Jesus christ Kongo two of those weren't even naval fighters.
Also, no Seafire? And you call yourself a Brit? Go back to London and re-learn how to Brit. Or just have Warspite lecture you.
Anyone that knows anything about the WWII RN would want to forget about the Seafire. Who needs the enemy when you can just destroy all your fighters yourself in deck accidents? *cough*Anzio*cough*
Anyone that knows anything about the WWII RN would want to forget about the Seafire. Who needs the enemy when you can just destroy all your fighters yourself in deck accidents? *cough*Anzio*cough*
I guess modifying a land-based short-range, high-performance interceptor aircraft for the role of carrier aircraft is problematic [Keep in mind that navy aircraft during WWII requires long range (an example is the A6M2 model 21 Zero), powered by air-cooled radial engines (able to absorb more damage, more compact than liquid-cooled inline engines and easier to maintain, important when the carriers are far away from land bases), huge amount of weapons and payload (able to destroy as many enemy aircraft as possible before they reach the carriers. Alternatively, to reduce the number of required sorties), and wide tracked undercarriage (reducing the number of aircraft lost through accidents)].
I guess modifying a land-based short-range, high-performance interceptor aircraft for the role of carrier aircraft is problematic [Keep in mind that navy aircraft require long range (an example is the A6M2 model 21 Zero), powered by air-cooled radial engines (able to absorb more damage, more compact than liquid-cooled inline engines and easier to maintain, important when the carriers are far away from land bases), huge amount of weapons and payload (able to destroy as many enemy aircraft as possible before they reach the carriers. Alternatively, to reduce the number of required sorties), and wide tracked undercarriage (reducing the number of aircraft lost through accidents)].
Don't forget being comparatively structurally flimsy, during early attempts at the conversions tailhooks were ripping off and the fuselages deforming when trapping and the landing gear struts had a tendency toward occasionally exploding on impact with the deck (an issue that never fully resolved during the war since space constraints limited how much they could be beefed up or extended in travel). These issues then required hodgepodge reinforcement which added weight, particularly aft, which then screwed with the center of gravity and meant that much of the land based types better qualities were diluted. Henry Adlam who was a FAA pilot at the time that flew lend-lease Wildcats and later wrote a number of books about WWII British Carrier aviation felt that based on some 'sparing' with friends in Seafire IIC that they were barely faster or more agile then an F4F-3 Wildcat in operational conditions.
One final vice was that it wasn't a particularly great landing aircraft to start with, it's stall characteristics made it hard to "plant it" on a specific spot. It was 'floaty' and often bounced on landing which on a carrier meant it was going into the barrier.
This was compounded by the fact that the models being used tended to lag more then a year behind the latest land based versions in terms of features and power because any new Seafire was being derived from developments on the land based version with all the needed modification and testing for carrier operations then tacked onto that, so for instance the Mk.III Seafire still being being delivered in 1944 was largely equivalent in performance to a land based Mk.V from around 1942. The reality thus being that the Mk III Seafire was really barely any better then a Hellcat performance wise.
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