Billy Mitchell's Floating Airbases

rickshaw · November 25, 2011, 06:01:56 AM

Quote from: Mossie on November 25, 2011, 04:48:19 AM
The most recent incarnation of this concept is the Mobile Offshore Base (MOB):
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/mob.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/mob-gallery.htm

Some pictures:

PR19_Kit · November 25, 2011, 06:04:30 AM

Does it have its own Senator and Congressmen?

rickshaw · November 25, 2011, 06:27:58 AM

Must qualify for the 51st state...

RussC · November 25, 2011, 01:45:28 PM

Quote from: PR19_Kit on November 25, 2011, 06:04:30 AM
Does it have its own Senator and Congressmen?

We'll use them as them as crash absorbers in the arrestor "barrier" nets

or as oarsmen....

It looks like a Bechtel concept. Note the garage for LCAC's under the stern.

I might make an expansion art of this, put in Jacuzzi's between those CIWS turrets on the fantail.

Burncycle · November 25, 2011, 09:33:23 PM

I was looking at the Jahre Viking... built to commercial standards, with the same size deck overhang as a Nimitz... that bad boy wouldn't have any problems operating C-130 and C-27 even with a deckpark. Would be a nice mobile logistics hub (think depot level maintenance facilities)

KJ_Lesnick · December 13, 2011, 07:05:34 PM

If an independent Air Force was formed in the early 1920's along the lines of either Generals Mitchell and Patrick, and mobile airbases like this were built, what would have come of carrier aviation?

rickshaw · December 13, 2011, 10:13:10 PM

It would have continued to develop. The floating airbases were limited in application in that their movement was too slow to allow rapid thrusts into enemy territory. They could be assured to be in the right place at the right time to influence naval battles.

KJ_Lesnick · December 15, 2011, 11:32:18 AM

rickshaw

QuoteIt would have continued to develop. The floating airbases were limited in application in that their movement was too slow to allow rapid thrusts into enemy territory. They could be assured to be in the right place at the right time to influence naval battles.

Yeah, but most independent air-forces generally didn't seem to value naval aviation much. The RAF viewed it to be rather unimportant compared to it's land based fighter and bomber commands; the USAAF/USAF roundly disliked carriers because they were aviation assets they couldn't control.

PR19_Kit · December 15, 2011, 01:47:48 PM

Are you assuming that if these floating bases existed that the USN wouldn't have any carriers or airborne assets, apart perhaps from airships? Somehow I can't see that happening, but hwo can say?

Stargazer · December 16, 2011, 12:26:33 AM

Found in a military presentation, this slide using an illustration from Popular Science. The text in the previous slide was: "This is not seabasing!".

PR19_Kit · December 16, 2011, 01:36:18 AM

Blimey, runways in all directions, including one with a bend in the middle!

RussC · December 16, 2011, 02:13:12 PM

Quote from: PR19_Kit on December 16, 2011, 01:36:18 AM
Blimey, runways in all directions, including one with a bend in the middle!

Looks like harbors, SAM sites, ICBM launchers, a shopping mall and a Burger King too....

I think that bend in the middle is the artist's interpretation of a ski-jump for the jets, he's taken some other liberties with perspective , lighting and the curve of our planet too.