Courageous, Glorious, and Furious combined shallow draught, high speed, and very heavy guns with protection poorly suited to conventional combat. Fisher intended them for a Baltic amphibious project, but the operation demanded resources the Allies could not supply and left the ships without a convincing conventional role. Furious first lost her forward 18-inch turret for a flying-off deck while retaining the after gun, creating an awkward hybrid. Squadron Leader Edwin Dunning demonstrated that landing aboard was possible, but his fatal second attempt exposed the danger of approaching around the superstructure without arresting gear. Removing the remaining gun for an after flight deck moved Furious from experiment toward a true aircraft carrier and gave the Royal Navy practical experience in carrier development.
Notable Point · 2:05:17
How the large light cruisers became carrier experiments
Ships conceived for Fisher's Baltic project proved ill-suited as gun platforms but supplied hulls for early carrier development.