Talk:HMS Ark Royal (91)

Comments

What are "16 4.5-inch/45-caliber guns"? Moriori 02:45, Feb 25, 2004 (UTC)

A little clearer? —Morven 07:25, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Morvem, I believe Moriori may be referring to Ark Royals anti-aircraft machine guns? Capt.Nero

16 of 4.5 inch diameter 45 calibres long. GraemeLeggett 08:21, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

That's right: 16 guns paired in 8 turrets, each of which had a bore diameter of 4.5 inches, and the barrels were 45 times the length of the bore, i.e. 202.5 inches or 16 feet 10.5 inches. I am surprised to see them described as "anti-aircraft guns" as most navies considered a barrel that long too unwieldy to track aircraft accurately. Perhaps these were actually dual-purpose, i.e. a compromise gun for use against both destroyers and aircraft, like the American 5/38? 207.245.172.22 (talk) 15:58, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

The 4.5" Mk I was a new dual-purpose weapon fitted on high-angle/low-angle mounts on new aircraft carriers like the Ark Royal and reconstructed battleships and battlecruisers like the Renown. The later had ten twin 4.5" counter-sunk turrets, spit into four groups; each group had its own director with a HACS Mk IV fire control table for high-angle fire and an AFCC Mk VII fire control table for low-angle fire. They were used against both aircraft and surface targets - the Renown used her 4.5s with success against the battleship Gneisenau.--Toddy1 (talk) 16:28, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Under design, it is stated "The hangar decks were placed inside the hull, thus benefiting from the protection of the 4.5 inches (110 mm) belt armour." This doesn't make sense. The hangar decks were above the belt armor. The armor belt can be clearly seen in the adjacent photo; the armor belt is the t-shaped patch on the side of the ship, just above the water line. The top of the armor belt is 1 to 2 decks below the lower hangar deck. I would be curious to know the exact wording of the source cited, which I don't have access to. 207.245.172.22 (talk) 15:58, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Court Martial of Ark Royal's Captain, 1941

In the BBC 2's program "Shipwreck Ark Royal" at 8 pm this evening (12/02/06) a very short reference was made about 2 minutes from the end saying that the captain was court martialled. Can enyone confirm that? Was he convicted? What was the charge?

Steve K. Thanks.

See below for clues as to the reason for the court martial. The charge would probably have been "Hazarding his ship". There appears to be no public record of the result but these proceedings were normally a formality to establish the facts and produce a definitive report.

Damage Report - Ark Royal

HMS Ark Royal was torpedoed by U-81 on November 14th, 1941. A single g7e torpedo struck the ship on the starboard side, abreast of the Island. This position was the worst possible in that, being dead midships, it was where the list caused would be greatest and its position relative to the transverse bulkheads was such that four main compartments plus over 106 feet of the ship's starboard bilge was immediately subject to flooding.

The enemy torpedo was running very deep and, at the time, there was some speculation that it may have used a non-contact (magnetic) exploder. This was later discounted on grounds that the damage inflicted by the hit was not as extensive as, nor was it of the type typical of, under-the-keel hits.

The explosion opened a hole 130 feet long by 30 feet deep, the size being increased by the time taken to bring the ship to a halt, resulting in additional hull plating being peeled off. This resulted in the starboard boiler room, air spaces and oil tanks flooding as did the main switchboard and the lower steering position. The starboard power train was also knocked out by the hit but the port and centerline trains kept functioning.

Some of the torpedo blast vented upwards through a bomb trunk forward of the Island. The ship whipped violently with the explosion which caused the fully-loaded torpedo-bombers on the flight deck to be hurled into the air. The ship however, showed very little shock damage internally and her masts remained standing. The Ark Royal (immediately after the explosion) took on a 10 degree list that increased to 18 degrees within 20 minutes.

Due to the flooding of the switchboard, communications within the ship were lost, explaining the delay in bringing the ship to a halt. At this point the Captain decided to evacuate the ship. All personnel were withdrawn from the machinery spaces and assembled topside in order to determine who should leave the ship and who should remain on board. As a result of this action, damage control measures were only initiated 49 minutes after the hit, the flooding having been uncontrolled for this period. During this critical period, the centerline boiler room started to flood from below. During the evacuation of the machinery spaces several covers and armored hatcheswere left open, allowing the flooding to spread further than otherwise would be expected.

As the ship listed further, water came in through the uptakes of the starboard boiler room, flooding over into the centerline, and later into the port, boiler rooms. This flooding further reduced the area through which the funnel gases could escape, causing severe local overheating and fires.

One hour and 19 minutes after the torpedo hit, all power within the ship failed. Meanwhile, most of the crew had been ordered to evacuate the ship. Those that left the ship included the entire staff of shipwrights and key members of the electrical staff, depriving the damage control crews of much-needed expertise. There were still further delays before the repair crews returned to the machinery spaces and attempts at counter-flooding started.

Only half of the available compartments on the portside were flooded, (which reduced the list to 14 degrees) because there was a lack of specialist expertise in the damage control parties. To make matters worse, the flooding valves were not then closed, so the water in the counterflooded units was gradually expelled as more water entered the starboard side of the ship.

Flooding and the loss of feedwater had already shut the ship's power-plant down. Since all the generators were steam-powered, this deprived the ship of electrical as well as motive power. The ship's engineers fought to get the plant back on line despite the rising floodwaters.They won that battle five hours and 34 minutes after the torpedo hit when the portside boiler room was lit off.

However, by that time, the list had increased to 18 degrees and the flooding was starting to spread across the ship's boiler room flat. This was an uninterrupted compartment running across the whole width of the ship, making the entire area of the machinery spaces vulnerable. The efforts made by the engine room crews to restore power were futile. The boiler room flat flooding forced the plant to be shut down again.

Progressive flooding now caused the list to increase rapidly. The list reached 20 degrees 11 hours and 4 minutes after the hit and touched 27 degrees an hour and a quarter later. At this point, the abandon ship order was again given. All crew were off the ship at 0430hrs, 12 hours 19 minutes after the hit, at which time the list had reached 35 degrees.

HMS Ark Royal capsized and sank at 0619hrs after the list reached 45 degrees. Although the ship had been designed with a great reserve of buoyancy, this had been allowed to dwindle away and an invaluable warship had been lost.

After the Second World War, the loss of Ark Royal was investigated. The conclusion drawn was that, on a target of 22,000 tons, the provision of an effective anti-torpedo scheme was difficult.

However, when a comparison with the Yorktown was held it was demonstrated that it was possible, and that the Yorktown had only sunk when all her reserve buoyancy had been exhausted.

The primary cause of the loss of Ark Royal was held to be the inexperience and poor judgement of those responsible for damage control and their lack of initiative. Proper damage control measures were not undertaken in good time nor was action to tow the ship to Gibraltar, less than 25 miles away undertaken promptly.

The torpedo hit on Ark Royal was serious but put the ship in no immediate danger of sinking The prompt application of counterflooding and standard damage control procedures would have saved the ship.

The Investigation also concluded that there were a variety of design factors contributing to the loss:

The uninterrupted boiler room flat was a significant error that was immediately rectified in the Illustrious and Indefatigable class. The adoption of a double hangar had forced the use of cross-deck uptakes low in the ship adding to vulnerability. The reliance on steam generators was also an error and diesel generators were back-fitted to the armored carriers. The power train design itself was strongly criticized.

---

Thanks. Steve K.

Successful Good Article Nomination

According to the good article criteria, I have passed this article. Some useful suggestions I can give include a copyedit (from WP:MHL, and an A-Class review from WP:MILHIST before an attempt at FAC. Also, if you have an opportunity, please consider reviewing an article here. -MBK₀₀₄ 01:39, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

It's now a FA, but I have significant reservations about its reliance on just two sources. Surely such a notable, recent topic has more good material available than that. --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 13:07, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Name?

What is the significance/origin of the name "Ark Royal"? Can this be added to the article, please? Johntex\^talk 18:00, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

The name is taken from the first ship, HMS Ark Royal (1587). The 'Ark' part was chosen by Walter Raleigh and ships usually took the name of the owner, so she was 'Ark Raleigh'. The government then purchased her for the navy, and since the crown was the owner and no longer Raleigh, she became 'Ark Royal'. All subsequent ships have been named after this one. However the reason why a ship may receive a certain name can vary and be based on speculation. HMS Ark Royal (1914) had been an early seaplane carrier so perhaps the Admiralty wanted to perpetuate the name in connection with naval aviation, but this is OR on my part. For a similar example it was decided to name the current HMS Ark Royal (R07) after the previous HMS Ark Royal (R09) was scrapped, to try to ease public anger at the loss of Britain's fleet carriers to budget cuts. While that Ark Royal had probably been named after this Ark Royal because of her fame. Since this article is about this specific ship, I don't think this is the place to go into a discussion on the origin of the name with regards to this lineage, since for the most part it's unsourced and not directly relevant. One way to get to it is to follow the 'other ships' link to see where the name comes from. Or it could be briefly outlined in a note. Benea (talk) 18:33, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Rediscovery

These findings seemed to absolve Ark Royal’s captain of blame for failing to save her.

That's unwarrented, IMO. E.g. no damage control for 49 minutes after the hit. The fact that the currents at the time prevented her being moved to Gibralter is one thing, but she might not have sunk in the first place had damage control promptly occurred.

Toby Douglass (talk) 09:29, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you have misunderstood this section. The findings of the investigation were 'The sinking of the Ark Royal was shown to be only a matter of time once the damage had been done.' So she would have sunk even if damage control measures were carried out promptly, in other words the torpedo hit was fatal. The fact that Maund had failed to save the ship was not his fault, no captain could have saved Ark Royal. That's not to say that Maund was guilty for not having initiated procedures at once, and indeed the board of inquiry condemned him for not having done so. But the ultimate sinking was not due to Maund's failure to do so. Benea (talk) 10:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Aircraft

Why did the RN not deploy naval version of the Hurricane or the Seafire on this ship?

becasue she was sunk before the Seafire was widely used, adn the naval Hurris were mostly used on CAM or MAC ships, rather than fleet carriers I should think. David Underdown (talk) 15:10, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Hurricanes could be flown from her flight deck, but they couldn't be carried on her lifts, so they'd have had to remain on the deck at all times. There were vague intentions to adapt the lifts to take Hurricanes, but as the flight deck was a major part of the structure this would have required a long time in dock, which simply wasn't available. Shimgray | talk | 12:59, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Bismarck's predictors

The suggestion that BISMARCK's predictors could not track Swordfish should be removed. Swordfish dropped torpedo at the same speed as other torpedo bombers of the era, the fragility of torpedoes being the determining factor. Also Swordfish were somewhat faster than the towed targets used for AA practice.

Skeltonp (talk) 19:25, 4 June 2008 (UTC) Peter Skelton

• I'm sorry, but I don't see any part of the article that suggests Bismarck could not detect the aircraft. -- saberwyn 21:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Swordfish flying into any headwind would have their groundspeed reduced by the relevant amount, so it's quite possible that a Swordfish on its torpedo run could be doing as little as 60-70kts over the sea. It's not groundspeed that keeps an aeroplane in the air, but airspeed, and if the headwind is high enough - such as is commonly encountered in the North Atlantic, 30-40kts - then it's quite possible for a Swordfish's actual approach groundspeed to its ship target to be way off the lower end of a predictor's fuze-setting scale, e.g., ~40-50kts.

BTW, against a towed target the fuze timing is known, so the fuzes can be timed to detonate at the target's distance, whereas against a real aircraft target, the fuze timing depends on both target speed and distance. So if the target aircraft is flying too slow for the fuze settings then the shell will explode too early, before it has reached the slow-flying target. The predictors predict the trajectory of the target and allow the time to be set on the clockwork time fuzes that cause the flak shell to explode at the correct height or distance. So if the designers of the Bismarck's predictors assumed that no 'modern' aircraft would be attacking the ship at less than 90-100kts - a perfectly reasonable assumption for the time - then the claim about the Swordfish may well be true. If so, then in a head-on torpedo attack the shells would have been exploding in front of the attacking Swordfish as in any sort of strong headwind the Swordfish's ground speed may have been as low as 50kts.

So if true, the Swordfish claim would have been not that they couldn't be hit - in itself, a very difficult thing to do if there's any amount of deflection involved - but that the flak shells were exploding at the wrong time. This difficult ballistics problem was why the British devised, and the Americans later developed, the VT proximity fuze. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 11:27, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Both the USN Mk33/37 AA FCS and RN HACS III/IV could track aircraft down to 35 knots and it would be incredible if the German AA systems couldn't do the same. German naval intelligence was fully aware that the RN FAA were using Swordfish torpedo bombers, and had encountered them many times before, but the German navy was also having severe development problems with it's AA directors, and there is evidence that Bismarck's AA systems were not fully ready (see Koop, Battleships of the Bismarck class), however in 1942 Tirpitz did only marginally better, when she shot down 2 of 14 Albacores, but then she had an escort of 3 or 4 destroyers, and so a much greater volume of fire, especially from close range weapons, as the Albacores had to pass low over the destroyer screen.Damwiki1 (talk) 20:49, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

First Fleet Carrier?

Is the Ark Royal the first Royal Navy Fleet Carrier they got? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.213.65.197 (talk) 20:56, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

No, the Royal Navy had been operating fleet carriers since the First World War, the first ones being the Glorious class aircraft carriers, and HMS Argus (I49). Benea (talk) 21:33, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Unsinkable Sam

Is it worth mentioning or linking to Unsinkable Sam, the ship's cat? -- saberwyn 06:15, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

'Websites' section under Bibliography

This is strange and unusual formatting, and does not appear to be following known guidelines such as the MOS or the examples laid out by the other FA articles in WikiProject:Ships. Why is it there? For consistancy with the formatting of other articles of this quality grade, it should be removed as unnecessary. Why has it been done here, and not on the other HMS "" FA-class articles? Why be inconsistent, either the other FAs need to be dragged into line, or this one should have the section binned. Kyteto (talk) 09:19, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

This is a featured article, and removal of cited references without a good reason is unacceptable. The citation of websites is certainly not unnecessary. That the format appears unusual is subjective and not grounds for removal. The MOS allows for a number of referencing styles, and the style is also seen on HMAS Melbourne (R21) for example. To attain consistency is not grounds for this action. Benea (talk) 16:26, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The citations were not removed, they are where they are supposed to be, as inline citations. Why repeat the internet citations outside of the inline at all; as I've noted the great majority of FA class articles, even within the WikiShips project, but in general FAs outside of this context, there's no use of the repetition style. The details given between the incline citation and the unneccessary duplication don't entirely match up either, making it more odd; The BBC's official name, as a publisher, is "BBC" not "BBC.com" or some such, that is simply a stripped down internet URL address, which is usually avoided where a formal publisher's name exists. I agree, the removal of cited references without good reason is unacceptable; but as my actions are clearly made with thought and meaning, there is therefore reason at work, thus reason exists, there is no void of reason here, so the declared statement of principle doesn't fit this situtation in the slightest. I also object to it being labelled as 'removal of references', the elimination of duplication is far more precise and accurate. The citation of websites isn't unncessary, but the secondary listing of them like a book beneath the Bibliography is a minority habbit that is uncreasingly disused; and it has been a while since I've seen an article pass an FA review with one in place, I'd dare say it would be removed as an obsolete irrelivance if it were for its FA today.

I also detest the accusation that my designation of the formatting being unusual is wholley subjective. As I stated in my first post, I had went through many of the FA, and now GA articles in the project's portfolio. I would conservatively estimate less than 10% used this system, by this percentage it is not a common feature. Common features are usual, the opposite of usual is unusual. It is, objectively via statistical comparison with a sampling of article, unusual. Therefore the assertion that it is subjective is unfounded, as it was made in ignorance to its objective base, which makes the statement based upon the sampling, in a word, objective itself. Kyteto (talk) 19:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The notes/citations in the body of the text are 'short form' (intended to convey the minimum of data required to identify the source, thereby taking up less space), while those in the "References"/"Bibliography" section are intended to carry the full bibliographic data. I don't know when or how the BBC reference in the body became long form...it wasn't that way when the article was promoted, so I have shortened it back and moved the updated data to the References.

For the "BBC.com", the reason I cited it like this is because some recent Australian works differentiate between print and paper incarnations of the same source, because the former can be chnged, updated, or altered after first publication. For example, an article printed in The Sydney Morning Herald would be cited as such, while its web-based equivalent would be cited to [www.smh.com.au the website], SMH.com.au. If this is the wrong way to handle British sources, I'm more than happy to go with it.

As for not passing FA, HMAS Australia (1911) was promoted with an "Online sources" subsection of the "References" a couple of days ago. The Manual of Style page on layout states in regards to notes and references that "Some articles divide this type of information into two or more separate sections; others combine it into a single section. How to best organize and title the results when the footnotes are separate from the works cited proper is mostly unresolved." While not the most common way of formatting references, it appears to be an acceptable way of doing so, at least in regards to current FA standards and the MOS. -- saberwyn 21:48, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, the use of references as in this article is particulalry appropriate when the article uses multiple references to different parts of the same source, even more so when the source is a book. So notes/citations can refer to particular page numbers thus making it possible for someone wishing to check a particular reference for themselves. Otherwise all we get is reference to the book, which might be a very large one and finding the relevant quotations may be well nigh impossible. Furthermore, I support saberwyn's defferentiation beteen online and physical versions of similar sources, especially news sources because the online versions are very rarely the same as the printed ones. Many newspapers use entirely different editorial staff and policies between the two versions and simply using one is likely to be very misleading. - Nick Thorne ^talk 22:15, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

This seems good enoguh reasoning then. But I would like to point out to Nick Thorne that the Bibliography for Books was never under threat by any means, that is by far a highly common and encouraged feature. The main reason the BBC News Devision is perhaps a case outside of the seperation scheme, is that there is no form in print, BBC News is entirely online and on television, thus the destinction is unnecessary at least with this example, it just looks less neat with no need to ID as necessarily online, as it is online as the one and only way; and most articles do simply refer to the Publisher as BBC News. As long as consistancy and inconsistancy is well explained, I am happy. Kyteto (talk) 12:20, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Couple of comments

Hi all, excellent work on this article, and congratulations on getting it on the main page today! I read through the article, and noticed a few places where some citations should be added. I didn't want to add {{cn}} tags, what with the article being on the main page and all, but I still wanted to bring it to your attention. For instance, the bit on Bismarck's fate after being torpedoed by Ark Royal's Swordfishes needs a citation. Most of these should be pretty easy to tidy up. Let me know if you need any clarification or anything. I can probably help with some of them, but I'm about done for the night, so I'll come back tomorrow and see what I can do. Congrats again on such a fine article on the main page. Parsecboy (talk) 03:10, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Should be easy to fix, I'm off as well now, but I'll add them later. Thanks for not tagging them immediately, I know many editors would not have been sensible/sensitive enough before dashing through. Benea (talk) 03:19, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I've fixed most of them, but I'm probably as far as I can go. There's a line about the refit that started on 3 November (I'm guessing Jameson will cover this, but the majority of his book isn't viewable in Google Books) and the bit about the hangar decks being in the hull and causing the flight deck to be 66 feet above the waterline. Parsecboy (talk) 01:45, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for this. My internet went down suddenly for the entire day, so I missed practically the entire period of its appearance on the mainpage. Probably for the best, since I'd have spent a lot of time fighting vandals. When I got on I saw you at work, so thought I'd not cause edit conflicts. I'll sort out the remaining cites. Benea (talk) 01:52, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Not a problem at all. Yeah, it's always sad to miss your article on the main page. One of mine, SMS Moltke (1910), ran during a vacation, so I missed the whole thing. Everything looks good now, excellent work tying off those last couple of loose ends. Parsecboy (talk) 21:42, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Friedman reference for British Carrier Aviation

 FixedOne of the references is:

<ref name=pompom>Friedman, British Carrier Aviation, Appendix A. Ark Royal entered service with four 8 barreled mountings, but by October 1941 all six mountings were in place.</ref>

I suspect someone forgot to then add this to the "books" section after adding this to the body of the article.

I went ahead and added it to "Books" myself but as I don't have the book I may have added the wrong edition. I found these:

• Friedman, Norman (1988) British Carrier Aviation: The Evolution of the Ships and their Aircraft. Conway Maritime Press ISBN 0851774881
• Friedman, Norman (1989) British Carrier Aviation: The Evolution of the Ships and their Aircraft. Naval Institute Press ISBN 0870210548

The troublesome aspect is the Conway edition is 352 pages and the Naval Institute edition is 384 pages. They are roughly the same size. The page count difference may be typesetting or that the Naval Institute edition includes Appendix A which is the part being used by the citation <ref>s in the article. --Marc Kupper|talk 05:41, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Hi, the info was from the N.I.P., ISBN 0870210548. I should have specified this when I created the original reference.Damwiki1 (talk) 07:57, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Congratulations on WP:TFA. I enjoyed reading the article. --Marc Kupper|talk 08:26, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Final Captain Loben Maund

The article links no article to the Captain Maund's mention in the end of the article. The name should link to the article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loben_Edward_Harold_Maund, which details his career.

Generally, only the first occurence of a wikilink 'target' is linked to. -- saberwyn 21:13, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Captain Val Bailey

I don't know if this is worth mentioning in the article. Captain Val Bailey is reported to be the last person off the HMS Ark Royal

• "Obituary of Captain Val Bailey Navy pilot who helped reverse Japanese wartime advances and was the last man off the doomed Ark Royal". The Daily Telegraph. 21 Feb 2010. Retrieved 14 April 2011.

--Marc Kupper|talk 07:57, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Length

Certainly an interesting ship, but at 6,500 words this article seems overly detailed. Sca (talk) 13:23, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

The first? really?

The article states:

Ark Royal was the first ship on which the hangars and flight deck were an integral part of the hull, instead of an add-on or part of the superstructure.

Wasn't the Hōshō the first ? (Hōshō, Japan, 1922). Kintaro (talk) 08:37, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

take a look at Hōshō and you see that the hanger deck is the weather deck level and the flight deck is an additional structure atop — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.21.212.16 (talk) 13:30, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

The flight deck on Ark Royal and Illustrious were integral to the hull and contributed a significant part of the structural strength of the ship. On the other ships the flight deck was merely a platform built on top of an otherwise normal hull. On these the flight deck contributes little to the structural strength of the ship.

Using the flight deck as the main strength deck kept the weight down and allowed the ship to be built within the tonnage limit of the relevant treaty regulations in-force at the time. The other advantage of the design is that the interior of the ship's hangar deck is protected from bad weather, a desirable thing in the North Atlantic in winter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.18.150 (talk) 10:51, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Sailors

Ship's complement is listed as "1,580 officers and sailors" which I find odd since I think of Officers as being sailors too. I assume here it means what I would call "seaman" or "enlisted." Is this standard British usage? Kendall-K1 (talk) 20:28, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it is. Look around British books on such vessels and you'll find it quite often Sometimes it's "officers and men". Britmax (talk) 10:22, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Proposed corrections

I found two sentences in the article which I think need to be corrected/improved, but I am reluctant to do this in a featured article before putting the changes up to discussion:

• "As hangar decks were within the hull, the flight deck rose to 66 feet (20 m) above the waterline." The citation nonwithstanding, it is irrelevant to the height of the flight wether the hangar decks are in the hull or in the superstructure. The only point is that the hangars are below the flight deck, which at that point in time was always the case. I propose to change the sentence to "As there were two hangar decks, the flight deck rose to 66 feet (20 m) above the waterline." and dropping the citation, because I do not know if this would still be covered by the source.
• "The hangar decks were placed inside the hull, thus benefiting from the protection of the 4.5-inch (11.4 cm) belt armour." Now this has a citation as well, and I do not have sources to the contrary. But I consider it obvious that the belt, which covered part of the waterline, did not extend up to the hangars high up in the ships structure. Possibly this is a confusions with the Illustrious-class, which had armoured hangar sides. I propose chaneging it to "The hangar decks were placed inside the hull.", again dropping the citation.

--Marinebanker (talk) 10:33, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

British carriers' main deck was the flight deck, not the hangar deck as in US carriers. So it is entirely correct to say that the hangar was within the hull. - Nick Thorne ^talk 12:30, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, it seems I expressed myself badly. Of course the hangars were within the hull. But the first sentence I brought up was ""As hangar decks were within the hull, the flight deck rose to 66 feet (20 m) above the waterline." (my emphasis). So the sentence is not about whether the hangar was within the hull or not. The sentence states that the fact that the hangars were inside the hull (and - by implication - not part of the superstructure) is the reason for the flight deck being 20 m above the waterline. What I do not see is the connection between the height of the fight deck on the one hand and the fact that hangars were part of the hull on the other hand. --Marinebanker (talk) 08:47, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't think you understood my point. Because the flight deck on British carriers is the main deck, the hangar is not part of the superstructure. This is quite different to US carriers, at least in WWII. I don't know whether modern US carriers consider their flight deck to be the main deck, or the hangar deck. - Nick Thorne ^talk 09:08, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

I fully agree with what you say about different design practices in Royal and US navy. But I am afraid I do not understand how this relates to my my original point. My original point (first bullet point above) is: Why does the fact that the hangars are in the hull cause the flight deck to be 20 m above the waterline? Because that is what the article says in the sentence I cited. --Marinebanker (talk) 13:02, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Here's my proposed wording along with references to help clarify things:

Ark Royal featured an enclosed hangar design[1] where the fight deck was the 'strength deck'[2] and was strongly built with .75in (19mm) thick Ducol steel plating.[2] The two hangar decks were thus enclosed within the hull girder, which also gave splinter protection to the hangars. Three lifts moved aircraft between the hangars and the flight deck.[R] Another feature was the length and height of the flight deck. At 800 feet (240 m), the flight deck was 118 feet (36 m) longer than the keel; the latter dictated by the length of Royal Navy drydocks in Gibraltar and Malta.[R] Due to the twin hangar decks, the flight deck rose to 66 feet (20 m) above the waterline.

[1]Friedman, British Carrier Aviation. When the flight deck becomes the strength deck, the aircraft hangars are then enclosed within the hull structure. The terms, 'enclosed' and 'open' hangars do not, strictly speaking, refer to a hangar that is closed or open on the sides, but rather to whether the hangar is, respectively, below or above the strength deck.

[2]Friedman, British Carrier Aviation. The flight deck was designed with .75 in of Ducol steel. The enclosed hangar design required a deck of approximately this thickness to ensure adequate hull integrity, so the limited armour protection was a by-product of the enclosed hangar design. The strength deck is designed to carry structural loading in combination with the hull girder and side and bottom plating. Ship's structure above the strength deck is termed 'superstructure'. Ducol steel was an advanced type of high tensil steel which had great strength and was often used to provide armour for splinter protection. ***

[R] existing reference

Modern USN carriers also have the flight deck as the strength deck as this is a structurally more efficient design. Damwiki1 (talk) 17:00, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, this adresses both points and is better than my original proposal. I agree with the proposed change, assuming the proposed paragraph will replace the following part of the text: " The hangar decks were placed inside the hull, ... , the flight deck rose to 66 feet (20 m) above the waterline." --Marinebanker (talk) 21:10, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Ok, I'll do it tomorrow. Damwiki1 (talk) 19:35, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi, I wrote Ducol, and I'm trying to pinpoint the actual page in Friedman on which this info appears. A snippet search for 'Ducol' in the Google books copy returns 0 results. By the way, the [2] above appears in the article itself, rather than a proper blue ref. Can anyone enlighten me, please? Cheers, >MinorProphet (talk) 14:23, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Friedman, notes or quotes?

Several of the Friedman citations are accompanied by prose, for example: "Ark Royal entered service with four 8-barrelled mountings, but by October 1941 all six mountings were in place." I can't tell if these are explanatory notes or quotes from the source. If they are notes, I think they should be placed in the Notes section; if they are quotes, they should have quote marks around them. Anyone know which they are? GA-RT-22 (talk) 19:41, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

"Steam catapults" is wrong, these were invented in the late 1940s by CC Mitchell and prototyped on HMS Perseus in 1950. The ones used on Ark in WW2 must have been hydraulic catapults.