Shipbucket

Most guests on cruise ships are in the superstructure, descended perhaps from the days of liners where the wealthy were in the superstructure. The obsession with private balconies has seen this extend to the point where the hull is the least desirable space for passenger cabins so crew spaces are down there.
Not to mention that cruise ships have very little below the waterline unlike their ancestors.

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The cruise ships that I've been on (ms Veendam and MS Pride of America) both had the lowest passenger accessible deck being deck 3 (out of 13 total decks). This deck was often only used for the gangway and the sickbay (for passengers) and the rest of the space was given to crew use. Deck 4 on both was in the hull as a passenger deck on Pride of America, while Veendam had the hull going to the 6th deck - with three of them being passenger decks.

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Well if it can help you, this is my AU LPD converted for Red Cross support with a good hospital capacity instead of the troops quarters, a wet dock for LCM landing crafts and a temporary hangar structure for the helicopter recovery.
I started from the Santi Class of the Italian Navy, then i stretch it and add some things that were vital for the role, such as cranes for container moving, communication suit, various radar and a couple of LRAD for self defence.
The "island" of the ship give more space available for containers and vehicles on the main deck, plus the ones in the garage.



Is smaller than the Wasp and more affordable for the use. Another advantage is that can come closer to coast and set up a Forward Medical Point remaining closer to it and beeing a smaller target for any treat...
This is my opinion...

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( http://shipbucket.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=8293 )

I just can't imagine you would ever need that much deck space. Maybe a design with the majority of the forward and amidships space providing CONEX box storage with 4 handing spots aft.

So I've been reading the posts I've missed and the Pros/Cons of having a well deck, smaller boats, using a smaller amphib ship, etc., etc.

Using a larger LHD (and/or other similar ship) amphib ship just makes more sense. Think about it:
* Larger flight deck than the U.S. Navy MERCY class hospital ships. LHD's have 2 aircraft elevators. Have 8-9 landing/takeoff spots. Internal hangar.
* Well deck capable of recieving large amounts of patients or transferring cargo via up to 3 LCAC's or 2 LCU'S or 6 LCM's and/or other small boating craft.
* Conversion of troop berthing areas to patient wards and other hospital ship facilities.
* While having a medium or large complement of "lifeboats" may not make sense for patient/cargo transferring, they are useful for "non-critical" patient transfers, operating where LCAC's or other larger craft can't go, and for crew and "non-critical" patient evacuation should something disasterous happen to the ship.

A hospital ship is supposed to recieve MASS amounts of patients. Therefor, a large well deck and flight deck are a must for this purpose. Anything smaller is out of the question.
Found the following on the Net:
http://www.coalitionofhope.org/
http://coalitionofhope.org/?page_id=13
http://blog.usni.org/2011/03/17/paint-it-white/

You could use GLACIESFIRE's design as a basis. Or modify a French Mistral for use as a hospital ship, with the vehicle garage deck converted to hospital space.

explain to me, why exactly would you so need that well deck and helicopter deck and hangar? I mean I just pointed my views out the previous page, which said that IMO these parts would be unnecessary. for an disaster relief ship..... yeah, that is something else, but that is also something else then an hospital ship, isn't it? I thought earlier in this thread you said this vessel would NOT be an disaster relief ship.

note that regular LPD's and LHD's already operate as hospital ships as part of their disaster relief role sometimes. the Dutch LPDs do for example, and the new JSS will/would have an full hospital on board.

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
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People dont survive just because they go to a hospital. Depending on the size of the disaster or type (nuclear, chemical, or biological) thats going to mean lots of dead bodies. Are yiou going to RIB them off 2 at a time? Leave the well deck and helo facilities. They make sense.

I was not saying remove them entirely. as nobody seems to have read it before.............. my post from the previous page.

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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

Honestly what situation do you think will ever happen where you would need eight simultaneous landings spots, or have to load patients hundreds at a time via well deck?

The comfort has 1000 hospital beds (and this is considered too many given its historical use and not cost effective). If you can trasnfer two per helicopter, 16 with all landing spots used, with 20 minutes between landings thats 20 hours to fill that entire ship by air. Do you know of any hospitals anywhere with eight landing pads? And thats before you have multiple LCUs and LCACs deliving hundreds an hour.

There is no need for this. The only reason the military ships have this sortie capacity is because they need to drop off as much force as possible at the same time to prevent being steamrolled by the defenders. Note that having eight landing spots is one thing, having the helicopters to use them is quite another. How many helos is your ship going to carry? Why the would you need two elevators if you are not concerned about combat redundancy or sortie generation rate?

As for cargo this is where we get into a gold plating scenario. I really can't think of anything but extrememly niche situations where having a hyprid cargo carrier/hospital ship becomes more effective than two purpose built vessels. The simple fact is they are wildly differnet missions with wildly different shipboard requirements. We drop off relief supplies all the time without needing hospital facilities, and our hosptital ships spend 99% of the time they are not pier side office buildings performing rotating mobile clinic duties in (where the inefficiency of their 1000 beds comes from) where cargo carrying is of no use.

So I go back to my eariler comments. A one off disaster relief ship could be useful but only in a very small subset of events, most of the time it will be completely unused. This is why I recommend using a military LHD or LPD that is drafted into this roll when needed but otherwise is filling a useful purpose as a naval unit. Maybe if you are a non militarized nation that wants to dive head first into disaster relief (Ireland, Iceland, whatever) a purpose build vessel with non miliary applications could make sense but again thats a niche situation.