Ideal chinese carrier thread

[bd popeye]

Also add survivability to the list of problems; if a multi-hulled ship is hit in one of the outer hulls, it will really throw the stability of the ship off, and flight deck operations will be cancelled.

^^ Exactly.

ahah! You, dear sir, have the advantage of experience> But I have BSing and pretty pictures!

LOL!!

However..how many sailors will man your ship? They need berthing and a messing/galley area. Plus there need be space for such amenities as gyms, ships stores, barber shop etc..etc.. a CV is a floating city.

I served on the USS Hancock CVA-19 in '74 & '75. An WWII Essex class. She displaced 33,000 tons. Roughly the size of your ship.... And every inch of available space was used.

No matter how you rationalize it the hull is to small. You need crew space, more work shop space, storage rooms, sick bay and dental, magazines and fuel tanks for the ships fuel and aircraft fuel. And I almost forgot you need tanks for water storage. Ships make their own fresh water it needs to be stored.

Remember that a CV has many different work shops. Just not for aircraft. Machine shops, lithography,Damage control lockers. All sorts of pump rooms for fuel and water. A very large support shops for ground support equipment..i.e. tow tractors, portable generators, hydraulic carts, nitrogen carts, fork lifts & fire fighting vehicles from the flight deck. CVs also have welding shops for aircraft and the ships equipment. You get my point? Believe you me there's plenty more..

I need to know how many aircraft she will carry and what to you estimate the crew size will be? I'm guessing a crew of 1,500- 2,000 with about 36-40 aircraft.

And none of us has a clue how the PLAN will man and operate their CVs...

Your turn!

Great drawings by the way..

 

[planeman]

You've been brainwashed by Golly and his anti-multihull rantings!

This rear view of the still unfinished beast shows the relative depth of the ship, although the perspective makes the below-waterline hull look smaller than it is.

Here's a plan view. The top one shows flight deck, although island is still missing. The SAM VLS is aft-port corner, and two CIWS and 3 soft-kill stations are already placed.

The middle pic shows the hanger-deck level. Primary workshops highlighted with red squares. Note how wide the crew space is forward.

The bottom view shows lower hull excluding out-riggers. Quite a bit bigger than the naysayers would have you believe!

This shot is from the bow with most of the forward hull hidden, showing a cross-section of the main crew area. It's several stories high.

 

[bd popeye]

You've been brainwashed by Golly and his anti-multihull rantings!

Couple of things here..

1) You make excellent drawings.

2) I wish golly would come back to the forum. He's not been here for three weeks.

3) I have the benifit of 20 years serving the USN which includes 6 years actual at sea time aboard CV's..I know how they work.

4 hours later..You have the crew in the bow. Well on USN CV's there is berthing in the bow but in heavy seas a sailor will wish his berthing was much further aft. The bow takes the brunt of heavy seas.

 

[planeman]

Yep, birthing in bow. PLAN sailors could be bribed with AC to sleep there

Island placed at extreme rear for optimum deck-handling, although moving it to between the lifts looks more conventional. Gerald Ford class also follows this line of thought although there is still room for an aircraft or two at the stern.

Placing the main engine exhausts between the hulls means a much smaller island with full-360 degree bridge. I placed a third CIWS on the island. Below the bridge there could be 'hangers' for the deck-vehicles. The space between the island and the rear lift is for deck vehicle parking.

The escort in the above pic is a Type-052B to scale

View from the bridge

I've reduced the size of the hanger to double the workshops area, without reducing aircraft carried in 'normal' configuration.

The catapults are extra long at 90m, and electromagnetic or rocket. Avoids the massive steam boilers required on other carriers, again saving space for Popeye's hair salon.

 

[Scratch]

Great images, planeman. I like the modelling.
Just curious though, why only two lifts on the starbord side and none on the portside? Wouldn't a third lift on the other side give some more flexibility?

 

[Ambivalent]

I know the USN has done at least some preliminary studies on tri hull carriers. I have been an advocate of these myself, with one big reservation. I think the tri hull layout allows for a very big flight deck and hangar spaces for a given displacement, and flying airplanes is the reason such ships exist. The stability in heavy seas is especially attractive. They do not heel when the helm is thrown over hard. Now the reservations; I do not know how much hull volume such a design will leave for ammunition and fuel, nor how well the normal number of ammunition magazines could be protected adequately. They are very well protected from ordinance on a US style CVN. If nuclear propulsion is to be used, is there adequate space for reactors and their shielding. What does this do to the space available for ammo? Not enough information to make a good decision, but I would not dismiss a tri hull carrier out of hand.
Hey Popeye, you forgot to mention how many people are living and working in the spaces between the hangar and flight decks. This was a feature introduced with the Essex class to help absorb bomb hits. The armor on those ships was on the hangar decks, 4 inches of it. The two decks above were supposed to absorb the majority of the damage, protecting the hull and machinery from damage.

 

[planeman]

Modified design with a few changes.

Hull: outriggers are longer below waterline to increase roll resistance. Main hull is slightly longer at rear below waterline with third prop (non-podded by electric drive). Stabilizers enlarged.

Flight deck: Catapults replaced by ski-jump, reducing cost, complexity and crew. Also allows a forth CIWS to be mounted forward on port-side so now has four CIWS giving full 360 degrees coverage. Skijump is poorly modelled, please allow for that. Munitions lift moved to port. Island moved forward to between lifts. Ski-jump is modular and easily removed if catapults are to be retro-fitted.

Deck 'hangers': My idea to solve the radar cross-section/IR signature problem of flightdeck operations. Large lightweight bolt-on structures that cover aircraft in quick-reaction positions. Material could be something like fibreglass with IR and radar reflecting layers (note faceted shape). The carrier isn't stealthy, but the IR and RF signature is intended to be minimised to complicate targeting. If these structures were found impractical they could be removed at minimal cost.

 

[bd popeye]

Deck 'hangers': My idea to solve the radar cross-section/IR signature problem of flight deck operations. Large lightweight bolt-on structures that cover aircraft in quick-reaction positions

Planeman sometimes the wind coming across that flight deck is in excess of 50 knots. That may knock those structures down.

 

[planeman]

yep, they'd need to be strong, flexible, ventilated (no prob) and secure. Guess carbon fibre rather than regular fibreglass, ups the cost a bit but not astronomically. The aircraft inside would be secured in the usual way.

 

[Ambivalent]

Considering the Nimitz class ships all have a starboard list, I can't see these shelters being something that will make a final design. They look like something that can clobber the deck with debris from battle damage, and impair the operation of the elevators too should they be damaged. Last, aircraft are packed in tightly on the flight deck. The ability to move them off the landing area and to spot them quickly is critical during landing ops. Physically dividing the flight deck like that will limit the number and placement of aircraft that can be spotted on the flight deck.
I still like tri-hull carriers however, assuming hull volume is sufficient or can be made so.