Shipbucket

Hello, long time no post. I've been really active of late on the discord server. Over the past weeks I have been developing a large aircraft carrier which many of you have been giving me advice on. This is an implied design from a document created by the National Research Council for the Office of Naval Research. The document left out a lot of specifics, other than to say a New Large Monohull could be created to replace the Nimitz class of carriers. The design called for something as large as 215,000 tons. So I went with that. Because of course I did. I utilized Paul_2019's Nimitz as a base to begin.

Here is a link to the PDF document I referenced https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a328353.pdf

Lets lay out some details:

• The primary fighter of choice is the F14-Super Tomcat. The F14-Super Tomcat also comes in a Growler variant.
• It makes use of a small number of F-18 Hornets with frontal canards. I did consider a dedicated CAP interceptor with this being an upgraded variant of the F-18C but not quite a Super Hornet, though in this case this one is for the marines as a strike fighter.
• C-9's are used for COD, Aerial Refueling and AWACS. Super Stallions are used as helicopters.
• Total number of aircraft would typically be near 100, but can go as high as 115-120 depending on type.
• The total launch weight for a fully loaded F-14 Super Tomcat would be 85klb's.
• Defenses include AEGIS and 120 VLS cells. Initially this is for area anti-air defense and intercepting anti-ship missiles, but would likely evolve into ballistic missile defense.
• The VLS cells do not penetrate the deck. This maintains deck strength and the tower is re-enforced around the cells to direct any munitions explosion away from the flight deck.

Still tweaking sometimes. Seems I always notice something that needs to change.

Wow... just wow.

I like the big island! Great work!

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

Artistically it's quite impressive (although you've got some inconsistent shading in the top view, and mismatched grays in the side view).

From a design perspective, I don't think the VLS as configured would be anything close to safe (they're called "vertical" launch, but that doesn't mean 90.00deg in practice!). The complete lack of major directors is a little puzzling, and certainly makes SM-2 non-viable. A lot of the detail feels a bit "taped-on" rather than especially well considered from the keel up. The lack of 7' WSC-6 is one example.

Yeah, I gotta join in with Erik here: while it is impressive as a drawing, the design has major flaws to the point of being impossible.
- I really think that the double size elevator is not a great idea. the bigger the hole in the side of the hull, the bigger the stress concentration and added reinforcements around it.
- There seems to be little increase in hull depth compared to the nimitz, and most of that increase is below the waterline. In other words, the freeboard is the same, the hangar is no higher above the water then on the nimitz, so when the ship is moving trough waves you will have water much closer to your hull openings and elevators. The increased beam adds to this issue as well, getting water on your elevators and sponsons at much lower angles.
- The relative reduction in hull depth also means the ship's shape is less strong then that of the nimitz, requiring an heavier construction (even when scaled). So if this ship is 200% the displacement of the nimitz, and let's assume 25% of the nimitzes displacement was the steel of the hull, this hull will not weigh 50% of the nimitzes displacement but significantly more, possibly even 75%. In other words: you get an much larger ship but you don't get as much additional usable displacement, if you do not increase the hull depth so the L/D is at least equal to that of the nimitz.
- All your elevators but one are on one side of the ship. This is something that is normally avoided in carrier design, while it doesn't have to be 50-50, right now only a 6th of the elevators (if the double size one counts double) that is on the port side.
- The forwardmost elevator is so close to the catapult that it will not be in use when that catapult is in use. There is no way to reach the waist cataputs from any elevator without blocking the landing runway. The weapon elevators interfere with the hangar proper and the midship elevators are very close together. In other words: I think the elevator arrangement right now makes this ships flight deck far less efficient and fast compared to the nimitz's, even though you got 2 additional catapults and a lot of space that would suggest something more optimal was the goal.
- Are you sure the duplication of the radars makes sense?
- I really doubt the VLS would be placed that high up. It will be a nightmare to reload and maintain, dropped boosters WILL land on the flight deck, misfires are pretty likely to take out one or more of your primary sensor systems and it adds tons of topweight and weight to one side of your ship.
- I don't think this arrangement would be used for the SPY-1 radars, even if SPY-1 radars were to be used.
- as I think Erik pointed out, your are missing directors for most if not all of the missiles in your VLS.
- The location of the phalanx makes that none of your Mk 29's has an better then 90-100 degree firing angle between the phalanx and the sponson aft of it. Speaking of the Mk 29's, if you have that much VLS, why would you even have them?
- The very wide bow and relatively low freeboard, makes that near the anchors, the hull angles out at a very horizontal angle. This means that in waves there will be considerable slamming. In addition, just aft of there, you added sponsons, making that fat bow even wider. I would be worried about structural damage there from impacts, let alone the vibrations and noise going trough the ship due to these impacts.

Most of these comments are fixable (and I think I already pointed many of them out on the discord) but it will take some more work to get this to something workable.

Btw, keep an good look at the shadows. Some parts have shadows, but the superstructure and masts do not, and the shadows go in multiple different directions. The shape of the SPY-1 Array also doesn't fit between the side and top view, both show different angles and arrangements. In addition, I think several parts do not line up properly between side and top view, such as the sponsons, aft of the superstructure, elevators etc.

_________________
Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

I figured I should update this, as it has gone through a ton of work and discussion on the discord. It's still not "done" but I poured a fair amount of work into it and got a lot of support from the discord community. I did try to address as many concerns as possible, but there is still more to do and I really haven't had time.

Schlemmer did the deck storage portion. Very good.

Your SPY-1 arrays are still mismatched between top and side view.
Are you sure this ship would field SM-3, SM-2 MR, SM-2 ER and ESSM all in the VLS? I would think this ship would focus on self defence.
EDIT: you also have no guidance at all for the standard missiles, without any proper directors.

_________________
Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

Nice work, it's a little on the large side of things . 2 questions and 1 comment; 1. What is that flag your flying? 2. What's that gun on the aft and forward sponsoons? Also one thing I noticed, near the aft crane this is a little bar, and it just disappears near the aft VLS block. I'm not sure if that's intentional or not, but those are just my quick thoughts. Really nice work though.

The flag is a bit of an Easter-Egg, an alternate USA flag I made. No real significance beyond that.

The AA guns? DIVADS CIWS of course. Wildly overkill. And no, that is probably one of the mistakes from when I tried to match views. Getting views to match on something this large is hard.

Radars, like a lot of people, are something I struggle with. I definitely want to dial down the missles, though with 112 theres might be a bit of variety even if 90% of the load is focused on self defense. But yeah directors and radar need more work. I might even greatly expand the tower. Open to a recommended loadout though, especially if there is components already out there.

Well, the best way to start is to look what other ships carrying a similar VLS load carry, and what carriers usually have in the way of weapons. If you find out you have too many VLS for the self defence weapons, well maybe you have too many VLS cells then.

You might be able to replace your Mk 95 directors with SPG-62 and basically have the burke radar fit for your missile guidance. That should be able to deal with both ESSM and SM-2.
Alternatively, you could add SPG-51's to get basically the Mk 74 FCS for the standards in addition to the Mk 95's for the ESSM. In that context it becomes a tad weird to have SPY-1 though as you then basically created an NTU ship.

_________________
Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin