Battleships

[dy031101]

A question: does anyone know the exact dimentions of Gene Anderson's Iowa battleship-carrier conversion idea (with longer flight deck and catapults) and how many aircraft the design can accommodate?

Thanks in advance.

[Sauragnmon]

Well, the dimensions of the Hull are the same - where Gene made up his rebuild's extra flight deck was Forward.  If you really get a good look, he trunked the stacks together into the Forward stack's area, much like an oversized South Dakota, mostly by angling the aft stack into the position to trunk it together.  The FLYCO area is right behind the aft stack, so what you're looking at is the fact most of the aft structure area, where in Strike Iowa there's the aft Tomahawks, and as you can see, it actually covers over the original position for the lower second 5" Turret.  I'm not sure Why he went with having a second 5" at deck level, aside from the wider positioning to potentially give a slightly wider field of fire around the hangar, and to maximize the field of fire of the two Mk71 guns.

As to Exact dimensions? not a clue.  I would imagine she could host ten, maybe twenty high end fighters.

[dy031101]

I would imagine she could host ten, maybe twenty high end fighters.

I would kinda expect the number to include a combination of different aircraft/rotorcraft if the assault ship is to carry helicopters in addition to the jet fighters......

Am I correct?

[Jschmus]

http://books.google.com/books?id=L4z8UIRymR4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=&f=false

This was posted on the Secret Projects forum by Triton.  You can scan through practically the whole book.  I'm contemplating a quick build of the Kentucky BBG based on one of the less exotic proposals listed here.  Now if I can just lay hands on some 1/700 Tartar missile launchers...

[Joe C-P]

I've nearly finished a version of the BBG Kentucky, using a Revell Iowa and a Monogram Chicago. I just need to finish the rigging and set it into the base I built. It retains the forward main guns, with one twin Tartar port and starboard, a couple 5" singles, and a twin Talos aft.

[tigercat]

Ships have been welded back together after having part of them destroyed and in WW1 a destroyr HMS Zubian was created from the surviving parts of HMS Nubian and Zulu. I also believe that some of the Liberty/victory ships were extended by having a new section added.

Would it have been possible to and/or realistic/worth the resources to say circumnavigate the Washington treaty by designing a stern section that could have been attached to Nelson and Rodney to provide them with extra rear facing turrets .

Ie: they were designed in such a way to make this feasible in time of war or would the positioning of engines and propellors have made this unworkable .

[pyro-manic]

You'd have to replace the entire rear half of the ship, which would probably be as expensive as building a whole new one.

[Joe C-P]

Hmm. Looking at Nelson and Rodney, I tried thinking through moving the third turret from one behind the main tower superstructure of the other, but it doesn't seem to work. The problem is the engine and boiler rooms would be in the way, and redesigning the ship to do this would be too much work for too little benefit.

If the RN is willing to give up the third turret entirely, which is possible given its poor location and resulting limited field of fire, they could reduce the ship's displacement and replace it with more AA guns and perhaps a cross-deck catapult like the KGVs. This might gain the ship a knot or three, especially if they use some of the weight to modify the bow design, lengthening the ship, raising the foredeck and curving the stem, and improving the machinery.

Darn! I have a Rodney hull, but used the superstructure and armament for my USS Indiana as sold to the RN.

[Jeffry Fontaine]

There are several what-if battleship discussions on-going in the What If section of The Ship Model Forum.  The most recent topic to be started is on the subject of a modern Scharnhorst.  There are other what-if discussions on heavy cruisers and smaller combatants that may also spark your interest. 

[tigercat]

I have just been reading Sing the Warspite by Duncan Harding which was an enjoyable Yarn if nothing else and it got me thinking. Had WW2 gone on longer say a couple of years would we have had many servicable Battleships

Obviously HMS Vanguard would have been around but the WW1 era ships was pretty much worn out and many had already been relegated to secondary roles . From the book I gather that HMS Warspite was pretty much worn out by 1945 but then the Grand Old Lady did live a particularly hard life where it came to damage . I also understand that one of the reasons that Nelson and Rodney were scrapped so soon after the war is that they too were worn out.

I don't know if the King George V class were in a similar state?

Presumably a lot of the escorts would have been  worn out especially the Flower class in thiose tough Atlantic conditions

On the other hand we had plenty of carriers building  or planned and this was the transition period between the two type of ships anyway so maybe we wpouldn't have needed so many Battlewagons especially if the extended war had been against Japan.

[Mossie]

There were plans to ressurect the Lion Class post war I believe, I think only two of the four hulls were scrapped.  HMS Vanguard would probably have been ready for late 1945 had hostilitites continued, I don't know if any further ships in the class were planned?

[tigercat]

http://www.dataviewbooks.com/lion.html

Some more info on the Lions including some kind of Hybrid Carrier design

[ysi_maniac]

Stalingrad class battlecruiser
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalingrad_class_battlecruiser
One original point in this project is the calibre of main battery. I do like it.

Sovetsky Soyuz class battleship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovetsky_Soyuz_class_battleship
Similar to Iowa class IMO.

[Joe C-P]

Stalingrad class battlecruiser
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalingrad_class_battlecruiser
One original point in this project is the calibre of main battery. I do like it.

Sovetsky Soyuz class battleship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovetsky_Soyuz_class_battleship
Similar to Iowa class IMO.

Actually, the Soyuz was only similar to the Iowas in the main battery caliber, possibly a design based on plans bought from the US firm of Gibbs and Cox. Most of the hull design is Italian in origin, and the vessel is considerably larger than the Iowa class, closer in size to the Yamatos.

I do like the Stalingrad class; it would have made the Black Sea and Mediterranean Sea more interesting during the Cold War - what would NATO have done to counter one of these?

[Jschmus]

There was also the K-1000:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-1000_battleship

It was a hoax, albeit a scary one.

http://warshipsresearch.web-log.nl/.a/6a013485104046970c0133f2f38ed4970b-pi