Re: Future Aircraft Carrier Thread; Desings, Ideas, Brainstorms
its exactly classification is not important. the goal is to design a warship with significant aviation facility, but more survivable than current generation of carriers. one route is the submarine route. but I think there is significant problems with that direction. large submarines are unwieldy boats. I-400s were very poor submarines, unmanageable, slow to dive, big active sonar target, and they carried very few aircraft. the largest modern submarines are the Typhoon class. Which were also found to be too big and unwieldy in operation and the concept was drop in followup class of Russian subs. Another problem with the submarine carrier idea is that a big part of modern nuclear submarines survivability is because they stay submerged all the time. if the submarine carrier have to surface to conduct air operation, how is it survivable. and a big submarine carrier is likely to be a very slow diver and a big active sonar target.
a different way to design a more survivable carrier to a smaller stealthy surface ship with significant self defense capabilities. I wish I can draw a good picture, but I'll describe what I have in mind as best as I can. It should be a catamaran with full length flight deck, to give it plenty of deck space and internal space, as well as good sea keeping characteristics. It should be around 10,000 tons and ideally stealthy. It should have a full AD sensor and weapon suite at least equal to Aegis in capability if not better. The 50 organic VLS should similar to Mk 57, spread around the sides of the ship, leaving the flight deck unobstructed. A big opening in the flight deck with retracted doors. When a doors are closed, the flight deck is unobstructed. But the hangar space below that opening can be loaded with an additional 100 VLS when the mission requires long range missile strike. When not loaded with the addtional VLS modules, the hangar should have space for around 20 combat UAVs. A flight wing should include Global Hawk type capable of long endurance surveillance, a different variation optimized for ASW, then a fast stealthy type similar to X-47 capable of strike as well as interception.
This is an anti-capital ship. with emphasis on flexibility and affordability. individually it may not be very strong, but when grouped together, the formation should be able to performance all the missions of a carrier battle group and more.
