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From: plains!umn-cs!LOCAL!thornley@uunet.UU.NET (David H. Thornley)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Left-handed carriers
Message-ID: <1990Nov16.051921.21655@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 16 Nov 90 05:19:21 GMT
References: <1990Nov15.013451.1767@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis - CSCI Dept.
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From: plains!umn-cs!LOCAL!thornley@uunet.UU.NET (David H. Thornley)
In article <1990Nov15.013451.1767@cbnews.att.com> lynch@arcadien.rice.edu (Robert Preston Lynch) writes:
>
>Did anybody, anywhere, ever build a left-handed aircraft carrier?


Akagi and Hiryu were intended to operate in formation, and the
reason for the port-side island was to separate the aircraft streams.
As far as I know, no other country has ever designed and built
specific carriers to operate in a specific formation with specific
other carriers.  The plan would be Akagi and Kaga next to each other,
and Hiryu and Soryu next to each other.  I assume that the islands
would be on the inside, since presumably you would tend to use the
part of the deck and airspace away from the island more frequently.

One odd thing is that the four Japanese carriers mentioned were
not all that similar for "sister" ships.  Hiryu was considerably
larger than Soryu (presumably Soryu was built on restricted
displacement due to treaties that expired or were ignored for
Hiryu - I'd have to check the dates).  Akagi was a converted
battle cruiser, while Kaga was a converted battleship.  To be
honest, Akagi and Amagi were designed as sister ships, and were
designated to be converted while incomplete to carriers, but
Amagi was damaged in an earthquake while under construction, so
battleship Kaga was substituted.

Conceivably this would have been a good plan for the U.S. to
adopt with the Essex and Independence classes.  Nowadays, carriers
generally operate in single-carrier forces, so there is no peacetime
need for this system.  (Actually, U.S. carriers operated in single-
carrier forces well into the war, only operating in multiple-carrier
groups when the sheer number of carriers made that impossible.
Don't be misled by the listing, say, of Enterprise and Hornet
together under Spruance at Midway, they travelled together but
separated for combat.)

Therefore, the port-side island is simply the mating of ship design
to intended formation tactics.

And why starboard islands?  From what I have read, the torque of the
screws in standard warship powerplants makes it easier to turn right
than left, and you usually want the island on the inside of the turn.

DHT