Board Thread:Game Updates/@comment-3502824-20170829010745/@comment-26574811-20170902044037

RandomHitagi wrote: 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, in any other way than supporting larger carriers.. 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.

As for Graf's aircraft capacity, the figures you see in the book and interwebz are flawed. They don't take Germany's lack of any real doctrine into account. Graf's complement was supposed to be ~42 aircraft, however, her hangars were as big as Shoukaku's. This stems from Germany's lack of naval aviation doctrine, expertise and technology. As Bf109 had to be kept as light as possible, they couldn't have been given folding wings. To fight that (for whatever reason), Germans decided to have removable wings which would be stored in the lower hangar, separately from the fuselages. I have the blueprint of Graf's hangars (scanned version, of course) in my hands. Her Hangar was, at most, 4630 sq. meters (*1), Shokaku's was 5550. There are sorces claiming a 5200+ sq. m hangar, but it doesn't seem true when compared with the blueprints. I think the 5200+ calculation came from forgetting to deduct the elevator areas (approximately 15x15 meters, there are two elevators, and two decks, so there are four areas in total), you can't store aircrafts in those areas.

It's important to discuss hangar areas, but it is also important how it is calculated. I saw a record on Japanese KC wiki that Saratoga's hangar has around 2000 sq. m area, smaller than Illustrious due to only the area between the two elevators are being used. Still, I doubt anyone would question that she is a large carrier.

And let me remind you, Zeroes (*2), Type 99s, and Suiseis all don't have folding wings as well. Shokaku can carry 72 planes when 2/3 of them are not foldable, while the German can only carry 43 when only 23% (10 of 43) of those are not foldable(*3). On the other side, Yorktown (a medium carrier, let me remind you again) can carry 90 while half of her planes (SBD) are not foldable.

And here's the conclusion: no matter the excuses, Graf, will, not, be, a large carrier, no matter what.


 * 1  calculated by the length of hangar times the width, assuming it's a rectangle, while it isn't. The actual hangar area will be smaller.

*2 Zero type 21 are foldable only on the wingtips, which allows them to be fitted through the elevators, it doesn't actually save space. Type 32/33 are not foldable, and Type 52/53 simply chopped the folding part off.

*3 Both Ju87C and Fi-167 are foldable, Ju87C is even more foldable than the few foldable Japanese planes.