Kaga found UPDATE: Akagi too

[Hawkmoon]

As originally built they had 3 flight decks, both were rebuilt with a single ship length flight deck, thus also increasing hanger space, in the late 30s.
When originally converted to carriers you got to remember no one was really sure at the time what a carrier should look like. The Americans were the exceptions with the Lexington conversions in getting it, mostly, right on the first go with their Washington Treaty conversions.

So those 3-D models linked to above were wrong. They didn't show three flight decks, only one. Or they showed the configuration after the rebuild.

Found this at Wikipedia:

[dogmush]

So those 3-D models linked to above were wrong. They didn't show three flight decks, only one. Or they showed the configuration after the rebuild.

The video pretty clearly said it was showing her as she was at the Battle of Midway.  She had been refit several times between 1927 and 1942.  The flight deck modernization was completed in 1938.

[WLJ]

*3* flight decks??? Ooooooookay. Didn't see that from the 3D or the elevators.

Both are as she was after her rebuild and at the time of her sinking.

Akagi in 1928



After rebuild

[WLJ]

Click on the wiki link and it has a good pic of her during sea trials that shows all three flight decks.  It should be noted that the lower and middle decks were take-off only.  Landing was done on the upper deck.  It was an early try at simultaneous landing and take off operations, like the angled landing deck on modern carriers allows.

We were still trying out that idea even later

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/11821/the-crazy-aircraft-carrier-hangar-catapults-of-world-war-ii

Hanger deck catapult launch from CV-10 Yorktown during the war

[WLJ]

BTW: Your eyes aren't fooling you, Akagi (after rebuild) did have a port side island instead of the much more common starboard
BTW BTW: Hiryu too

[WLJ]

Now if you really want insane here's HMS Furious in 1918. Not only was the layout awkward for handling aircraft but pilots had a rather serious dislike to trying to land through the plume of funnel gases and superstructure air eddies.
This layout didn't last long and she was rebuild with a full length flight deck

[Northwoods]

How long until someone comes along and mine them for pre atomic bomb steel.

Remind me why pre A-bomb steel would be worth more than current production steel of the same alloy?  The tiny amount of radiation in current steel can't be a factor for anything but a very few esoteric applications.

[dogmush]

Low Background Steel is used in the production of sensitive instruments and some Air and Space applications.  So a "very few esoteric applications" is correct.  But they are expensive esoteric applications that need hard to get stuff, so folks that have that stuff can charge quite a bit for it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel

[WLJ]

Update

First Visual Survey of IJN Akagi 赤城 - Historic Battle of Midway Shipwreck | Nautilus Live
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTBDn3-AfVM

Edit: Note- Several errors in one of the people speaking almost as if he's knows next to nothing about Akagi and didn't bother to double check

[K Frame]

WTF is up with those videos?

It's like the cameras are zooming in and out and moving up and down. It's almost nauseating.

[RocketMan]

WTF is up with those videos?

It's like the cameras are zooming in and out and moving up and down. It's almost nauseating.

It looks like the ROV tether is tight and it's being tugged up and down, following the wave motion of the mothership.

Edit to correct UAV to ROV.

[K Frame]

The ship's at 18,000 feet. I don't think they could put it on a tight tether. I'd think that the line would part in a heartbeat if they tried that.

[RocketMan]

I've seen that effect on lots of ROV videos.  The tether isn't taut enough where it would snap with wave motion.  There is a fair amount of slack in it. As the ship moves up and down, it is just putting a wave in the tether itself, and that wave is then imparted to and moving the ROV.
I should have been clearer in my explanation.

[K Frame]

OK, that makes a lot more sense.

I'd have thought, though, that at that depth and for what they were trying to do they would have used a stabilized ROV to get steady pictures of the ship.

Ballard was doing that on Titanic and Bismarck 30-40 years ago.

[RocketMan]

You would think they'd use a stabilized system, but maybe they are not that well funded.  Or there could be other reasons.

[WLJ]

Don't forget the ROV is probably fighting whatever current is down there at the same time.

[RocketMan]

Don't forget the ROV is probably fighting whatever current is down there at the same time.

This is true.

[WLJ]

And forgot to add

And you probably don't want too much slack on the cables because that would greatly increase the chance of the cable snagging on something

[WLJ]

Here's Drach with Jon Parshall looking at the footage.
Note: Jon Parshall knows a heck of a lot more about Akagi and what he's looking at than whoever was narrating the above video (Reply 33)

The Wrecks of Midway - Diving on IJN Akagi (Sept 2023)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2GrwzNriaw

[WLJ]

Here's Drach with Jon Parshall looking at the footage.
Note: Jon Parshall knows a heck of a lot more about Akagi and what he's looking at than whoever was narrating the above video (Reply 33)

The Wrecks of Midway - Diving on IJN Akagi (Sept 2023)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2GrwzNriaw

Part ][

 The Wrecks of Midway - Diving on IJN Kaga and USS Yorktown (Sept 2023)
https://youtu.be/2Id6Fwfmd9Q

[WLJ]

Kaga is F'ed up

[K Frame]

Kaga is F'ed up

Yep. She took up to 14 bomb hits, a combination of 500 and 1,000 pound bombs.

And then her hundreds of tons of aircraft munitions started going off. Some accounts state that there was as much as 40 tons of bombs and torpedoes scattered around the hangar deck, courtesy of the multiple switches that were made between trying to decide whether to arm the planes for another attack on Midway or to deal with the American ships.

When those munitions started going off they did immense damage to the flight deck and apparently knocked out huge sections of the sides of the ship.

She was, by far, the hardest hit of all of the Japanese carriers at Midway. In a lot of ways it's a freaking miracle that there's much left at all.