Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-73.220.89.40-20150318192417/@comment-21356142-20160119032547

Quite incorrect, all carriers in any sensible nation carried replacement aircraft in a disassembled state in storage, for repairs and maintenance. Heck, later on the Enterprise and other US carriers received additional replacement aircraft carried in juryrigged storage bolted unto the sides of the ships (bringing their totals to 82 + 28). As I mentioned the Enterprises advantage in aircraft is due to universal foldable wings and maintaining a deck park of aircraft, IJN carriers stored their aircraft within the ships hangars while US carriers only used the below deck hangars for servicing and maintenance. Of course there are disadvantages to the US system, namely the significant wear and tear on planes exposed constantly to high humidity and saline, and the incapability of assembling massive air waves due to deck clutter, forcing a rotation system of airborne squadrons.

The catapult is a vestigial leftover and was never used as steam catapult launches were significantly slower then deck launches. You will notice catapults were removed from the Essex class carriers for this reason, and was removed from the Enterprise herself in 1942.

The superiority of US aircraft has nothing to do with the carriers themselves, I said Japanese ships were generally superior in design, not their aircraft.

Early war American training was generally inferior to Japanese training. As the war progressed the Japanese couldnt maintain their high training standards while the US effectively used veterans to train recruits while the Japanese were forced to continue utilising their veterans on the frontlines.

American superiority in resources and industry again do not make their ship designs better. It only means they could sustain losses that the Japanese couldnt.