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fighting ships of the world

UNITED STATES NAVY (UNITED STATES OF AMERICA)

AIRCRAFT CARRYING SHIPS

WASP aircraft carrier (1940)

Wasp 1942

No Name Yard No Builder Laid down Launched Comm Fate
CV7 Wasp 1460 Bethlehem, Quincy 1.4.1936 4.4.1939 25.4.1940 sunk 15.9.1942
  

Displacement standard, t

15752

Displacement full, t

19116

Length, m

210.3 wl 219.5 oa

Breadth, m

24.9 wl 30.5 oa

Draught, m

7.08 full load

No of shafts

2

Machinery

2 sets Parsons geared steam turbines, 6 Yarrow boilers

Power, h. p.

70000

Max speed, kts

29.5

Fuel, t

oil 1602

Endurance, nm(kts) 7500 (15)

Armour, mm

belt: 16mm plating, deck: 32

Armament

8 x 1 - 127/38 Mk 12, 4 x 4 - 28/75 Mk 1, 24 x 1 - 12.7/90, 76 aircraft (F2F, F3F, F2A Buffalo fighters, BG, SBU, SBC Helldiver, SB2U Vindicator, BT diving bombers, TBD Devastator torpedo bombers, SOC Seagull reconnaissance planes)

Complement

2167

 Aircraft facilities (fd - 6,893 m², ha - 3,055 m² / 15,976 m³): Flight deck: 226.0 x 30.5 m. Hangar: 159.1 x 19.2 x 5.23 m. There were 2 elevators (14.6 x 13.4 m, 7.7 t) and 4 catapults H 2 (2 flight deck and 1 doubled athwartships catapult in hangar). Aircraft fuel stowage: 613 500 l.  

Year fighters dive bombers torpedo bombers
12.1941 47 F4F Wildcat 33 SB2U Vindicator 3 TBD Devastator
8.1942 29 F4F Wildcat 30 SBD Dauntless 10 TBF Avenger

Project history: The decision to built CV7 Wasp was accepted 27.3.1934, simultaneously with conversion of CV1 Langley to an airplane transport. In order to avoid excess of resolved by Washington Treaty  summary displacement of USN aircraft carriers, it was necessary to limit displacement of new ship by 14700t. However, Americans have a little played a cunning trick: speaking about the freed tonnage, they have specified full displacement of Langley, and Wasp design have included it as displacement standard. Ship was ordered 19.9.1935. The Wasp design had some original features. Asymmetric hull became unique line of the ship: so designers indemnified weight of island superstructure without ballast stowage on a port. Besides, she differed by unusual arrangement of engine and boiler rooms in en echelone; it was repeated later in Essex design. As experiment, an additional T-shaped deck-edge elevator was fitted at fore part of portside. There were 4 catapults: two on flight deck and two more, arranged transverse, in hangar for launch the planes via the side ports. Because of the limited displacement armour protection was very light.

Ship protection:  Only lower (main) deck over machinery had 32mm protection. Steering gear compartment was protected by 87mm belt and 31mm deck. 

Modernizations: 1.1942: + CXAM-1 radar

spring 1942: - 18 x 1 - 12.7/90; + 1 x 1 - 40/56 Mk III, 32 x 1 - 20/70 Mk 4

Naval service: 15.9.1942 Wasp was hit S from Guadalcanal (12°25'S, 164°08'E) by 3 torpedoes from Japanese submarine I19 and 6hrs later sunk by destroyer Lansdowne.

Wasp 1942

© Ivan Gogin, 2014