US Navy Ultracarrier

[SASWanabe]

i recently found this report on a 1970s proposal for a larger aircraft to be built after the first couple nimitz's.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/Ultracarrier1.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/Ultracarrier2.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/Ultracarrier3.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/Ultracarrier4.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/Ultracarrier5.jpg

its a very interesting read, i came away from it with the thought "Wow armored supercarrier". here are the basic specs:-

Length: 1250 feet (381m)
Beam wl: 280 feet (85.3m)
Draught:-
Max - 75 feet (22.8m)
Light - 61 feet (18.5m)
Flight deck width: 400 feet (121.92m)
Displacement Lt :-
Light-400,000
Full-500,000
Aircraft: 100

with 25,000 tons aviation fuel it can easily outlast a nimitz at ~10,000 tons.

id like to hear people's opinions on if this ship would of been more effective than buying additional Nimitzs. My opinion is that its sheer size would limit its combat effectiveness by limiting the ports which it can visit and vastly limiting it to which drydocks it can fit into for repairs/maintainance.

 

[LloydTasiD]

I haven't read the article, but just based off the specs you've provided:
You're point is very true. A carrier that big would have problems in repairs and docking. Also, say brought down, the recovery project for that carrier would be immense. In addition, carrier efficiency relies on aircraft range, and regardless of carrier size, aircraft will have the same range.

 

[LGB]

It doesn't actually fulfill it's purpose. It's too risky to operate all the aircraft it could, as the article states. The low speed compared to a Nimitz results in it being less responsive strategically. The sheer size presents myriad problems without providing clear benefits beyond increased survivability and ability to operate while taking damage.

It's a Cold War theoretical construct that assumes a carrier task force can not prevent the carrier being struck. The article itself is riddled with reasons why it makes little sense.

 

[Belesari]

i recently found this report on a 1970s proposal for a larger aircraft to be built after the first couple nimitz's.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/Ultracarrier1.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/Ultracarrier2.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/Ultracarrier3.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/Ultracarrier4.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b291/barquitos/P-Files/Ultracarrier5.jpg

its a very interesting read, i came away from it with the thought "Wow armored supercarrier". here are the basic specs:-

Length: 1250 feet (381m)
Beam wl: 280 feet (85.3m)
Draught:-
Max - 75 feet (22.8m)
Light - 61 feet (18.5m)
Flight deck width: 400 feet (121.92m)
Displacement Lt :-
Light-400,000
Full-500,000
Aircraft: 100

with 25,000 tons aviation fuel it can easily outlast a nimitz at ~10,000 tons.

id like to hear people's opinions on if this ship would of been more effective than buying additional Nimitzs. My opinion is that its sheer size would limit its combat effectiveness by limiting the ports which it can visit and vastly limiting it to which drydocks it can fit into for repairs/maintainance.

Cant see a reason for it while a larger carrier Could make sense if it is going to carry essentualy the same amount of aircraft with the same range then it provides no + for all the cost.

 

[peterAustralia]

something a bit light hearted but in the same vein

catamaran aircraft carrier, here is one
China Military Report: Overbearing: China's 320,000 tons catamaran super aircraft carrier!
chinese 320,000 tonne carrier

also this one
A catamaran aircraft carrier

now I know both are mere non-serious thinking aloud ideas, however I think they are not altogether good. What do I mean by this. Firstly the chinese one is overly large, filled with too much unneccessary items. Also why the helicopter spots at the lower level, a waste of space and added compexity, why the overhangs too. There should be ample deck space without having to add overhangs which just add weight.

If going the catamaran route, there are plusses and minusses. Minus is that it costs more, and there is added structural weight. Plusses are much, much more deck space, Also topweight is not an issue, thus each hull can be finer, thus reducing engine power required. Being a catamaran design, even a torpedo would be unlikely to sink the ship, though it could perhaps disable it.

Seems the deck layout needs, a landing deck, a take off strip and a storage area.

This 320,000t seems just way too large, nothing has been done to slope the sides to reduce radar signature (not easy it is true with a 320,000t ship)

The second one. I do like the large central island with the very large phased array radars. However if the space between the 2 hulls was more filled in, it would add a huge amount more storage space. and the carrier made structurally much stronger. Also why the angled decks? If there is a separate deck for landings as opposed to take-offs, the the decks would not need to be angled!

Having the elevators inboard makes sense, better protection. Also the engines could be placed slightly inboard of center in each hull, and also higher as topweight and stability would not be an issue. This way the engines would be that bit more protected.

To sum up. My non professional opinion is that both are not all that good. Seems to me that if you are going down the catamaran route, then one hull should be optimised towards takeoffs (from the stern of the ship, giving a higher take off speed, thus more takeoff weight). The other hull should be optimised for landings, with a straight deck, not angled. The space between the 2 hulls could be used for storage.

This was a lot of structural weight could be saved compared to the 2 above sketches. The outside of each hull could be flared outwards approx 20 degrees to reduce radar reflectivity

in my humble opinion, I am not impressed with either of the above sketches.

For the Chinese Navy, I am kind of puzzled as to why they are not building a relatively simple 30,000t helicopter carrier. Optimised for just one task, operating helicopters. A fine narrow stern, with minimal drag. It should give a fleet a sizeable number of helicopters that could be used for anti-submarine work.

 

[gf0012-aust]

cat aircraft carriers were a serious idea over 13 years ago ..

DERA (when they existed) managed to buy a whole swag of cat designs from the russians after the soviet union collapsed.

qinetic (DERA successor) and BAE had a number of CAT based designs provided at various naval forums. I do remember seeing some detailed designs at PAC 2000 and where I had some BAE salesman chew my ear about the merits of the design.

he was optimistic then and things haven't changed from my own perspective

 

[Belesari]

something a bit light hearted but in the same vein
.
.
For the Chinese Navy, I am kind of puzzled as to why they are not building a relatively simple 30,000t helicopter carrier. Optimised for just one task, operating helicopters. A fine narrow stern, with minimal drag. It should give a fleet a sizeable number of helicopters that could be used for anti-submarine work.

I suspect that the Carriers China is working on are ment more for extending control of say the spratlys and the rest of the south china sea and beyond. Helicopter carriers are really either Amphib and/or ASW ships. I think China is worried about US Carriers as they will be a fixture for atleast the next 30yrs if nothing apocplyptic happens and maybe the Japanese.

I figure they will build a few 22t ships like the japs but that old russian carrier lets them practice both.
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While I don't think the CAT or Trimarran Design for carriers is out of the question your not gonna build a 1700ft carrier. Can you imagine that bad boy flexing in rough seas:drunk

A Trimarran or Cat carrrier with the wider and longer deck that can be afforded with the less drag by not having such a fat body in the water.......

And why put the Bridge in the middle? Never understood that facination......its kind of IN THE WAY.

 

[Tifone]

i recently found this report on a 1970s proposal for a larger aircraft to be built after the first couple nimitz's.

its a very interesting read, i came away from it with the thought "Wow armored supercarrier". here are the basic specs:-

Length: 1250 feet (381m)
Beam wl: 280 feet (85.3m)
Draught:-
Max - 75 feet (22.8m)
Light - 61 feet (18.5m)
Flight deck width: 400 feet (121.92m)
Displacement Lt :-
Light-400,000
Full-500,000
Aircraft: 100

with 25,000 tons aviation fuel it can easily outlast a nimitz at ~10,000 tons.

id like to hear people's opinions on if this ship would of been more effective than buying additional Nimitzs. My opinion is that its sheer size would limit its combat effectiveness by limiting the ports which it can visit and vastly limiting it to which drydocks it can fit into for repairs/maintainance.

They would be better off building more carriers.

A ship like that would be a quagmire in case there is a problem with the propulsion or the hull.

More ships = more versatile. It's not like the size of current US carriers isn't sufficient.

 

[BlCityfan]

Lol

The Ultracarriers are nothing more than a fanboy's dream. While in reality it's just a waste of time and a big no-no. But the Chinese one I found most corny looking. Lol, I perfer if they copy and pasted the ultracarrier from Genocyber (the ultraviolent/gory anime movie). Cause that is more practical than the one created by that Chinese artist.

 

[Beatmaster]

cat aircraft carriers were a serious idea over 13 years ago ..

DERA (when they existed) managed to buy a whole swag of cat designs from the russians after the soviet union collapsed.

qinetic (DERA successor) and BAE had a number of CAT based designs provided at various naval forums. I do remember seeing some detailed designs at PAC 2000 and where I had some BAE salesman chew my ear about the merits of the design.

he was optimistic then and things haven't changed from my own perspective

Yes you are right i have seen on of those topic's a couple of years ago.
However would it not be better to have unmanned aircraft running from a AC.
I mean with such a huge AC you are going to make you a prime target.
While for example future weapons on discovery showed they even have a unmannded b2 bomber, and some strike craft.
So my question is WHY so big if you can keep the current designs and change them to a more automatic proces so it can facilitate a flight control room with pilots sitting behind their joy sticks and be virtually able to mach any human pilot and in somecases outmatch a human pilot?
It would also be cheaper i think

 

[Belesari]

Yes you are right i have seen on of those topic's a couple of years ago.
However would it not be better to have unmanned aircraft running from a AC.
I mean with such a huge AC you are going to make you a prime target.
While for example future weapons on discovery showed they even have a unmannded b2 bomber, and some strike craft.
So my question is WHY so big if you can keep the current designs and change them to a more automatic proces so it can facilitate a flight control room with pilots sitting behind their joy sticks and be virtually able to mach any human pilot and in somecases outmatch a human pilot?
It would also be cheaper i think

Reguardless of what you see on TV the air belongs to humans for awhile yet. Air-Air combat is just one of those things that Computers just can't do yet. To complicated. And forget pilots flying them from either land or the ship. Tame lag as well as a dozen other problems with that.

The thing is by the time you build a high performance Drone aircraft like say a steal UCAV based on the F-35 you have basicly made it so expensive its not worth it. Besides humans are flexable and can do far more.

The X-47 has a payload of only only 4,500lbs. The F-35C on the other had has around 20,000 if i remember correctly.

The whole reasons they want these are more with Cost savings than the idea that they are better than people.

Another reason is simply that a larger carrier has better performance in the amount of planes it can send up.

I think the best way to describe the X-47 that i have heard is that its a reuseable tomahawk.

 

[alexsa]

I ............While I don't think the CAT or Trimarran Design for carriers is out of the question your not gonna build a 1700ft carrier. Can you imagine that bad boy flexing in rough seas:drunk

A Trimarran or Cat carrrier with the wider and longer deck that can be afforded with the less drag by not having such a fat body in the water.......

And why put the Bridge in the middle? Never understood that facination......its kind of IN THE WAY.

Lots of issues with how this would work from a structural perspective, particualry in large seas where one hull may be on the rise while the other is driving in if you try to cross a swell (whihc you have to do unless you want to restrict yourself to one course). The other issue is tunnel slam and pressure. The day dream pictures show two massive displacement monohulls joined together rather that semi swath, planing or piecing hulls. Imagine the fun with the pressure and suction zones down the hulls in the tunnel as this thing races along (assumeing like its size the proponents wants a ridicoulously high speed).

As far as the size of the submerged area is concerned this is driven by displacement and a cat or trimaran of 320000 tonnes will displace the same volume of water at a given density as a monohull. High speed cats succeed by having low displacement with large surface areas for cars etc, however, it means they have very limitied deadwieght (carrying capacity) compared to a monohull of comparable length.

 

[LGB]

The X-47B is powered by an F-100 engine and fully loaded is almost 45,000lbs, it's in no way akin to a cruise missile. Primarily it will be doing ISR with strike secondarily. The X-47B is the demonstrator, what a production version is capable of isn't clear at this time. This is a fighter sized carrier low observable UCAS that does aerial refueling and lands itself.

The USN seems to be most interested in the greater range and loiter time over a manned fighter. One assumes cost per flight hour will be lower than other carrier fighters but that's not the driving factor. This type of aircraft might very well end up being more important in some areas than the F-35C. Focusing on payload can miss the point regarding loiter time doing ISR.

 

[peterAustralia]

I am sure if you wanted to build a really large catamaran you could. Incat and Austal are just 2 examples. Now these craft are optimised for high speed, being mostly for ferries. However if a more modest speed is required (for sake of arguement say 30 knots) then a hullform optimised for this lower speed would be appropiate, logic suggests a lower waterline l/w ratio.

In sailing catamarans, these fast hulls have a l/w ratio of around 20. However if more carrying capacity is required a lower l/w ratio can be used, say around 14. In sailing cats, Wharram (sailing catamaram) tend to go down this route.

So using hulls that are fat for a fast ferry, but very thin for a monohull, lower drag can be obtained. A carrier is likely to be big, and thus if everything is kept in proportion, the clearance can go up big time. Thus in the way that an incat ferry goes ok in moderate sea state, something say x percent longer, wider, and higher, should be able to handle proportionally larger waves.

The biggest downside for a very large catamaran seems to be structural weight (and thus cost) There are upsides and downsides.

Many, many years ago, I was reading a magazine that had a German Heavy lift ship, in short they joined 2 regular ships together, put a platform on top, and hey presto, they had a catamaran which could take really big items. I cant remember its name as it was 25 years ago now. (here is a more recent one though..
Pieter Schelte, Offshore Supercat – The World’s Largest Catamaran | gCaptain - Maritime & Offshore )

One thing (downside) about a very large catamaran, is that they are likely to have higher draught than a conventional vessel due to deeper narrower hulls.

A lot of work would be required to reduce weight, thus overhangs for a start would just have to go.

In terms of manouvering, if there was one engine in each hull, one could go forwards, and one backwards, allowing the vessel to rotate in its own lenght. Also because topweight would be less of an issue, engines need not be located right down low, but higher. Thus a tordepo hit would have greater separation from engine vitals (still may disable them thoug). With engines in each hull, disabling engines in one hull, the engines in the other should allow a get home capability (assuming of course that there are not multiple torpedos)


Cataman Cat

Minuses

Much greater structural weight
More cost to build
significantly greater draught
Very difficult to find a port or a dock to moor against
Ports that could accept vessel for maintenence would be very limited


Plusses

More deck space
More hanger space
More stable platform
Greater survivability if hit by a missile or torpedo

Ability to slope sides for signature reduction (no overhangs)
Ability to put vitals on inside of hulls (safer)
The ability to have two full lenght decks if required
Probablly lower power to reach same speed due to finer hullforms

A single torpedo hit probably would not sink it
The ability to land or lauch 2 aircraft simultaneously
Potentially higher maximum speed
Large design risk

Now the cost issue is a big, big minus

It may well be that the minusses outweigh the plusses. I am just saying that there are plusses and minusses in the layout.

 

[alexsa]

The proposed construction vessel is powered by thrusters and will be very slow speed. as the nature of the operation are such the speed is not necessary as the vessel operates on station. This opiton is used as it provides a large work area and large lifting capacity in this case.

Structrual issues for a vessel of this size and configuration in very heavy weather would be quite signiicant.

 

[KiwiRob]

I (here is a more recent one though..
Pieter Schelte, Offshore Supercat – The World’s Largest Catamaran | gCaptain - Maritime & Offshore )

The Pieter Schelte is an unusual one, I've seen the model, she's a cat at the front but not from the rear, she only has a split front to make lifting a platform off it jacket easier.

 

[LloydTasiD]

The X-47B is powered by an F-100 engine and fully loaded is almost 45,000lbs, it's in no way akin to a cruise missile. Primarily it will be doing ISR with strike secondarily. The X-47B is the demonstrator, what a production version is capable of isn't clear at this time. This is a fighter sized carrier low observable UCAS that does aerial refueling and lands itself.

The USN seems to be most interested in the greater range and loiter time over a manned fighter. One assumes cost per flight hour will be lower than other carrier fighters but that's not the driving factor. This type of aircraft might very well end up being more important in some areas than the F-35C. Focusing on payload can miss the point regarding loiter time doing ISR.

Let's not forget why we haven't completely abandoned manned aircraft. UAVs don't yet have the precision of manned aircraft. And UAV can be disconnected from the controller. In a malfunction, which is less likely with UAVs but still possible, there would be no human to correct the situation and make in the moment intuitive and practical decisions. And let's not forget speed which is vital in aerial warfare. This UAV is a greater asset as recon, but strike is, like you said secondary. I do think that the manned aerial recon is gone. Unless there is a case of another blackbird. That is unlikely to come about, but that would have to be manned still.

 

[Belesari]

The X-47B is powered by an F-100 engine and fully loaded is almost 45,000lbs, it's in no way akin to a cruise missile. Primarily it will be doing ISR with strike secondarily. The X-47B is the demonstrator, what a production version is capable of isn't clear at this time. This is a fighter sized carrier low observable UCAS that does aerial refueling and lands itself.

The USN seems to be most interested in the greater range and loiter time over a manned fighter. One assumes cost per flight hour will be lower than other carrier fighters but that's not the driving factor. This type of aircraft might very well end up being more important in some areas than the F-35C. Focusing on payload can miss the point regarding loiter time doing ISR.

No you missed my point. Why it can be called that is because it can fly deliver a load and come back without putting the pilot in danger.

Not that it is replacing the tomahawk. Its a long range unmanned strike aircraft.

Also new tomahawk variants can actucally loiter around the target area before striking which is crazy to me.

 

[Bonza]

No you missed my point. Why it can be called that is because it can fly deliver a load and come back without putting the pilot in danger.

Not that it is replacing the tomahawk. Its a long range unmanned strike aircraft.

Also new tomahawk variants can actucally loiter around the target area before striking which is crazy to me.

Calling the first generation demonstrators of UCAVs reusable cruise missiles isn't accurate at all because strike is one role out of several that platforms like the X-47 are being developed to fill. When you look at the potential ISR capabilities of these aircraft, the IFR capabilities, all the rest of it, you'll see they aren't like a cruise missile at all, even if they offer some kind of broadly similar long range strike capability. It's a platform that can deliver munitions, not a munition itself.

 

[Belesari]

Calling the first generation demonstrators of UCAVs reusable cruise missiles isn't accurate at all because strike is one role out of several that platforms like the X-47 are being developed to fill. When you look at the potential ISR capabilities of these aircraft, the IFR capabilities, all the rest of it, you'll see they aren't like a cruise missile at all, even if they offer some kind of broadly similar long range strike capability. It's a platform that can deliver munitions, not a munition itself.

The guy i first heard say it retired from the navy after decades. He simply ment that this replaces Tomahawk strikes and gives carriers more flexability. NOT that it replaces or IS a tomahawk. Its just a longer ranged cheaper and in many ways politicaly cheaper weapons system.

No one gripes if a tomahawk gets shot down or a predator. No one has to burry a son or daughter.
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Theoreticly how long could one of these stay in the air with refueling. How reliable is it that the X-47 could stay airborne and ontarget for say 24-48hrs?