WesWorld

Folks:

I'm puzzling over a new cruiser design, with regards to the floatplane facility. Specifically, I'm not sure where to put it.

Enlighten me, if you would: will your cruisers have a hanger for floatplanes, and if so, where is it? Below decks at the stern? Amidships in the superstructure?

Putting the floatplane admidships eats up space for secondaries and light guns. The RM isn't doing that one as much.

For larger ships, the catapult is mounted on the quaterdeck with planes stored either on deck, or on the catapult.

Then there is RM Zara with her floatplane right in front of A turret.

RMI cruisers don't/won't have hangars for their floatplanes as they'll never be at sea for extended periods of time. And I'd put the hangar on the quaterdeck.

My thoughts on storing floatplanes is "Let the enemy have a few extra targets on the deck to shoot at." :-)
I think some later BBs might have a hangar in the stern like the Yamato. Cruisers might have them in the rear end of the superstructure. But I'm not sure about all that yet.

Current Atlantian designs feature no hangar, planes being placed midships, forceing me to mount AA guns higher and mounting the secondarys aft.

In the future I plan to put a hangar in the stern as in American Cruisers and perhaps two hangars midships on either side of a funnel.

If you place your hangar aft make sure the hull offers enough space. Most historical cruiser designs had hulls too narrow and shallow. Remember the rudder engine room(s) and shafts etc. The late american cruisers had high flush deck hulls and thus could store their planes aft. Earlier versions had theirs amidship - the best place I think even though I also like what the Italians did on the Cont. Type I by placing the hangar below their forward superstructure.

Also note that hangars were unusual on early cruisers historically.

Regards,

HoOmAn

Quoted

If you place your hangar aft make sure the hull offers enough space.

This is one place where where "Transom Stern" (a la the Brooklyns?) will come in handy...

I agree on the midships idea, its the ideal location for hangars or catipults or both. The American Portlands IMO had a very good layout as did the British Southamtons.

I'm fond of the H class solution of the aft superstructure but not the catapult under the guns of Y Turret.

Think of it this way, ships to operate in bad weather tend to go for midships as it is also more sheltered. The motion from seas at the centre is also less. As much as people criticise the Nelson layout as bad arcs aft a (delicate) plane, catapult and crane on the stern are arc limiting too.

Greece isn't building ships big enough to be including planes.

Cheers,

Its not a cruiser, but who cares? This is a great location for the catapult and aircraft. BTW, its not Vittorio Veneto.

Reminds me of what the Italians designed for the Russians...

I can't offer a Wesworld perspective, Rock Doctor, but I can tell you some of the historical thinking that the USN went through with aircraft on surface warships.
Red Admiral, HoOmAn, et al, have already made some good points on aircraft placement.

The early USN thinking was that the aircraft had to be protected from weather and blast effects, so the midships location of the hangar and catapults. As SA said, this not only offers a low point of motion in the ship, but aircraft that were stored on the catapults were also protected. But this does take up some prime realestate for medium and light (even secondary, for that matter) gun locations, though the hangar roof does offset this a bit. The midships locations in historical RN designs accomplished this as well, though the RN wasn't storing aircraft on the crossdeck cat.

The stern placement resulted in a fuller hull form aft, for both American cruisers and battleships. The cruiser had their hangar under the stern, the battleships went with deck/catapult storage. The hangar was considered a flooding threat, if the stern were holed and the cruiser suffered some damage aft, here was a large area open nearly to the aft barbette. potentially, this could cost a cruiser that shouldn't have been lost.

See the South Dakota at Second Guadalcanal for a lesson in deck storage during a surface action. But since the BB's would rarely if ever be operating alone, the protection of their aircraft wasn't as great a consideration as on cruisers that might be operating independently.

With the Alaskas, and remember they have a cruiser lineage, the USN returned to the midships placement. Again, protection of the aircraft was a consideration. But with Alaska, the USN also had to consider the blast effect of a 12" gun versus at most an 8" in their CAs. As a cruiser, the Alaskas could also be expected to operate independently, as Alaska and Guam did during their sweep of the South China Sea late in the war.

As the early USN CA's became more and more heavily loaded, some traded in one of their midships catapults to compensate for the increase in AA.

Personally, I like the midships placement, but there is fire hazard there with the avgas. The early US CAs have a great look, and we all know that's most important in ship design. Some cruisers, like Callaghan's before First Guadalcanal, flew their aircraft off to minimize fire before an imminent surface battle. alt naval makes a great point on the H-class. Their hangars were on the main deck forward of X barbette. Combined with a USN-BB after arrangement, it might be the best way to store aircraft. But I'm not sure a cruiser would have enough beam for that kind of arrangment.

Regards,

Big Rich

Quoted

Reminds me of what the Italians designed for the Russians...

Very close. The text reveals that she was another design for Vittorio Veneto in 1936. Contrary to common thought, the Italian's weren't limited to producing 15" guns.

Ansaldo then just recast the same design and sold it to the Russians later.

And yes, she is very ugly. The forward superstructure is awful.

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

1Big Rich: you allude to avgas being a hazard for amidships placement of the facilities - wouldn't that be true anywhere? Or does it relate to proximity to the engineering spaces?

There was a discussion over a Danish (I think) design some time back regarding the effects of vibration on a stern hanger. Would this be as serious an issue (or worse?) in a cruiser?

"There was a discussion over a Danish (I think) design some time back regarding the effects of vibration on a stern hanger. Would this be as serious an issue (or worse?) in a cruiser?"

IIRC, it was Whitley who said something similar about american cruisers. Could also have been Preston. If I find the time I´ll dig into my books and see if I can find that comment again. Will take some time, though. Probably somebody else can help meanwhile...

Rock Doctor,

Avgas would be stored in the ships hull, just like feedwater, fuel oil or diesel for auxilary generators. With a midships, above the main deck hangar, your fuel lines from that storage would be running a deck or two higher than with a stern, 'in the hull' hangar,' and more exposed to damage. But assuming DC is up to snuff, perhaps caused by a careless sailor's cigarette. You've got an inert gas system to fill the fuel lines when they're not in use, etc. (USS Saratoga, CV-3, used a regular internal combustion engine to fill them with CO after Lexington's loss...) The aircraft themselves still represent a fire hazard. There's always going to be avgas vapor in their tanks, even if all remaining fuel is removed from them. Then there's an amount of oil in their engine, fabric coverings, etc. (Planes as late as the Corsair and Spitfire had fabric covered control surfaces, even though the bulk of their skin was stressed metal. )

The location of the fire is the bigger hazard, in my opinion. With a stern location, if fire breaks out, there's very little for it to damage. And it can only spread in one direction, forward. With the midships hangars, fire can spread both fore and aft, and in the middle of the superstructure, things like secondaries, AA mounts, directors, control tops, etc can all be made untenable by smoke, let alone the threat of the fire itself. Under the deck there are things like ready-use ammunition and potentially secondary magazines. And as you point out, the machinery is right there, too. The intakes for the boiler rooms could be ducted farther away, but smoke could still be a consideration. Plus why poke more holes in the ship than necessary? The risk would be drawing smoke in to the boilers, not healthy for the 'black gang' or the fires their tending. Cutting off fresh air intake isn't an option in an extended engagement, either. The fires need air, let alone the men. And boiler rooms without adequate ventilation can easily go over 100 degrees F. Sitting in the sun in Singapore's drydock, Prince of Wales boiler rooms rose to 130 degrees, and the boilers weren't even lit!

Regards,

Big Rich
edited for type

Of course the learning curve on such things would not have happened yet...so such troubles could be corrected later.

True, Ithekro, the learning curve wouldn't have happened, unless there were some peacetime accident like I suggested. But fire onboard a ship is generally regarded as bad, you'd think common sense would tell you an aircraft, especially a biplane, made of fabric and wood, full of high-octane gas and oil might be a fire hazard. Of course, you'd think common sense would tell you to keep the flash doors along your battlecruisers' ammo supply closed too. Even if such a fire had happened, it doesn't mean everyone would learn from it, or even the operating navy.

But remember that 'learning curve' did occur historically and the USN STILL reverted to midships hangars for the Alaskas. Each navy, or even each design, has its own considerations.

Some early biplane aircraft were more fragile than later stressed metal monoplanes; the midships configuration might be necessary just because of the nature of aircraft at the time. I know aviation is a little ahead here in Wesworld. It will be interesting to see what the ship designers come up with....

Regards,

Big Rich

"I know aviation is a little ahead here in Wesworld. It will be interesting to see what the ship designers come up with.... "

Indeed. Hindsight takes its toll. In the realworld the first capital ship designed and build to feature hangar and catapults were the DUNKERQUEs (one reason also being true building holidays where there is none in WesWorld) and cruisers didn´t feature hangars much earlier. Planes were stored on deck/catapults.

Thanks for your help with avgas...