The modern day version is made of marine grade ballistic fiber with colour very terrible for hiding.

This was the photo, it was also used to several operations within the South and Southeastern Asia (Raids in the Indian Ocean).

Lunatic6 said:

This was the photo, it was also used to several operations within the South and Southeastern Asia (Raids in the Indian Ocean).

It's really amazing how tiny Akagi's island/bridge was. There were about a thousand people living on that ship, it was a flagship that held strategy meetings and all that, and its bridge looks like some kid's tree fort. (Complete with some guy walking around on its roof.)

NWSiaCB said:

It's really amazing how tiny Akagi's island/bridge was. There were about a thousand people living on that ship, it was a flagship that held strategy meetings and all that, and its bridge looks like some kid's tree fort. (Complete with some guy walking around on its roof.)

It's because it was pretty much a bolted on afterthought since as built neither Kaga or Akagi had any island whatsoever. It quickly became obvious that wasn't going to work and so when remodeled they had one fitted, but for any number of reasons they had be kept fairly small and compact. It really is an embarrassingly dinky bridge for such a large ship it honestly looks like it belongs on an escort carrier or something.

It's kind of amusing that for all the crowing about how at the forefront of carrier development Japan was they got pretty much everything possible wrong on their first proper fleet carrier conversions; Incompetent machinery arrangements, useless triple deck arrangement, no islands, horrible positioning of both AA guns and "main battery".

By contrast the Lexington's got pretty much everything right from the start; exhaust truncked straight up and out, full length and fully enclosed flight deck and hanger from the start, useful and larger island fitted on the proper side at commission, AA battery higher up with superior sight lines, and the equally useless main battery at least placed into high mounted turrets with commanding firing arcs. They were also very maneuverable and responsive thanks to their unique turbo-electric drive systems, which had the side benefit of allowing greater internal compartmentalization and more efficient cruising. There internal arraignment in general was also better allowing a larger functional air group and overall their damage control systems were also better.

If not for the poor fortune to be the first fleet carrier seriously damaged and so not having the lessons in damage control to draw on that later ships did Lexington might well have been saved and both might have survived the war.

Honestly the Lexington's kind of make Kaga and Akagi look sort of shit by comparison.

Edit: Oh and of course I forgot that they also looked rakish, fast, and clean compared to the rather kind of fat and cluttered looking Japanese ships. Though that last one might just be my own personal opinion leaking through...

I guess even aircraft carriers need security blankets.