And now for my next trick.     Er, I mean, ship.    Need opinions, please.
I'm planning to start later this year work on converting a TAMIYA 1/350 scale USS Enterprise aircraft carrier into a what if future USS United States CVN-90 stealth aircraft carrier. How much stealth features the new carrier will have is still being decided.
One thing I'd like to have is maybe two or three laser defense systems for defense against drones and anti-ship missiles. But where to put them on the ship?
There are three possible configurations based on whether I have 2 or 3 laser defense systems. To make them, I am going to use the same parts from a Hasegawa aircraft weapons set that I had used for my earlier USS Wisconsin future battleship. (See pictures below.)
Here are the three options for adding laser defense systems to the model:
OPTION 1: Picture titled Laser 1 below. Add only 2 laser defense systems. One on the port side and 1 on the starboard side.
OPTION 2: Picture labled Laser 2 below. Add 2 laser defense systems. One at the back of the island superstructure and 1 at the front.
OPTION 3: Picture labled Laser 3 below. Same as Option 2, but also add a 3rd laser defense system on the port side.

No laser defense systems will go on the weapon sponsons on the forward port, forward starboard, aft port, or aft starboard areas as those locations will be for either VLS missiles, RAM missile launchers, or Phalanx CIWS.

Two or three is tricky! It's a pity you don't have a fourth, as that would make the layout much simpler.

Ideally, you want to cover both sides, forward & astern, from sea-level up. With four laser systems you could simply quarter the approaches (starboard forward, port forward, starboard stern & port stern) with the ability to bring two lasers to bear on an approaching target if required (forward pair, starboard pair, stern pair & port pair).

That probably doesn't help but I've been thinking & not coming up with anything better or even remotely comparable with only three units (two is worse).

Quote from: Old Wombat on May 23, 2023, 07:12:34 AMTwo or three is tricky! It's a pity you don't have a fourth, as that would make the layout much simpler.

Ideally, you want to cover both sides, forward & astern, from sea-level up. With four laser systems you could simply quarter the approaches (starboard forward, port forward, starboard stern & port stern) with the ability to bring two lasers to bear on an approaching target if required (forward pair, starboard pair, stern pair & port pair).

That probably doesn't help but I've been thinking & not coming up with anything better or even remotely comparable with only three units (two is worse).

Yeah, 2 or 3 won't be easy to place. I would like all the laser systems to have overlapping fields of coverage/firing arcs if possible. But I'm not sure how to do it with just 3 systems. I'd like to buy a 4th Hasegawa weapon set, but I can't afford it right now. Putting 2 laser defense systems on the island superstructure might be nice, but if the island gets hit/destroyed, then the laser defense systems are also destroyed. Not good.

Another design issue I've thought about for my carrier is making it similar to the Gerald Ford class with only three aircraft elevators instead of four. So one elevator on the starboard side needs to go, but I'm not sure which one yet. Picture below.

I'd go two on the tower, and delete either the 1st or the last lift.

I'd lose #2.

#4 is your primary launching lift for the bow cat's.

#3 is your back-up for the bow cat's or, in a pinch, the port side cat's & can take down any aircraft that pull up long on the wires.

#1 can bring up aircraft to launch from the port side cat's & take down any that pull up short on the wires.

It might also depend on what's going on on the hanger deck. In my uneducated thoughts I could delete #2.

I will have a look in my stash to see if I have a spare Targeting pod of the same type for you, especially if that makes a number four so that you can have one per corner.

Gondor

Quote from: Gondor on May 25, 2023, 04:48:38 AMI will have a look in my stash to see if I have a spare Targeting pod of the same type for you, especially if that makes a number four so that you can have one per corner.

Gondor

Thanks for checking. But I'm not sure I actually want to put a laser defense system at each weapon sponson as shown in the pic below. I'd like to keep the aft port and starboard sponsons for VLS ESSM. The forward port and starboard sponsons might be too small for laser defense systems.
But.........I'm still in the early stages of deciding on things and preparing plans.

Just checked and I have a spare you can have if you decide to go in that direction.

As for the placement of your VLS system, you need depth equal to but generally more than the length of the missile that will be launched from it. Are your missiles containerised or magazine fed? Are you really sure that haveing things that can go boom should be placed on the outside of the ship, where if something hits them they go boom!

If you are modifying the first designe you showed in this thread then I would suggest that one of the forward lifts on the Starboard side of the ship could be replaced with your VLS system, either in part or full.

If you go with my idea for the location of the VLS system location you could also position one of your Lasers there as well. The other two could then be at somewhere near the aft of the Port side which covers in-comming aircraft pretending to be part of the carrier group. Laser number three would be on the opposite side of the first laser and the VLS system.

Just my take on what you have put forward here.

Gondor

You could add extra sponsons for the laser weapons. A laser on the island would have to fire over the flight deck, which puts deck ops at risk. With one port, one startboard and one on the stern you'd have 360º coverage.

As I said in my original post, I'll be using a 1/350 scale TAMIYA USS Enterprise aircraft carrier as the basis for my CVN-90 USS United States carrier. This carrier will be (Hopefully) a bit more advanced than the current Gerald Ford class carriers. I'm thinking probably 2030's or early 2040's. So the ship will hopefully have more stealthy features to it like angled island superstructure and so forth. Two sources I'll be using for reference are Navsource and Seaforces.org websites.
https://www.navsource.org/archives/02/78.htm
https://www.navsource.org/archives/02/79.htm
https://www.seaforces.org/usnships/cvn/CVN-78-USS-Gerald-R-Ford.htm
https://www.seaforces.org/usnships/cvn/CVN-79-USS-John-F-Kennedy.htm
https://www.seaforces.org/usnships/cvn/Gerald-R-Ford-class.htm
Paints used will be mostly Vallejo # 70.615 Light Ghost Grey for most structures and hull, # 71.048 Engine Gray for the flight deck, and # 71.097 Medium Gunship Gray for other non-flight deck decks. I am not going to paint the lower hull blue like I did on my previous USS Wisconsin battleship and my advanced Arleigh Burke destroyer. I've tried visualising a blue hulled carrier in my mind and it just doesn't look good to me. So the lower hull will stay red.
As far as aircraft complement goes, I haven't thought that far ahead. But I do have plenty of F-18E's, F-18F's, F-35C's, some E-2C's, SH-60's, and X-47 UAV's. How much of each aircraft I put on the carrier I haven't decided yet.

As far as weapons and sensors and other small stuff to add to the carrier, I will be using Veteran Models resin aftermarket accessories. Flight deck tractors are by Black Dog accessories.
Thank goodness I stocked up on all these.    I won't be using ALL the boxes. That would be silly. I'm just showing what I have.

I keep getting the strange urge to build a ship every time I see your projects. It's all the extra parts that get in my way.
I saw your USS Wisconsin at a show which was amazing so I'm sure this build be awesome!

Quote from: seadude on May 30, 2023, 04:26:24 PMI won't be using ALL the boxes. That would be silly. I'm just showing what I have.

Show off 

No it's fascinating for a non ship modeller to see all this extras that are available.