HMS Victorious rebuild options?

Status
Not open for further replies.
The rebuild of HMS Victorious was a nightmare, but could it have gone any differently in the circumstances? The flight deck was fitted and then removed to fit new boilers, and then re-rebuilt to incorporate steam catapults, angled deck and the Type 984 radar.

But if the boilers were fitted when the flight deck first came off would the rebuild have incorporated the angled deck, steam catapults and 984, or would these be too immature? Or does the immaturity even matter given that Victorious only lasted until 1968 anyway?
 
The rebuild of HMS Victorious was a nightmare, but could it have gone any differently in the circumstances? The flight deck was fitted and then removed to fit new boilers, and then re-rebuilt to incorporate steam catapults, angled deck and the Type 984 radar.

But if the boilers were fitted when the flight deck first came off would the rebuild have incorporated the angled deck, steam catapults and 984, or would these be too immature? Or does the immaturity even matter given that Victorious only lasted until 1968 anyway?

I think the biggest problems were lack of money, the massive progress being made in aircraft designs etc* and the downsizing of the Royal Navy coupled with a confusing meandering 'long term' defence plan at the time.

*Victorious was laid down to a Treaty limited design in 1937 - so Swordfish and Sea Gladiator biplanes - Not Sea Venoms and Blackburn Buccaneers.

Personally I think they should have converted her into an assault ship and built a new carrier but that's hindsight for you.

The refit was no more (probably less) extensive than that inflicted on the USS Midway - although she did serve until the 90s
 

Delta Force

Banned
It might have been better for the Royal Navy to have scrapped or sold off most of its World War II vintage aircraft carriers in favor of modern construction. The Audacious class fleet carriers were the only ships in the Royal Navy capable of operating the heavier aircraft that entered service in the 1960s, and they had the added benefit of not being worn out from years of war service. If it wasn't for the hanger decks being too short in height, the Implacable class might have been interesting as smaller Essex class type complements to the Audacious class ships.
 
But if the boilers were fitted when the flight deck first came off would the rebuild have incorporated the angled deck, steam catapults and 984, or would these be too immature? Or does the immaturity even matter given that Victorious only lasted until 1968 anyway?
Ideally we need to know how long cutting off the top and fitting new boilers took, then you can figure out roughly how long after they started in 1950 it would be before they began rebuilding the deck. Depending on the year that's going to potentially change a fair number of things. HMS Ark Royal was commissioned in 1955 with a 5.5 degree partially angled flight deck, since they took a break in the middle of the build does anyone know when they took the decision to finish her with an angled flight deck? HMS Perseus was the ship they carried out the trials of steam catapults in 1950 and 1951 so you'd need the re-boilering to take at least a couple of years for steam catapults to be built in from the start I'd say.
 
It might have been better for the Royal Navy to have scrapped or sold off most of its World War II vintage aircraft carriers in favor of modern construction. The Audacious class fleet carriers were the only ships in the Royal Navy capable of operating the heavier aircraft that entered service in the 1960s, and they had the added benefit of not being worn out from years of war service. If it wasn't for the hanger decks being too short in height, the Implacable class might have been interesting as smaller Essex class type complements to the Audacious class ships.

I completely agree the 6 Armoured carriers had done their jobs and done them well but they were at the end of the day modified 1936 Treaty limited designs that could not handle the latest aircraft.

Better to have scrapped / sold them and built a pair of 45,000 ton + designs every 15 years with a plan on keeping 4 in circulation (minimum of 2 in service) from 1955.
 
Maybe it would have been better to improve communication between the relevant departments. The 1950's saw British carrier design being overtaken by aircraft development. All these planes were on the drawing board in the 50's and the designers should have known that planes the size of Scimitars, Sea Vixens and Buccaneers would be in service soon making anything smaller than the Audacious class too small to be effective.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Maybe it would have been better to improve communication between the relevant departments. The 1950's saw British carrier design being overtaken by aircraft development. All these planes were on the drawing board in the 50's and the designers should have known that planes the size of Scimitars, Sea Vixens and Buccaneers would be in service soon making anything smaller than the Audacious class too small to be effective.

I can think of one way to reduce aircraft height. Removing the landing gear and using flexible rubber flight decks could save a few feet of aircraft height. Swiss aircraft cavern technology could be used for the hanger deck.
 
I can think of one way to reduce aircraft height. Removing the landing gear and using flexible rubber flight decks could save a few feet of aircraft height. Swiss aircraft cavern technology could be used for the hanger deck.

The article you highlighted said that it might not be suitable for heavier aircraft and may require too much flying skill. Eric Winkle Brown was also one of the best test pilots ever so just because he could do it doesn't mean that others could.
 
As I understand it the process was:

  1. Tear the fight/hangar decks down
  2. Build up new flight/hangar decks
  3. Tear down new flight/hangar decks
  4. Replace boilers and machinery
  5. Build up new angled flight/hangar decks
I'd suggest that this would be a better and much cheaper process:


  1. Tear the fight/hangar decks down
  2. Replace boilers and machinery
  3. Build up new angled flight/hangar decks
I think that this would only result in a 5.5 degree angled deck and Type 965 AKE2 radars. However it might leave slip space and money available to convert another WW2 carrier to the OTL definitive Victorious specification before the Eagle goes in for her rebuild.
 
I can think of one way to reduce aircraft height. Removing the landing gear and using flexible rubber flight decks could save a few feet of aircraft height. Swiss aircraft cavern technology could be used for the hanger deck.

The problem with flexible flight decks was that having to jack up the plane onto a trolley before being able to move it out of the landing path took considerable time and slowed down the recovery process so such that the final plane in the flight would be running very low on fuel before it had a chance to be recovered. In addition flexible flight decks at sea would require a backup infrastructure of flight decks on land as bases and diversion airfields.
 
  1. Tear the fight/hangar decks down
  2. Replace boilers and machinery
  3. Build up new angled flight/hangar decks
I think that this would only result in a 5.5 degree angled deck and Type 965 AKE2 radars. However it might leave slip space and money available to convert another WW2 carrier to the OTL definitive Victorious specification before the Eagle goes in for her rebuild.

HMS Indomitable's boilers were half ready to give out at the time, so she'd seem the ideal candidate. Would her extra half hangar be a help or a hindrance in this case?
 
HMS Indomitable's boilers were half ready to give out at the time, so she'd seem the ideal candidate. Would her extra half hangar be a help or a hindrance in this case?

I don't know, the rebuild was down to the hangar deck but what does that mean for indomitable?

Btw they scrapped the cruiser swiftsure in the middle of a refit because she was knackered, they didn't seem to look at the ships before committing to major work.
 
What I would do post 45.

I have,

2 x Implacable-class - (better Illustrious) best CVs ready in commission 1944.(32,630 t deep)
4 x Illustrious class - heavy war use 36 design commissioned 40/41.(23,000 t standard)
1942 DLFCVs
- 10 Colossus class (2 as maintenance ships) 18,000 tons (full load) all new or finishing
1 x HMS Unicorn commissioned 43 (20,600 t deep)
1 x HMS Furious OLD !!!!

Building,

Audacious class 2 OTL lunched 46/50 37,000t standard.
Centaur class 4 finished OTL (53-59) 4 cancelled, 28,700 tons full load
Majestic class 6 ships 19,500 tons (full load)

So my plan (with a bit of crystal ball gazing.) would be to.


- Run the Illustrious class into the ground (without much in the way of maintenance)
- Run the Implacable-class with a bit more care (but nothing to expensive)
- Run the Colossus class until you sell them (they are cheap to run)
- Sell/scrap HMS Unicorn ?
- HMS Furious maybe keep as a floating hulk so we can save her as a museum :p.
- complete to replace the Colossus or sell the Majestic class.
- Work slowly on completing the Audacious class to replace the Illustrious class in 50-55.
- Work slowly on completing the Centaur class to run from 1950-55.

So in 55 you have,
2 Audacious + 2 Implacable (old now) and as many of the light fleets as you have not sold ( 4 Centaurs, few Majestic, less Colossus) some as repair platforms.

You then lay down 2 new bigger ships to replace the Implacable class, keep the Centaurs
class and turn any remaining the Majestic/Colossus into helicopter LPHs.

Some time later (1965-70) you repeat (sell old ships off) and turn the older ships into LPHs (or sell and build some new cheap ones)

JSB
 
yes I know it is old but some future google searcher is going to come across this thing and may as well have all the information in one spot...

As I understand the timeline of the rebuild the decision to go with the 984 radar and full angled deck came AFTER they started tearing off the flight deck for the second time. So if they had done a more thorough survey of the ship pre refit which is inexcusable since they had to re-boiler and turbine Indomitable.. Victorious would have come out of the refit with hydraulic cats and an interim angled deck at best.

Now the smart thing to do at that point is re-evaluate which carrier you are going to designate the training one. Shift that to Victorious rather than Indomitable since Indomitable is similar enough to the Implacable's that any design efforts put in to them could be very easily adapted to her. So the big rebuild would take place on Implacable. Which might come out looking something like this. Assume you are going to have to re-boiler and turbine her so strip her to the lower hangar deck, cut her and plug her the 40 feet forward of the centerline.. this will give you 40 feet more hangar and allow you to rearrange the engine compartment if need be.

At the end you have a ship 775 feet at the waterline about 106-108 feet beam at the waterline with a hangar about 530 feet long by 63 feet wide and a clear head height of 17' 6". I figure freeboard will be about 52 feet.. removing all the armor from the lower hangar allows you to go up 6 feet and the modifications are going to increase draft a bit.. so net out at 52, which puts the hangar floor about 24.5 feet above water.. about 3102 square meters of hangar (original 458+40 foot hull plug+forward lift and extension beyond the forward lift as in Vickie). Aft lift area not included in hangar but as aircraft repair/maintenance shop of about 50x60 feet... gallery deck will only be partially over it(and space there used for electronic repair), so has plenty of head room to do everything that would need to be done to an aircraft. Rough air group size of 40+.

By the time Victorious would be done with the new timeline rebuild the RN would be into her no more than 10 million, maybe 12.. they spent close to 30 in the original timeline since they had to do all that work twice, plus the new design work and electronics.. some inflation might be in there as well. Call it 10, they will cost Implacable out at 12, probably hit 15.. Which would still be less than the estimated cost of the new build 35k ton medium carrier the Admiralty was looking at and get you roughly the same capacity as her....if they cancel construction of Hermes which ran 18 to build... they could do Implacable, the full conversion on Eagle including the 40 foot stretch to the hull and totally new engines et al.. and either Indomitable or Indefatigable for about what they spent on Eagle, Victorious and Hermes. Run Victorious as the training ship until her boilers fail, switch that duty to Centaur.. As to Hermes? You convince the Australians they do not need TWO Majestic's but one Hermes. They would not be into finishing her much more than what they spent on the two they bought, and it would cost less to run one Centaur class than two Majestic class just in terms of crew requirements. Yes the Aussies will need a majestic for transport duties during Vietnam but you can loan them one and they can crew with merchant marine seaman.

note on the drawing I include a bulged bow assuming some cooperation with the builders of SS Canberra since the hulls are similar enough in dimensions and tonnage that they might throw the RN a bone and do some hull testing (P&O was a subsidized line so I can see no reason they would pitch a fit about it).
 

Attachments

  • ArgentineIndomImplacB2b2d copy.png
    ArgentineIndomImplacB2b2d copy.png
    148 KB · Views: 2,094
Last edited:
Top
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top