Board Thread:Game Updates/@comment-3502824-20170829010745/@comment-29630844-20170901205910

Vcharng wrote: RandomHitagi wrote: The data you have for Graf is actually at full load :) Standard displacement was some 5,000t lower.

Non-light carrier = large carrier, unless you can prove otherwise. I've never seen any real division between standard, light and large carriers tbh. The only division I've seen were fleet and non-fleet carriers, depending on their ability to operate as part of a larger force - speed. Yes, I can.

Non-light carrier = Fleet carrier, attack carrier, or in this wiki, "Standard" carrier. And then within those fleet carriers, there are Large carriers (Cranes, Akagi, Kaga) and medium carriers (Hiryu, Soryu, Unryu-class). Usually between Japanese military fans, only Essex-class and larger are considered "large"(or, in Japan, Akagi, Kaga and Taihou and Shinano), but KC has a lower standard for that, and Lexington- and Shokaku-class are included as well.

Your classification method will have three problems, the American Independence-class, the British Colossus-class, and the Japanese Chitose-class, all fast enough to operate as part of a larger force, but none of them are fleet carriers.

Your definition is actually the way to tell an escort carrier from a light carrier in the USN: those who can reach 26 knots (the standard speed to launch aircraft in USN doctrine) are light, those who cannot are escort.

The classification of medium vs. large carrier is more significant to the Japanese than to the others. The Soryu-series (i.e. all the way to Unryu-class and the blueprint-only G18 design) are considered a more budget-friendly technological branch of smaller but cheaper carriers; the Shokaku-series (i.e. that and Taiho, plus the G14/G15 projects), on the other hand, are considered the real main force of the navy's mobile aviation force. (and we are excluding those converted carriers like Akagi, Kaga and Shinano here). So for the Japanese, a carrier the size/capacity of Soryu will be a medium carrier, and one with that of Shokaku or larger will be a large carrier.

Now if we compare the British, American, German and Italian carriers with the IJN standard, only the Lextington-class, Essex-class and Midway-class would count. Graf is large enough in terms of displacement, but not in terms of aircraft capacity (for a non-armored carrier), and the Royal Navy don't even have one "large" carrier (unless you count in the blueprint-only Malta-class or the bloody iceburg known as Project Habakkuk). This is still very subjective, you've only given one solid number. If anything it says that these divisions are, indeed, subjective and not set in stone, depending on the navy, historian, circle etc. If you have any source for KC classification, I'd be glad to see it. But, a nice read nevertheless, thanks!

Chitose, Zuihou etc. cannot be considered fleet carriers because their complements are simply too small to be, realistically, useful. Neither Hara nor Hammels describe them as such, and actually disregard them when citing force ratio, Parshall and Tully are also rather indifferent towards them iirc.