Nor were hangar heights well-suited to some of the larger US aircraft being brought in to the Fleet Air Arm, such as the Corsair.None of this was optimal, and the broad limitations of the armoured design were clear by 1942 when plans for their successors, the A series of carrier designs were then prepared by the Director of Naval Construction, Sir Stanley Goodall; and what emerged was the The Board selected ‘Design X1’ for further development in Loss of the ability to fire over the deck was considered acceptable.The turrets themselves had also undergone a considerable revision. It was feared the tonnage and hull limitation meant the new design would retain Implacable’s 14ft hangars, though it was discovered some extra height could be recovered through reducing the depth of structural beams.The revised group would be given the class-name IrresistibleOn November 30, 1941, the Irresistible programme was cancelled.Wartime shortages of materials (in particular armour) and a change of priorities (towards constructing anti-submarine sloops and frigates) had already resulted in delays in the construction of the two ships of the Implacable class.Further war experience had dictated the need for much greater redesign than a simple revision of the Implacable form.HMS Illustrious had – as intended – proved remarkably resilient against the pounding she had taken from Stukas off Malta. Please replace links to Wikipedia in this article with links to this wiki. Such a significant increase in performance needed larger machinery – and was another consideration in the significantly increased size of the Audacious class.Two 140ft 9in BH5 catapults were fitted. Boiler intake and uptakes, diesel generators, hangar lobbies, bomb lifts and electric cable trunks were also armoured.The Audacious class’ underwater protection arrangements were entirely new. But, in the case of the Implacables, the error of limiting hangars to 14ft became apparent during their protracted construction.In 1940 war losses and the freshly obvious importance of carriers saw consideration of a repeat order for two more of the Implacable class.Improved flight deck armour: It was evident aircraft were now regularly hefting bombs greatly in excess of the 500lbs the 3in on Illustrious was optimised to resist. Tweaks to the specifications allowed the hangars to accommodate four rows of aircraft (for a total of 54 machines) instead of the existing three. The rated re-launch rate was one aircraft every 40 seconds.While the Indomitable class represented a fall in the percentage of weight given to armour (15 per cent), the Audacious class represented an increase to 20 per cent.The 4in deck ‘cap’ to the armoured box of Audacious’ hangar was seen as the new minimum to provide effective protection from air-delivered bombs. The Board of Admiralty apparently regarded this class as more significant than the Audacious class, and so a fourth, Africa, was ordered from Fairfield Shipbuilding at Govan, in substitution for the fourth Audacious class carrier. Between them were feed tanks, auxiliary equipment and stores rooms.It was hoped this greater division would significantly reduce the ship’s chance of losing propulsion to battle damage. By 1945, revisions called for four crash barriers amidships and a total of sixteen arrester wires.The Mark 10 arresters were fitted in pairs in eight units. From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository.

Considerable space was sacrificed in order to keep this fuel safe.Audacious kept its avgas in three sets of cylindrical tanks, each sat inside flooded compartments.

They were also capable of remaining functional up to 20 degrees of heel.Some 6600 rounds of 4.5in ammunition were carried split between fore and aft magazines. The order for the fourth ship, Job Number J1722, was changed to a unit of the larger Malta (Gibraltar) class. There was one mobile 20,000lb crane, two 15,000lb fork-lift tractors, as well as eight other tractors of varying types.Initial plans to provide two upgraded twin-track trolley-style accelerators were abandoned in 1943 in favour of solely using the US strop-based two-point, tail-down technique.It was specified that a 30,000lb aircraft should be able to be propelled into the air at a speed of 75 knots. At th… There was also room and ventilation to warm aircraft engines up below decks. This ‘open’ construction had advantages, notably in terms of aircraft stowage. Technical Data: see INFO > Audacious class Aircraft Carrier . But underway replenishment was accepted as a necessary compromise.Continued tinkering with the design during construction after 1945 saw this rise to 165,000gall.