The Whale Has Wings Vol 1 - Rebirth by David Row Read Free Book Online

would of course be ideal), and not add to the production time. Three main points were chosen for improvement. First, Remote Power Control was recommended for all 8 barrel, and if possible 4 barrel, systems, allowing training of the guns under direct control from the gun director. This had been recommended before, but the cost had made the treasury decline to fund it. This would also add weight, so new construction and larger ships would be the intended first recipients. Second was improvements in the belt feed, which was felt to be rather too fragile and temperamental. Any improvements or changes should be straightforward to retrofit. The third change was to the guns themselves and the ammunition. Tests seemed to show a considerable advantage to the Bofors over the pom-pom. The gun was longer, and the shells thus had a better range, improving the chances of shooting down at attacker. While the explosive charge was a little lighter, this wasn't thought important as a direct hit from a contact-fused 40mm would bring down any torpedo plane or dive bomber currently anticipated. It was therefore suggested that new and existing mounts should be modified to take replacement barrels as per the Bofors (this would be connected to the improvements in the belt feet mechanism), thus giving a notably better performance with the desired minimum changes. Finally some reports from the manufacturer and relevant engineering consultants indicated that the mechanics of the mount could be improved (and the mount itself lightened) by application of current manufacturing methods. Since this would entail changing the production line (which was not practical), it was recommended that some prototypes would be made, and all the improvements rolled into a new version for which new production would be set up (thus helping address the current shortage). The existing production line would then either be modified to produce the new mounts, or used to provide the older ones for air defence of land based targets (for which the deficiencies were not such an issue)
    The treasury was not happy at the preference for the 40mm, as they pointed out that there were huge stocks of 2pdr shells available in storage. The navy didn't object on principle to using these, but considered that the value of ships mandated the best possible weapons for them, and that the older 2pdrs would be adequate for shore based defence. They pointed to their tests showing that the current mount would not be adequate against dive bombers, and that a ship cost a lot more than ammunition. New ammunition for the ships allowed the existing stocks to be allocated to home defence (the navy was well aware that AA defence of the UK was a very high priority), so strengthening it.
     
    As the existing Naval treaty limitations were now seen as the bare minimum force level, it was expected that at least Courageous and Glorious would be retained for some time (and one of the other old carriers as a training carrier, at least for the next few years). It was pointed out that while this was good, the original assumption was that the new ships would be replacements, and therefore would use the escort vessels assigned to the older ships. If the Royal Navy were to be deploying more carriers, more escorts would be needed.
    There was an additional problem regarding the endurance of destroyers. An aircraft carrier had a large fuel load as it was expected that its normal operations would involve more (and higher speed) steaming while launching and landing aircraft into the wind. While escorting destroyers could refuel from their carrier, this took time and was not currently a well-practised procedure. So ideally destroyers designed to escort carriers should have a longer range. Secondly there was the issue of numbers. The ideal the Admiralty was now aiming for (though it didn't expect to get there before around 1944) was the 8+8 fleet and light carriers. Assuming a reasonable escort of 4 destroyers per carrier, this