Talk:Aircraft carrier/Archive 1

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Archive 1
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Contents

Smallest Aircraft Carrier

I wondered whether this is regarded as serious enough for an august publication like Wikipedia,having heard the phenomenon referred to on QI the other night, but what the heck :-)

The smallest Aircraft Carrier in the world can be seen here: [1]. It is a Mitsubishi Shogun which has been modified to carry and launch a Cri-Cri Stunt Plane.

HTH HAND Phil 16:58, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

Most interesting, Phil, but regrettably not at all suitable for the article (but I enjoyed looking at the pictures).
Adrian Pingstone 17:53, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Apparently the PLAN does not have Mimas Gerais. Someone was trying to sell it on ebay. User:Roadrunner

I agree that HMS Hermes is the first aircraft carrier to start construction for that specific purpose of launching an aircraft but I disagree to having only her name listed as Hosho entered service faster than Hermes. I purpose that Hosho's name be listed beside as Hosho was completed almost a year faster than Hermes.

Although Gray Haze's site claim that Hosho was initially constructed as a 'tanker', my research discovered that it was initially designed as a 'Tokumu-sen'(special purpose ship) with ability to launch seaplanes from front deck in 1919 and then redesigned in same year as having a complete flat-deck. I believe that site got confused with the Notoro class which was constructed as a tanker with quick conversion to a seaplane carrier in mind. You can compare photos of Hosho and Notoro and easily see that Hosho looks nothing like a tanker coverted aircraft carrier.

Revth 05:49, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Someone completely deleted a sentence about HMS Hermes and I put it back in. Its name needs to be there.
Revth 15:43, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

the smallest air-capable ship is a malaysian corvette, about 950 tons. only a chopper though.

Japanese Empire and development of aircraft carrier

This article has virtually nothing on the history of aircraft development by the Japanese Empire, excepting some brief references to WWII. This is a dramatic west-oriented bias for the topic that needs correcting. signed, 4:58 shanghai time, 30 Dec 2004

So do it. -Joseph (Talk) 05:07, 2004 Dec 30 (UTC)
Be sure to cover their submarine ACs.[2] (So much for that oxymoron.) Kwantus 18:36, 2005 Mar 21 (UTC)

POV?

A few days ago, I placed a small addition under "Aircraft carriers in fiction" that included reference to two video games that have carriers as a player controlled asset. It was removed shortly there after, with the question Do we really want this to be a list of video games? in the history tab.

The fiction section includes references to books, movies, and a television show, and none of these have evolved into lists. I think this should at least be discussed openly before we decide to include or exclude video games from the list. TomStar81 03:09, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There are a huge number of games that include carriers in some way - Empires, Civs, WWII wargames, and so on. I think it would make sense to list those where a CV was the "star of the show" rather than one in a crowd of units. Stan 03:08, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Agreed - otherwise the list would be huge (and rather pointless). Cjrother 18:30, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Isn't the reference to Battlestar Galactica a bit far stretched, too? RoToRa 11:22, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)


I-400 submerine aircraft carrier

I think that something about the Japanese I 400 submarines should be included. They were designed, buit and used as submersible aircraft carriers (though, I believe, only used for kamekazi missions I am pretty sure it was intended as fully capable of having the aircraft land again. I am adding some stuff directly from the I-400 page, but someone else could probably do better. 70.49.42.226 18:13, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Plus the British M2 submarine, though only a diky little one. GraemeLeggett 4 July 2005 14:13 (UTC)

Laying a ship?

This sentence caught my eye while editing the Genesis subsection: (The HMS Ark Royal) was originally laid as a merchant ship. I left it in because I was not sure whether this is semantically correct; I, at least, have never heard of "laying a ship" in this context before. The closest match I could find using Google was "laying a ship ashore", but as in this case the term seems to refer to the act of commissioning/building a ship, I'm not sure if it applies. (It might, for all I know.) Any comments? --DybrarH 01:07, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

  • I've heard of "laying down" a ship. I believe this refers to the laying down of the keel - ie the start of construction. Perhaps there was a word missing? Cjrother 02:26, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
Correct - like laying a foundation.

Number of British carriers at start of WW2

For those who feel there were less than there were, here are some figures... HMS Eagle HMS Hermes HMS Glorious HMS Courageous HMS Ark Royal HMS Furious and HMS Argus Wiki-Ed 13:06, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Sorry. The number 3 originally refered to the beginning of the War of the Pacific. By that time Glorious, Courageous and Ark Royal were already sunk, Illustrious was out-of-order, and Furious was not an aircraft carrier anymore if I'm not mistaken. PHG 13:37, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
So far as I can tell, according to Wikipedia alone - Argus, Victorious, Formidable, Indomitable and Furious were active on 1st December 1941. Illustrious was just coming out of repair. Furious was flying off Spits to Malta in 1942. GraemeLeggett 15:32, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I can see where you're both coming from. I think this is a problem with the wording of this section of the article - which is the bit I dislike. I will have a go at inserting carrier-related actions for the first half of the war (which are curiously absent at the moment) and hopefully that should clear it up a bit. I think this should include Glorious/Courageous, Ark Royal hunting the Bismark, Taranto, Malta. Also, some additional info for later in the war could include the Atlantic/Arctic convoys etc. Anything else? Wiki-Ed 16:03, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

What have I done?

I have changed the structure of this article by moving a number of paragraphs so that they follow a logical order. In particular I have moved elements of the introductory description further down the page so that the article has a slightly more chronological order of history/design sections. I have also:

  • Fleshed out the WW2 section significantly. The narrative works across the globe from west to east as the war spread (rather than try to combine contemporaneous actions). The Pacific section could possibly benefit from a little bit more detail as this was a 3-year carrier based campaign. It could be supplemented with info on the more significant events.
  • Added nuclear powered aircraft carriers to the modern innovations section. It was a fairly significant development that was entirely absent.
  • Moved one of the pictures (HMS Hermes after the Falklands) adjacent to the correct paragraph.
  • Moved the information on “Carriers in fiction” to a separate article. It’s increasing the length of the article at the expense of information on the real thing.

I’ve also cleared up some typos and grammatical errors but because of the number of changes I anticipate that I may have missed a number of things.

I’d be grateful if some eagle-eyed fixers could have a look through. The formatting looks a bit pants and the pictures are still giving me a lot of grief… Help? Wiki-Ed 12:52, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the help with links et al. As I said above, the WW2 section moves out ocean by ocean from the North Sea as the war spreads. The Indian Ocean, you will note, is not part of the Pacific; and the "Pacific war" is not separate from the Second World War. The bit about the number of British carriers in the Indian Ocean at one particular time is only accurate for a few weeks in early spring 1942 and is therefore misleading and irrelevant. Fairey Swordfish might have been outclassed (outdated is a fairly moot point given the rapid developments in train at this time) by the latest fighter aircraft, but since the opposing forces had no naval aviation to speak of, that's largely immaterial.
Well, 1) the Indian Ocean strikes by the Japanese Navy are usually considered an extension of the Pacific war, 2) The "Pacific war" heading was set up as a sub-division of the WWII, which is as far as I know accurate 3) Swordfish were considered backward plane at the beginning of the war, incapable to defend themselves against ground-based planes. This is usually credited to the lack of policy and structure in favour of a strong naval airforce until 1938. And this may explain why Great Britain lost the largest part of her carriers during the first phase of the war. 4) Your reverts erased several disambiguations I had worked on. Why not be more careful and tolerant about other's contributions? PHG 13:01, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
1) The term "pacific war" and its extent is subjective. The term Indian Ocean is not. For objectivity I've tried to move from the North Sea to the Med, then the Atlantic into the Arctic, then the Indian and finally the Pacific.
2) You put the sub-heading in at the same level as for the historical period which disrupts the structure of this section. I don't see that it is necessary, but if it is then there should be subheadings for each ocean. There is a need for further work on headings further down the page though. I'll try and do that over the weekend when I can get my head around it.
3) (a)Technically Swordfish actually could defend themselves (they had a gun!), but you're right to say they were backward and vulnerable. Perhaps it's like saying an F14 is "out-of-date". True, but because of their numbers and a lack of a countermeasure (in almost all other navies) they would still be a very potent asset and you would not belittle them for lacking the most modern avionics. (b) On a case by case basis I don't see that there is anything the Swordfish squadrons could have done to have prevented carrier losses. Perhaps up-to-date fighters might have helped. Can you explain what you mean? (c) And yes, the Royal Navy lost some carriers at the start of the war, but, apart from the Ark Royal, they were not modern nor the "largest part".
4) Having made some rather large unnannounced changes to an article I spent hours rewriting I am not sure you have any right to complain about me ignoring a few POV "disambiguations" that you have not documented here. I checked and kept those I thought added to the article. I apologise if I missed some. Perhaps we could discuss changes here before making them so as to avoid wasting eacother's time? Wiki-Ed 15:13, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
Hi Wiki-Ed. Your improvements to the article were great, and it just motivates others (like me) to further add more flesh. I don't think I erased any of your content, only added to it. There's still a lot that can be said on WWII aircraft carriers! In wiki-talk, "disambiguations" means clarifying a link so that you don't fall onto a "disambiguation page". This is what I did (before you erased it) for several of the ship's names, so that the link goes directly to the ship (please check). Regards, and hope to see you around on this page! PHG 16:33, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
Cheers. It looks like we've got other people motivated too :)
As for disambiguations... yeah. Sorry about that. I thought I had caught all of them, but they didn't copy & paste properly or I didn't understand the formatting. I'm learning. There are a few more I've been chasing, most of them due to the Royal Navy's penchant for calling ships the same name one after the other :(. We should have an audit trail of carriers back to 1913 now. Wiki-Ed 18:47, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Flying aircraft carriers

Hmm. Interesting but should these be included under naval vessels? Wiki-Ed 10:27, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

  • According to me; No. They should be mentioned, but this shouldn't be the main article describing them, as the concept is quite different, and perhaps more related to the submarine-carriers of (pre)WW2.bjelleklang 12:36, 6 October 2005 (UTC)


Should "Communist China" be replaced with the more formal name?

I just think that phrase in "Aircraft carriers today" should be replaced by "People's Republic of China", or something more formal. What do you guys think? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.82.120.126 (talk • contribs) .

I agree that it doesn't belong. I only saw it in one place, though, where I removed it. Looks like People's Republic of China is properly linked everywhere else. —Cleared as filed. 06:16, 29 November 2005 (UTC)