Amphib Assault Ship as Hospital Ship?

[seadude]

I've had this idea in my head for a long time, but never got started on it due to other projects that needed work. I bought a Revell 1/700 USS Kearsarge LHD-3 amphib assault ship today and have had the idea of turning it into a hospital ship for international disaster relief. I know the Kearsarge isn't the Nassau, but I had to make due with what the hobby store had on it's shelf. Anybody have ideas/suggestions on modifications to the Kearsarge? I could probably use help on finding small Red Cross decals to put on the sides of the ship. Inspiration comes from the following sources:

http://www.coalitionofhope.org/
http://www.coalitionofhope.org/the-ship.html
http://blog.usni.org/2011/03/17/paint-it-white/

[kerick]

This looks like an interesting whif. I say go for it! Park lots of choppers on deck from different navies to make it look like a international effort.
For the red crosses just cut some red striping and overlap them in the middle.
You could reduce the size of the flight deck and build more hospital space on the flight deck. Make room for stacked containers of supplies too.

[Cliffy B]

You can easily paint the red crosses and the green stripes one of two ways, both involve masking tape.  Either paint a broad area red and green, then tape off the stripe and crosses, and shoot the whole thing in white.  Pull off the tape and viola, you're done.  Or you can shoot it white and then mask off the areas for the stripe and crosses and shoot them their respective colors.  Either will work, but option one would be easier and use a lot less tape.

As for mods, look at the real AHs and see what they do and don't have.  Main thing you'll need to do is pull all of the weapons and the search and fire control radars.  You can leave the surface search and nav radars as well as the landing approach and air traffic control radars.  You might want to leave the ECM equipment as well but I don't think the real ships have them.  It just gives the ship a tiny bit of self defense for those jerks that don't respect the Red Cross.  The ships do carry a detachment of armed guards for protection while in "unfriendly" areas and to guard the medical personnel when they go ashore in said areas.  Adding a few .50 cal mounts (everything minus the guns) along the catwalks would be fine.  

Neat idea, trick out the landing craft in the same paint job and put them in the well deck.  Same paint for the helos!  You could also get away with adding some deck houses on flight deck to for some visual variety and added capabilities.  I'm sure all of the spaces vacated by the Marines would be more than enough for the expanded medical facilities but its your call.

If anyone says its too big, remember our current AHs are heavily converted super tankers!

Looking forward to seeing this one take shape man  

[Joe C-P]

I'd like to see the result of this, too. It's a useful and practical idea.

[Cliffy B]

One thing to remember about the LHAs and LHDs is that their hangars are not very big.  A good amount of the airwing rides on the deck when they deploy at full strength.  Draw a line (port to starboard) just forward of the forward edge of the port elevator on the LHD and that's how far the hangar goes forward; about 1/3 of the ship's length.  Keep that in mind if you plan a large airwing and you want to fill up the deck with new deck houses, CONEX boxes, etc...

I love the idea of the multinational helos, it would be a nice touch 

An idea, the ship already has a vehicle deck and a well deck, why not include a slew of combat ambulances and have the landing craft driving a group to the beach?

[Weaver]

Great idea and very practical IF the money can be found. The Italians have a class of much smaller amphibious ships (San Giorgio class) and one of those, to a modified design without armament, was paid for by the Italian civilian government depratment responsible for disaster relief.

I had a similar idea, and loads of other people have too looking at that blog, of using commercial container ships fitted with ARAPAHO-style helo decks for a similar role. They'd be stationed at key points around the world and use what ever helos were supportable locally, so the one for the Carribean, for example, would use surplus Hueys from AMARC.

Regarding paint, the trouble Cliffy's option 1 is that white dodesn't cover very well, so you'd need many, many coats to cover the excess green and red, and that would lead to a big "step" when you took the masking off. I'd suggest a painted white undercoat and self-print decals.

[Thorvic]

You could do with getting the Pitroad JGSDF set as you can use the vehicles on the deck park and in the landing craft to further the role. Not just ambulances but Humvee, trucks, APCs in the UN white for disaster relief as well as heavy equipment as engineers will be needed to repair damage, search for survivors and repair the infrastructure or even build facilities ashore.

It could really do with 1/700 conatiners or portacabins on the deck park as they would break up the flight deck, they could then be ready to be tansferred ashore. Other features to look at would be a larger heavier crane to allow unloading/loading alongside plus a vehicle access ramp in the side of the hull to allow access/egress from the vehicle deck.

A decent flyco and air search radar might in order as likely to be the only operating air traffic control in the disaster region initially.

Have a look at some of the 1/72nd kits & decals as they may do suitable red cross markings. also look at the decal strip sets for the green line and possibly the red crosses.

G

[Caveman]

RFA argus...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFA_Argus_(A135)

Originally a container ship, then modified into an aviation training ship and more recently has had a hospital added with a couple of wards.

[kerick]

The blog mentioned as a source discusses using a more modern ship as a base for such a concept. Although the LPH does look the part. Lots of whif potential either way.

[kerick]

I like the Argus but the flight deck behind the superstructure looks like a cross wind/ buffet nightmare. Many container ships have their bridge 2/3rds back from the bow which would make a better flight deck. Build more superstructure aft of the bridge. Cut a roll on roll off door on each side so you can load or unload at a dock.

[Hobbes]

Helicopters and landing craft are good to have, but you'll generally want to put into port as soon as possible to simplify logistics.
This means not only containers, but also a large deck crane to unload them.

Maybe replace the power plant with a nuclear installation. Attach BIG generators to power an entire town if need be, plus a huge freshwater plant.

[PR19_Kit]

Apparently the Argus is/was a TERRIBLE sea going ship. A good friend of mine went down to the Falklands in '82 aboard her, as the MV Contender Bezant, and the entire compliment, including the crew, we almost comatose by the time they got there.

I hope the Navy did something to improve that or she'd make an awful hospital ship!

[RotorheadTX]

Dump the idea of the well-deck altogether, a RO-RO ramp at the stern makes a lot more sense. I'd build up the height of the forward 1/4 of the flight deck to create a walk/roll-in ER and/or admissions center. People/patients could be taken directly from the helicopters to the ER via gurneys or golf carts, without having to change deck levels. As for containerized storage, I'd just plonk that on the aft flight deck; it's only supposed to be temporary, right? Keep the stern elevator, there should be some reasonable amount of space for maintenance of or repairs to the birds in covered and weather-sheltered conditions

[Joe C-P]

Port facilities are not always available, hence the advantage of the flight deck and well deck, and then landing craft will allow support of unimproved facilities, plus bringing vehicles ashore; the LHAs/LHDs have dedicated vehicle spaces.
The hangar would still be needed for maintenance on the helicopters. The entire flight deck would not be needed, so more equipment could be on deck.

[Weaver]

Apparently the Argus is/was a TERRIBLE sea going ship. A good friend of mine went down to the Falklands in '82 aboard her, as the MV Contender Bezant, and the entire compliment, including the crew, we almost comatose by the time they got there.

I hope the Navy did something to improve that or she'd make an awful hospital ship!

They did. The reason she rolled so badly originally was because, as a container ship, she was supposed to spend all her life loaded down with containers, so without them she sat too high in the water. When she was converted, they fixed this by building the new superstructure elements from very thick steel to make them heavy, and by inverting the ship's hatch covers and filling them with concrete. All of this stuff adds the weight of a full container load without taking up the volume of it, thus re-balancing the ship.