WesWorld

I posted this at the Carrier board at Warships1, but naturally want your input as well.

Most carriers had vertical funnels, amidships starboard. A few didn't - Ranger with hers aft on both sides, and the Japanese ones that vented downward. Any idea why these exceptions occurred, and how they compared to the usual model in practice?

To my knowledge the japanese style downward facing funnels didn't work as well as desired. If you look at Soryu as an example you'll notice that all guns aft of the funnel are fully enclosed, including the 25mm AA.

I'm sure their vision was horrible at high speed or a turn to port. Akagi IIRC had a water spray system to make the smoke more dence to fall away from the flight deck but it didn't work well.

Shinano, Junyo and Hiyo seemed to fair better with their vertical funnels angled outward but I haven't sen any referance to the angle outward improving the airflow over regulare virtical funnels.

To my knowledge the Rangers swivel funnels performed fairly well. I'm sure they would kick up some turbulence aft making landing operations slightly more difficult.

Furious likely had the worst funnel arangement. It cut down her airgroup by 9 planes, placed 200 tons high in the ship, made things very dirty aft and worst of all the temperature in the spaced ajacent to the funnel were practically unbearable due to the heat (147 degrees F).

Ranger was intended to be a flush-deck design, the island being added after construction began, hence the folding funnels to clear the deck for flight operations. Akagi and Kaga had two different funnel arrangements prior to their reconstruction in the late 1930's. Akagi had one funnel pointing out and down, while the other pointed up. Kaga had her funnels trunked along the sides of the hull to the stern, where they discharged down and aft. All the Japanese carriers with side funnels had shields on the guns aft of the funnel on that side to protect them from gasses. The sideways funnels must not have been too bad, since the late war Amagis were virtual copies of the Hiryu and they must have amassed some experience by then with the two different styles.