HMAS Melbourne

## Badge

The HMAS Melbourne (RA01) was a Australian aircraft carrier ordered in 1935 as a result of Japanese Aggression and Imperialistic behavior. Serving entirely in the Pacific, the HMAS Melbourne was seen as an instrumental guardian of Australian shores from Imperialist Japan.

Worried about a possible future invasion, and foreseeing Britain tied up in a war with Germany, the Australian Government turned to Britain to build a fleet capable of protecting Australian shores. The first capital warship apart of that expansion program would be the HMAS Melbourne.

While heavily based on the HMS Ark Royal, the lack of a 23000 tonne restriction allowed Melbourne to be nearly 5000 tonnes heavier then the Ark Royal.

## Design:

The HMAS Melbourne was a semi-unique carrier. Since Britain had only just started preliminary work on what would become the Illustrious-class, the only other design would be the Ark Royal-class, which was 3 years old, and quickly becoming obsolete in comparison to what Japan was constructing at that point.

Regardless, her design greatly reflected the HMS Ark Royal, including many of the shortfalls of the priors design. However, since Australia had never signed the Second London Treaty, the Melbourne was not limited to the 23000 tonne limit on aircraft carrier displacement.

Additionally, while Ark Royal had been limited to 721 ft at the waterline partially due to British shipyard limitations, Britain began expanding the size of her slips to allow for the construction of larger ships. Both of these allowed the Melbourne to be much larger then the Ark Royal, stretching 894 ft long and 98 ft wide at her waterline.

As such, the Melbourne was a much less 'compromised' design over the Ark Royal. Being stretched to nearly 900ft, she would dwarf even the Japanese Shokaku-class of aircraft carrier. With this extra space, she would have extra armor, an additional lift, and an additional set of 2 Admiralty 3-tube boilers installed, and an additional Parsons Geared Turbine (which added an additional prop). Overall, the power output of the Melbourne was 30000 shp greater then even that of the later Illustrious-class, coming in at 148000 shp. This would propel the Melbourne to 33 kn, which in itself would set the bar for later fleet carriers, particularly the later Essex-class.

Additionally, Melbourne would have more armor along her entire length, having a belt of 6in (1.5in thicker then the Ark Royal, but also angled 10\* to maximize the bouncing potential of the belt, the thickest of any British Commonwealth Ship, or any purpose built aircraft carrier (i.e. Not converted battle cruisers).

While Ark Royal's flight deck was unarmored, the Melbourne's flight deck was armored with 1 relatively paper thin 2 in armored steel main deck, with a much thicker 4.5 in plating underneath, with a 4 ft bomb deck in between, the first aircraft carrier with this feature.

The bomb deck was relatively clever. Instead of a bomb striking the main deck, detonating and possibly causing warping or other other damage to the flight deck, the bomb deck allowed bombs to penetrate the main deck, only causing a minor hole, before detonating in the space between. To prevent the blast from bowing the flight deck upwards, vents all along the hull allowed the explosion to propagate out of the sides of the ship instead.

Capable of carrying 75 aircraft (15 more then Ark Royal), the Melbourne would also be the first British-built aircraft carrier designed with an enclosed hurricane bow as 'standard'. The final distinction of the Melbourne was the inclusion of a much larger island, which would be very similar to the islands of the by-then under construction of the Illustrious-class.

## Australian Service:

The Melbourne would be completed just 8 months prior to the outbreak of war in Europe. After her sea trials ended (just 6 months before war broke out), the Melbourne was formally commissioned into the Australian Navy on August 12, 1939 in the port of Sydney, Australia.

The HMAS Melbourne was assigned 7 Squadrons. Nearly all of the pilots of which had been previously training on the HMS Magnificent while the Magnificent and HMS Colossus were stationed in the Indian Ocean between 1937 and 1939.

With a strike arm compromised of 24x- Sea Gladiators, 48x- Swordfish, and 4x- Fairey Fulmars, besides the HMS Magnificent's periodic ventures into the Pacific, Melbourne was consistently the aircraft carrier with the strongest aircraft strike capacity of any nation in the South Pacific Sea.