What tonnage do you get by scaling up an armoured carrier to operate the realistic maximum number of OTL WW2 aircraft (80?) and store them all in hangars?
You get the Audacious Class, as planned.What tonnage do you get by scaling up an armoured carrier to operate the realistic maximum number of OTL WW2 aircraft (80?) and store them all in hangars?
Please God, NO!This far into the thread and no mention of CVA 58 "United States" yet?
Please God, NO!
Swear it was the designed by the same pack of idiots responsible foe the Alaska class
That was the sort of scenario I was thinking about. What if the US Navy starts thinking about what would happen if they lost an island base in the pacific or England is knocked out of the war. So let's say you get at least one Midway class style carrier. Maybe the concept of the super carrier is that it carries scout planes taken from battleships/cruisers in addition to a normal air wing (fighters, torpedo and dive bomber).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?)
You get the Audacious Class, as planned.
A slightly beamier Illustrious, allowing aircraft to be stored 4 abreast instead of 3, and 2 hangar decks, each 17ft 6in.
78-100 aircraft, 33-36,000 tons.
Wiki suggests 60 aircraft as built and 37,000 t...
Still, enlarging the design to carry 80 aircraft probably only gets you to 45k or so.
What about my idea of a Montana hull being converted to a CV in a scare over Japanese mega-carriers (akin to what led to the building of the Alaskas)?
Wow, I forgot. The design was already there. Butterfly Barbarossa and there you goYou would need a hybrid BB-Carrier like one of the Gibbs & Cox designs for the Soviets. Twelve 16" guns and 36 fixed wing a/c. 74K tons IIRC.
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The wiki article shows the configuration of Ark Royal and Eagle as completed in the 1950's.Wiki suggests 60 aircraft as built and 37,000 t...
Still, enlarging the design to carry 80 aircraft probably only gets you to 45k or so.
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?)
Oh God. Now you've gone and done it. You're about to call the bear down on this threadThe Essex class operated 80 to 100 aircraft and there is a limit to how many aircraft a carrier can operate successfully.
Not quite sure why the Alaska class gets slagged here. They were designed for a specific purpose: to counter Japanese and German commerce raiding pocket battleships and cruisers. German threat was gone by 1943 but Japanese cruisers were still a threat till 1945. Construction was started when these threats existed but were gone by the time they were ready for combat.
Please God, NO!
Swear it was the designed by the same pack of idiots responsible foe the Alaska class