Stuff That Never Made It - but why?

[Hobbes]

- I said 100 sorties, not 100 aircraft. Starting at 500 km out, you have at least 7 hours, which means the 24-plane strike wing can do multiple round trips between carrier and BB.

- don't you think that if ships are developed with advance armour, ASMs will be developed to defeat this? You'll just get the same arms race as with tanks and ATGMs. Lesson: for any armour, a relatively small missile can be designed that will defeat it.

- a first strike against a BB would include ARMs. They may not sink the BB, but will blind it since radar aerials can't be armored.

[elmayerle]

Then again, most armies have now dropped tube artillery above 155mm, a calibre that cruisers can carry comfortably. I often wondered whether it's feasible to fit MLRS on a "fire support ship" (non-emotive term... )

In basic, yes, it's feasible though I suspect there'd be some intense engineering required for the reloading since you have to replace the entire six-pack cell each time.  Still, with proper storage and transport set ups, it wouldn't be an impossible job.  It'd be a most interesting challenge, though, particularly if there were a number of alternate loadouts that could be fired.

Something to watch for is that the MLRS launcher reloads from the front, not the back.  Your best bet would be to have the launcher drop to the horizontal and have a new "six-pack" ready to slide in when the fired one was removed.  *Grin* I'm familiar with this 'cause I once worked with a munition that was supposed to fit a similar launch box for firing from a MLRS.

What I came up with was a stabilised launcher that sat next to a deckhouse or hull step. One kind of reload sat below the launcher and reloaded vertically, another kind fed up into the deckhouse and reloaded horizontally.

[Hobbes]

An alternative would be foregoing reloads and fitting MLRS rounds in the Mk 41 launcher (or a smaller VLS to increase the amount of rounds you can carry)

[Weaver]

Then again, most armies have now dropped tube artillery above 155mm, a calibre that cruisers can carry comfortably. I often wondered whether it's feasible to fit MLRS on a "fire support ship" (non-emotive term... )

In basic, yes, it's feasible though I suspect there'd be some intense engineering required for the reloading since you have to replace the entire six-pack cell each time.  Still, with proper storage and transport set ups, it wouldn't be an impossible job.  It'd be a most interesting challenge, though, particularly if there were a number of alternate loadouts that could be fired.

What I came up with was a stabilised launcher that sat next to a deckhouse or hull step. One kind of reload sat below the launcher and reloaded vertically, another kind fed up into the deckhouse and reloaded horizontally.

Something to watch for is that the MLRS launcher reloads from the front, not the back.  Your best bet would be to have the launcher drop to the horizontal and have a new "six-pack" ready to slide in when the fired one was removed.  *Grin* I'm familiar with this 'cause I once worked with a munition that was supposed to fit a similar launch box for firing from a MLRS.

Ah, well in that case, you might be able to answer something I didn't know. Presumably, the box that six rockets come in has to be ejected from the launcher before a new one can be loaded. How expensive is it? It would be a lot easier to punt it over the side when it's empty, rather than recycle it into the magazine.... In fact, if it was too expensive to dump, I'd be inclined to redesign the system to eliminate it entirely, and handle the rounds individually in the manner of ASROC or Aspide.

Would that munition you were working on be the big single tactical missile (forget it's name) that an MLRS vehicle can carry two of?

[Weaver]

An alternative would be foregoing reloads and fitting MLRS rounds in the Mk 41 launcher (or a smaller VLS to increase the amount of rounds you can carry)

The problem with that is that you'd have to design and fit a special thrust-vectoring booster to each MLRS round, which could not only punt it over onto the correct bearing AND elevation, but do so precisely enough to get the unguided rocket on target. If that can't be done, then you need to fit guidance to the MLRS round, which makes it effectively a more-expensive all-new missile.

[elmayerle]

Well, the boxes are designed to be refurbished and reused.  Given the way they mount on the launcher, you could set the reload system up to remove and store the old box and then install the new one.  The particular system I worked on never went to production, being cancelled by the US Army for a different vehicle; specifically, I was involved with both the boost and main propulsion systems of the the BGM-137B ground-launched TSSAM (as distinct from the air-launched AGM-137A variants).  It was a most interesting and educational experience.

[Sauragnmon]

Rocket Artillery on a ship is something I toyed with the concept of as well, thinking it would make quite an effective NSFS armament on a warship.  As with Weaver's second idea, my concept was to ditch the box and reload it similar to the ASROC on either JMSDF warships (horizontal-ish from a bulkhead) or a Spruance (vertically from the deck) with armament handling equipment in place to handle any special rounds like Submunitions or FAE warheads from secondary magazines, with standard rounds serving the bulk of the delivery.  Of course, with the fact that short of Carriers, modern ships don't tend to carry armor, it left me to want to savour the look on a captain's face when he notices he's got a dozen 270mm rockets packed full of explosives raining down on his precious ship.  If a barrage rate similar to the BM-21 could be achieved, I should think it might rather put the meaning into term of "Fire for effect" on the receiving end.

[elmayerle]

*chuckle* I'll be honest that I was never certain about how easy the boxes would be to refurbish since the "energetic propellant" used would tend to scour the boxes, inside and out, quite thoroughly.  An arguement could be made to shoot 'em off and throw 'em over the side.

[McColm]

The Saunders-Roe Princess was a futuristic vision of air travel. Conceived as a long-range passenger flying-boat, just as the land planes could offer lower operational costs such as the Stratocruiser.
Both had a double deck, but unlike the stratocruiser the Princess lacked the engines and amphibious landing gear. It took ten Bristol Proteus 600 turboprops (eight in coupled units and two single units) to power the plane.
Turbojets could have saved the Princess and led to the worlds first civilian jet liner. The Princess Landplane would have been an ideal cargo plane. Even a replacement for the Sunderlands in the maritime patrol role, this being taken over by the Shackleton.

[Doc Yo]

 There was a planned turbojet follow-on to the Princess, called the Duchess, if memory serves, but with
the failure of the Princess, it never went past the drawing board. ( If indeed, it went that far-all I can remember
seeing was an 'artist's conception' in a floatplane/flying boat reference I have at home. )

I still find it difficult to understand why the Flying boat failed so completely in the post-war world. Granted
a hull restricts in-country travel quite a bit, but I would have thought that for trans-oceanic travel, a
decent harbor and some wharfs would have been far cheaper than acres of concrete and the land purchase...

[GTX]

  I still find it difficult to understand why the Flying boat failed so completely in the post-war world. Granted
a hull restricts in-country travel quite a bit, but I would have thought that for trans-oceanic travel, a
decent harbor and some wharfs would have been far cheaper than acres of concrete and the land purchase...

Remember that at the end of the war, there were a lot of former wartime airfields available.

Regards,

Greg

[Weaver]

Given the pressure on airport/ATC slots these days, I've often wondered if flying boats could do good business again on well chosen routes. How about picking up UK tourists at convenient sea ports and flying them direct to Mediterranean destinations, for example?

[lancer]

Given the pressure on airport/ATC slots these days, I've often wondered if flying boats could do good business again on well chosen routes. How about picking up UK tourists at convenient sea ports and flying them direct to Mediterranean destinations, for example?

A good idea, but with the was the government is tasxing the hell out of air travel and these dammed envirofascists trying to kill aviation totally I think that there would be a great deal of opposition. Besides, you might damage a crabs habitat with all that nasty plane noise and all those oh so poisonous exhaust fumes!!!!
Cynical - me?? Never!

[ChernayaAkula]

<...> I've often wondered if flying boats could do good business again on well chosen routes. <...>

Or Ekranoplans! 

[Weaver]

<...> I've often wondered if flying boats could do good business again on well chosen routes. <...>

Or Ekranoplans! 

Well an ekranoplan fying from the UK to the Med is either going to have to take an awfully long diversion to go through the Straits of Gibraltar, or it's going to have to spend a large chunk of it's journey in inefficient high-altitude flight over land. This is one of the fundamental limitations of ekranoplans.