US Navy Fleet Aircraft Carriers (1942-50): USS Essex, Yorktown, Intrepid, Hornet, Lexington, Bunker Hill, Wasp, Franklin, Ticonderoga, Randolph, Hancock, Bennington, Shangri-la, Bonhomme Richard, Antietam, Boxer, Lake Champlain, Princeton, Tarawa, Kearsage, Leyte, Philippine Sea, Valley Forge, Oriskany The world’s largest capital ship program In March 1941, the first of the most prolific series of heavy aircraft … Read more
North Carolina class Battleships Fast Battleships (1940): USS North Carolina (BB-55), Washington (BB-56) The first USN fast battleships USS North Carolina’s bow, Pearl Harbor, 16 November 1942 The North Carolina class battleships were a revolution for the US Navy: After the long vacancy of the Washington Treaty banning new battleships for ten years and prolongated … Read more
USA (1931-32) USS Portland, Indianapolis. The Portland class: The 2nd generation. Designed after the Northamptons, the two heavy cruisers Portland and Indianapolis were contemporary of the New Orleans class which still looked like the Northamptons. But in reality they improved on many points and especially that of protection, so much so that they are considered … Read more
US Navy (1942-46) Light Cruisers: USS Cleveland, Columbia, Montpelier, Denver, Amsterdam, Santa Fe, Tallahassee, Birmingham, Mobile, Vincennes, Pasadena, Springfield, Topeka, New Haven, Huntington, Dayton, Wilmington, Biloxi, Houston, Providence, Manchester, Buffalo, Fargo, Vicksburg, Duluth, Newark, Miami, Astoria, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, Galveston, Youngstown, Buffalo, Newark, Amsterdam, Portsmouth, Wilkes-Barre, Atlanta, Dayton The WW2 standard USN light cruisers … Read more
US Navy (1942-43): USS Independence, Princeton, Belleau Wood, Cowpens, Monterey, Langley, Cabot, Bataan, San Jacinto. Although less numerous and famous than the Essex class, the bedrock of USN task forces in the pacific during WW2, the Independence class had their fate tightly intertwined with the latter. Indeed, as the new large fleet carriers were long … Read more
Long Island class (1940) Escort Aircraft Carriers USS Long Island, USS Charger (CVE-1, CVE-30) WW2 first escort aircraft carrier The USS Long island (CVE-1) is probably forgotten today in the mass of aircraft carriers built by the United States during WW2, but is was the equivalent of the British HMS Audacity: The quick conversion of … Read more
Amphibious Warfare from scratch (1941) US Navy 1941-45, 16 major landing operations The US Navy is remembered in WW2 for its amazing industrial effort to rebuilt a fleet after the losses at Pearl Harbor, with a scale that steamrolled the Japanese, reclaimed the Atlantic and mastered the Mediterranean. It was the instrument of the “pax … Read more
US Navy 1941-45 – Circa 60,000 amphibious crafts & assault ships combined The fascinating aspect in the development of the USN amphibious force in WW2 was its sudden and massive rise, with a steep progression curve in years. It started with improvuizations in early 1942 and ended in late 1945 as a finely-tuned machine. For … Read more
USA (1936-41): USS Yorktown, Enterprise, Hornet (CV5, 6, 8) At the pinnacle of US carrier development before WW2 were the two Yorktown class aircraft carriers: Yorktown and Enterprise. The Hornet is of course associated, but she was ordered much later, as was broke out in Europe. In a sense she was a wartime carrier, and … Read more
US Navy (1939) – Fleet Aircraft Carrier 1940-42 USS Wasp (CV-7) was the seventh USN aircraft carrier, sole in her class. The main reason of this was pure, simple mathematics. She was there to “consume” the remaining tonnage of the Washington treaty concerning aircraft carriers. Coming after the excellent Yorktown class, this gave the engineers … Read more
