00X/004 future nuclear CATOBAR carrier thread

[AndrewS]

The Arleigh Burke destroyer weighs 10,000 tons and has 140,000 hp.
The Nimitz carrier weighs 100,000 tons and has 280,000 hp.
This seems very counter intuitive.

Water resistance is mainly proportional to the cross-sectional area of the bow which ploughs into the water.

I find it confusing that a ship can weigh 10 times as much but only has 2 times the horsepower. I always thought if a ship weighed 10 times as much then maybe it should have 4 times the horsepower. I find this confusing.
Anyways lets assume these numbers are accurate.

Suppose a carrier never travels alone and is always escorted by 8 destroyers. Therefore one carrier battle group would have a combined power of 1,400,000 hp. That is 280,000 hp of nuclear power and 1,120,000 hp of diesel power. Look at it this way a carrier battle group has 20% hp of nuclear power and 80% hp of diesel power.
What am I getting at?
The fuel savings of going "nuclear" for a carrier seems very small considering it only makes up 20% of the battle group.
Am I onto something or am I missing something?

I'd say a US carrier is usually escorted by 4-5 destroyers, and not all of them need to run at flank speed all the time, particularly the pickets.

The last Chinese CSG model I did had the following fuel consumption figures for combat operations:

Conventional Carrier Propulsion = 800-1000 Tonnes per day
Conventional Carrier Air ops = 600 Tonnes per day
Escort Propulsion = 550 Tonnes per day

So it looks like you can cut liquid consumption by roughly 41-46% by having a nuclear carrier. At the same time, a nuclear carrier carries a lot more fuel for air ops or the escorts to use.

 

[ironborn]

The Arleigh Burke destroyer weighs 10,000 tons and has 140,000 hp.
The Nimitz carrier weighs 100,000 tons and has 280,000 hp.
This seems very counter intuitive.

I find it confusing that a ship can weigh 10 times as much but only has 2 times the horsepower. I always thought if a ship weighed 10 times as much then maybe it should have 4 times the horsepower. I find this confusing.
Anyways lets assume these numbers are accurate.

Suppose a carrier never travels alone and is always escorted by 8 destroyers. Therefore one carrier battle group would have a combined power of 1,400,000 hp. That is 280,000 hp of nuclear power and 1,120,000 hp of diesel power. Look at it this way a carrier battle group has 20% hp of nuclear power and 80% hp of diesel power.
What am I getting at?
The fuel savings of going "nuclear" for a carrier seems very small considering it only makes up 20% of the battle group.
Am I onto something or am I missing something?

Power is for acceleration, not maintaining speed once reached. Say, if you have a car with 300 HP, and I have a car with 150 HP, we both start from standing still, given everything else is the same, i.e. curb weight etc. Your car will reach 100 km/h faster than mine, but once we both reached the same speed, say 100km/h, we probably only use about 30 - 50 HP to maintain that speed.

 

[AndrewS]

Power is for acceleration, not maintaining speed once reached. Say, if you have a car with 300 HP, and I have a car with 150 HP, we both start from standing still, given everything else is the same, i.e. curb weight etc. Your car will reach 100 km/h faster than mine, but once we both reached the same speed, say 100km/h, we probably only use about 30 - 50 HP to maintain that speed.

Power is still required to counter water resistance once speed is reached.

 

[Derpy]

The Arleigh Burke destroyer weighs 10,000 tons and has 140,000 hp.
The Nimitz carrier weighs 100,000 tons and has 280,000 hp.
This seems very counter intuitive.

Bigger ships are more efficient, this is why we see gigantic container/cargo ships.
Easiest way to understand this is that water resistance is mainly due to frontal water area displaced and the length of the ship doesn't have as big of an impact.
A big container ship that pushes x square meter of water out of the way can then push 400 meter of ship through that hole in the water it created.

 

[ashnole]

Is there a remote possibility that PLAN may ever think of building something like this? PLAN, after all, doesn't have the Suez & Panama design restriction unlike the USN as PLAN is never going to deploy Carriers in those regions.

 

[Intrepid]

Is there a remote possibility that PLAN may ever think of building something like this?

No.

If they need one more landing area, they will build one more carrier. Than there will not two, three or four carriers in one group, but three, four or five.

 

[Richard Santos]

During WW2, Japan built Yamato, the world's largest battleship. The Americans made no attempt to create a battleship of equal size.
This may sound controversial, what if the PLAN never builds a nuclear carrier?

Yes, they did. They were going to build 5 Montana class ships, which were the same size as the Yamato. they only changed their mind after the battle of Midway.

 

[ashnole]

No.

If they need one more landing area, they will build one more carrier. Than there will not two, three or four carriers in one group, but three, four or five.

Well then, by the same logic, why build large Carriers with more than two catapults instead of building a greater number of medium-sized Carriers having just two catapults?

 

[Gloire_bb]

Is there a remote possibility that PLAN may ever think of building something like this? PLAN, after all, doesn't have the Suez & Panama design restriction unlike the USN as PLAN is never going to deploy Carriers in those regions.

There is always a remote possibility of doing something.
But at this stage PLAN is "just" (this isn't just given the complexity of the whole affair) doing it the mainstream way.

 

[Intrepid]

Well then, by the same logic, why build large Carriers with more than two catapults instead of building a greater number of medium-sized Carriers having just two catapults?

A catapult launch takes more time than a arrested landing. A good ratio is three catapults per landing strip.

We've been through all of this several times. Do we have to redo everything just because a fanboy drawing was presented?