USS United States (CVA-58) - Guide 394 (NB)

The USS United States, an almost-built carrier of the United States Navy, is today's subject.
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[@Drachinifel]

Pinned post for Q&A :)

[@themanformerlyknownascomme777]

Given the constantly changing nature of large capital ships even while under construction (as seen with examples like the North Carolina), just how likely would it be that USS United States would finish up as a more conventional carrier (much like how she appears in World of Warships) before she's even launched?

[@WarrantOfficerWill22]

assuming that USS United States is either completed or quickly refited after a short period of time to a more conventional design, how long would her class's likely service life be? assuming it isn't cut short as a sacrificial lamb for a future Nuke boats like how some of the Essexs were.

[@Cbabilon675]

Not trying to get you out of your comfort zone with the years that you cover, but What were some of the Post world war, two designs from countries like france, And the other Allied nations? Are you planning to cover any of them?

[@wildkarrde3370]

Can you tell us more about the time that HMS Unicorn bombarded ground targets in North Korea with her own guns? How close to shore was she, did the guns hit their targets, was she in danger of return fire?

[@kmilorestre5223]

What ships look like they where designed on a fever dream?

[@AdmRose]

Revolt of the Admirals is hereby reserved as the name of my future thrash metal band.

[@misterflibble6601]

Awww, you beat me to it

[@Julius_Hardware]

Manley Power and the Revolt of the Admirals (could also be a 1930s sci-fi serial)

[@randaldavis8976]

@@Julius_Hardware Manley Power could be a time traveler, when asked for his name he said "additional man power":

[@rebeccaorman1823]

​@@Julius_Hardwarealas Manley Powers was a British officer and the Revolt of the Admirals occurred in the US navy.

[@Julius_Hardware]

@@rebeccaorman1823 That's why he wasn't in the band

[@stcredzero]

A very artful reference to "Old Yeller?"

[@kkupsky6321]

Awww. Inter military feuding always works out great. It’s sweet when the navy wants to sail in the air awwww. How cute to try and grasp at relevance…

[@darkstarnovember54]

Behold, the United States Ship United States

[@lancerevell5979]

Not only was SecDef Johnson forced to resign after this ship was cancelled, but his handpicked SecNav John P. Matthews also resigned. The Admirals' Revolt sortof worked in the end. Bigger carriers were built and the Navy retained it's nuke capability. Another interesting tidbit.... When the USS United States was cancelled and the just-begun keel was ripped out of the drydock, it freed it up to build a new oceanliner, the SS United States! An interesting coincidence. 😅

[@peterireland4344]

Ed Heinemann, the Douglas chief designer, insisted that the Skywarrior be light enough to operate from existing carriers, on the assumption that the USS US had a fair chance of never happening. Good thinking, Ed.

[@onenote6619]

He did a great job of weight saving by looking at everything and seeing if it could be trimmed down. Then he thought to himself 'why not dial it up to 11' and went on to design the A4 Skyhawk.

[@petesheppard1709]

The Skywarrior did operate off of _Essex_-class carriers. 😲

[@paulwoodman5131]

​@@petesheppard1709 Cool 😎. how about the Viggis?

[@petesheppard1709]

@@paulwoodman5131 Nope; they were too hot and only flew from the really big decks.

[@paulwoodman5131]

@@petesheppard1709 That's interesting, thank you. I served on the Eisenhower. The Viggies were long gone. That was another plane that politics left behind. Sky warrior, the whale was still there. We moved it around. That big boy was about all our tow doll equipment can handle. Would have liked to moved a. Viggy. Phantoms came aboard and crusaders. Very cool ,but no viggies.

[@Cobra-King3]

Ah yes, the Navy's Ultimate Carrier Schizo post

[@Davidletter3]

You know, I'm often upset that a lot of these NB ships were of course never built, but having watched this video, I can safey say thats not the case with this one. I'm amazed at how insane this design concept was.

[@zirconic9]

Yeah, I finally have a better understanding of what was going on. It was really designed to do one thing, and would not have done it all that well.

[@LupusAries]

Yeah especially the elevators in front of the "Wing Catapults"! If anything goes wrong, by the slightest degree, that is a major accident waiting to happen.

[@hektor6766]

Long-range land-based aircraft were the obvious choice, at least until missile technology reached sufficient development.

[@Rutherford_Inchworm_III]

"Of course our Jet Age Nuclear Supercarrier needs a full 1930s-style secondary battery. What kind of a nancy asks a question like that?"

[@ph89787]

One of the principle officers in the Revolt of the Admirals was Captain John G “Uncle John” Crommelin. Who was Enterprise’s XO during the Guadalcanal Campaign.

[@laggerstudios3392]

He was sacked afterwards if I recall correctly?

[@ph89787]

@@laggerstudios3392 He was

[@williestyle35]

So were the Admirals' Gallery, one of whom had captured a U - Boat...

[@kennethdeanmiller7324]

So some resigned & the others were sacked. Never think your too big for your britches. Unless, of course, you actually can't fit them around your waste. And then you are just getting too fat!😮

[@Bigrednumber77]

Drach focusing on something newer than VJ day 1945? A rare treat! ;D

[@randomnickify]

Well, he did explain why he is focusing on older stuff - fewer triggers for angry people :)

[@petesheppard1709]

Still before his 1950 cutoff.

[@nedimar5696]

@@randomnickify I never understood that argument. Most of the stuff that could "trigger" people has its origins in the "period that the channel covers", so having a hard cut off just seems arbitrary. If you can deal with Nazis you can deal with the cold war.

[@JefferyP.Indorf]

​@@nedimar5696Well, the trouble is that Drac as an engineer likes to have the largest amount of data. Many things from the '50's are still classified ( yeah, I know it's stupid,but that's the way it is).

[@WALTERBROADDUS]

​@@JefferyP.IndorfStupid is a bad word choice....

[@scottjackson5173]

I long wondered why hull number 58, got skipped. Great info! My ship was USS Ranger CV-61. Fair winds and following seas!

[@scottmccrea1873]

"The [Soviets] are the opposition. The enemy is the US Navy." -- Curtis Lemay, USAF

[@tonymanero5544]

Yep, the fight of USN to get money after 1945 for nuclear weapon delivery was epic. Ultimately, miniaturization and solid fuel rocket engines produced the Polaris, and to this day, the Boomers are the quiet Doomsday machine within USN. Carriers project force in peacetime, but they are not needed in a nuclear war. I am very glad that Obama signed on to start the $ trillion modernization of the U.S. Strategic Nuclear forces, but with Michael Flynn, Trump, Mannafort, Jared Kushner, etc. on the payroll of Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, the greater adversary are these people who are on the payroll of countries opposed to America.

[@Rutherford_Inchworm_III]

Amusingly enough, the country would have been better off if Truman had canceled both the plane and the carrier and given the money to the Army. Korea was just around the corner.

[@inyobill]

@@Rutherford_Inchworm_III Who would have provided air support?

[@Rutherford_Inchworm_III]

@@inyobill That's called a "non-sequitur". +1'ing yourself was the chef's kiss.

[@dallasmars2]

The navy carriers could do it the b 36 was useless in korea

[@nco_gets_it]

including the part about SECDEF Johnson is great. People often don't realize how deep the SECDEF's impact can be. In 1965 the US Army was still trying to work its way out of some of the bad ideas of the 50s as were the Navy and Air Force.

[@Jan-hx9rw]

And in the 1970s, the Army was trying to work its way out of all the bad ideas foisted on it and the other services (and the country) by R. Strange MacNamara in the 1960s, may he burn in everlasting hell. SECDEF can impact the country nearly as much as POTUS, but frequently works in the shadows without being recognized for the force for ill or good that he can be.

[@scottpeters371]

We need a dedicated episode on Louis Johnson and his stupidity and the resulting Revolt of the Admirals

[@WALTERBROADDUS]

That's probably a little bit out of the scope of the channel? But the Truman administration had a lot of bad ideas. That was just one of them.

[@lauraainslie6725]

Having read the Wikipedia article on the Revolt of the Admirals, I regret that I have only one upvote to give this comment. We need the Drach treatment!

[@scottpeters371]

@@lauraainslie6725 James Hornfischer in his last book "Who can hold the sea" covers it pretty well but there's more detail out there

[@tredegar5145]

Even Truman admitted that having Johnson was a mistake.

[@JayVeeEss36]

US Navy: "Yeah, we are thinking about putting bombers on a 1000 ft carrier" Royal Navy: *Laughs in HMS Habakkuk*

[@Its-Just-Zip]

This was a lot like the US Navy looking at that plan and deciding they wanted to make it practical.

[@JayVeeEss36]

@@Its-Just-Zip I imagine the conversation at least wouldn't have involved anyone shooting at a block of Pykrete and almost hitting someone on the richoxhet, so I suppose it had a better inception than Habakkuk

[@drakron]

@@Its-Just-Zip No, it wasnt ... I have no idea why some people have a strange obsession with Project Habakkuk and I can be nastly enough to say they must be overcompensating for the lack something. Project Habakkuk was a idea that people in the UK eventually realized it was impracticable because the steel alone required would be enough to build a entire fleet of carriers, also the USN did evaluated its feasibility and come pretty much to the same conclusion, the steel required for the refrigeration system could be used to build a entire fleet of carriers and there was no need for a floating island as landbased aircraft ranges have reach the point they were more that sufficient. Now to USS United States ... That ship was designed not to be a floating island, it was to be a conventional carrier with its large size being due to two things, that ever increasing aircraft weight were putting the Essex and even Midway class future in question and so this is were its initial design come from. the other reason that it would need to carry long range aircraft with a nuclear payload since this was 1948, tactical nuclear weapons were still very heavy and the truth is they didnt really had any available plane capable of doing that yet but the soon to enter service AJ-1 Savage was capable of doing so but only on the Midway class and later the Modernized Essex (and of course, the Forrestals) due to its size. The new carrier simply had to be very big since the days of Hellcats were long over, jet aircraft were too heavy and would continue to increase in weight. The United States class was mostly a logical progression of aircraft carriers by the USN despite some questionable decisions that we can understand since it was a progression of the Midway, by 1948 the USN knew the Midways wouldnt be able to handle newer jet aircraft, this is why the Forrestal class development come almost immediate after the United States class cancellation, the reason why the United States class was both authorized and cancelled was interservice politics, post-WWII and pre-Korean War the prevailing idea was that conventional wars were over so the need for conventional forces was also over, this leads to the Navy finding itself in a rather uncomfortable spot as they couldnt deliver nuclear weapons at the time, this was a attempt to keep then relevant instead of having all their capital ships being scrapped and be related to coastal service and they had plently of reasons to think that considering the Secretary of Defense L. A. Johnson seem to be rather keen on budgetary cutbacks ... then the Korea War started and apparently they come to the realization throwing nukes like candy in the Korea Peninsula would be a tad bit extreme (and political suicide, isnt that right General MacArthur), the United States class would allow the USN to remain relevant within the "Nuclear Deterrence" as well still provide the USN with air support.

[@AndyAshworth-h6w]

Enterprise cvn 65 1123ft aft refit, nimitz class 1092 ft (class general), the usn nearly got carriers as big.

[@PelhamExpress]

In retrospect, Johnson did the Navy a favor. The Forrestal class ended up being much more useful, those monster aircraft never arrived, and nukes got smaller. Funny how things work themselves out.

[@themanformerlyknownascomme777]

I mean, in all likelyhood the USS United States would not have launched with this particular design.

[@jetdriver]

That’s an interesting thought. The first question is would the United States have been completed to her original design? United States was laid down in April of 49 and Forrestall in July 52. Obviously the Navy’s thinking changed a lot during that time. Friedman indicates that by 1950 it was clear small atomic bombs would be available and design work on the Forrestall class was underway. Thus I tend to think in light of all the changes in carrier aviation happening construction would have been suspended as events had overtaken her original design. I tend to think she would have ultimately been completed as sort of a prototype Forestall. The other question is what really saved and shaped Naval Aviation and that’s the Korean War. Korea showed the value of carriers and naval aviation and shaped the Navy’s move away from a carrier built for the A bomb mission to one suited to general purpose warfare.

[@themanformerlyknownascomme777]

@@jetdriver I was actually looking into it, and there was at least several different modifications to the design looked at before the project was scrapped.

[@ThumperE23]

@@jetdriver CVA-58 would probably be modified like CVA-59 was. As the CVA-59 was designed as a straight deck carrier. Also points for US Navy trolling as they named their first super carrier after a SECDEF that hated the Navy.

[@WALTERBROADDUS]

The bigger favor is that it led to Hyman Rickover and Polaris.

[@generalvikus2138]

I've never heard this side of the popular CVA story. A full-length Revolt of the Admirals special would be much appreciated. Of course, the CVA was a horrifically inefficient means of delivering 24 low - performance aircraft, but hindsight is 20 : 20. SAC's alert bomber force, jet bombers, H-bombs, and Polaris were all a world away.

[@John.0z]

I have never understood how the B-36 was supposed to even get to anywhere important in the USSR. A target that big would have been intercepted somewhere over the wastes of the tundra, or maybe Manchuria.

[@cackleatrophy9307]

​​@@John.0z The USAF didn't know the MiG was a thing yet, so they believed there wasn't any plane that could fly high and fast enough to catch it. When MiGs started showing up the B-36s were quickly grounded for combat operations.

[@John.0z]

@@cackleatrophy9307 I was wondering about the timing - and the MiG 15 had a significantly higher ceiling than the USAF fighters of the time, so talking to people like North American Aviation would not have given the correct numbers. I would still think that any crew getting in one would be wondering about the heavy AA guns... They were a big target!

[@cackleatrophy9307]

​@@John.0zThey really should have part of the Revolt of the Admirals was the Navy pointing to their own fighter programs which were capable of intercepting the B-36, and if we can, others can as well. The Air Force decided to take a page from pre-war Navy, and stick their finger in their ears and go "la la la la la la, tech that beats ours doesn't exist, la la la la la".

[@generalvikus2138]

@@John.0z ​Consider the B-17. Much slower at its service ceiling, with far inferior protection, relative to the fighters of its time. And yet even unescorted in broad daylight, it never suffered a loss rate greater than 20% per sortie. The bombers did, in fact, always get through - never was a raid even close to being stopped on the way to its target. B-36s, by contrast, only had to fly one sortie per aircraft, because there were always more aircraft than bombs in that era. Both SAC and the ADC generally assumed assumed that attacking bombers would suffer an attrition rate of 30% per sortie. Moreover, the B-36 planned to go in at night - Soviet night fighters performed much worse than contemporary day fighters like the Mig 15, and the B-36 had the equipment to bomb accurately at night. Finally - crucially - the B-36s would jam the radars and most importantly the GCI radio links, because it had ample capacity for jammers. Without GCI, there was no way any fighters of the era - let alone what the PVO had available - could inflict serious losses at night. Finally, even if all of this were not true, the Navy's AJ Savage performed considerably worse than the B-36 in most respects - it was barely faster at its best altitude, with a lower service ceiling, far inferior payload, no defensive armament, little space for jammers, and far inferior range. And, most importantly of all, the cost of the carrier and its escorts meant that far fewer bombers could be afforded for a given price, which meant that fewer Navy bombers would get through even if the Navy's attrition rate was lower, because fewer bombers would be launched in the first place.

[@michaelsnyder3871]

Dealing with CV-58 alone misses the huge costs the USN was ready to accept to operate a carrier of this type. For example, the primary radars and combat direction center would be off-loaded to a supporting ship, in this case the Northampton rebuilt as a command ship or the Hawaii, stripped down and then rebuilt as such. The CV-58 design would also have required a minimum of four large escorts with the then advanced armament of the 5" Mk.42 and 3" Mk.32 (IIRC) DP and AA gun mounts and with AD missiles. Then there was the air group, with a 70,000lb or 100,000lb nuclear bomber carrying 12-20,000 lb nuclear bombs. Using a modified P2V or even the AJ Savage wasn't acceptable given the probable Soviet AD including jet aircraft such as the MiG-15. There was neither in service or even within the timeframe of the completion of the carrier of such a bomber being available, the A3D Skywarrior not entering service before 1957. CV-58 would have been a "white elephant" had she actually been completed as designed and in the timeframe expected by the USN, ie. 1953. By 1953-54, the USN had had a chance to review three British inventions which made the operation of high-performance jet aircraft by an aircraft carrier more effective. These were the steam catapult, the angled deck and the mirror landing assistance device. If historical projections had been followed, the USN would have faced the prospect of a very expensive rebuild of CV-58 to add these features, which also would have allowed an island with stack and radar masts. The rebuild would have had to redesign the ordnance and fuel storage, as a conventional carrier would be operating AD Skyraiders and would need to put AVGAS tanks behind armor. The continuing reduction of the size of nuclear weapons such that A4D Skyhawks or AD Skyraiders could now deliver nuclear weapons as tactical devices, which would require a revision of the flight deck and hanger as the 100,000lbs bomber would not be needed, and the 70,000lbs bomber, the A3D and the A2J would be sufficient to deliver nuclear weapons as a strategic asset against the Soviet Union. Of course, the rise of the Poseidon program diminished the need for carriers as strategic weapons delivery platforms. Despite the increased awareness of the threat of the Soviet Union under Stalin, Truman continued to seek to suppress government spending while funding his social programs. That's where the funding crisis came unexpectedly, due to a recession in FY1949. Truman had to cut, and he targeted the defense budget for $4M. Conventional forces took the worst of the cuts. The USN was reduced to one carrier battle group in the Pacific, Atlantic and Mediterranean. The Army was really damaged, such that it had a single combat ready division in FY1950. Much of the rest of the Army was fully dedicated to training and throughput of draftees with the return to a peacetime draft. The only capability that wasn't cut was the USAF and SAC, as the US continued to rely on its possession of the atomic bomb, a strategic decision that failed when the Soviets exploded their own bomb in 1949 and demonstrated the swept wing fighters, including the MiG-15 that same year when the USAF was still relying on modified B-29s as its primary delivery system. The US had already decided on the defense cuts before these events occurred. It took the Korean Conflict to force reconsideration of other US strategic assumptions, which included the capabilities of the carrier and its escorts. There is one other impact of the CV-58 design. The trouble encountered with designing any effective method of dealing with exhaust from the fuel fired boilers helped push the design, development and fielding of nuclear propulsion, which, of course, eliminated the need for stacks and such.

[@TomSedgman]

That RATO take off picture is amazing! I’m sure there wasn’t a dry eye on deck

[@MrHws5mp]

Point of order: the AJ Savage was actually THREE-engined: it had an Allison J33 turbo jet in the rear fuselage as well as the Double Wasp radials on the wings.

[@John.0z]

I thought that was only the piston-engined prototype? The turbine version was quite different.

[@MrHws5mp]

@@John.0z The twin piston + jet version was the one that went into production and service. The twin turboprop version was cancelled after a single prototype was flown due to problems with the T-40 engines (which killed several other types too).

[@John.0z]

@@MrHws5mp I stand corrected. The inevitable result of the passing years. 🥴

[@MrHws5mp]

@@John.0z I stand corrected too - the inevitable result of special insoles...😉

[@jke3667]

It’d be fun seeing 1 USS America vs 10 Habakkuks

[@Deevo037]

The latter could probably field B36 bombers.

[@Yaivenov]

Probable comes down to whoever's nuclear bombers were faster.

[@Species5008]

Habbakuks? Is that what the lefties are calling them now

[@bella_ciao4608]

FYI USS America was a real ship of the Kitty Hawk class.

[@AsbestosMuffins]

"No Island?" "Could get in the way of the wings." "Where's the radar going." "we need to beat the army and airforce!"

[@John.0z]

I have some vague memory that the idea was to put all the things normally on an island onto an escort ship, probably of cruiser size. Running flying operations that way would not be a great solution, but probably better than trying to do so from the galleries. Conning the huge ship in harbour would be even more of a problem.

[@lancerevell5979]

The idea was for a separate Radar Ship to accompany the Carrier Battle Group, as well as aircraft carrying warning radar covering the CBG. And at leadt one standard CVA carrying fighters to defend the CBG, while the supercarrier carried the bombers and escort fighters.

[@Rutherford_Inchworm_III]

"This is going to be the first Nuclear Jet Age carrier. All of the old, useless fixtures must be removed to make way for the modern and relevant." "Okay, then why did you also insist on a massive 1930s-style secondary battery? Planning on fighting off a swarm of torpedo boats?" "....GO NAVY BEAT ARMY"

[@PhysicsGamer]

@@Rutherford_Inchworm_III Given that the thing didn't have an island I'm a little curious what they planned to do for fire direction, but in all honesty such a battery would probably have been useful against small boat attacks. Y'know, on the off chance something this massive would even notice such an attack. Nuclear small boat attacks?

[@Rutherford_Inchworm_III]

@@PhysicsGamer As I've said elsewhere, given the two alternatives (neither of which would have lasted out the 50s) Truman should have simply given the money to the Army to train more divisions. Would have saved a lot of lives in Korea. Truman honestly was not a great CinC.

[@charlescdt6509]

Drach old boy, dont give World of Warships any ideas now. On second thought, they NEED to hire you. You would bring much needed sanity to some of their ship designs. Good stuff as always.

[@Yamato-tp2kf]

Drach, can you make a video about the Revolt of the Admirals? That's a very interesting subject to talk about... Specialty due to the hate of President Truman and the Secretary of the Navy Johnson for the Marines Corps and also how they wanted to favor the US Air Force, as also the connections of the Sec. Of the Navy Johnson with the US Air Force long range bombers projects...

[@ph89787]

Fun fact. One of the principle officers in the Revolt of the Admirals was Captain John G “Uncle John” Crommelin. Who was Enterprise’s XO during the Guadalcanal Campaign.

[@Yamato-tp2kf]

@@ph89787 I think that even Admiral Kincaid was part of it

[@ph89787]

@@Yamato-tp2kf as well as Admiral Halsey and Admiral Spruance

[@Yamato-tp2kf]

@@ph89787 yep, just confirmed on Wikipedia

[@crazypetec-130fe7]

Wasn't Adm Gallery involved too? If you've never read any of his books, do yourself a favor. The man had a gift for humor that Mark Twain would envy.

[@acefox1]

This is the bemused smile on my face as I listen to Drach discussing nuclear weapons, PV2 Neptunes, A-3 Skywarriors, F-111’s and Skyraiders. 😁 Great video! 👏👏👏

[@sangheili1024]

2:35 Can we take a moment and appreciate how terrifying 100 nukes crammed onto a ship is? I know nuclear submarines carry a similar amount of weapons, but still

[@shaunolinger964]

A ship to review... the "Active" class of Coast Guard cutters. Built in 1926-27, they are now the oldest surviving military vessels in the country that were powered by internal combustion engines. Also known as the "buck and a quarter" fleet, these plucky little 125-foot cutters were originally designated WPC (Whiskey Patrol Cutter). There's precious few of them still existing, with only two in preservation and another being attempted to get into preservation before it goes to scrap. One additional ship, the Bonham (aka Polar Star), is sunk in shallow water in Oregon and is rusted through so badly that she's a total loss. I'd really enjoy seeing what you come up with for these little ships!

[@maxkennedy8075]

USS Nuclear Ryujo

[@Knight6831]

Yeah WoW version the USS United States is really would probably have ended up as since the British Empire Royal Navy and the United States Navy experiment with the angled deck would have been filtered into the design

[@coreytrevor6906]

Wake up babe, Cold War Drach vid dropped

[@lorenzobop5522]

Very, very fine video. Two thumbs up!

[@donaldbadowski6048]

Boosted fission nukes made them far smaller and efficient, meaning that far smaller attack aircraft would be needed, making USS United States unnecessary.

[@Guangrui]

Ultimately it's Sub that carries the nuclear warheads

[@maynardcarmer3148]

Depends on the size of the warhead. The Adams-class DDG I served on had some nuclear warheads for the ASROCs we carried.

[@Axel0204]

Subs became the primary Navy component for strategic deterrence, but the size of nuclear weapons dropped rapidly enough that before long even aircraft as small as the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk could carry them.

[@nektulosnewbie]

​@@Axel0204 but, as he said, ultimately those were abandoned leaving the subs. Nukes on carriers were dropped to allow carriers wider geopolitical room to maneuver in.

[@Axel0204]

@@nektulosnewbie I agree, but that is a matter of politics, not capability.

[@nektulosnewbie]

@@Axel0204 that has nothing to do with guangruis statement.

[@ostsan8598]

I think the grandfathers of some of Kel-Tec's design board were on the design board for the USS United States.

[@The_Fubar]

2:10 AJ Savage had three engines, Two propellers and one jet.

[@annehersey9895]

Just the idea that people actually thought modern warfare would ALL be with Nukes makes me shiver in my boots!

[@TheHuffmanator]

It's a weapon, like a stick or a stone. Why anyone would be foolish enough to never use it is the crazy thought.

[@chrisp.2544]

There’s a good case to be made that Johnston was the second worst SecDef of the past 100 years only losing to McNamara.

[@beboy12003]

Amen to that.

[@swoo6979]

Quite. While Drach ended this video off with him being anti-USN, he screwed over all parts of the US armed forces in general due to heavy budget cuts. A responsibility partially borne by Truman as well.

[@charliedontsurf334]

At least McNamara admitted his mistakes…40 years later.

[@85isaboat53]

​@charliedontsurf334, but he still had the sense to know he was wrong

[@madkoala2130]

​@@charliedontsurf334lets give him a credit where he deserved. He at least managed to fix that interservice rivalry between branches, maybe not totally but at least standardized nomenclature, cancelled out all those insane projects that each branch was trying to make.

[@Pheonixco]

I find it funny that they couldn't conceptualize that miniaturization was going to be a thing even for nuclear warheads, and were to the point of laying down ships that would have been grossly oversized for what ended up being put into practice by the 1950's

[@classicalextremism]

Eh, Drach has this a bit backwards. Its not that larger aircraft were never developed and therefore the larger carrier was superfluous. Its that a larger carrier was not developed and therefore larger aircraft were superfluous. The F-111 was not a viable carrier plane due to its handling requirements, and a larger flight deck would alleviate that. With sufficient space and strong enough deck you could expect to see a navalized version of the B-1, for example. This is inconceivable with current carrier design because it took the path of supporting tactical aircraft instead of strategic.

[@tonymanero5544]

No. In 1945, a 20kt nuclear bomb was 10,000 lbs. Even in 1952 Korean War, no one could imagine Lawrence Livermore Labs could come up with a 200kt warhead that weight about 400 lbs. Up to then, the Navy fought for money to deliver nuclear weapons. Korea was the impetus to build carriers to carry high speed and larger jets. Polaris finally gave the Navy the same standing as the USAF in the nuclear game. In the book Tomcat/Eagle, the Israeli author described the USAF as a collection of varying aircraft with the single purpose of delivering or launching a nuclear warhead. In the skies over North Vietnamese, both the USN and USAF rediscovered the need for dogfighting that resulted in the F-15 and adopting the F-14 to ACM via Topgun as the F-14 wasn’t specifically designed for agile combat.

[@shaider1982]

From a Smithonian Air and Space magazinr article, this was cancelled in favor of the B36.

[@donaldhill3823]

It was extremely short sighted to think all future wars/combat would be handled by the biggest hitting weapon to the exclusion of all others.

[@GrahamWKidd]

Drach spoils us every Saturday. III

[@frankgulla2335]

Drach, what a nice a simple summary of post-WW2 US aircraft carrier plans.

[@Cbabilon675]

It's amazing how he can find up with little known naval history so well.😊 I really appreciate it.

[@RobertoGonzalez-gg3jc]

Fun thing, the length of this design would ultimately be "accurated", in the sense that it would be equal to the Nimitz and Gerald Ford classes

[@weldonwin]

Ah yes, The United States Ship United States. Designed about the same times as Her Majesty's Ship Her Majesty

[@boobah5643]

It's not as if it would have been the first; that _United States_ was sister to Old Ironsides. Caveat: the USS prefix wasn't yet a thing.

[@BaikalTii]

Louis A Johnson was Truman's chief fundraiser for the 1948 campaign and actively lobbied for SecDef position. which he got after Truman forced out James V Forrestal. well deserved retribution for Forrestal to have a class of CV's named for him.

[@inyobill]

03:17: I see at least two Nuc-capable airframes in that picture. Obviously, that photo is 'way. Way. After the period under discussion.

[@tonyanderson-ln9gl]

USS Forestal: We always called her "USS Zippo", due to her seeming ability to catch fire, anywhere, anytime, for no reason at all. We were always nervous when we moored at the same pier. When we close down the bars and head back for the night, will we still have a home to go to?

[@agesflow6815]

Thank you, Drachinifel.

[@WALTERBROADDUS]

Getting rid of the USS United States is the best thing that could have happened to the Navy. And Thankfully, Hyman Rickover and the Submarine Service were the better Idea. Rather than concentrating on air delivery, the birth of the ballistic missile submarine began. And the US Navy remains in the nuclear game. There were a few other minor detours to get there however. The Martin Seamaster most notably. The money spent on the USS United States would have been a waste......

[@MrGhendri]

I was in her belly ‘78-‘82. I will never forget her scream launching aircraft in 3MMR. To watch her boiler casings flex was the stuff of nightmares.

[@ramal5708]

Ah yes, the Revolt of the Admirals was the reason this ship was cancelled, when the Truman administration wanted to use the Air Force's B-36 bombers as main nuclear deterrent and the interservice rivalry between USAF and USN, when you're thinking IJN and IJA rivalry was bad, compare that to the 1949 US interservice rivalry. I know it's a lot of politics behind it all, but well the reason for the CVA-58 cancellation was obviously mainly politics.

[@madkoala2130]

You are also forgetting about US army also trying to get funding for thier nuclear delivery devices. Just by sheer amount of diffrent jet fighters between Navy and Airforce would make any manager head spinning. Thank god for McNamara, if there arent for him, who know what kind of insanity those branches would came up with.

[@comrade_commissar3794]

> when you’re thinking IJN and IJA rivalry was bad, compare that to the 1949 US interservice rivalry. What? How could any US interserivce bickering compare to the IJA/IJN rivalry? You know that the Japanese leadership was assassinating eachother, yes? I’m talking hit squads and car bombs. Either you’re lying or you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.

[@comrade_commissar3794]

> when you’re thinking IJN and IJA rivalry was bad, compare that to the 1949 US interservice rivalry. What? How could any US interserivce bickering compare to the IJA/IJN rivalry? You know that the Japanese leadership was assassinating eachother, yes? I’m talking hit squads and car b*mbs. Either you’re lying or you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.

[@comrade_commissar3794]

> when you’re thinking IJN and IJA rivalry was bad, compare that to the 1949 US interservice rivalry. What? How could any US interserivce bickering compare to the IJA/IJN rivalry? You know that the Japanese leadership was assassinating eachother, yes?

[@tonymanero5544]

The cancellation was beneficial in hindsight. With steam catapults, angle deck and flight deck sponsors only a few years later, CVA-58 would have been a bigger Midway class that required modernization. The 1966-70 modernization of 20-year old Midway was $200 million when the JFK was built for $293 million, and Midway couldn’t conduct flight operations in rough seas due to heavy rolling (see KZbin on this including ramp strikes killing the pilots). Today, a Ford class carrier costs $12 billion.

[@tomdolan9761]

The second incantation of the carrier USS United States didn’t fair much better since President Clinton renamed it USS Harry Truman

[@riverraven7359]

A dedicated Strategic Nuke carrier with flights of F111's and fighter cover would actually be pretty scary.

[@killzoneisa]

Watching how nuclear payloads size change to partly microchips and other tech is interesting.

[@harveywallbanger3123]

4:34 - The funniest part of that photo is I think it was meant to be promotional.

[@dennisnichols2411]

Very enjoyable, Drach! Since their laying down barely makes it just before 1950, I wonder if you will look at the United States Navy's destroyer leaders, the one off Norfolk (DL-1) and the Mitscher class (DL-2 through -5). By the way, somewhere in my fuzzy reading past I seem to recall that Johnson had some conflicts of interest with Convair, the maker of the B-36. This resulted not just in the cancelation of the United States but also in the termination of the Northrop flying wings XB-35 and YB-49.

[@John.0z]

At least a part of the problem for the flying wings was their thickness to chord being selected for the B-35, which was not all that fast, being a WW2 piston engine design. The B-49 was a minimal change to move the B-35s that were being built to jets. But that left the thick wing, which limited it's speed, yet was also needed for the fuel and payload.... plus structure and people I suppose. 🤔 They are handy to have in a plane. The longitudinal stability was a bombing problem too - the B-49 was not _unstable,_ but it was not completely stable either - it would slowly oscillate a few degrees. That was enough to make bomb aiming inaccurate. It needed active flight controls to settle down, but that technology was decades away.

[@dennisnichols2411]

@@John.0z The yaw was quite a problem for the Wings. Especially when they went to jets as Northrop planned on using the propellers and their shaft housings on the XB-35 for yaw control. But it was nearly unmanageable with the jets, and it's what killed Captain Glen Edwards and his flight test crew . it's interesting to note that a computer the size of a desktop today would have probably solved all the stability problems. But back in the late 40s you would have had to have something size of a Sperry Univac, and I don't think the YB-49 could have swallowed one.

[@John.0z]

@@dennisnichols2411 Thank you. No matter how much I read about most things to do with technology, I find there is always more to learn. BTW, the performance of the processors inside modern phones would be much more computing power than that stability and control task requires. My tower would out-perform even the Cray 2 series. I started in mainframes, and some modern microcontrollers have about the same performance. Not the same I/O though.

[@DrBLReid]

I think we needed a Confederate States Naval Carrier!

[@Redpilled_Retribution]

Just when I was sad you didn't make an episode about this ship, you post this

[@sunrayuk]

Could you do a what if video on a queen Elizabeth class carrier with a catapult instead of ski jump?

[@Tube_America]

God I love this station! Keep it up Drach!

[@Saffi____]

Personally, this is one of my favorite aircraft carrier designs.

[@SaturnCanuck]

One of my favourite "never-builts"

[@Deevo037]

If the Habakkuk was an American design it might have been reimagined.

[@boatrat]

Oof. I'm a little peeved about your dubious coinage of the term "double-angled deck". Historically speaking, the importance of the term "Angle Deck Carrier", lies in the purely functional attribute of allowing jets to retain fly-through momentum for a go-around upon missing their intended arresting wire (aka. "Bolter"). The distinction is only generically made between "angle-deck", and the earlier "straight" or "axial-deck" configuration of the *landing runway.* NOT the catapults. I.e., it's the main "directional" layout of the modern air-traffic-management problem that's at stake, not any mere visual shape irregularity in the planform of the deck-edge. A modern CATOBAR carrier deck has many angles, but only one "Angle".

[@robertthweatt1900]

The assumption that the next war would be nuclear, thus only nuclear weapons were really needed, took awhile to finally die. Gen. Maxwell Taylor's "The Uncertain Trumpet", 1960, finally drove a stake through it, IIRC

[@penultimateh766]

You're a historian. If you were a historiographer, you'd be talking about OTHER historians. Like "Oh my Herodotus can't be trusted for X and Y reasons". Which would be boring as hell. So be a historian.

[@kennethdeanmiller7324]

Yeah, on one hand, during Operation Crossroads USAAF horribly missed a stationary battleship that was painted pink or orange (I've read the USS Arkansas was painted pink and then same story but orange) AND they still missed the ship by a half mile. I'm sure that the Navy could do better but hey, imo, the less people dealing with nuclear weapons the better. And who knows, maybe the Air Force will learn how to hit the broad side of a barn with a little practice. Ok, A LOT of practice! But the strategic use of nukes would eventually be married with large nuclear submarines with major missille batteries and able to deliver numerous nuclear war heads from under the seas. As a nuclear deterant it is a very strategic weapon.

[@Sacto1654]

LIke the RAF TSR.2, the USS _United States_ would be too limited in functionality for its cost. Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed and the vastly more versatile _Forrestal_ class carrier was built in its place from the middle 1950's on. Indeed, USS _Forrestal_ set the standard for the modern supercarrier that has been carried on to the _Gerald R. Ford_ class of carriers.

[@BobSmith-dk8nw]

The thing about Modern Warfare - is that until there actually is a war - everyone is talking out their ass. No one has any idea how all this stuff is REALLY going to work. Thus - in the interwar years - you had all kinds of theories about tanks and planes and ships. Then you had the real war - and a lot of the things people thought were going to happen - didn't - and a lot of things they never expected - did. Every time they have a war - if there's something new about - it may make a difference and it may not. One example from WWII - was Radio Controlled Missiles. At first they had some real success and the Germans sank the Italian Battleship _Roma_ when Italy switched sides. For a while there they did pretty well with the Fritz X - but then - the American Navy off Anzio - figured out how to jam it - and that was the end of that. Joe Kennedy took off a flying bomb that would be radio controlled attacking the target - they just didn't trust it enough to try and take off the heavy bomber with everything removed that could be spared - and it being stuffed to the gills with explosives. The problem was - there was a radio signal to detonate the aircraft - and - as soon as they armed the explosives and turned it on - it seems to have picked up a stray radio signal that set it off. In these two incidents they had two problems. In the first - the enemy was able to jam their signal so that they couldn't control the bomb any more. In the second - they couldn't isolate the device from stray radio signals that just happened to be on the same frequency. Here - they didn't anticipate what could happen - until they actually tried to do it - then it was _"Ooops ..."_ This is true of everything - not just war. The thing about everything else - is that you don't always get people killed when you make a mistake ... though ... sometimes you do. .

[@grizwoldphantasia5005]

My biggest wonder about this whole episode was the short-sightedness of assuming atomic bombs would never get smaller. Surely they were already working on smaller designs by the end of the war. I can only guess it was too secret to let anybody else know. But by 1948-49-50? Somebody must have had an inkling by then 5 years after the first ones.

[@lountszettkazeiyted]

I whoud aboslotly love a video about the Hannover as its name is in world of war ships I think it’s class was H-45 ENORMOUS SHIP but I am not a historian and I can not find mutch videos let alone sorces for it

[@SuperCrazf]

It’s funny how it was planned to be a mighty carrier, but in World of Warships where it’s dubbed a Super Carrier, it’s considered inferior to the English and Japanese super carrier. So not even in fiction it could live up to the hype

[@franzfanz]

Remember, friends don't let friends take powerful hallucinogens and design aircraft carriers.

[@keithmoore5306]

i don't know Drach that double deck wing design does look interesting!! that feature might be worth exploring again!!

[@The_ZeroLine]

I know it’s not something you do, be it’d be fun if you did a guide to still in service CVN models (68+).

[@Blockio1999]

It amazes me that this thing was actually laid down

[@The_ZeroLine]

It’s like the Navy thought technology would stand still when coming up with this design. You know a design is whacky when you can’t even tell which ends are the bow and stern.

[@89volvowithlazers]

I think honestly US Naval ship designers do stuff to mess with other countries processes just cuz they can

[@Matt_The_Hugenot]

A design dreamed up purely out of interservice rivalry. Cancelling it was the right choice.

[@d.olivergutierrez8690]

“Relatively small hangar, about a hundred nukes” …excuse me

[@George_M_]

Imagine a time when tech was evolving so fast this could come up and be cancelled so fast. Nowadays we've been sold the same cellphones for ten years.

[@mennobenjamins4545]

Can you please make a video on the town class light cruiser of 1910

[@lewiswestfall2687]

Instead of one super carrier that does everything, why not one carrier for only the nukes and multiple regular carriers for the fighter escorts?

[@leroysgamesandmore2226]

I remember reading that the keel for the United States was used for the Forrestal instead of being scrapped

[@tmutant]

They gave it the wrong name. It should have USS 'Murica.

[@adamhauskins6407]

Navy: uss langley is a subpar carrior Navy later: lets make another carrier like the Langley only bigger

[@RM-we7px]

Isnt this outside channel timeline? This is what triggered the revolt of the Admirals yes?

[@bobwitkowski6410]

How would the CVA-58 supercarrier compare to a Ford class carrier?

[@arkadiuszrucinski2020]

Whoa, i thought the US Navy started in the nuclear game only with submarine launched ballistic missiles. Thanks as always!

[@jamesbuckner4791]

Nope and regulus was a surface launched cruise missile.

[@davidsbwana]

14 seconds ago is wild!

[@0159ralph]

Credit is due the Royal Navys idea of the angled flight deck...

[@mrjumbly2338]

Was any of the propulsion equipment ordered for this retained then repurposed for a different project?

[@randomidiot8480]

Could you make a video on nukes on aircraft carriers of the early Cold War or after ww2?

[@CorePathway]

You want a flattop? I’ll give you a flattop.

[@jhill4874]

Now that there are no more of these, how about the Leahy and Belknap cruisers?

[@johnmcguigan7218]

Steering this ship would put most navigators in the loony bin.

[@davidneel8327]

There was even consideration for a Requlas equipped carrier.

[@Doc_Tar]

I assume the USS United States would not be able to traverse the Panama Canel.