Midway-class aircraft carrier
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USS Midway before SCB-110 upgrade
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Midway class |
| Builders: | |
| Operators: |
 United States Navy
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| Preceded by: | Essex class |
| Succeeded by: | Forrestal class |
| In commission: | 10 September 1945 – 11 April 1992 |
| Planned: | 6 |
| Completed: | 3 |
| Cancelled: | 3 |
| Retired: | 3 |
| Preserved: | USS Midway (CV-41) |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Aircraft carrier |
| Displacement: | 45,000 tons |
| Length: |
968 ft (295 m) overall 901 ft (275 m) waterline |
| Beam: | 121 ft (37 m) |
| Draft: | 33 ft (10 m) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 33 knots (61 km/h) |
| Complement: | 4,104 |
| Armament: |
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| Armor: |
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| Aircraft carried: | Up to 130 (1940s–50s), 65–70 (1980s) |
968 ft (295 m) overall
The Midway-class aircraft carrier was one of the longest-serving aircraft carrier designs in history. First commissioned in late 1945, the lead ship of the class, USS Midway, was not decommissioned until 1992, shortly after service in Operation Desert Storm in 1991. The USS Franklin D. Roosevelt was decommissioned in 1977. The USS Coral Sea (CV-43) was decommissioned in 1990.
The CVB-41 class vessels (then unnamed) were originally conceived in 1940 as a design study to determine the effect of including an armored flight deck on a carrier the size of the Essex class. The resulting calculations showed that the effect would be a reduction of air group size—the resulting ship would have an air group of 64, compared to 72 for the standard Essex-class fleet carriers. The design was also heavily influenced by the wartime experience of the Royal Navy's armored carriers:
As a result of study of damage sustained by various British carriers prior to our entry into the war, two important departures from traditional U.S. Navy carrier design were incorporated in the CVB Class, then still under development. HMS ILLUSTRIOUS in an action off Malta on 1 January 1941 was hit by several bombs, three of which detonated in the hangar space. Large fires swept fore and aft among parked planes thereby demonstrating the desirability of attempting to confine the limits of such explosions and fires by structural sectionalization of the hangar space. On the CVB Class the hangar was therefore divided into five compartments separated by 40 and 50-pound Special Treatment Steel (STS) division bulkheads extending from the hangar deck to the flight deck, each fitted with a large door suitable for handling aircraft. It is hoped that this sectionalization, in conjunction with sprinkler and fog foam systems, will effectively prevent fires from spreading throughout the hangar spaces, as occurred on FRANKLIN on 30 October and 19 March. The damage experiences of several British carriers, which unlike our own were fitted with armored flight decks, demonstrated the effectiveness of such armor in shielding hangar spaces from GP bombs and vital spaces below the hangar deck from semi-armor-piercing (SAP) bombs. Accordingly, the CVB Class was designed with an armored flight deck consisting of 3-1/2-inch STS from frames 46 to 175 with a hangar deck consisting of two courses of 40-pound STS between frames 36 and 192. Although none of the CVB Class carriers were completed in time to take part in war operations, the effectiveness of armored flight decks against Kamikaze attacks was demonstrated by various carriers attached to the British Pacific Fleet ...
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Wikipedia