I must admit to quite liking the Kiev's look as a child. It always struck me as looking what I would like a warship to look like, practicalities aside!
On 8 January 1941, Rear Admiral Bruce Fraser, Third Sea Lord and Controller of the Navy asked the DNC to work up a hybrid aircraft carrier based on the Lion-class hull. Two months later, a sketch design was presented for consideration, but it was not well liked by the participants. This design retained all three main gun turrets and the flight deck was deemed too short to be useful.[17] A revised version with only the two forward turrets retained was requested and was ready in July. In this design, the displacement ranged from 44,750 long tons (45,470 t) at standard load and 51,000 long tons (52,000 t) at deep load. The design's dimensions included a waterline length of 800 feet (243.8 m), a beam of 115 feet (35.1 m) and a draught of 29 feet 6 inches (9.0 m). The flight deck was 500 feet (152.4 m) long and had a width of 73 feet (22.3 m). The machinery was unchanged, but 600 long tons (610 t) of additional oil increased her endurance to 14,750 nautical miles (27,320 km; 16,970 mi) at 10 knots. The hybrid's armament consisted of six 16-inch guns in two triple turrets, sixteen 5.25-inch guns and eight octuple 2-pounder mounts. Twelve fighters and two torpedo bombers could be carried. The Director of Naval Gunnery was particularly pungent in his assessment of the design, "The functions and requirements of carriers and of surface gun platforms are entirely incompatible ...the conceptions of these designs ...is evidently the result of an unresolved contest between a conscious acceptance of aircraft and a subconscious desire for a 1914 Fleet ...these abortions are the results of a psychological maladjustment. The necessary readjustments should result from a proper re-analysis of the whole question, what would be a balanced fleet in 1945, 1950 or 1955?"[18] Not surprisingly, the design was rejected.[19]
To be concise: If a battlecarrier was hit by heavy caliber fire in such a ways to damage its ability to operate aircraft and aircraft operations will most likely prevent the battlecarrier operating with the battleline, what good is it.
Here is a Cruiser that was build by a minor navy that was a Half/Carrier and half/ Cruiser
GOTLAND light cruiser - seaplane carrier
IMHO the thing is to build it from the planning stage up so it makes sense as a cohesive whole. Furious, Ise etc were conversions and thus had all the problems of a compromise.
The question needing answering I guess, is what role is envisaged where the main guns are concerned? It can't stand in the line of battle, even as a scouting force, because any hit to the flight deck would disable half of the ship's capabilities.
Presumably therefore, the guns would need to have either a bombardment role, or a defensive one. But how battleship-sized guns could do this better than a combination of its own aircraft and their payloads and say 6" or maybe 8" gun turrets I don't know...
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
Closer to home, I seem to recall that the Invincible class had space for a brace of Exocet's to go with the Sea Dart launcher, but this option wasn't taken up. It could of course have been part of the cunning plan to smuggle an otherwise verboten small aircraft carrier past the treasury by calling it a 'through-deck-cruiser'That actually makes more sense than a battle carrier, the demands aren't of missiles and aircraft aren't nearly as competitive as guns and aircraft.
Even if such ships were built, they would very quickly be made obsolete, no? WWII carrier aircraft could easily outrange the gunships, and what would be the point after the war of having a carrier with heavy guns that would never be used?
IIRC, the early BC conversions (Lexingtons, Akagi, Kaga*) carried 8" guns because the admirals were afraid aircraft would be worthless except for scouting and wanted to get some firepower out of them. Akagi and Kaga were also built so they could be quickly converted back into BCs if the carrier thing didn't work out.
*Kaga was technically a battleship, not a battlecruiser.
IIRC, the early BC conversions (Lexingtons, Akagi, Kaga*) carried 8" guns because the admirals were afraid aircraft would be worthless except for scouting and wanted to get some firepower out of them. Akagi and Kaga were also built so they could be quickly converted back into BCs if the carrier thing didn't work out.
*Kaga was technically a battleship, not a battlecruiser.