Do We Like Carriers? +

In this episode, Jack and Ryan discuss their favorite Carriers from history - both from the the USN and foreign navies. Also, we ask, what museum carriers do we like the most? Drachinifel stops by and lets us know his answers as well!
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[@BearingStraight]

Thanks for watching! Let us know below if there’s a topic you’d like us to cover in a future episode.

[@Knight6831]

My suggestion Misconceptions about US and foreign ships built in the inter-war years The Admiral class battlecruisers have quite a few about them 1. they only got 381mm guns after misreading the gun calibre of the German Mackensen-class The story that the Admiral Class only got 381 mm guns after misreading the gun calibre of the German Mackensen class is a myth, as the Admirals were always going to get 381 mm guns. 2. they were designed to fight WW1 and counter the German Mackensen-class They weren't The reality of the Admiral-class battlecruisers was like the post-war G3s. The Hawkins-class heavy cruisers, Emerald-class light cruisers, and the WW1 W and V-class destroyers were never intended to fight WWI. They were all designed to fight what the Royal Navy thought was, and correctly, as it turned out to be the next war, a global war against Japan or the USA. The RN's E class has myths surrounding them. 1 was the Emerald class was an unfinished design - yeah, the idea that HMS Enterprise was an unfinished design is a myth. HMS Enterprise was always going to be finished, the ones holding her up were the treasury as HMS Enterprise was designed from the start to use the Mark 17 twin-turret and superstructure as part of the RN's future cruiser modernisation plans as it had been thought Enterprise's sister HMS Euphrates would have been built with 2 twin 152mm BL 6"/45-cal Mark 17 turrets in a 1 forward and aft position. The Royal Navy was planning for the next war, a global war that would require a lot of cruisers. Hence, HMS Enterprise was to test the new twin turret and superstructure planned for the next generation of Heavy and Light Cruisers, which treaty or no treaty would take over the retired fleet of Armored Cruisers and Protected Cruisers.

[@StylinandProfilinBBsandBBQ]

You hid Drach in the room the whole time!? I want my money back. Oh wait this is free. Ok, next time more Drach. I’m kidding, Ryan and Jack are great. Keep up the good work.

[@Seafish84]

Don't forget the US converted two paddle steamers into training carriers on Lake Michigan. IX-64 Wolverine and IX-81 Sable. That was 116,000 training landings on real moving ships that other nation's pilots could only dream of having before being sent into combat.

[@Hendricus56]

@@Seafish84 plus apart from the weather they had no real danger. What enemy ship could sink a carrier on the Great Lakes in WW2? Good luck getting there in the first place

[@cmcb7230]

HMS Hermes would be my favorite non-US carrier as she has an interesting history. Built during WWII, construction suspended, finished in the 50’s, carried fixed wing aircraft, then a commando carrier, first VTOL carrier w/ski jump, flagship during the Falklands war 8k miles away (for reference California to Japan is only 5k miles, so she was serving a hell of a lot further from home when compared to the USN during WWII), sold to India and served for another 30 years only recently being scrapped this decade.

[@rwklueg]

I’m a little surprised no mention of any of the jeep carriers kinda unsung heroes.

[@gprimeofx]

I grew up with Star Trek, so my favorite carrier is obviously Enterprise (any), but I've always had a thing for CVN-65 especially.

[@Enterprise6126]

cv6 is the best enterprise she did amazing things most decorated us navy ship of ww2

[@williamknudson8414]

Ahh, good old Mobile Chernobyl as my friends who served on her called her.

[@duwop544]

Am nerding out here, but not as much as y'all! Hugely enjoyable.

[@wgowshipping]

This was a great podcast guys!

[@kevinthomas895]

We need you on this podcast on the New Jersey some day.

[@connoissuer_of_class]

Never been aboard a museum carrier. But USS Wisconsin was a joy to explore and her guns were awe inspiring. The lack of people actually made it more fun and allowed me to get a better and more intimate look of the parts of the ship open to us.

[@RickRussell-wq7cm]

... A tough call choosing between the two Enterprises and the original Lexington as favorites, but in any case as the US Navy gets deep into what could be our last class of aircraft carriers as we know them today, let's get ship-naming right by naming two of the future Gerald R. Ford CVNs Lexington and Yorktown. ...

[@pedenharley6266]

and after that Saratoga!

[@ph89787]

And Hornet.

[@arenadi5776]

When I lived in the SF Bay Area in the 2000's it was nice driving on 80 toward the city and seeing USS Iowa in the water, and then a little bit later crossing the Bay Bridge and seeing USS Hornet at Alameda

[@fabianzimmermann5495]

My favorite American carrier would be CV-05 Yorktown, she may not have had the longest career, but it sure as hell was an impressive one. Multipule raids in the early months, flagship at Coral Sea, does really well there, is damaged, patched up very quickly and races off to Midway, does really well there too, absorbs two strikes and is still afloat and has to be finished off by a third attack by a submarine, before she finally goes down. Favorite foreign carrier would probably be HMS Furious. She may have been the least capable of Fisher's Follies after conversion, but she's the one that survived the Second World War and despite her limitations, she still had quite an exciting career. Fighting off Norway, club runs in the Med, launching attacks on Tirpitz, she saw plenty of action and did well.

[@zirconic9]

Re Midway and Intrepid, both benefit a lot from their locations. It would be interesting to know the visitation numbers for Yorktown, Lexington, and Hornet. I've been aboard Hornet many times and she's a ghost town because she's hidden back in Alameda. If she was in downtown San Francisco, she would do a lot better.

[@SomeRandomHuman717]

The same could arguably be said for New Jersey. If there were a deep water berth off of say Liberty Island, the ship could piggyback off of the 3-4 million people that visit the Statue Of Liberty yearly. The dredging bill would be heart-stopping, though.

[@zirconic9]

@@SomeRandomHuman717 I have been to New Jersey and to Hornet. Hornet's location is really bad. It's a very long bridge from San Francisco to the other side of the bay. Then you have to drive through a very dodgy area just to get to Alameda, and then you're in a bit of a wasteland until you reach the ship. Fortunately, there is new residential development happening nearby, and if that continues on reclaimed Alameda land, then the whole area will improve. But right now the location is intimidating.

[@davewolfy2906]

Well done. Goes to show that these "experts" aren't.

[@williamknudson8414]

So i don't know if I can pick a favorite, but I have to mention the Franklin just for some kind of resilience prize. She damn near burned to the waterline but was still able to be saved. I fully grant that she should never have been in that situation, but the sheer fact she survived that catastrophe has got to be worth thinking about.

[@ph89787]

Favourite U.S. Carrier: USS Enterprise (CV-6). Favourite Foreign Carrier: a tie between Zuikaku and Formidable. I’ve yet to go on one of the museum carriers.

[@chronus4421]

Forrestal-class, Best!

[@Hendricus56]

Actually, the Lütjens, Mölders and Rommel are the reasons, why Germany has stopped naming ships after people. Period. Our main ships, frigates and corvettes are named after our states and different cities respectively. Although some of them do appear on WW1 and WW2 vessels (Schleswig-Holstein, there are also Köln, Karlsruhe or Emden under construction and we had multiple other, mostly frigates, named after old cruisers), but considering some state names and most city names didn't change, they are less political and often historic because of the connection to the old navies and the histories of the cities themselves

[@walterlemieux5573]

30:45 +1! No more CVNs named after presidents. Before presidents, Nimitz and Vinson, there were a few named after people (e.g. Franklin), but most fleet carriers were traditionally named after battles or earlier famous navy ships. Cancel the names of the upcoming Clinton, "W", and Doris Miller. Miller certainly deserves a ship--an Arleigh Burke DDG. The other two don't really merit naval ships at all. Bring back Lexington, Saratoga, and Hornet. With CG-48 retired, we could even have a Yorktown CVN.

[@eureka5635]

My favorite US Carrier is CV-1 Langley, she kick started the US Carrier program and trained the first carrier borne pilots.

[@BearingStraight]

Imagine being one of those guys and required to land by having a tailhook catch a rope held down by sandbags! Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment!

[@kennethjohnston9736]

My favorite carrier is CVN-73. I made her first two deployments. My favorite international is the latest JS Kaga. I love the fact Japan brought back that name. My favorite museum carrier is Intrepid but to be fair it is the only carrier museum ship I have visited.

[@BearingStraight]

Great choices! Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment!

[@nicholaspointon3803]

Perfect example of the training cycle was Dick Bong in the pacific. The Ace of Aces.

[@EricDKaufman]

yyeaaahhhh about Camden. A flak vest or bottles of vodka to give out would be advised I was shocked when I went to Battleship New Jersey a few years back

[@davewolfy2906]

The British Colossus class are arguably one of the classic warship designs.

[@davewolfy2906]

The big difference between the USA and other navies (including the British, even today) is that the other navies had to rely on their air forces. The RN only got control of its aircraft in 1937, the RAF lost interest for a while. Even now, the RN shares its aircraft with the RAF. Anyway, having a light carrier to get rid of enemy recce aircraft and providing its own recce is very important - especially when one's own air force has something better to do.

[@raygronberg6619]

Ryan's the only one who got the favorite US carrier choice right. CV-5 all the way, and not just for pioneering damage-control practices like draining the fuel lines and filling them with CO2. Her air group staff was flat-out superior to Enterprise's and got its work at Midway 100% correct. As Cressman notes (if I'm remembering the attribution correctly), CV-5's crew learned a lot from the Atlantic neutrality patrols and was generally ahead of the curve once the shooting started. Favorite non-US carrier: Gotta go with Drach and say Ark Royal. I think. Can be arm-twisted into picking the Ilustrious. Japan's carriers WW2 carriers were mostly object lessons in what not to do. Favorite museum carrier: Of the two I've seen, gotta be Yorktown/CV-10. Despite the SCB-127 configuration they lean hard into the ship's WW2 story, and the Essex class's in general. Compared to hers, the Intrepid's curation is just plain weird. I don't understand why you'd short-shrift the Dry I's WW2 career the way the team there does. Even if you decide to focus instead on Vietnam, why would you focus as heavily as they do on ship's company instead of the air group, and even if you focus on ship's company, why you wouldn't at least branch out to talk about the fires on board Oriskany, Forrestal and Enterprise given how those incidents broad the war back aboard? So many missed opportunities in the way Intrepid is doing things.

[@alganhar1]

The Queen Elizabeth's are not exactly small carriers. True they are not Nimitz size, let alone Gerald D Ford sized, but you are still looking at 70,000 ish ton ships with an air wing of 60 - 70 aircraft. While its true they are not operating that sized air wing, its not because they cannot. They have the hangers and facilities to operate that many aircraft, its just our government are too damned tight fisted to allow those Carrier to operate full sized air wings during peace time. So we have the ridiculous sight of almost full sized fleet carriers operating through deck cruiser sized air wings because the Treasury are skimping on the coin again! The idea is that because the UK only operated F-35B's, and all British F-35 pilots, including the RAF pilots, are trained to operate from the carriers, we can rapidly bring the air wing up to full strength in the event of the brown stuff hitting the fan.... I do not think they have considered that if the brown stuff hits the fan it tends to do so at speed, and the ships may not have the damned time to get where the need to be to pick up the rest of the air wing!

[@neilbrown2948]

The treasury has always been the enemy of the RN

[@paulbryner6251]

Living in Alaska we don't have any museum ships nearby. However I did get to go on CVN68 USS Nimitz when she visited Anchorage in July of 1989. We hosted a sailor from the ship and he gave us a personal tour.

[@BearingStraight]

That's great! Just as an aside, during the Vietnam War the Navy sent an Essex-class carrier home via Alaska to break up an escalating tussle between fishermen from Alaska and Kamchatka. We also have some content about the USN in Alaska coming (eventually). Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment!

[@darrenhersey9794]

I second the message, "The billionaires are too busy buying social media platforms and dong stupid things"

[@slimeydon]

You guys are great together, I'll always say Enterprise CV-6, Illustrious, and I'm from NYC so I have been to Intrepid multiple times and my old workplace overlooked it. I've also been to the Midway. I'd love to visit the Yorktown, partly because. of Laffey and I'd love to visit Lexington mostly because they have 5" 38 turrets on the flight deck. I wish the other preserved Essexs would do the same

[@BearingStraight]

Thanks for taking the time to comment, Lexington and Intrepid are great! BTW, you had a great work location! Good points about the others.

[@alexandermoore6329]

Definitely a fan of the U S.S. Enterprise and I too wish she could have been saved as a museum .

[@BearingStraight]

Losing CV-6 was a wakeup call that probably saved the battleships only 2-3 years later. Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment!

[@randyfant2588]

I consider Carriers as a supply ship, they sit back and try to avoid combat, while supplying and sending aircraft into combat My favorite carrier list US and overall Lexington class (CV-1 & 2) - most carriers are just flat top freighters, but they are the prettiest carriers, with very nice lines. The 8" turrets are cool too (even if they didn't use them - but imagine if they were at Samar) and Sarah had them replaced with 5"/38 twin turrets during the war. Favorite foreign carrier, Aquila. Many disdain conversions as being inherently bad, but this isn't true. Most conversions were less effective than purpose-built carriers, but most of these were early carriers, converted by inexperienced Navies. A carrier is just a ship hull with a hanger and flight deck added above the main deck. They are very conducive to conversions and Aquila is proof. She was a conversion but very good design. The Italian Navy did their homework first and put the experience of other countries into her. Conversely, Graf Zeppelin was a purpose built carrier produced by a country with very little experience and was a very poor (though cool and interesting) design. -yes some wartime Japanese conversion carriers were not that good, but that is more of a reflection of the basic ship converted and wartime haste. My favorite museum carrier has to be Lexington, since she's the closest, so... I also like the tri-decks (Kaga, Amagi and Akagi pre rebuild) I think these are very fascinating designs, and an early attempt to allow a carrier to perform launch and recovery at the same time.

[@BearingStraight]

Lexington (CV-2) is a favorite of ours too. She was a favorite within the fleet and of Admiral King's too, so he wasn't happy when she didn't return from the Coral Sea. Some of the old movies made in the 1930s show Lexington and Saratoga as they appeared before the turrets were removed. Good points about conversions and the Italian navy. Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment!

[@bert8465]

To be fair call Enterprise CV-6 my favourite would be right she was my first model ship being the one Cobi. But the first USS Wasp CV-7 pioneer the deck edge elevator and was the small option for a US carrier. But I love the story behind USS Franklin CV-13. My favourite non American carrier would have to be the HMS Ark Royal for the one story of Germans having problems to shoot down her swordfish torpedo bombers. Now for a carrier design would have to be USS United States CVA-58 it just something so interesting.

[@BearingStraight]

Too bad the USN never tried the twin angled decks! Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment!

[@tomdolan9761]

Given the unique geographical situation of the United States the aircraft carrier is an essential tool for fielding significant air power at a great distance from the home country.

[@sep0319]

My vote is for "Prinze Eugene" for Carriers Big "E" (both versions), Akagi for foreign

[@TheRealGraylocke]

I would love to see books on the USS Indiana and Indianapolis being a native Hoosier.

[@jetdriver]

Favorite Carrier CV-5 USS Yorktown. She fought in the first two Carrier vs Carrier battles in history and was by far the best of the pre-war carriers. If she had survived the war I think her record would have easily exceeded that of Enterprise. Favorite foreign carrier the Zuikaku. Incredible war record and I agree with Ryan they were better ships than the Yorktowns. Though in fairness they are also later designs and not treaty restricted. Favorite museum carrier Hornet. Yes her exterior needs some TLC but her crew has done an amazing job restoring sections of the interior and they were just so friendly and accommodating when I visited. Midway probably because of her visitor figures I feel like excludes a lot of very interesting spaces from her tour routes. And some of the spaces they do have open are so heavily modified that you lose the sense of what it was really like. Yorktown I am not a fan of at all. They don’t seem to care about preserving the historical fabric of the ship if it gets in the way of some sort of exhibit space. They focus entirely on her WWII service and basically ignore her post war career even though that’s the configuration she is in. Essentially their approach to conservation is the opposite of Ryan’s and New Jersey’s. And unforgivably when I was last there they had a plaque in one space recognizing a Medal of Honor winner and had misspelled his name. When I brought this to the attention of the staff they knew about it and had known for some time but obviously didn’t care because they were making zero effort to correct it. It’s sad and surprising as well when you consider that they have done an utterly amazing job with Laffey. The gun mount light show is awesome and pays homage to her WWII service. But they also have that great exhibit in CIC which recognizes her life during the Cold War. Finally I can’t forget that Patriots Point had an invaluable historical artifact in Clamagore being the only one of her kind in existence and they just let her rot away. The people responsible for that travesty deserve all of our condemnation.

[@BearingStraight]

Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment! We appreciate the great post. Like a lot of things, being there at the end, being the survivor counts for a lot, so it's difficult to argue with your view of CV-5. If only she had survived. ... We keep coming back to the Doolittle Raid. Maybe if Halsey takes 4 carriers into the Coral Sea instead of Fletcher taking 2, the outcome is much different and better, so LEX isn't lost and Yorktown left limping home.

[@jetdriver]

@ I don’t think anything saves Lexington at Coral Sea unless she simply isn’t hit. She basically had the equivalent of a Golden BB in that she should have survived her damage. I don’t know exactly what her crew did wrong but they had her saved until the fumes got out of control.

[@lostiburonesoffroad4x4]

The British have the experience of the Falklands War on how to use CV on war.

[@pyro1047]

Debatable, the Sea Harriers Primary objective was to defend the Fleet and they lost 6 ships sunk by Argentinean Strike Aircraft with a dozen more damaged. The was they had NO Airborne Early Warning Aircraft and the Sea Harriers were ONLY meant to intercept large Soviet Bombers so their radar was lacking and could only detect smaller fighter sized targets at close range and completely lacked ANY look down-Shoot down capability (For reference their radar was SO bad, 2 were lost along with their pilots as they simply collided in mid-air without seeing eachother on radar). So the only way for the Sea Harriers to intercept targets was being vectored in by Destroyers, Frigates, or Corvettes using their own radars which couldn't see low altitude strike planes over the horizon and radioing in contacts to the Harriers, giving the Sea Harriers basically no time to reach them until they'd already dropped their bombs. If it wasn't for the All-Aspect AIM-9L, the Sea Harriers would've performed A LOT worse in their dogfights as well. Which arguably is the only realm they did perform "Ok" as subsonic Aircraft trying to intercept supersonic Aircraft meant most Argentine aircraft could simply outrun them. So the ability to launch a Sidewinder without having to waste time maneuvering behind a target was indispensable. TLDR: ALWAYS have your AWACS up, that's why E-2 Hawkeyes are always the first Aircraft launched by USN carriers, and the last to land.

[@lostiburonesoffroad4x4]

@ I say they have the experience, not that they did well jaja

[@nickl7488]

if the navy no longer has in house shipbuilding engineers, do they still have the institutional knowledge?

[@cruisinguy6024]

I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the Lexington has improved as my experience from the 1990s into the 2010s was that of little to no meaningful change and the ship was being greatly underutilized and was underdeveloped. Still to this day their website is utterly useless and probably hasn't been improved in 20 years if at all. There's so many missed opportunities I've noticed with her, having grown up in Texas but I stopped going because it was always the same ship with little to no changes. Sure, they had some aircraft marked off for being under restoration but it wasn't like more areas of the ship were being opened up. Additionally the "live aboard" program was really restrictive so tons of people can't experience that. Personally I think all museum ships should try to expand the "live aboard" programs and at least during peak season operate some birthing areas as a hotel. I would MUCH rather book an officers stateroom for a couple nights instead of yet another morning hotel but - of course - that opens up one final pain point. The food. Museum ships need to find a way to expand the on board food offerings.

[@StylinandProfilinBBsandBBQ]

Lutjens was not a Nazi.

[@tomdolan9761]

The Japanese converted Hiyp and Junyo from liner hulls and used them quite successfully in WW2

[@ABrit-bt6ce]

Name boats after something that means something, Vengance means a lot more than submarine S31. Suddenly a Drachinifel. I'm a Brit and I vote CV-5, that said Atlantic Conveyor in second.

[@StephenMartin-pc1fo]

Sydney; Aust. Museum ships? Vampire, Onslow, Advance all with walking distance of C.B.D. Stephen

[@BearingStraight]

Yes, Sydney is great for ships. We'll have to check that out someday. Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment.

[@crazylegssw]

I think China has people just as passionate as us about learning what the best designs are. Copying homework is obvious here- I think the question is does China get the easy answer and how much can they learn from what you yourselves teach us? Sorry to go down the deep train but I haven't seen it discussed anywhere.

[@Leoluvesadmira]

The problem is she (Hornet) is in Alameda and San Francisco will not let her move into San Francisco.

[@jeffholloway3882]

Didn't Yorktown star in the fighting Lady?

[@ph89787]

Yes.

[@jeffholloway3882]

​@@ph89787 i thought that was her

[@dionysiandaze]

carriers??? JFK, but you guys already know that lololol

[@davidnikoloff3211]

Never been to New York City? Only there once? Being proud of that makes no sense. Stop the hate. I can’t imagine never experiencing Manhattan, the Chrysler Building, Broadway, Brooklyn, the Met, Central Park, the Guggenheim, and on and on snd on.

[@Flaming-Hedgehog]

Do We Like Carriers? Australia... 'No'

[@DefaultProphet]

Really wish more conservative leaning people would stop being gigantic babies about cities and California

[@tbmike23]

Yes, but only as friends. We don't "like" like carriers.

[@haveUSPwilltravel]

Not to be a naysayer, buuuuuuut. @ 5:00. Cough cough Bonhomme Richard, cough.

[@Poverty-Tier]

Ehhh, they aiight

[@briancooper2112]

Russia has built crap for ships. They had a carrier for decades that was crap and the aircraft that were copies of harriers sucked.

[@Captain_Brian78]

CVs ended the Era of the big gun warship, so yeah... not a fan.

[@Jax-c8l]

Stick to ships leave out your short sided political comments

[@dajuanvariste4751]

Pointless comment, you’re still gonna watch them no matter what

[@sirboomsalot4902]

Its a podcast, they can talk about whatever they want

[@davewolfy2906]

Part of warship design includes politics - treaties, anywhere except the USA the Treasury gets involved (the UK Treasury even decided design details of the Type 42 destroyers).

[@eureka5635]

Naval ships are inherently political, especially Carriers.