Great Fictional World War III book (China & allies VS US & allies)

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

Killa_Dilla said:

My problem with your design, Mr. Head, is that it looks unecessarily dangerous for a plane landing on it.

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Well, the aircraft would necessarily be landing in a verticle mode so that danger would not exist to the extent you are explaining. In fact, with a Veticle landing, several could land at one time. The design is also set up so that simultaneous launching and landing could occur with planes taking off with an emal assist forward while othes landed vertically aft, and were then conducted below decks using the aft elevator.

Killa_Dilla said:

Unfortunately, I was unable to upload my design yesterday, but perhaps tomorrow will yield better results.

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I am sure you will be able to get it uploaded and really look forward to seeing it once you do.

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

Jeff Head said:

Well, the aircraft would necessarily be landing in a verticle mode so that danger would not exist to the extent you are explaining. In fact, with a Veticle landing, several could land at one time. The design is also set up so that simultaneous launching and landing could occur with planes taking off with an emal assist forward while othes landed vertically aft, and were then conducted below decks using the aft elevator.

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I certainly understand that. It is very smart to make the design VTOL compatible, however, when I drew up my version of the Atlantis-class, I tried to make it compatible with the F/A-18 since it is such a powerful fighter. Indeed, a compliment of Hornets and Lightning IIs appearing out of nowhere would make any enemy force want to give up.

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

Killa_Dilla said:

I certainly understand that. It is very smart to make the design VTOL compatible, however, when I drew up my version of the Atlantis-class, I tried to make it compatible with the F/A-18 since it is such a powerful fighter. Indeed, a compliment of Hornets and Lightning IIs appearing out of nowhere would make any enemy force want to give up.

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If your submersible design is allowing F-18s to take off and land off of it (and I remember now you saying that earlier) then I am all the more anxious to see it.

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

Jeff Head said:

If your submersible design is allowing F-18s to take off and land off of it (and I remember now you saying that earlier) then I am all the more anxious to see it.

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On that, I do not know how long an EMAL catapult would be to be able to launch F-18s effectively. I used the rought dimensions that the F-18 is just over 40 feet wide (source: .

My design has twin elevators stationed at the fore of the ship, one on either side, which has a short path that leads to the angled runways. Due to space constraints, my design has 2 hangars on different decks with one right above the other: one for the storage of combat-ready aircraft and one for repair and maintainance. If the need arises, the repair hangar can be easily configured to hold an additional compliment of F-18s and JSFs.

The sail/flight control center is more or less towards the center of the ship, with the sail being on top of a wide, flat flight control deck. In the event of emergency, all electronic equiptment in the flight deck can be stowed and hardened against the corrosive effects of seawater in case of flooding, and the netire area can be drained inside of 5 minutes of surfacing. There are no windows between the FCC and the outside because of the pressure involved in diving, there are just openings that the crew looks out of. When diving, large watertight doors close over the openings and the entire area is isolated from the rest of the sub by watertight hatches.

In addition to jet aircraft, the sub has room for one sea-king ASW aircraft. The hangar for the helo is towards the bow of the sub and can open, allowing an elevator to come up. The helo lands on the elevator, the rotar blades are dismantled, and the entire helo is lowered into its hanger. The watertight door closes over it and 2 more sets of watertight doors close underneathe it.

The entire surface of the sub attempts to remove any sharp corners that could create noise during sub-surface maneuvers, such as the repair hangar which has sloping exterior walls to allow the water to flow smoothly over it. It is very hard to picture this from the birdseye view I have drawn it in, but perhaps later I will draw a 3D conceptual view.

I would be greatly appreciative if you could create my design in the manner you've created yours using the 3D program you have used.

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

Jeff Head said:

As to pics, here are a couple from the novel to whet your appetitie.

[qimg]http://www.jeffhead.com/dragonsfury/USN-SSLPHN.jpg[/qimg]
US Navy Submersible Nuclear Powered Amphibious Asssault Boat


[qimg]http://www.jeffhead.com/dragonsfury/PLAN-CV-DFS-XDeck.jpg[/qimg]
PLAN X-Deck Sea Control Carrier​

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Jeff, I've now finished reading "Year One" and I am finding your book enthralling. My own background is that I am a keen amateur naval historian and I also love 'what if?' scenarios. As one who has never progressed beyond just thinking about it I really admire the fact that you have actually written a book. I think it has enough realism (well, what I've read so far, anyway) to make it an excellent "what if?" novel. Let's hope and pray that the scenarios you write about never actually come about.

I was impressed with the use of container ships that could be secretly converted to carriers and provide a major element of surprise. What gave you the idea for an X deck configuration?

Cheers

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

Mr. Head, do you think it is possible to have a flight control center inside the submarine next to the bridge? I just had an idea that the flight ops could be monitored by a camera mast that rises out of the sail to provide a full 360 degree view. I have to look up all the individual components of a FCC, but I'll get back to you with the info I found.

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

I just uploaded the latest version of my atlantis class SSCVN. This is one I just drew today, it has some improvements over the one I described earlier. Note that it sacrafices the upper repair hangar for a garage that holds vehicles for salvage and repair on a moments notice. Also note that instead of one helo pad, this version has three. This is so it can toss up a screen of 3 sea-king ASW helos in the event of an enemy sub warning. I upgraded the scale to 60 feet per inch. The sub now, as a whole is 600 feet long and just shy of 480 feet wide at its widest point. Note the two oversized ballast tanks on either side of the foreward bow. These would be underwater sloping up towards the elevators and the bow of the sub itself. I will draw a 3D version when time allows me.

Some quality has been lost to the uploading process but it is still discernable. I labeled all the major components of the sub, but it only shows the exterior, birds-eye view. The interior cross sections will be next.



Please note that the aft CIWS battery has not been drawn but it would appear very much like the foreward CIWS batteries, with a watertight door that closes over it.

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

Now, to explain how the closable helo pads work:
The helo pads remain closed behind thick, watertight doors that can open, allowing an elevator to come and and the helo to land. The opening process looks like so. The pad starts off as 2 separate doors:

The top section rotates around the center, following a track that its outer edge runs along:

After which both the top and bottom sections are pulled by independant tracks and stowed underneathe the deck:

And the helo pad arises from the cylyndrical compartment:

After this, the helo lands on the pad, its rotors stop turning and may be disassembled, however, the size of the helo pad may not require the blades to be disassembled if the pilot lands dead center on the pad. This is assisted by strobes near the bow of the ship that coordinate with sensors on the bottom of the helo as well as the center of the pad. This setup is very similar to the "meatball" that pilots use while landing on a full surface carrier. The helo pilot will line the strobe up to the center of his hud, after which the pilot will give a thumbs up (similar to "calling the ball") and will land at the center of the helo pad under direction from the CATCC.

The entire helo is lowered into the compartment and the doors are closed in the same manner they opened in. The helos can be launched even faster as they are able to start the rotors before the helo even reaches the top of the elevator. The speed is good because in the event of an enemy sub alert, the SSCVN can launch a screen of 3 ASW sea-kings to help coordinate with other SSNs in the area.

Do you think it can be done? ;-)

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

Nice try Killa_Dilla. Some first thoughts.
With the double angled deck I would presume that layout will cause a lot of drag while submerged. Both at the front and aft. What may also cause noise.
And the many lifts will take up a lot of valuable space in the hull. Plus the watertight seal mechanism is really complex. To have seven of them on one sub, I don't know ...
IMO, you should try one hanger level for all the air- /rotorcraft with fewer lifts. And use a more konventionall sub hull layout.

Re: Great China VS U.S war book

Scratch said:

Nice try Killa_Dilla. Some first thoughts.
With the double angled deck I would presume that layout will cause a lot of drag while submerged. Both at the front and aft. What may also cause noise.

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I thought about the drag issue, so I designed the protruding corner of the runways to be very thin with no flat edges going 90 degrees into the water (I'll show you what I mean with later drawings). The rest of the underside where it meets the ballast tank does not have any sharp corners, just curves, so that the water flows smoothly past. I am sure with some tweaking, the noise issue could be resolved.

Scratch said:

And the many lifts will take up a lot of valuable space in the hull. Plus the watertight seal mechanism is really complex. To have seven of them on one sub, I don't know...

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I have given that some thought. I figured that the complexity would not be an issue as most of those systems are automated, therefore all of those systems could be controlled from one room in the bridge/CATCC. As for too many elevators, yes, I have thought of that too, but in my mind, one pair of elevators (the pair closer to the bow) could be used to bring the aircraft up, and the after elevators could be used to bring the planes down. Also, keep in mind that one pair could be used to bring up CTOL aircraft (such as the F/A-18) and the other pair could bring up VTOL (the lightning IIs) to have all four launch at the same time. The helo lifts themselves could be independantly operated by a crew working exclusively on the helos, which wouldn't put any pressure on the sailors in CATCC. I agree that my design is not perfect, it does need tweaking, but I think I'm on to something.