Design
Wasp was a product of the Washington Naval Treaty. After the construction of carriers Yorktown and Enterprise, the U.S. was still permitted 15,000 long tons (15,000 t) to build a carrier.
The Navy sought to squeeze a large air group onto a ship with nearly 25% less displacement than the Yorktown-class. In order to save weight and space, Wasp was constructed with low-power machinery (compare Wasp's 75,000 shp (56,000 kW) machinery with Yorktown's 120,000 shp (89,000 kW), Essex's 150,000 shp (110,000 kW), and the Independence-class' 100,000 shp (75,000 kW)). Additionally, Wasp was launched with almost no armor, although this may have been upgraded after completion. More significantly, Wasp had an almost complete lack of protection from torpedoes. The end result was a ship with major inherent design flaws. These flaws, combined with a relative lack of damage control experience in the early days of the war, were to prove fatal.
Wasp was the first carrier fitted with a deck edge elevator. The elevator consisted of a platform for the front wheels and an outrigger for the tail wheel. The two arms on the sides moved the platform in a half-circle up and down between the flight deck and the hangar deck.
Read more about this topic: USS Wasp (CV-7)
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as possible. There are no prima donnas in engineering.”
—Freeman Dyson (b. 1923)
“I begin with a design for a hearse.
For Christ’s sake not black—
nor white either—and not polished!
Let it be weathered—like a farm wagon—”
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)
“If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back together again. Suicide will be for me only one means of violently reconquering myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating the unpredictable approaches of God. By suicide, I reintroduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)