AHC: WW2 "Super Carriers"

In the modern day, the US only has a few aircraft carriers, while they finished WW2 with over 100. However, those carriers were mostly small escort carriers. Your challenge is to have any country possessing an aircraft carrier with 70,000 tons of displacement by the end of the war.
 
Whittle has a better trajectory for his jet development in the 30s, and has a jet flying in 1936 or so and a jet fighter in service by 1940.

Carriers get bigger to deal with the bigger, faster and heavier aircraft and the Indomitable class top out at 70kT In 1944.
 

SsgtC

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300,000 tons or more https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk

Midway class, as designed, standard displacement was 45,000 tons. Does this include weight of the aircraft? By the 1990s the Midway class were 69,000 tons standard

That was JUST Midway though. Coral Sea wasn't near as bloated. Midway got that big because the US tried to turn her into a supercarrier on the cheap. They gave her a flight deck damn near as big as Nimitz, then had to add massive hull bulges to try to restore her stability and get her to sit higher in the water. By the time she decommissioned, her flight deck was barely useable in anything more than calm seas. Coral Sea kept her smaller flight deck, was much more stable, sat higher in the water, and was considered a better sea boat.
 

CalBear

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Problem with this is that there isn't a reason for that sort of size. Shinano was that heavy because of her original design (lots of armored bulkheads to soak up tonnage). The USN figured out that it was damned near impossible to operate more than 100 aircraft from a single deck (Midway could handle around 130 late WW II aircraft, but it was like a monkey F$$$ing a football).

It isn't until you manage to get nuclear powered CVN that carriers top 70,000 tons, standard load (the Kitty Hawk subclass didn't touch 70K standard, did manage 80K full load, even the JFK was under 61K). You can see the difference in displacement when you compare the JFK and the Enterprise. Overall dimensions are similar, but the Big E is around 13,000 tons greater in displacement (reactors and especially shielding is HEAVY) and a CVN is just about always at full load (light and standard load is largely, but not exclusively, a matter of how much fuel and feed water a ship has aboard, since any nuclear powered vessel is always had "full fuel tanks" and since feed water can be distilled from seawater in any quantity desired, there really isn't much of a difference excepting how full the aircraft fuel bunkers are at the time).

tl;dr: Get nuclear power earlier
 
Thats a lot earlier for nuclear power though.
I guess in WW2 you are setting the bar a not high for an original carrier design.
But, if you imagine someone who sees a need to fly jets or longer ranged twin engines maybe?
How about AANW carriers carrying twin engined bombers with Cruise missiles.
As said above, its a bit of OTL premises.
 
Have no Washington 1922 Naval treaty limiting Battleship size or numbers

Battleships get bigger and bigger through the 20s and early 30s

Early 30s a Naval treaty comes into effect and the monster BBs on the slip ways of various nations (USA, Japan and the UK) rather than be scrapped are allowed to be turned into carriers.
 
CalBear is quite correct, you dont need a 70kt carrier in WW2.
There's an optimal number of planes you can operate from a single carrier, depending on circumstances its around 80 planes. Having a few more is useful, but certainly there is no need to go over a hundred.
So the Essex or Audacious class are the optimal ships.

Remember, in this era the cost of the ships is mainly steel, so for 2 35kt carriers are only a little more expensive that a 70kt one, can launch twice the aircraft and can be in two places at once.
 
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Have one of the Montanas be laid down before said class is cancelled and the Americans, in a scare over Japanese mega-carriers (similar to what spurred on the building of the Alaskas), convert said Montana hull into a carrier?
 
One idea I had was inspired by the "maximum Battleship" studies commissioned by Senator Tillman around the time of WWI. Maybe with the signing of the WNT, a similar "Maximum Carrier" study is initiated in a similar format to explore how big a carrier can be built (and how big can carrier aircraft get). Such studies could influence CV designs the way the Tillman BBs influenced US BB design.
 
Don't have Aircraft Carrier tonnage count as much under the Washington treaty as well as Germany being allowed Aircraft carriers of any tonnage under the Versailles treaty.
Given Hitler's ego big carriers would get built and Goering wouldn't get the way of Hitler's ego if he knew what was good for him.
 
Lets say the G3 Battlecruisers were begun and due to the Washington conference being delayed by at least a year two were available for carrier conversions ending up much like the Japanese Shinano.
 
Whittle has a better trajectory for his jet development in the 30s, and has a jet flying in 1936 or so and a jet fighter in service by 1940.

Carriers get bigger to deal with the bigger, faster and heavier aircraft and the Indomitable class top out at 70kT In 1944.

Problem with this is that there isn't a reason for that sort of size. Shinano was that heavy because of her original design (lots of armored bulkheads to soak up tonnage). The USN figured out that it was damned near impossible to operate more than 100 aircraft from a single deck (Midway could handle around 130 late WW II aircraft, but it was like a monkey F$$$ing a football).

CalBear is quite correct, you dont need a 70kt carrier in WW2.
There's an optimal number of planes you can operate from a single carrier, depending on circumstances its around 80 planes. Having a few more is useful, but certainly there is no need to go over a hundred.
So the Midway or Audacious class are the optimal ships.

One idea I had was inspired by the "maximum Battleship" studies commissioned by Senator Tillman around the time of WWI. Maybe with the signing of the WNT, a similar "Maximum Carrier" study is initiated in a similar format to explore how big a carrier can be built (and how big can carrier aircraft get). Such studies could influence CV designs the way the Tillman BBs influenced US BB design.

Go with @highwayhoss , carrier design studies happen on paper.
Then go with @Riain and have jets happen earlier, and be seen as THE answer.

For the Pacific War, you need range, which means huge amounts of fuel for those early fighters, possibly multiple engines (4 engine fighter, anyone?). So these 'fighters' will be big and thirstly.
Even with cats and traps, you may need a longer take-off, and so a bigger ship. More space used for runway may mean less deck-park available - or an even bigger flat-top to hold the planes warming up.
Many of the planes on-board this ship will be piston, still, so you need AvGas, JetFuel (given how thirsty the jets are, this ship may be half tanker), and bunkerfuel for the ship.

You might well need two-man operation of the jets, and refueling tankers....

So. You want 100 war aircraft, including, say, 35 jets. Which require tankers (converted medium bombers?), massive fuel supply. If you're using medium bombers as tankers, why not throw in some more as actual medium bombers....

Yeah, if such a design is being worked on in a back-office somewhere, and Pearl Harbor happens, .... I can see it rolled out, and ready by the end of the war. Barely.
It could be darn near SuperCarrier size.

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Edit. New thought. Forget the early carrier design. Just have jets arrive earlier, and have a huge buzz. Some admiral, wanting to keep short-legged jets off HIS ships, orders a reductio ad absurdum study of what might be required, deliberately coming up with such a massive ship that no one in their right mind would build one.
However, Kelly Johnson comes up with a jet that's (barely) feasible, the jetmania is in full swing, and .... Hey, we've got a plan here, it's the only one available. Let's build it!!! (Let's also spend a couple of years designing a more optimized ship for post-war, but we need SOMETHING NOW.)
(Hey, it's saner than Habakkuk or the Alaskas....)
 
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Theoretically the issue of size could get you to a "big" carrier in this era where (1) the carrier is expected to take the aviation fuel and munitions to sea for extended operations rather than rely on forward bases (Britain) or underway replenishment (USA), thus rather than more aircraft it is sores driving size, and (2) the notion of protection takes more serious form, the ships need armored against both air and sub and maybe surface opponents (less reliance on escorts) and require greater armament (likely mostly AA). That could have taken hold rather than the idea that smaller and more "disposable" decks was the optimal route. If carriers were to remain up with the battleline yet just an adjunct then they might be fewer in number and far heavier built.
 

CalBear

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Go with @highwayhoss , carrier design studies happen on paper.
Then go with @Riain and have jets happen earlier, and be seen as THE answer.

For the Pacific War, you need range, which means huge amounts of fuel for those early fighters, possibly multiple engines (4 engine fighter, anyone?). So these 'fighters' will be big and thirstly.
Even with cats and traps, you may need a longer take-off, and so a bigger ship. More space used for runway may mean less deck-park available - or an even bigger flat-top to hold the planes warming up.
Many of the planes on-board this ship will be piston, still, so you need AvGas, JetFuel (given how thirsty the jets are, this ship may be half tanker), and bunkerfuel for the ship.

You might well need two-man operation of the jets, and refueling tankers....

So. You want 100 war aircraft, including, say, 35 jets. Which require tankers (converted medium bombers?), massive fuel supply. If you're using medium bombers as tankers, why not throw in some more as actual medium bombers....

Yeah, if such a design is being worked on in a back-office somewhere, and Pearl Harbor happens, .... I can see it rolled out, and ready by the end of the war. Barely.
It could be darn near SuperCarrier size.

---
Edit. New thought. Forget the early carrier design. Just have jets arrive earlier, and have a huge buzz. Some admiral, wanting to keep short-legged jets off HIS ships, orders a reductio ad absurdum study of what might be required, deliberately coming up with such a massive ship that no one in their right mind would build one.
However, Kelly Johnson comes up with a jet that's (barely) feasible, the jetmania is in full swing, and .... Hey, we've got a plan here, it's the only one available. Let's build it!!! (Let's also spend a couple of years designing a more optimized ship for post-war, but we need SOMETHING NOW.)
(Hey, it's saner than Habakkuk or the Alaskas....)
Well, the thing about jets is that they are so much more effective that you simply do not need huge numbers. Same goes for later piston engine designs (the A-1 was roughly four times as capable as the aircraft it replaced, it was also fully capable of replacing two different aircraft (dive bombers and torpedo bombers). The F2H Banshee had 3,000 pound bombload while also carrying four 20mm cannon, with more range than the Corsair (nearly double) or the Hellcat (around 50% greater), something that sort of brings the "thirsy jet" concept into question (even the FH Phantom, which was designed in 1943, had nearly identical range to the F4U). Both of these aircraft operated quite happily from the Essex short hulls at 27,000 tons. The Midway class was meant to allow much larger air wings (as noted, this capability proved to be mainly a paper improvement), while also improving survivability and on station time. Both the Essex and Midway classes were able to operate the, for the era, enormous A3 Skywarrior without serious modifications (angled decks were more a matter of operational tempo and higher landing speeds than anything else), although the size of aircraft like the A3 (which was almost 2.5x the length of the F4U) pushed into the "supercarrier" era. As noted, even the Forrestal/Kitty Hawk/JFK supercarriers, which were able to operate everything up to and including the F-14, E-2C, and F4 barely meet the 70k ton cut-off at standard load. Add nuclear reactors, with the extra shielding and weight of the kettles, and you now can reach up to the 90k+ ton level (although it needs to noted that the de Gaulle manages quite nicely at 45k tons and the RN's new QE class just touches 70k with conventional propulsion).
 
Lets say the G3 Battlecruisers were begun and due to the Washington conference being delayed by at least a year two were available for carrier conversions ending up much like the Japanese Shinano.
The G3 or N3 were not Big enough, but how about if the N3 start as a hybrid battleship carrier design? Not far from it to start. Then in 1930's a relatively short aft deck is lengthened by adding an extra section amidships to increase speed (and weight),but sadly, engaging the Bismarck it is damaged in the front turrets and rebuilt as a full carrier. Making a flight deck above the armored deck adds more weight and voila, you have a super carrier - without any need for such a design.
 
Working on the principle of a carrier for c. 100, but without early jet development etc, how viable a concept would a long endurance carrier, perhaps carrying larger bombers (a worthwhile number of twin engine Mosquito size aircraft or bigger?) plus the usual fighters for air defence and lighter operations be?

My thinking would be a carrier with large bunkers to support extended time from port, whilst also carrying a force of longer ranged aircraft with bigger bomb loads. We avoid the issues of too large a number of aircraft on a ship, but the carrier would still need to be pretty big to carry bigger airframes and the fuel plus ordnance load. You might be looking towards 70k then, especially if you then armour it up too.

The likely candidate for such a beast would be the US where they consider the design as an answer for Pacific operations if they lost Australia or Hawaii, or perhaps Atlantic if UK is lost (a certain operation named for a maritime mammal considered feasible in some panic?)
 
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