Battleship/Carrier hybrid

[Weaver]

Sure, but at a time that you have ancient battleships attached to convoys to add some firepower, it starts looking attractive to have the cannons and escort carrier in one package.  

Why? You lose half the cannons (at least) to add a limited carrier capability that could be acheived far faster by converting a bulk carrier into a MAC ship, and without taking the battlewagon out of service for at least twelve months to do the conversion (remember that it's far harder to convert an armoured battleship than a mild steel freighter).

Especially if one had been built pre-war when they were seen as the coming must have and then pressed into service regradless of it's faults at a time of crisis.

I think that's the likeliest scenario for a hybrid seeing serivce, to be honest. There was lots of resource but precious little experience knocking about in carrier aviation between the wars: maybe one of the proponents of hybrids actually managed to sell the idea to a navy that didn't know any better?

Here's another thought: treaties. The Washington Treaty allowed some nations to convert gunned warships to carriers, so what if it had been phrased differently, thereby leading navies to think they could gain an advantage by making those vessels hybrids? It might have been a case of "yes these hybrids are non-ideal, but it's two extra hulls we couldn't get any other way...."

[proditor]

Sure, but at a time that you have ancient battleships attached to convoys to add some firepower, it starts looking attractive to have the cannons and escort carrier in one package.  

Why? You lose half the cannons (at least) to add a limited carrier capability that could be acheived far faster by converting a bulk carrier into a MAC ship, and without taking the battlewagon out of service for at least twelve months to do the conversion (remember that it's far harder to convert an armoured battleship than a mild steel freighter).


Here's another thought: treaties. The Washington Treaty allowed some nations to convert gunned warships to carriers, so what if it had been phrased differently, thereby leading navies to think they could gain an advantage by making those vessels hybrids? It might have been a case of "yes these hybrids are non-ideal, but it's two extra hulls we couldn't get any other way...."

As to the first, I was mostly thinking about speed.  A lot of the older battlewagons were darn slow compared to the raiders they faced.  Now in reality, that was okay as the convoys weren't exactly tearing up the water either, and staying with the convoy was a better plan.  But the maxim of speed=life, may have lasted long enough to affect the thinking that "warrants" our hybrid. 

I agree on the treaty, that seems to be an excellent way to get saddled with a couple of these lovely rube goldberg monstrostities.

[Weaver]

Speed is only relelvent against a surface raider if you're trying to pro-actively hunt it down, and, as with submarines, this is a poor tactic: stick with the convoy and let the raider come to you. If he doesn't, then your very presence has achieved a "mission kill" by forcing him into inaction.

What were the turret diameters of the various heavy turrets? The reason I ask is that Britain and France had quadruple turrets, which could achieve battleship weight of fire (8 x guns) with only two turrets, thus potentially making a hybrid the gunnery equal of it's conventional equivalent. Would it have been feasible to re-arm something like Hood with two quad 14" turrets forward and an aircraft deck aft?

How about smaller guns? Even eight 12" guns would be enough to chase off any 8" cruiser or 11" panzerschiffe/battlecruiser. These would have to be specially built, of course, which makes them impractical for a wartime conversion, but as part of the pre-war arms race they might make "sense".

[proditor]

Oh, I completely agree that as a tactic, staying with the convoy is smarter on any number of levels.    I just remember reading somewhere that there was some lament over the older battelwagons not being able to "finish the job" against the older surface raiders by bringing them to heel.  In theory, it is a darned if you do, darned if you don't scenario, although IMHO, leaving the escorts behind to track the surface raider and sucking down some torpedoes from the waiting u-boat has a much larger negative impact. 

I like the idea of smaller guns on bigger turrets.  I'm trying to remember what they considered to be the minimum number of barrels to get good results.  It's 6-8 iirc.  I can't seem to find anything quickly on the turret ring or the weigh of the 15" turrets on hood, but I'll see what I can find when I get home tonight.

[Jschmus]

Shifting gears for a moment, in the years after WWII, the surface warfare environment changed drastically, and the battleship and most other gun-platform surface combatants slid gradually into obsolescence.  I've read about the proposals to convert the Iowas into hybrid assault ships, culminating in the much-mentioned FACES II battleship/Harrier carrier.  We've heard much lamenting about the loss of the big gun ships in surface navies, used for providing inshore fire support for amphibious landings and the like.  Could the hybrid assault ship concept have been applied to the USN's late-war heavy cruisers, ie, the Salems or even the Alaskas?

[proditor]

IIRC, there was an allegorical story about Alaska being almost perfect for the NGFS role in the eyes of the Marines.  They liked the 12" round over the 16", and the hanger area had potential for development.

[Cobra]

Hey Guys, this is Starting to sound like the 'Battlecarrier' ship type from the Game 'Naval Ops:Warship Gunner' it was a Combo of Battleship & Carrier! i don't have Any pics but You find some on Gamespot .com! What Scale Ship would Work for such a Project? Dan

[ysi_maniac]

I think that a 1/600 Airfix HMS Hood will be sacrifized one day

[Weaver]

The problem with an amphibious support hybrid is much the same as with a "fleet" one. You're losing scarce gun barrels and resilience in a platform that's expected to operate within retaliation range of a hostile shore, in order to add a compromised air capability than can be done better by a proper LPH/LPHA that stays over the horizon.

However, here's an idea that might justify it: South American navies. They were always fond of big gun warships and bought quite a few of them, most of which had long lives because they never saw action. Once they were obsolete in a ship-to-ship role, you could imagine them doing an amphibious hybrid conversion because they didn't have any other spare big hulls to operate a decent number of big helos from. Imagine Argentina "doing a Tiger" on their British-built light 6" cruiser or their Italian 7.5" heavy cruisers, or even one of the old BBs (more of a stretch, but still). Alternatively, they could convert (maybe buy some more) of the US Brooklyn class cruisers such as the Belgrano.

[proditor]

However, here's an idea that might justify it: South American navies...

http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,25902.msg385039.html#msg385039

*whistles innocently*



It's either great minds, or insanity, take your pick. 

[dy031101]

Hey Guys, this is Starting to sound like the 'Battlecarrier' ship type from the Game 'Naval Ops:Warship Gunner' it was a Combo of Battleship & Carrier! i don't have Any pics but You find some on Gamespot .com! What Scale Ship would Work for such a Project? Dan

With the possible exception of Iowa class conversions (the one with twin skijumps; even then I don't think it's one of the common scales), I think you will have to scratchbuild the conversion part of the model.

The one gripe I have about the game series is that aircraft were rendered all but useless during the later stage of the game because console versions of the series have no way of upgrading statistics of aircraft and do not give them a good AI (of course the flip side is that killing enemy aircraft would be easy with a decent AA battery).  You'd think that, with opposing ships getting increasingly better protected, the design team would have left some option(s) for improved aircraft ordnance warhead......

Also, the games illustrate the compromise in protection of aviation battleships rather well- long-range artillery and bombs can bust your flight deck, making you unable to launch or recover aircraft...... especially serious when you are playing the Warship Commander instalment of the series since you cannot effect emergency repair like you do in the Warship Gunner instalments.

Of course that didn't stop me from having 80% of my ship slots occupied by hybrids- I just deployed them during re-runs of early battles, where ships were appropriately vulnerable to aircraft.

However, here's an idea that might justify it: South American navies. They were always fond of big gun warships and bought quite a few of them, most of which had long lives because they never saw action. Once they were obsolete in a ship-to-ship role, you could imagine them doing an amphibious hybrid conversion because they didn't have any other spare big hulls to operate a decent number of big helos from. Imagine Argentina "doing a Tiger" on their British-built light 6" cruiser or their Italian 7.5" heavy cruisers, or even one of the old BBs (more of a stretch, but still). Alternatively, they could convert (maybe buy some more) of the US Brooklyn class cruisers such as the Belgrano.

Didn't the British demonstrate their Harrier onboard the Veinticinco de Mayo when the latter was being delivered to Argentine Navy?  What if things didn't go south between the two countries or if the demonstration stirred up even more interest in the Jump Jet in South America?

======================================================================

Looks like the West originally thought of the Admiral Kuznetsov class as a new and improved Kiev class (although in reality it to a far lessor extent still is- with more of a badder aircraft and less of offensive missiles).

I wonder if a similar spin can be made in the all-gun-ship (other than the Iowa class; because Mr. Gene Anderson already designed one for it) conversion or derivative arena......

[Weaver]

However, here's an idea that might justify it: South American navies...

http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,25902.msg385039.html#msg385039

*whistles innocently*



It's either great minds, or insanity, take your pick.  

Or my increasingly flaky memory, given that I actually commented on that thead.....

[NARSES2]

Interestingly in the latest issue on "Cross and Cockade" there's an article on the US Navy's use of aircraft at Vera Cruz in 1914. Nice picture of the old battleship Mississippi which was used as a hydro-plane and flying boat carrier. As she had been converted to a training ship I'm not sure if she still retained any of her main armament (the photo is prior to conversion I think as it has both main turrets). So an old battleship with the rear turrets replaced by a platform for lowering the flying boats onto the sea and recovering them as a very early hybrid ? You then move on to launching aircraft from platforms over the front turrets as was used but you recover them to a larger platform at the rear of the ship. Aircraft at this stage in their development had such low landing speeds they could almost be "pulled" from the air by the deck crew, as indeed my dad reckoned some Swordfish were in the North Atlantic.

Of course HMS Furious was a hybrid of sorts as originally fitted out in 1917 with her forward flying deck and 18" gun, but I'm thinking of converted battleships possibly for S American navy's post WWI.

[Weaver]

Aircraft at this stage in their development had such low landing speeds they could almost be "pulled" from the air by the deck crew, as indeed my dad reckoned some Swordfish were in the North Atlantic.

It would have been interesting to see what could have been achieved with the Fieseler Fi.167, which was effectively a super-STOL-Swordfish for the Graf Zeppelin.

One thing that's always surprised me is that more use wasn't made of autogyros for naval work before the invention of the helicopter. After all, the autogyro's principle limitation, it's inabilty to hover, is rather neatly solved by landing on a moving platform, isn't it? You could roll one out from a hangar in the rear superstructure, past any rear turrets, and just launch it off the stern, as long as the ship had enough forward motion to spin the 'gyro's rotors (and there are always "kicker" mechanisms of course. Recover it the same way, and it's MUCH faster than winching a floatplane aboard.

[GTX]

One thing that's always surprised me is that more use wasn't made of autogyros for naval work

Oh great!  Now I have this image of a Torpedo toting Autogyro .

Regards,

Greg