Aircraft Carriers II (Closed to posting)

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Tasman

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... most likely have to make do with a half length lower hangar serviced only by the stern lift (eliminating the need for a forward internal lift), so the ships would parallell the wartime HMS Indomitable and Implacable class "Hangar and a Half" carriers, which I always thought were disposed of too soon when they would have been ideal Commando Carriers without any major modification.

I agree with you re this. These three ships would have been excellent as commando carriers as they could have accommodated more troops and helos than the converted light fleet carriers Bulwark and Albion. Unfortunately they had been disposed of before the commando carrier concept was proven when two training carriers successfully embarked troops along with navy and air force helos at Suez in 1956.

The reason usually given for their early disposal (they were younger than Victorious which was completely rebuilt) was the fact that they had reduced hangar height (2 feet less than the Illustrious class and 3.5 feet less than the light fleet carriers). This was done to preserve stability when the extra half hangar was added. Unfortunately this severely restricted the types of aircraft that could be accommodated in the hangar. Even the Illustrious class with an extra 2 feet of clearance could only embark Corsairs after the wings had been clipped!

Cheers
 

harryRIEDL

New Member
The following concept envisioned for the LHA(R) was an interesting one:
One sky-jump and a lot of space for other activities on the deck. Since all aircraft would land vertically here, the islands in the center of the deck probably won't harm flight ops.
It seems rather big and is perhaps closer to a real CV than to a LHA.

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BTW: Obi Wan, did you see the edit in my previous post showing the refined version?

remides me of the CCV [not sure if that was the project name] a 50000 ton carrier to be a light carrier as the SELPed essexs and tico being decommissioned it had a nice design and its island was in a similar place.
[whats the point of having the island in the center seems to waste the beam of the ship]
 

bd popeye

The Last Jedi
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remides me of the CCV [not sure if that was the project name] a 50000 ton carrier to be a light carrier as the SELPed essexs and tico being decommissioned it had a nice design and its island was in a similar place.
[whats the point of having the island in the center seems to waste the beam of the ship]

I do not understand the island in the middle. As someon who worked on the flight deck it seems to em that the island in the middle of the flight deck would hinder flight operations. And decrease safety by placing a hazzard in the middle of the deck.

In one of our CV threads golly posted a drawing of the CVV...
 

Obi Wan Russell

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A centreline island raises issues as to the space below decks, ie the hangar. An island in the centre will mean supporting structure beneath, eating into the hangar space which cannot easily be moved to the side. Supporting structure would also include uptakes for the engine exhausts to the funnel(s) and downtakes in the case of GT propulsion.

I did see the edit and I'm glad to see my suggestions being taken on board, not for reasons of ego by any means, but because I believe they stand on their own. A good idea is a good idea whoever thinks it up.
 

Tasman

Junior Member
A centreline island raises issues as to the space below decks, ie the hangar. An island in the centre will mean supporting structure beneath, eating into the hangar space which cannot easily be moved to the side. Supporting structure would also include uptakes for the engine exhausts to the funnel(s) and downtakes in the case of GT propulsion.

A centre island may be OK for an amphibious ship where the aircraft/helo hangar may only extend for a third or less of the length of the ship but IMO it would certainly be restrictive for a ship operating primarily in an aviation role. In this case the hangar would probably have to be arranged in two bays (one forward and one aft) and space to move aircraft between each bay would almost certainly be severely restricted.

Cheers
 

Obi Wan Russell

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If you really want to have usable flight deck space either side of the island then the best solution is to keep the island over to starboard (where it's supporting structure remains to the side of the hangar) and build an enlarged "Alaska Highway" to starboard as in the CVA-01 design. This can either be for aircraft movements, aircraft parking, or if it is made large enough as an auxilliary runway with ski jump at the fore end. Having multiple ski jumps in this theoretical carrier may seem attractive as CTOL ships have multiple catapults, but Ski jump launches are much less complicated the 'cat shots', and typically four Harriers can be launched from a ski jump in the same time it takes a CTOL ship to launch one fighter (ie 50 seconds). That is far from the whole story of course, as the CTOL ship will have four fighters in the air in two minutes and those aircraft will be supersonic with longer range than the Harriers and so can intercept an incoming raid more quickly. Ski jumps take up deck space that cannot be used to spot aircraft (unlike catapults, which are flush with the deck and don't interfere with aircraft spotting when not in use) so having more than one becomes harder to justify unless your ship is supercarrier sized.

At the end of the day the purpose of the carrier is to operate aircraft, and all other requirements must be subordinate to that. The flight deck is more important than the superstructure, and takes priority at all stages of the design process. If the need for systems (ie radar) and command spaces becomes too much then they have to be accomodated elsewhere within the ship or transferred to an escorting vessel. Only that which is essential for the operation of the carrier itself should be retained aboard, which is why carriers don't normally have more than self defence missile capability. Vessels that try to do more (eg Soviet Kievs, British Invincibles and Italian Garibaldi) can only do so at a cost to the air group. The Kievs gave a large percentage of their deck space to missiles because the only available aircraft, the Yak-38 Forger was so poor in performance and was only really there for display ("Look at us NATO, we have carrier aircraft too! Imperialist dogs! Oh, you want us to actually fly them? Er, not today thanks, I'm feeling a bit under the weather..."). The Invincibles were originally intended to have four MM-38 Exocet launchers fitted to the starboard side of the Sea Dart Launcher on the foc's'le as their design derived from cuiser practice rather than Carrier doctrine, so they have something in common with the USN Independence class of WW2. Even the compact Sea Dart launcher impacted deck and hangar space and was removed from all three in the late 90s, the space being plated over to provide a full length flight deck and increased hangar and magazine space below decks. The Italian Garibaldi was completed with four SSM launchers on the aft quarters (two aside) and these too have been deleted to provide more flight deck space for parking. Extra deck space is arguably the most important modification/enhancement that can be made to a CV design, and as 'Steel is cheap and air is free' it is also probably the cheapest upgrade relatively speaking. If I had had a and in the design of the new Cavour for exampl, she would now be sporting a large portside deck extension extending from the ski jump aft to the stern, providing extra parking space (and clearance for larger helos such as the Chinook so their rotors don't come anywhere near the island) and more internal volume for compartments, allowing the hangar to be widened. I'd do the same with the Invincibles, the Garibaldi, the Principe de Asturias and the American LHA/LHDs. I think the Italians have sort of got the idea as they have done so with their LPDs of the San Giorgio class when rebuilding them. Perhaps they will apply this experience to their two CVs.
 
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Tasman

Junior Member
If you really want to have usable flight deck space either side of the island then the best solution is to keep the island over to starboard (where it's supporting structure remains to the side of the hangar) and build an enlarged "Alaska Highway" to starboard as in the CVA-01 design.

What a tragedy for the RN that this class of carriers was cancelled. If they had been built I expect that three such ships would still be spearheading the RN today as they would have been good for 40+ years. Of course the Falklands war would probably not have occurred and we wouldn't have discovered what a good aircraft the Sea Harrier was! :D

Cheers
 

Obi Wan Russell

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What a tragedy for the RN that this class of carriers was cancelled. If they had been built I expect that three such ships would still be spearheading the RN today as they would have been good for 40+ years. Of course the Falklands war would probably not have occurred and we wouldn't have discovered what a good aircraft the Sea Harrier was! :D

Cheers

Much as I love the SHAR, I think it would have been a price worth paying. The Sea Harrier may have happened anyway, as the Invincible class genesis came from the 'Escort Cruiser' that was to have been part of the CVA-01 programme along with the type 82 destroyer. The idea was to remove the ASW helos from the strike carriers so that they could carry more fixed wing aircraft (CVA-01 was to have had an air group of 18 Phantom FG1s and 18 Buccaneer S2s, as well as a flight of four AEW aircraft and two SAR helos for plane guard duties, although some authors who haven't been paying attention quote 36 Phantoms and no Buccaneers), and the Escort cruisers design was enlarged not only to accomodate 9+ sea kings (up from the CVs normal complement of six ASW helos) but to accomodate RM commandos, as they were also to replace the Commando Carriers. Their growth to the size they eventually reached was IMO inevitable, and the adoption of Harriers for operation from their decks whether for air defence or CAS as in the USMC was also somewhat inevitable even with the presence in the fleet of three or four CVAs. The Navy were always planning for four over a twenty year period, but so as not to frighten the politicians they asked for only one initially with a follow on vessel. There was no need to tell a government that might be out of office in a few years about hulls three and four when the orders for those ships were at least ten years away. Up until then the RN had bee operating a fleet of five CVs, one of which was in long term refit at any given time so an actual fleet of four was the minimum they needed to meet requirements. Centaur had been retained to maintain this number while the larger ships were cycled through their reconstructions but the CVA class would not need more than maintenance refits so four would suffice.

CVA 01 was to replace Victorious in 72-74 (allowing for the usual delays, Victorious was said to be good for twenty years service following he 50-58 refit so she would be viable up to 78), CVA 02 would be needed in 76-78 to replace Ark Royal (so her 67-70 refit would have happened anyway IMO), CVA 03 would have been needed in 80-82 to replace Hermes and CVA 04 in 84 to replace Eagle (also assuming twenty years from her 59-64 SLEP).
 

Neutral Zone

Junior Member
CVA 01 was to replace Victorious in 72-74 (allowing for the usual delays, Victorious was said to be good for twenty years service following he 50-58 refit so she would be viable up to 78), CVA 02 would be needed in 76-78 to replace Ark Royal (so her 67-70 refit would have happened anyway IMO), CVA 03 would have been needed in 80-82 to replace Hermes and CVA 04 in 84 to replace Eagle (also assuming twenty years from her 59-64 SLEP).

That sequence just emphasises what a bizarre decision it was to make Ark Royal the last CTOL carrier in RN service. Eagle had been refitted to enable her to operate Phantoms in the mid 60's, she even hosted the Phantom deck trials. Ark Royal needed an expensive and lengthy refit to get her to the standard that Eagle was already at. The obvious thing to do, apart from ordering CVA-01 which is waht they should have, would have been to keep Eagle in service. But logic and the Wilson government didn't seem to go together. :mad:
 

Obi Wan Russell

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Ark Royal's refit, both historical and intended, was so that she could 'hold the line' until replaced by a CVA. Phantoms were coming, and would be in service long before the CVAs would be ready, so the existing fleet had to be upgraded in the meantime. Ark's three year refit was nowhere near as extensive as Eagles' (no Sea Cat SAMs, no guns, no reconstructed island and fewer internal changes) as she was just to be a Phantom/Buccaneer platform. Her refit was 'just enough' to keep her in service 'til relieved. The excuse given for not refitting Eagle with the water cooled JBDs, Bridle catchers and DAX 2 Arrestor gear (in fact she did recieve one set in 67 for F4 trials) was that it would be too expensive. The cost was estimated to be no more than £5million (compared to Ark's 67-70 refit cost of £32million), whereas in the same period over £6million was wasted on refitting HMS Blake to operate only four Sea Kings and nearly double that on her sister HMS Tiger, which then only served for another six years! Had the Tiger class been dropped from the fleet (and flogged to someone like Chile or Peru, they seemed to quite like cruisers) then there would have been sufficient money and manpower to keep Eagle operational within the existing shrunken budget. With the politicians though, it is always a case of 'Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up!' The Government had taken an idealogical stance against Naval aviation, believing the lies the RAF's top brass were feeding them (in a world of shrinking defence budgets, then as now, they tend to secure their own funding by stealing from the other services). The RAAF tried the same thing in 83 when they got the replacement program for the Melbourne cancelled, but lost out when the money was transferred away from defence altogether! A lesson there for all those in the anti carrier lobby today who think cancelling the CVF program will mean a bigger RAF, on the contrary, with the CVFs gone there will be little justification for Joint Force Harrier and the JSF program (in the politicians eyes) as they are both intended for carrier operation at least in part. With the Carriers gone, they will axe the aircraft intended for them too, and the RAF wiil lose yet more sqns along with the further decimation of the FAA.
 
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