However, the USN was permitted 135,000 tons of aircraft carriers while the IJN was only allowed 81,000 tons. This article by Yann Menetrey from Switzerland, a guest author for Defencyclopedia, will cover the development of the aircraft carrier during the Inter-war period in both the IJN and USN and will try to offer a comparison between aircraft carrier doctrines and designs on both sides.īoth the United States and Japan had to keep the carrier construction within the constraints of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty ( It was a treaty among the major nations that had won World War I, which agreed to prevent an arms race by limiting naval construction). The rise of the aircraft carrier in favor of the good old battlewagons proved to be a complicated issue to manage. In fact, the role and capabilities of the aircraft carrier were still unclear and veteran officers of both the navies were strongly attached to their battleships. However, before the war, both navies believed that the outcome of the conflict would be decided by a gigantic clash of battleships. The badly damaged IJN aircraft carrier Hiryū at Midway, shortly before becoming a submarineįrom this point onwards, the Americans took initiative and started to build-up their carrier force before leapfrogging towards the Japanese home islands. It was only after the Battle of Midway that the Japanese lost the initiative in the Pacific and were forced to take a defensive posture. At Midway, the USN inflicted a critical blow to the IJN, sinking four of its fleet carriers. During the first six months of the Pacific War, the IJN wreaked havoc in the southwestern Pacific and the Indian Ocean. In fact, the aircraft carrier balance was to decide the fate of the conflict. The Pacific War between the Imperial Japanese Navy ( IJN) and the United States Navy ( USN) is mainly remembered for its aircraft carrier actions.
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