Talk:Illustrious-class aircraft carrier

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I'm not sure how it could be said that features of the class found their way into postwar American carrier designs. Certainly, the supercarriers have the flight deck as part of the hull; however, that grew out of the design requirements for carriers on such a heavy tonnage - literally more than double the tonnage of any war-era carrier. It had nothing to do with Illustrious. Iceberg3k 22:36, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually. The US postwar C2 study made repeated mentions of the success of the Illustrious type. 182.2.6.50 (talk) 08:55, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Design and construction[edit]

Where was the class built? Is it true that some British carriers were built in the US due to German raids?

UK yards - you are thinking of the escort carriers, not fleet carriers.GraemeLeggett

Deck Park[edit]

However, the hangar could be made larger and thus more aircraft could be carried, but the differences in aircraft capacity between these carriers and their USN counterparts is mostly due to the USN's operational doctrine, which allowed for a permanent deck park of aircraft to augment their hangar capacity.

You can do this when the ship is likely to be operating in the relatively mild (most of the time anyway) weather of the Pacific. It's not so practicable when operating in the North Atlantic in winter, when severe gales blow most of the time and the seas are often described as 'mountainous'. This is also why the US 'open' type of carrier construction is also much less usable. British carriers (and all RN vessels) were designed to cope-with, and to fight-in, these sort of seas, the sort that many navies would have difficulty staying afloat in. At least one foreign-built escort carrier broke up in such seas.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.249.176 (talk)

Sources? - BilCat (talk) 19:14, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My mistake - it blew up, HMS Dasher, although 'faulty construction' was alleged. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.251.196 (talk) 12:16, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See 'Other modifications were due to the need for a completely enclosed hangar when operating in the North Atlantic and in support of the Arctic convoys.' at Escort carrier —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.65.59 (talk) 11:09, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hangar sizes[edit]

Please discuss your edits here. Enterprise's hangar was irregular shaped, but not all the area of the hangar was available for parking aircraft, because the elevators and workshops took up much of the hangar floor space, whereas Illustrious hangar had the elevators arranged at either end where they did not reduce hangar floor space. In any event, if you could present a detailed explanation of your analysis, we can work to incorporate it into the article, after appropriate discussion and referencing.Damwiki1 (talk) 10:28, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In fact looking at page 9 of the CV-5 plans, we can see that Enterprise's hangar is actually rather smaller than the 546 x 63ft given by Friedman since that length appears to include all three elevators. The actual clear length of the hangar is about 490ft (minus the area of the mid-ships elevator) while the average width of the hangar is less than 63ft unless the boats are removed.Damwiki1 (talk) 11:20, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]


I converted the CV-5 plans to 100% and measured the hanger it came out to like 488-490' maybe slightly more exclusive of the mid-ships elevator which is the same size as the other two at 48' X 44' which are as long whilst being twice as wide as those with several thousand lbs more capacity then those of the Illustrious/Indomitable classes plus the USN ship carries 3 1/2 times the aviation fuel.Furthermore no according to the scale most of the hangar isn't less then 63' due to the boats. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ickysdad (talk • contribs) 20:27, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It seems that we agree that an Enterprise class hangar was smaller than the dimensions given in Friedman but in any event the hangar size comparison in the article uses the dimensions given by Friedman. Please don't indent your comments as that breaks the formatting. If you are replying to a comment then add a colon before your first letter (as per above). Talk pages are used to discuss edits to the article and are not a general discussion forum.Damwiki1 (talk) 21:51, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Recent edits[edit]

There's a number of problems with the recent edit regarding USS Enterprise (CV6). The edit is improperly cited. The cite is for a date when Enterprise was in dry dock being rebuilt with new blisters and by definition carried no aircraft, this fact alone renders the cited source as inaccurate and unreliable. This is an article about the Illustrious class carriers. Comparisons with other carriers are not relevant except in some specific cases, such as the advantages and disadvantages of the armour scheme of the Illustrious class and this is already covered in the article. The article clearly states that the armoured flight deck reduced the size of hangar and the dimensions given also show that the flight deck was also shortened, compared to non armoured flight deck carriers. I am going to revert the edit again as it is inappropriate for this article, aside from the fact that the cited source is clearly inaccurate.Damwiki1 (talk) 17:42, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree my reference is inaccurate the air group cited was Enterprise's assigned air group according to official USN records can't get any more primary documented then that and if you let others use secondary sources such as Friedmans & Hobb's books then what I cited is just as relevant even if maybe OT ,in fact later on during the Tarawa campaign it was cited in her report that that size air group was a problem because of having to place the non-folding winged SBD-5 in the hanger. The same website I referenced, which is an official USN website, shows Enterprise with 89-91 aircraft in late September -early October 1944. The air group I cited for late 1943 is also on page 392 of Friedman's book on US aircraft carriers,it states quite clearly her 1943 air group was 36 F6F-3,37 SBD-5 and 18 TBF-1.
I accept maybe about it being OT although I feel it shows the effect of doctrine,of which deck parking is a part. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ickysdad (talk • contribs) 18:56, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It seems we agree that the article should remain as is. I know that anytime comparisons are made between different nations' equipment that it tends to cause disputed edits. The only reason any comparisons are made in this article is to allow the reader to understand the effect of a permanent deck park on an aircraft carriers' air group and that as RN aircraft carriers began to use large deck parks the difference in air group sizes between RN and foreign aircraft carriers was much reduced.Damwiki1 (talk) 22:08, 2 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There is no mention of the Illustrious-class ships on the USS Enterprise (CV-6) page so quite why any comparison should be made in this article perhaps the previous poster two paras above might like to explain.
BTW, you cannot operate a deck park in the North Atlantic in Winter - which is where the British carriers were designed-for. The weather is too bad. That's why every British carrier from Ark Royal-on had enclosed hangar spaces. People not understanding the completely differing conditions between the North Atlantic and the Pacific really should make an effort to find out more before making comparisons. Most of the US ships against-which comparisons are usually made were of 10,000 tons greater displacement. That's a third larger than the Illustrious-class that were built within the tonnage constraints of the Second London Naval Treaty.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.11.216 (talk) 10:32, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Illustrious's hangar was 82% of Yorktown class[edit]

This is really true, but it is need to take into consideration 2 facts: - 3 lifts was part of hangar for Yorktown class decreasing her usable area - 2 lifts of Illustrious class was outside the area of hangar


Thus comparison should be done differently if we want compare usable space of hangar (apples with apples). a) either decreasing Yorktown hangars by 3 lifts - Yorktown: 28062 (546*63 - 3*48*44) - Illustrious: 28272 (456*62) b) adding 2 lifts of Illustrious to hangar space - Yorktown: 34398 (546*63) - Illustrious: 30252 (456*62+2*45*22) note: all dimension in feet squared

As lift are not used to storage place of the aircrafts, method a) should be used.


Or at least in comparison should be noted that it is done with Yorktown lifts are counted however Illustrious are not counted as there are outside the hangar space.85.207.12.140 (talk) 08:34, 19 July 2018 (UTC)d[reply]

So conclusions are that usable hangar space are +- same as it depends on way how it is compared and the difference of available aircrafts ship can carry comes from: a) USN using large permanent deck parks, RN only later in war (from 1943) b) large deck of Yorktown as effect of large dimensions of the ship

The Yorktown (and the succeeding Essex class) was around 100 feet longer than the Illustrious class and so had more space for aircraft. The former thus carried more aircraft than the latter simply because it was a bigger ship. Quite why this is never mentioned in comparisons between the two ship classes I don't know, but it ought to be fairly self-evident that a larger ship has room for more aircraft. The Essex class BTW, were also a third-larger in tonnage than the Illustrious class. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.55.51 (talk) 09:44, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

all three, or all four?[edit]

Is it correct to say The Illustrious class comprised four vessels: HM Ships Illustrious, Formidable, Victorious and Indomitable while also saying all three took part in the large actions of the British Pacific Fleet in 1945???

Tupelo the typo fixer (talk) 19:37, 17 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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