought it was one of those 40K videos.
At yes HMS Melta, the British attempt at a flamethrowing pre-Dreadnought.
@@nonna_sof5889 Or possibly an April 1st video.
@@nonna_sof5889 I now want to do a scale model of that idea XD.
I always have trouble getting the same level of excitement for Carriers as I do for conventional ships just because whether it's the hotness or a dumpster fire has more to do with it's aircraft load out than the ship itself
Btw the next video it will be about the project 23 Aka Sovetsky Soyuz class battleship, hopefully ( Project 24 is the enlarged class of the Sovetsky Soyuz battleship in cause if you didn’t know,)
Drach: "The assumption was that the older carriers could be easily converted"
10m History: "But fun fact: No"
YYYYYYYEEEEEEEEESSSSSSS I'VE WAITED FOR THIS ONE!!!
Thanks for the bedtime story
Interesting ordered before design was done, but understandable under the war!
Interesting stuff, as ever. Thanks
The Island of Malta the unsinkable aircraft carrier …I wonder how many R/N Ships were lost in the defense of Malta 🇲🇹 in WW2 ,and aircraft … a whole lot of Similarities to the diurnal shift change siege of Guadalcanal …and some differences
Another good video,however the survival of the RN's carriers past the 1970's would have to mean a change of heart by Wilson's and Heath's governments. Alas, I fear that there would have been the same outcome.
Wahoo I was waiting for this!.
Thanks :)
Sounding a bit under the weather there drach
Ya should do HNLMS Abraham Crijensen
Love your channel. I’m hoping you might do a video on Russia’s super cavitation torpedoes and how they would impact (sorry for the pun) carrier power projection.
its post 1950 so he wont. But- in short, they dont do much as a threat to carriers but more act as reminder of the russian traditon of Scary Nukes.
the range and (lack of) accuracy of the skrell (sic) torpedo mean its a pointless thing with a none-nuke warhead- fire it to scare the crap out of all people listening to sonar in the vague direction of launch, kinda, but chances of direct hit are pretty much nil. Might get a few fish, thats it.
Whereas if nuke tipped while you could launch it at a carrier group with vague degree certainty of getting a hit (ie, close enough for the big bang to muller SOMETHING.) once in range,and it would likely make a mess of anything floating above detonation point, (a nimitz class isnt going to float long on a shockwave and radioactive steam if one those detonates 200 feet below the suface and 800 horizontally, for starters.) But the surviving escorts are gonna kill the sub that launched it, and 10 minutes later all life on earth starts to die out as ww3 starts. (Or finishes? The skrell launch is arguably the start if its not officiially on go already, i suppose.)
Which kinda limits the point as tactical weapon. But a lot of scary Russian weaponry is like that, scary, hard or impossible to counter once fired but seemingly pointless unless wishing to end up to turn half the planet to molten glass like stuff...
(its all designed to make everyone think ¨dont f*ck with moscow, comrade, bad things happen if f*ck with moscow...¨
more than actually win a naval fight. you dont need to win a naval fight if everyone is cowed by your scary but impractical nukes...)
Wartime restrictions You can see impacted all of the Royal Navy plans I dont think any thing started post 1941 was completed before 1945 or 46 if not later.
Defence always becomes a low priority once the fighting stops then more people die when it restarts because of old or inadequate kit!
Question for the drydock, how did stoking work on coal fuelled warships, especially around WW1? Was it as simple as lots of men with shovels, and if so how did the coal get from the bunkers to the boilers?
Lots of blokes with Shovels called Stokers.
@@richardvernon317 Also known as 'The Black Gang', because they were usually covered in coal dust.
@@Dave_Sisson And when the Coal was loaded on to the ship, most of the crew got covered in it as well.
Its stokers shovel the coal into boilers, and trimmers bring the stokers the coal (shovels and lil wheelbarrows?) from the coal bunkers. So is stokers and trimmers in the black gang, not just stokers.
Another fine channel covered the coaling proces of big ocean liners.
th-cam.com/video/VxzNdvidQMM/w-d-xo.html
Imagine a fleet built around HMS New Zealand being escorted by HMS Vanguard going to sort out the Falklands....
It wouldn't have happened...successive governments were intent on selling off assets and this class would have long been razor blades or somebody else's. You can always rely on UK politicians to wrongly prioritise virtually everything and screw up, relying on a nice popular war to bale them out of trouble, except lately they've run out of popular wars and so screwed even that up...
Argentina: I'd like to apologise
@@cogidubnus1953 Certainly unlikely that Vanguard would've been retained. Even with a much larger fleet carrier around, a battleship was no longer the ideal carrier escort ship. Had the Maltas been built, though, it would've probably been Eagle and Ark Royal that got the axe earlier than in reality on the premise that we've got these bigger and newer once so the Audacious-class are obviously redundant. Whether somewhat newer and dramatically more capable Maltas could've lasted to the 80s? Well Ark Royal in reality *almost* did, being decommissioned in 1979. So it's possible at least one Malta would've lasted that long.
In this alternate timeline, the colossal waste of time and money that was the Victorious rebuild would've never happened (literally her conversion cost would've covered building at least 2 of the Maltas in a postwar angled-deck configuration, yet resulted in a near-useless carrier that could only handle 8 Sea Venoms and 8 Buccaneers), and the wartime carriers plus Eagle, Ark Royal, and the Centaurs would've been discarded sooner than in reality to appease Parliament's desire to turn warships into razor blades. So there's at least some chance Gibraltar and New Zealand could've lasted into the 80s.
@@RedXlV In early 1982 Invincible was all but sold to Australia, whilst Hermes was overdue decommissioning having been previously partially converted to an ASW Carrier. Had the Argentines waited a couple more months there would've potentially been no carriers at all as Illustrious was still not complete enough (despite an accelerated fitting out) to arrive in the Falklands until August 1982..
Edit: Governments are very good at wasting both assets and money...The Malta class if built would've been so potentially lucrative as to make them almost irresistible to an asset stripping government. The sixties seventies and early eighties were all asset stripping governments to some extent or another...which is why Britain ceased being "able to afford" a decent marine building industry or an aircraft industry for that matter. Dim-witted Vandals the lot of them.
Contrary to the prior statement: Vanguard would actually have been *the* ideal escort. She comfortably outgunned all Soviet surface ships and those of other potential threat countries, had a comprehensive AAA suite and top draw FCS', armour only the heaviest assets could deal with, and was well at home in heavy seas (unlike most smaller escorts).
Like if we'd had the Mighty Ark or a Malta class around in 1982 though; Argentina would have given up had they been facing a Battleship. Like with our Nuclear Sub's (and their inability to detect & thus no hope of fighting them), they had nothing that could realistically hurt a ship of Vanguard's credentials; nor anywhere on the islands that would have been out of range of her guns.
(25 miles with her 15"/42's, almost twice that of the Belgrano's guns, and no contest at all in punch)
For the record though: the Rivadavias' (had they surrvived the '60's & been refitted [ *if* ]), would have stood no hope at all when faced with Vanguard either XD.
Great work Sir thank you
Just imagine the unholy grouping of _Hood, Vanguard, Ark Royal_ and _Malta_ all heading down to the Falklands to go _Belgrano_ hunting
Edit: with a modernised HMS _By Jove_ following
Haha
there would no way that would be feasible
Imagine the fleet train needed to keep that lot steaming.
Why, one SSN could do the job at far less risk and cost.
@@advanceaustralia9026 because it's super lame.
5:49 What do you mean by no fixed wing capability is the harrier not considered fixed wing, or am I missing something?
VTOL jets like the Harrier are subsonic and have range and payload limitations. The USN jets are navalized land base aircraft and can be supersonic and usually have both longer ranger and heavier payloads. In fact some USN birds were denavalized for Air Farce use (see F4 Phantom II). The Harrier is an excellent bird but it is limited by the requirements of VTOL/STOL.
If the RN could operate something like the USN birds from a carrier circa 1980 the Falklands War would have been fought differently by the RN as the carriers could have stood further out to the east. Also, there is nothing preventing a USN carrier from operating something like a Harrier but RN carriers of the 80's could not operate a F14 Tomcat. Think of what a couple of Maltas would have been like with probably a larger more capable air group in the Falklands.
Makes sense why the class were never built...if only they could see the future, though.
To be fair if they had, they wouldn't even have built the Maltas, they'd go ahead and design their own supercarrier. Well, IMHO anyway.
Don't ever think that the UK's MoD "civil servants" won't find the stupidest, most expensive manner of doing things.....and then adopting it.
Suggest a review of USS Ranger CV 4.
Can you do the j class destroyers
Hi. Could you do a video on HMS Gloucester (WW2) please?
Extended version of this also I'm a returning subscriber and idk if u have a vid upon ALL the British carries (lights medium and fleet carriers)
I wonder if they would have been completed with those center flight deck elevators. I'd think they might of been redesigned with two additional edge elevators.
Awesome as always;
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I do like the Maltas but they existed (or not) in the context of 1945. There was never a chance of their being built once the war ended.
Yea
Yes there was... a vast amount of material was in hand for a number of projects and a slow.. deliberate and high quality build was possible...
@@blogsblogs2348 No. the UK was utterly broke in ways we cannot even imagine in 1945. We struggled to feed ourselves and building huge, unstarted carriers for a war that had ended was utterly nonsensical when there were actual real people who needed schools and so on.
@@stewartellinson8846 nope.. we produced excess food in 1945 and still had plenty of funds for adventures in lots of other lands and maintaining of vast fleets of aircraft etc.... between 1945 and 1960 the uk wasted an absolute fortune in infrastructure projects on unneeded development works... such as massive goods yards and fraudulent high rise living spaces that cost more than terraces but let communists and others steal peoples land for their own ends... I have studied this period extensively.... we spent billions on all kinds of projects whilst the use kept stealing our state secrets costing us 2 or 3 hundred million a pop..... so no we weren't that broke... the government splashed out on all kinds of things whilst preaching austerity... just like they do nowadays... saying they must put the pension age up etc... whilst spending 200 billion of a pile of bs nobody in their right mind would want....
@@blogsblogs2348 No we didn't. The UK was bankrupt by 1945 and survived on marshall aid. the UK hasn't been self sufficient in food since 1830; ratining continuing until 1954 and our rapid departure form india, the "export or die" policy, the continuation of rationing and rapid draw down of the military was evidence of the extremely shaky nature of the UK economy.
the goods yards and other projects were evidence of the UK's failure to understand the modern world. hump goods yards were a response to the 1955 modernisation plant and a failure to forsee the end of wagonload traffic whilst it's telling that much of British "innovation" (eg concorde, blue pullman, brabazon, Saro proncess, VC10) was directed at "the elite" and the empire rather than the mass market world wide. we remained stuck in the 1920s.
we also spent much of our marshall aid on a futile attempt to stay in the superpower club int he shape of a bomb with a union flag on it, leading to the collapse of much british manufatcting industry from 1960 on.
Anyway, the fact remains that the Uk was broke in 1945 and building carriers for a war that had ended would have been a criminal waste of money whn people needed the homes which you seem to find so dislikeable.
the UK pension age has been going up since the mid 1990s 9were you not listening to the news) as when the pension age was set in the 1940s, average age at death was 67 for males and 69 for females, these days it's 79 for males and 83 for females, with a post war baby boom to think about.
Your comments about communists are guff by the way.
When were angled flight decks envisioned and implemented and by whom and when?
the UK did, as we had jets to experiment with and the US didnt, post WW2 when there was free time.
Well UK had the first ship built with an angled deck think it was HMS Ark royal. But the Yank's where not far behind converting old carrier's with angled flight decks. It was the brain chilled of Dennis Cammbell a royal navy flag officer. It was first tested on HMS triumph think she was a Colossus class.
@@tbalmer1207 Thanks, this was the information I was looking for .
@@tbalmer1207 Aye. A random doodle during a meeting on his part, changed the fortunes of naval aviation.
Without him and other's innovations: carriers might have faded out of use postwar, or at least become a class below land airforces in comparative ability.
3.44 "there was a push to go back to an armoured flight deck but"
dam austerity measures!
Whats the stuff blown out of the turret @22-23 in the trailer intro ?
In a non nuclear paradigm, it could be argued that an Armoured Deck Malta was the way to go, with Operation Downfall, how many of the light fleets would have suffered in a same way as some of the Essex did, and sadly would have in the bloody battle for the home islands.
Yes the Midways would come and be useful as other armoured deck carriers, to help with the attrition of the Japanese forces, a force of armoured carriers, the six British Fleet Carriers that were with re BPF with a couple or more of Audacious Class and a couple of Malta Class with the Midways would have given a good secure base for the invasion. After which who knows.
Suprised at the size of the rudder.
USN: "Damn, look at those armored flight decks shrug off kamikazes, screw the design tradeoffs!" *orders Midways*
RN: "Damn, look at how many big planes fit in those high hangars, screw armored decks!" *orders Maltas*
The grass is always greener on the other side of the hill......
Nice goin m8, wish I could tellya, your tellin me things I know, but ya not! keep up the good work!
WOWS, please!!!
Where did you find the plans.. I'm finishing off HMS Hermes R12 and need another project..
Those are pretty much all thats available publicly for the Malta's, just have a good long hard search on google images. I printed off a punch of these same pictures in 1/700 scale the other day for a 1/700 Malta somewhere down the line. Also without giving it away you wouldn't happen to be "VG" if so I've seen your 1:192 Hermes progress shots and its superb!
@@NightHeronProduction No I'm not VG sorry.. But I'll like to see it.
I'm (Joey45) a 3d artist and I did the Hermes for a game called DCS, Digital Combat Simulator.
Had to do a double take given that I'm Maltese
Drach says 'schedule' the American way. Absolutely gutted
As a proud Briton and a retired scheduler (pronounced the British way) of well over forty years standing I'm deeply offended :-)
My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
@@leeboy26 Is this the British form of "snark"??? (If so, well done.)
@@leeboy26 You missed the "bereft" bit...
Here's a fun game.
Imagine if Drach had a 'cockney' accent?
ya high spped low level FAA over BA. so like a BB finally decide the weapons then build the ship around that, 1982 no need of the flights of the V bombers, but like you said earlier there might not have been a war, better all around i think
Thx D
Indeed. What could Sandy Woodward have done with two Maltas, loaded up with Phantoms in '82? I expect ship losses would have been much reduced.
There wouldn't have even been a war....
The key components wouldn't have been Phantoms either...Buccaneers would have closed down the Argenitinian airbases very easily (have a look on Google Maps satellite images of Argentinian airbases...they're not much more than small regional airports with no resilience/redundancy. 1 bomb hit on the middle of the runway (and Buccaneer was equipped with Paveway and PaveSpike designation pods) for all of them and its over. At low level Buccaneer were practically impossible to intercept, even for F-15, and the night capability of Pave Spike would have left them pretty much invulnerable, particularly as they were also equipped with EW pods, add in their range and the Argentinian air force doesn't leave the ground.
Here's the main Argentinian 'airbase' in the war....if you can call it that...Rio Gallegos. Remember this has had 40 years of building and development since 1982, it was way more basic in 1982.
Rio Gallegos -
www.google.com/maps/place/Rio+Gallegos,+Santa+Cruz+Province,+Argentina/@-51.6105057,-69.3155287,3117m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0xbdb6f952b21c66e5:0xab7c41f247647102!8m2!3d-51.6230485!4d-69.2168291
Compare it to a Western European airbase of similar vintage, have a look how vulnerable it is as well....5 km from the sea...similar story for all of the Argenitinian 'airbases' (most were in fact commandeered local airports).
For some more Argentinian bases from 82 (Remember these satellite images are 40 years later, the bases were even more basic in 82):
Rio Grande - www.google.com/maps/place/Rio+Gallegos,+Santa+Cruz+Province,+Argentina/@-53.7809576,-67.7532118,2494m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0xbdb6f952b21c66e5:0xab7c41f247647102!8m2!3d-51.6230485!4d-69.2168291
Puerto Santa Cruz - www.google.com/maps/place/Puerto+Santa+Cruz,+Santa+Cruz+Province,+Argentina/@-50.0187712,-68.5832365,1356m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0xbdc7a799f8014e21:0x2a7f23ac4181ca97!8m2!3d-50.0247276!4d-68.5243815
Puerto San Julian - www.google.com/maps/place/Puerto+San+Juli%C3%A1n,+Santa+Cruz+Province,+Argentina/@-49.3067935,-67.8063819,1458m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0xbdc4029c138d2ad5:0x982c40899e93e361!8m2!3d-49.3068942!4d-67.7298249
Comodoro Rivadavia (the most developed base, still incredibly basic by Western standards, and too far for use by fighter aircraft) - www.google.com/maps/place/Comodoro+Rivadavia,+Chubut+Province,+Argentina/@-45.7865838,-67.469591,2142m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0xbde4544de04824f5:0x5d9f7f8e3bb8ee4b!8m2!3d-45.8656149!4d-67.4822429
Trelew (too far for fighters, was used in the war by Canberra bombers and maritime patrol) -
www.google.com/maps/place/Trelew,+Chubut+Province,+Argentina/@-43.2150244,-65.2717831,2740m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0xbe0144b6cf6769bb:0x9cbd6c76af132e0d!8m2!3d-43.2493016!4d-65.3076351
Some people think that the Vulcan raids on Port Stanley made the Argentinian's move their Mirage III up to Buenos Aires to protect the capital. This is totally false, the reason was far more prosaic, lack of AAR, shortage of fuel tanks and most of important of all, something that should be really apparent after looking at the bases....no space for them at the southern airfields. The Argentinian's literally had no available hard standing left to park aircraft on.....the small airfields were maxed out.
I should add...the RN could have sent in 2 pairs of Buccaneers, each equipped with the internal bomb bay tank, 1 Pave Spike pod per aircraft, 1 AN/ALQ-101 ECM pod and 2 x 1,000 lb Paveway. Drop 2 Paveways on each runway, with slight delays on the fuses, from medium altitude at night, each pair of aircraft attacking 2 of the southerly airfields in sequence, alternating lasing and dropping...
And that's it...runways out of action for at least a week, probably longer, the whole exercise could be repeated at will...if you wanted to be really nasty drop some airburst bombs a few days later on the aircraft stranded on dispersal...Buccaneer had a huge range so you wouldn't have needed to be close to the coast either, and if you want more range you just send a Buccaneer with buddy-buddy AAR kit with each pair....the carrier/s could be 600-800 miles off the coast...
can we get an alaska class video?
"5 Minute Guide" #105 is a 19 minute video on the class.
Had Malta been built as an armoured deck closed hangar carrier she might well have been in service in the 1990s
Not a single armored hanger/deck carrier survived in service beyond 1948 except HMS Victorious which cost so much to update with steam catapults and angle deck (the flight deck had to be removed so that the hanger could be increased to 17' clearance, so consider the cost of dealing with HMS Indefatigable's two 14' height hangers) that a follow-on program was abandoned. So no, an armored deck HMS Malta would not have survived into the 1990s much less been built.
@@michaelsnyder3871 The point is that according to DK Brown the Malta class was meant to be have an armoured deck(all modern fleet carriers have an armoured deck but not an armour belt)and thus would they were also being considered at at a time when angled decks were coming in so it is likely that they would have been built as armoured deck armoured deck carriers similar to the Forrestals
@@davidmcintyre8145 Carriers built after WW2 for larger aircraft had steel decks. It may be "parsing a word", but these were not "armored decks" like that of the British "armored" carriers or the "Midway' class intended to protect the interior of the ship from specified threats. They were usually constructed of a couple of inches of STS or HTS to increase the aircraft weights that could be operated. The adoption of jet aircraft also forced the movement to steel decks. This included the SCB 27 conversions of the "Essex" class. No US fleet carrier completed after the "Midway" class had an armored belt, though the "Ark Royal" class when completed in the mid-50s did. Armor belts were intended to protect ships from surface guns. All US carriers also have had deep and effective torpedo protection systems. And the continuing weights of carrier aircraft have driven the thickness of flight decks, but this is a response to aviation requirements not protection against threats. And yes, I have read D.K. Brown. I have also read Friedman, Burt and Roberts on both British carrier aviation and aircraft carrier design and development.
Interesting
No armored flight deck, fate intervenes via cancellation to possibly save life.
In 1982, the Argie Junta had to deal with a crashing economy and accounting for 30,000 "disappeared;" HMS Malta or no, they would have invaded.
No they wouldn't. When you can send down 4 carrier groups with proper aircraft, it changes things.
@@johnbest4513 The Royal Navy would only send 2 carriers like they did historically
If ASB entity has these built with a lifetime of spare parts, those carrier class would be in service into 1990s.
Given that the RN had more carriers at the end of WW2 than it knew what to with, cancelling these looks the sensible thing to do.
Good thing nobody thought about keeping all those Brown Bess muskets around to save money instead of buying new rifles.
@@RCAvhstape Um. Brown Bess rifles first designed in 1722, still in use until 1854 by the British Army. Large stocks of the muskets were held in the Tower of London until 1841 when a fire destroyed them and new muskets had to be made. Rifles had been around for many years yet the British Army was still using smoothbore muskets up to the Crimean War. Your analogy appears faulty.
Malta and Hood vs the Argentine naval and air forces. 🧐🧐🧐
Bigger than the Midway class? Sheesh.
Sheesh Indeed
HMS/HMNZS Neptune 🤙
i am the 778th like and 6013th view. these are very important numbers i hope everyone can agree
too bad they were cancelled they would have been formidable
The U.K. Was bankrupt coming out of WW2. So pinching pennies to protect taxpayers seem prudent. And with atomic weapons in infancy, emerging jet age, submarine threat, etc., building new warships as expensive as Malta was ludicrous. Even the U.S., with an GDP 5x the size as UK, needed funds to allocate spending to the peacetime economy resulting in the advances in the 1950’s.
Debt to GDP was high in 1946 but the UK was not bankrupt. No debts were defaulted.
Debt as a % of GDP was rapidly reduced at the same time as social spending increased with things like the NHS public health services.
The Light Fleet Carriers were sufficient
Problem is we don't know what would have replaced the F-4K Phantom 2 FG.1 and Blackburn Buccaneer S.2 fleet as both in the 1990s would be at the end of their lives unless the Blackburn Buccaneer S.2C/S.2D had been replaced by Hawker-Siddeley HS.1197 Buccaneers
Blackburn Buccaneer S.2s might have been retained as a tanker plane
That's an interesting question. My guess would be the fleet air arm would buy the F18 super hornet or maybe even develop a navalised version of the Typhoon, but that second option is admittedly a bit unrealistic.
@@AWMJoeyjoejoe or something based on the HS.1202 or HS.1207 designs
@@AWMJoeyjoejoe Keep in mind that Typhoon didn't enter service with operational squadrons until the mid-2000s, and a naval variant would have been even later. By then the RN Phantoms and Buccaneers would have been awfully tired. (And Rafale only beat that by a couple of years, so there's no help there.)
Maybe with a pair (or even a quartet!) of big flight decks to fill, the RN would have put a higher priority on developing competitive aircraft to fill them. Or maybe they'd just buy Hornets. (Also, interestingly, quite possibly the Sea Harrier would never have happened.) But it's just too many butterflies to say anything with certainty.
@@Philistine47 The RN would have written some dog of a specification and the monkeys at Brough would have spent years and half the Aircraft development budget of the country to build it (Remember People, the Buccaneer S Mk 1 was a Dog of an aircraft, only saved by the RR Spey in the mark 2 format).
@@richardvernon317 Entirely possible. But replacing US-built F-4s with US-built F-18s might work, given the total absence of a credible domestic alternative.
Hindsight is 20/20, isn't it?
These ships would have been very interesting if they had been built and lasted long enough to be equipped with harriers
Eeeh. At that size; we wouldn't have *needed* the Harriers XD.
(at least not in the FAA)
As it was the Centaur class proved ideal for those, and the Invincibles... slightly too small for an ideal CAP & strike force.
(in the Falklands we lacked enough 'planes & space to do all that we needed to do with them)
Indeed. The _Malta_-class would still have had conventional catapults and arresting gear, so the STOVL characteristics of Harrier would have been extraneous. And apart from that, Harrier (and Sea Harrier) was a clear step backward in terms of aircraft performance - comparable to the USN's A-4 Skyhawk of the mid-1950s in terms of range/payload and speed.
That doesn't mean the Good Idea Fairy might not have swung past the MoD to do its wicked work, forcing a navalized Harrier on the RN. But it would have been a big step down from the Phantoms and Buccaneers already in service.
@@Philistine47 Well sort of. The Sea-Harrier slaughtered ostensibly more capable fighters in the Falklands (being well armed with twin ADEN cannons & Sidewinders, plus an excellent radar, will do that), but certainly the FAA would rather of had the Phantoms to hand, and enough fighters [of any kind] to both defend the fleet and strike at the enemy.
Didn't help either that while the SHAR was capable of using SeaEagle missiles by 1982; only one of the aircraft sent was officially outfitted to use them.
(we wouldn't have needed the Sub's to sink the Belgrano, as the SHAR could have Buccaneer'd the threat)
@@jimtaylor294 The Argentine aircraft being loaded with bombs and operating at the edge of their range, without fuel to maneuver, had even more to do with it. If _Sea Kings_ could carry AIM-9L they would have done almost as well under those circumstances; had the circumstances been reversed, the Argie A-4s (never mind the Mirages!) would have swept the jump jets from the skies.
Is this a re-upload?
Whole history of post-ww-II British fleet is the story of why civilian politics should never be in head of the military
“Interesting implications...”
Translation: an updated Malta-class with a modern air wing would’ve kicked Argentine ass.
Design C > Design X. Fight me.
New intro?
About cancelled carriers, how about a long talk about U.S. united States from 1949 and the revolt of the admirals?
Or more accurately the 'Treason of the Air Farce'
@@washingtonradio the Air Force are always a bunch of A-holes who should've stayed with the United States Army because that's where they belong.
If the Royal Navy retains a fleet carrier that can operate F4s there is no Falklands war
Nice
The Falklands War. Would Argentina have tried if the Royal Navy had even ONE Malta with contemporary jet fighter and attack aircraft available to send south? Considering that the much more powerful Soviets took the US equivalent Midway class seriously despite being elderly, smaller and with fewer aircraft than the succeeding Forrestal class, unless the Argies had a plan to cripple or sink the Malta, I tend to think they wouldn't be that foolish.
Use AM39 Exocets
Funny the Brits: comromising their bomber design for the sake of fitting in old hangars, compromising their tanks to fit on narrow railways carriages, and when they finally design a carrier around the planes it had to carry, it gets cancelled.
Not really. The Stirling was also intended to be a troop transport, intended to move troops to far flung areas, with limited airfields, from which it would then supply bombing support. As a 1936 design, the Stirling was a leader in its field.
The tanks were not designed to fit onto carriages, but onto the British loading gauge, which was smaller than European or American ones. Again, a down-side to being the first in the field. Carriages could easily be modified, but tunnels, platforms, and lineside features couldn't.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 Not really a counter... instead of making a bomber, they made a bomber-transport with rough field capabilities and poor self-defence (by the time it was in action). And once in action, the other capabilities didn't matter. didn't matter. And... Centurion. Suddenly a tank didn't have to be Morris Minor-wide. I get WHY these compromises were made. But, compromises they were.
Was it true that the DNC did not like deck edge lifts??
Waiting for pinned comment Drach
If we had those ships there wouldn't have been a Falklands war.
Actually Queen Elizabeth class cva 1 would make Falkland war never happened if there built in 60s.
would be good to see what would of happend at vering levels if the royal navy kept fixed wing capability up to the new QEC
ie would we have baught f14 or replaced them with something else/ devolepd 3rd and 4th gen carrier fighters
The F-14 could not operate off of a Midway so I doubt it could operate off of a Malta. The answer is the F/A-18. The French Navy looked at the Hornet but decided to go with their own aircraft.
@@johnshepherd8687 i was thinking more the f18 would operate from the cva-01 . and then would malta operate f4 like ark royal or a british 3rd gen
the RAF looked at the F-14 for air defence to replace the F-4Ms but rejected the F-14 on grounds of cost
Video Suggestion
Royal Navy vs US Navy WW2
which end of WW2? day after pearl harbor im backing the RN in a pitched all in melee... 1945 with fletcher and essex swarms in play, not so much.
If modified *Malta* class running F4 Phantoms had been available in 1982 then Argentina would have never dreamed of invading the Falklands.
The best wars are avoided by having a big mean stick to beat the other poor b*stard with.
Teddy Roosevelt - "Walk softly and carry a big stick" and he liked BIG sticks.
-_- No
the Argentine Military Junta were so unpopular and afraid of their people that they'd do it anyway!!! they'd not care what happens
the only thing we can say with more certainty is that the British casualties probably wouldn't have been as high as they were historically
@@Knight6831 nah- they would have picked on Chile not UK. Different war if UK still has kerbstomp grade superiority. The Argie Junta go pick on perceived softer target of Chile instead.
The UK suckered the Tines into war, just like they with Saddam did in GW1.
Should have modified one of the light carriers to be a cheap testbed for angled flight decks etc.
Then start a new design from scratch once it was apparent just how large aircraft would get...
Thinking jets would only grow to 30,000 lbs when the Buccaneer was 30,000 lbs EMPTY & more than 60,000 lbs at gross weight.
Problem. Angled Deck not invented until 1950's.
Why not the Aquila carrier?