Battleship/Carrier hybrid

[dy031101]

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

Might be more meaningful with the Allies as the Americans have, IIRC, homing ASW torpedoes already.

And got me imagining a similarly equipped what-if modern counterpart......

[Weaver]

Well I was thinking of the autogyro for recce from cruisers, as an alternative to a floatplane, more than anything else. However, where is it written that autogyros have to be small? Little Nellie is not the be-all and end-all of autogyros: remember, the Fairy Rotordyne was one too (in a sense). I see no reason why one couldn't be built with the payload capacity of, say, a Swordfish. What it wouldn't have, of course, would be the range or the speed, but then in an early 1930s context, that might not be that much of an issue.

[NARSES2]

Well I was thinking of the autogyro for recce from cruisers, as an alternative to a floatplane, more than anything else. 

Well I have a 3/4 complete autogyro which is intended as a Fairey Fox replacement on RN cruisers. Only needs the paint job completing and the rotors fixed. Might move her up the list as I'm trying to finish all my hanagr queens 

[NARSES2]

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.

In a strong head wind you'd probably need a large net to catch it in, and I don't mean the safety net but a giant butterfly net  

Dad had some amusing stories about Swordfish and escort carriers. One gunner/teleg who shared their mess reckoned his pilot thought the thing was flying backwards at one point the headwind was so strong   Other tales of being over taken by a seagull. Probably all apocryphal but fun never the less

[Weaver]

Well I was thinking of the autogyro for recce from cruisers, as an alternative to a floatplane, more than anything else. 

Well I have a 3/4 complete autogyro which is intended as a Fairey Fox replacement on RN cruisers. Only needs the paint job completing and the rotors fixed. Might move her up the list as I'm trying to finish all my hanagr queens 

Exactly the sort of thing I mean!    I got the idea, I suppose, from reading about the Graf Spee's raiding operations, where she not only used her Arado to do recce and gunnery spotting, but also to intimidate ship captains into not transmitting a raider report and shooting them up with it's cannons if they didn't comply. However it took ages to recover the thing, during which the ship was dead in the water and highly vulnerable: not good for a lone raider. An equivalent autogyro could have done exactly the same missions and simply landed back aboard almost like a helicopter.

[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.

In a strong head wind you'd probably need a large net to catch it in, and I don't mean the safety net but a giant butterfly net  

It could aparently descend almost vertically in amoderate headwind...

[rickshaw]

The Japanese Army operated autogyros off their (IJA) Carrier during WWII.

[NARSES2]

The Japanese Army operated autogyros off their (IJA) Carrier during WWII.

I knew the Army had carriers, but didn't realise they used autogyros of them...interesting. Thanks for sharing the knowledge  

Chris

[Weaver]

Yeah, likewise: cheers Rickshaw.

Do you know what sort of ops the gyros performed?

[Jschmus]

Originally, the Kayabas were used as artillery spotters.  The units that transferred to the Akitsu Maru traded their spotters for a 60 kilo depth charge.

[NARSES2]

Thanks it gets even more interesting 

[ysi_maniac]

Specific discussion about Hybrid Hood continues here: http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,28856.0.html

Anyway, another proposal.

[dy031101]

In the event of the hybrids being seaplane-carrying types (actually I feel a bit tempted to think of the contemporary Japanese fleet seaplane carriers as built, particularly Nisshin, as hybrids), could stationing dive/torpedo bomber seaplanes on the hybrids have served to free up space on real flattops for more fighters (assuming producing enough planes and training enough pilots were not a problem as it was for real-life Japanese)?

[rickshaw]

I've just reread back through this thread from the start.  I have several points to make.

1) Carrier deck design.  Invariably in these hybrid designs the turrets are seperate from the flight deck.  My question is why?  It would be quite possible to have the flight deck actually carried on top of the turrets.  As the ship would be conducting either gunnery actions or air actions but unlikely to be both at the same time, it would be quite possible to have the turrets carrying sections of flight decks.  When gunnery action is required, the turret rotates to the required heading and elevates its guns.  The carrier deck rotates and elevates as well.  This naturally leads to another point.

2) When these hybrid craft engage in gunnery action, the aircraft on deck would be damaged/destroyed.  Well, as I would assume that the air operations would be conducted quite regularly (except in bad weather) they would provide adequate warning of any approaching adversary which required gunnery action, thereby providing sufficient time for the majority of aircraft to be struck down, below decks.  If it was bad weather, the majority of the aircraft complement would be struck down, below decks anyway, so if a gunnery action was to occur suddenly and without warning you would only lose or damage a small proportion of your air complement.

3) Airflow over the flight deck.  As experience showed in WWI, smooth airflows over the flight deck were vitally important for air ops to proceed.  The hybrids with turrets aft had terrible airflow off the flight deck.  The ones with the turrets forward would also have had horrendous airflow over the deck, forward and most probably down most of its length.  Which is perhaps why it would be wiser to dispense with the whole idea.  If you're unwilling to do that then you need to think hard about point (1) above again.

[Weaver]

Some of the Japanese Carriers with 8" guns had some of them casemate mounted aft, which is another approach to the turrets vs flight deck problem, albeit one that creates it's own set of problems.

If all the aircraft have to be struck down in order to be safe during gunnery actions, then that limits the already-compromised air complement in much the same was as RN pre-war carrier design did. US and Japanese carriers routinely used deck parks even prior to WWII, and the RN was forced to adopt them too. Also, the US deck ops cycle envisaged building up a large number of aircraft on deck, launching them in a short time, and then recovering them to a deck park at the bow, with some of the aircraft only being struck down below later. If a gunnery situation developed during either of these operations, it would be difficult to clear the flight deck in a short time, even if all the aircraft could be accomodated in the hangar.