Split Thread: Provincial Colonial defends the Realm

[PRC]

We get all your channels up here.  Local stations are either out of Washington State or Michigan.

[Tonitrus]

I wish we got more Canadian stations.

I know Seattle can get the Vancouver CBC affiliate on cable(probably similar in other border regions)...that's all I've ever seen.

[CountDeMoney]

I wish we got more Canadian stations.

I know Seattle can get the Vancouver CBC affiliate on cable(probably similar in other border regions)...that's all I've ever seen.

When I was in Buffalo once, I saw a Canadian TV channel.  My frontal lobe caved in during the news when they got to the weather.  Fucked up metric system.  WHAT THE FUCK IS 29 CELSIUS? IS THAT GOOD?

[Tonitrus]

I mostly just remember, while travelling through, that their version of the the Weather Channel had really hot babes. 

[Neil]

I wish we got more Canadian stations.

I know Seattle can get the Vancouver CBC affiliate on cable(probably similar in other border regions)...that's all I've ever seen.

When I was in Buffalo once, I saw a Canadian TV channel.  My frontal lobe caved in during the news when they got to the weather.  Fucked up metric system.  WHAT THE FUCK IS 29 CELSIUS? IS THAT GOOD?

A shame you lost that war eh?

Still, at least you'll be able to see Wes Clark's reality TV show.

[dps]

the Brits didn't see the utility of the carrier massed air strike (and, to be sure, lacked the types of aircraft necessary to make a massed strike).

The real problem with the British carriers was that the RAF had pretty much emasculated FAA--in fact, the RN didn't get control over the carrier planes back from the RAF until just before the outbreak of WWII.  That left the carriers stuck with planes like the Blackburn Roc and Skua, and not nearly enough of them.  So it ended up that while British carriers didn't have the hanger space to carry as many aircraft as comparable US or Japanese carriers, in practice they didn't even carry as many planes as they could have.  For example, the Ark Royal and the Wasp were contemporay designs, more or less (the Ark Royal entered service in '38, the Wasp in '39) but whereas the Wasp was designed to carry up to 100 planes and did so, the Ark Royal was designed to carry 72, and probably never got within a dozen of that number.  This despite the Ark Royal being a considerably larger ship.

[grumbler]

The real problem with the British carriers was that the RAF had pretty much emasculated FAA--in fact, the RN didn't get control over the carrier planes back from the RAF until just before the outbreak of WWII.  That left the carriers stuck with planes like the Blackburn Roc and Skua, and not nearly enough of them.  So it ended up that while British carriers didn't have the hanger space to carry as many aircraft as comparable US or Japanese carriers, in practice they didn't even carry as many planes as they could have.  For example, the Ark Royal and the Wasp were contemporay designs, more or less (the Ark Royal entered service in '38, the Wasp in '39) but whereas the Wasp was designed to carry up to 100 planes and did so, the Ark Royal was designed to carry 72, and probably never got within a dozen of that number.  This despite the Ark Royal being a considerably larger ship.

What do you perceive the motive behind the RAF emasculating the RN?  Treason?

I agree that the situation wasn't good WRT aircraft types in the FAA, but think that the aircraft developed were developed for the role that the RN saw for their carriers - that of scouting, sniping at the enemy fleet, hunting down commerce raiders... all the things that the BC used to do.

The point you made about the Ark Royal is the same as the one I made in the post you quoted.  The reason the Ark Royal didn't carry more aircraft wasn't because of RAF treason though.  It was because fifty or so aircraft was enough to accomplish the mission that the Brits conceived for the her.  There were more aircraft available to be assigned to her, but they were not felt to be needed, because the RN didn't see the opportunity for using massed CVW strikes as a decisive tactic.

The RN got many types of aircraft between the wars, designed to met RN specifications.  Those specifications just didn't include any consideration of the need to have all the aircraft of a carrier wing able to move briskly and together to the attack, because the RN didn't see any need to do so; attacks by carrier aircraft were seen as squadron-strength affairs, not wing-strength.

[Ed Anger]

I wish we got more Canadian stations.

I know Seattle can get the Vancouver CBC affiliate on cable(probably similar in other border regions)...that's all I've ever seen.

Much Music causes uncontrollable vomiting and the CBC gives you the shits.