00X/004 future nuclear CATOBAR carrier thread

[Nx4eu]

I wouldn't necessarily take "spacing between drydock" to be an expected, consistent measure when the sample size is so small.

For example, prior to CV-18, the CV-17 built at Dalian had spacing that was 30m from the bow-most part of the ship to the drydock wall, and nearly 20m at the aftmost part of the ship

Given they're going to be building larger ships in the same drydock, it's more reasonable to surmise that the positioning/spacing of existing ships built so far are simply "under"-sized for what the drydock is able to maximally accommodate.

and if we look at the construction of USN CVNs (in this case a Ford class, USS JFK I believe), they barely have a few meters between the aft flight deck section and the wall of the drydock (the length of the dock means the bow spacing is not a factor), so a spacing of some 10-15m either side seems eminently reasonable.

(That said, I don't really have a horse in the race as to what the actual expected length of DL's carrier will be)

QE class has 20m on both ends and Drydock 12 is a bit of an outlier with 2-3m clearance on one end and 320m on the other. Technically like above you can have 2m clearance but building a 362m long ship in a 366m long drydock seems less than ideal doesn't it.

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

QE class has 20m on both ends and Drydock 12 is a bit of an outlier with 2-3m clearance on one end and 320m on the other.

That still doesn't change the fact where Newport News is fully capable of placing a Ford-class CVN inside Drydock 12 with one of its extreme ends having mere meters of separation with the inner end of the drydock wall.

Recall that CVN-65 Enterprise from the 1960s was laid down and launched from Drydock 11 at Newport News. That drydock is only 340 meters long, versus Enterprise's (pre-refit) overall length of 333 meters. That means less than 10 meters of separation between both extreme ends of the ship and the walls on both ends of the drydock.




Hence, Dalian is similarly capable of building the 004 CVN with her overall length that is close to the overall length of the drydock where she is being constructed in as well, should such need arises.

 

[Blitzo]

QE class has 20m on both ends and Drydock 12 is a bit of an outlier with 2-3m clearance on one end and 320m on the other. Technically like above you can have 2m clearance but building a 362m long ship in a 366m long drydock seems less than ideal doesn't it.

Well, I don't think "CVN-20" is going to be a 362m long ship... my point is more that flight deck to drydock wall spacing probably is highly variable and we shouldn't take past CV-17, CV-18 spacing as a rule or a minimum requirement.

Heck it may well be that it is viable for the flight deck to overhang the edge of the drydock by a margin -- the QE class' flight deck width exceeded the width of the drydock they were assembled in, from memory.

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

Heck it may well be that it is viable for the flight deck to overhang the edge of the drydock by a margin -- the QE class' flight deck width exceeded the width of the drydock they were assembled in, from memory.

Yes. In fact, the beam-wise flight deck overhangs are pretty extreme for the case of the QE twins.

 

[Shimakazerun]

China will not seek to act as the "world's policeman" for the next thirty years. China's primary operational theater remains centered around the Second Island Chain, where advanced conventionally powered aircraft carriers fully meet its requirements. Furthermore, the Type 001 and Type 002 carriers possess limited combat capabilities and are most likely to serve as training vessels.

Nuke Power Never Just relates to range

 

[Tomboy]

iirc it's not even unconventional for normal ships to push all the way up to the limits of thr drydock

 

[mack8]

View attachment 164636
iirc it's not even unconventional for normal ships to push all the way up to the limits of thr drydock

This is exactly what i had in mind, previously i've seen for instance a large supertanker in a drydock, can't recall now if chinese or japanese or whatever, that seemed to occupy almost every meter of that drydock. For a carrier with it's larger overhangs the depth of the drydock is more important (if it's too deep might preclude such large overhangs), but this is probably hardly an issue for DL or JN. The QE image is very illustrative as well, is that where it was built or is it some sort of repair/overhaul facility?

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

This is exactly what i had in mind, previously i've seen for instance a large supertanker in a drydock, can't recall now if chinese or japanese or whatever, that seemed to occupy almost every meter of that drydock. For a carrier with it's larger overhangs the depth of the drydock is more important (if it's too deep might preclude such large overhangs), but this is probably hardly an issue for DL or JN. The QE image is very illustrative as well, is that where it was built or is it some sort of repair/overhaul facility?

That drydock is exactly where the QE twins were assembled and built (i.e. Rosyth Dockyard).

 

[dingyibvs]

QE class has 20m on both ends and Drydock 12 is a bit of an outlier with 2-3m clearance on one end and 320m on the other. Technically like above you can have 2m clearance but building a 362m long ship in a 366m long drydock seems less than ideal doesn't it.

Why? What's the reasoning for your assertion?

 

[Nx4eu]

Why? What's the reasoning for your assertion?

Well specifically in the carriers case with decks that overhang over the entire Drydock, it’s mighty hard to retrieve equipment or move equipment into the drydock if the cranes can’t access it.

Theres also the block module construction method that I see China use over what the US uses where blocks are initially seperated in the drydock and then merged together into one. One does need quite a lot of room to perform this procedure.



This was how Fujian's hull was pieced together.
While ford on the other hand is built in many much smaller pieces