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Convoy Protection Mid-ocean: The escort carrier (CVE) was a wartime innovation designed to give convoy protection mid-ocean protection in mid-ocean beyond the range of land-based planes. As in the case of the destroyer escorts, high speed was not necessary. Large numbers of these so-called jeep carriers were produced, some of the early ones being converted from merchant marine hulls. The 9,800-ton Bogue (CVE-1), completed in 1942, had a flight deck measuring 492 by 112 feet, could accommodate 30 planes, and made 18 knots. In conjunction with destroyers or destroyer escorts, they made possible very effective hunter-killer antisubmarine tactics.
Like the later cruisers, the frigates had several functions. They were useful for commerce protection, which often involved the escort of groups of merchantmen in convoy protection mid-ocean; and in commerce raiding, normally welcome to officers a: crews because of the chance for prize mont; Frigates also served with the fleet for the rapki transmission of dispatches and for scouting-Nelson called them the "eyes of the fleet." Of' they were employed to show the flag in forei. ports, especially on distant stations. With its fai-flung commerce and colonial empire, Britain needed large numbers of such frigates.
In 1812 the British Navy had 112 frigates in active commission along with 124 ships of t; line and nearly 400 lesser vessels.
This outward movement could push continental blocks apart or push previous ocean Floor rocks beneath the continents, which would explain the comparatively young age of the rocks on the ocean floor. In the Pacific Ocean, for example, the new ocean Floor seems to spread outward from a great ridge known as the East Pacific Rise. As the new Floor moves outward, the older seabed ahead of it should be forced downward into the deep trenches that ring the Pacific Ocean. |
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