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.