WesWorld

The third Yorktown, to be laid down ion 1938, will have two major changes from her older sisters, 5"38 turrets on the flight deck and a deck edge elevator amidships.


USS Hornet, United States Aircraft Carrier laid down 1938

Displacement:
20,832 t light; 21,379 t standard; 23,905 t normal; 25,926 t full load

Dimensions: Length overall / water x beam x draught
811.08 ft / 770.00 ft x 83.25 ft x 26.00 ft (normal load)
247.22 m / 234.70 m x 25.37 m x 7.92 m

Armament:
8 - 5.00" / 127 mm guns (4x2 guns), 62.50lbs / 28.35kg shells, 1938 Model
Dual purpose guns in deck mounts with hoists
on side, all amidships, all raised mounts - superfiring
4 - 5.00" / 127 mm guns in single mounts, 62.50lbs / 28.35kg shells, 1938 Model
Dual purpose guns in deck mounts
on side ends, evenly spread, all raised mounts - superfiring
16 - 1.10" / 27.9 mm guns (4x4 guns), 0.67lbs / 0.30kg shells, 1938 Model
Anti-aircraft guns in deck mounts
on side, all amidships, all raised mounts - superfiring
24 - 0.30" / 7.6 mm guns (16 mounts), 0.01lbs / 0.01kg shells, 1938 Model
Machine guns in deck mounts
on side, evenly spread, all raised mounts
Weight of broadside 761 lbs / 345 kg
Shells per gun, main battery: 150

Armour:
- Belts: Width (max) Length (avg) Height (avg)
Main: 4.00" / 102 mm 476.78 ft / 145.32 m 10.95 ft / 3.34 m
Ends: Unarmoured
Main Belt covers 95 % of normal length

- Torpedo Bulkhead:
2.00" / 51 mm 476.78 ft / 145.32 m 22.93 ft / 6.99 m

- Gun armour: Face (max) Other gunhouse (avg) Barbette/hoist (max)
Main: 2.00" / 51 mm 1.00" / 25 mm 2.00" / 51 mm

- Armour deck: 2.50" / 64 mm, Conning tower: 4.00" / 102 mm

Machinery:
Oil fired boilers, steam turbines,
Geared drive, 4 shafts, 118,213 shp / 88,187 Kw = 31.10 kts
Range 12,500nm at 15.00 kts
Bunker at max displacement = 4,547 tons

Complement:
960 - 1,249

Cost:
£7.114 million / $28.457 million

Distribution of weights at normal displacement:
Armament: 95 tons, 0.4 %
Armour: 3,783 tons, 15.8 %
- Belts: 882 tons, 3.7 %
- Torpedo bulkhead: 809 tons, 3.4 %
- Armament: 41 tons, 0.2 %
- Armour Deck: 1,979 tons, 8.3 %
- Conning Tower: 72 tons, 0.3 %
Machinery: 3,237 tons, 13.5 %
Hull, fittings & equipment: 8,467 tons, 35.4 %
Fuel, ammunition & stores: 3,073 tons, 12.9 %
Miscellaneous weights: 5,250 tons, 22.0 %

Overall survivability and seakeeping ability:
Survivability (Non-critical penetrating hits needed to sink ship):
44,310 lbs / 20,099 Kg = 709.0 x 5.0 " / 127 mm shells or 6.1 torpedoes
Stability (Unstable if below 1.00): 1.11
Metacentric height 4.7 ft / 1.4 m
Roll period: 16.2 seconds
Steadiness - As gun platform (Average = 50 %): 80 %
- Recoil effect (Restricted arc if above 1.00): 0.11
Seaboat quality (Average = 1.00): 2.00

Hull form characteristics:
Hull has raised forecastle
Block coefficient: 0.502
Length to Beam Ratio: 9.25 : 1
'Natural speed' for length: 27.75 kts
Power going to wave formation at top speed: 49 %
Trim (Max stability = 0, Max steadiness = 100): 40
Bow angle (Positive = bow angles forward): 27.00 degrees
Stern overhang: 21.00 ft / 6.40 m
Freeboard (% = measuring location as a percentage of overall length):
- Stem: 39.40 ft / 12.01 m
- Forecastle (19 %): 39.40 ft / 12.01 m (29.75 ft / 9.07 m aft of break)
- Mid (50 %): 29.75 ft / 9.07 m
- Quarterdeck (19 %): 29.75 ft / 9.07 m
- Stern: 29.75 ft / 9.07 m
- Average freeboard: 31.59 ft / 9.63 m

Ship space, strength and comments:
Space - Hull below water (magazines/engines, low = better): 94.4 %
- Above water (accommodation/working, high = better): 252.6 %
Waterplane Area: 42,788 Square feet or 3,975 Square metres
Displacement factor (Displacement / loading): 147 %
Structure weight / hull surface area: 115 lbs/sq ft or 563 Kg/sq metre
Hull strength (Relative):
- Cross-sectional: 0.93
- Longitudinal: 1.93
- Overall: 1.00
Hull space for machinery, storage, compartmentation is adequate
Room for accommodation and workspaces is excellent
Ship has slow, easy roll, a good, steady gun platform
Excellent seaboat, comfortable, can fire her guns in the heaviest weather

72 Aircraft as built

I still say Hornet and Wasp should be a pair in the next class, but that's just me...

Well, the original CV's Hornet and Wasp were quite different, so I don't see it as a problem. Wasp will be coming...

Again, beautiful. Excellent work!

I take it this is an intermediate step to an OTL Essex?

Possibly, though I might skip the Essex and built a Super Essex, provisionally named Ticonderoga.

Made a stab at trying to improve the Typhoon bows, kitbashing from an Oriskany graphic. Feel free to copy and fiddle with.

Quoted

Originally posted by ShinRa_Inc


Made a stab at trying to improve the Typhoon bows, kitbashing from an Oriskany graphic. Feel free to copy and fiddle with.

Yeah, that looks a lot more right, I'd say...

I always liked this immediate postwar design myself.

Isn't Super Essex -> Midway? Or simply sticking with little armour. In that case I'm not sure why the larger ship. It's challenging to operate an airgroup much larger than 100 as experience with Midway showed. Essex is a pretty fair design for that number of aircraft. It's only if you want more protection (or much bigger aircraft) that the larger ship would become necessary.

The enclosed bows look good, but I'd think the flight deck might need to be reduced in width a bit towards the bow so there isn't as much overhang.

The Midway concept was designed, built, and centered around putting an Armoured Flight deck over a ship capable of operating an Essex (or better) flight group, which resulted in a noticable increase in size to support that weight.

From what I understand, Canis is looking for something smaller than the Midways, because he is not looking to put an Armoured Flight deck over it, and thus doesn't need something quite so massively built.

The Scheme 6 carrier (Which is what I believe you've posted), incorporated a lot of wartime experience and innovations which the USN (or any other navy, really) doesn't quite have yet. However, with some navies taking the ashistorically early steps toward angled flight decks in WW, that particulat approach might be worth considering for the eventual CV-10 class.

All things are possible. The Andrea Doria already looks very much like the Scheme 6 and the argument against an armored flight deck makes sense. Its a helluva lot of weight high up on the ship and its much harder to repair than a wooden deck. Hammer was sunk in a surface action, which would seem to indicate that carriers need to fear that more. Have we had carriers sunk by air attack at sea yet?

Quoted

Originally posted by CanisD
Have we had carriers sunk by air attack at sea yet?

Nein!

Hammer is the only carrier that's been sunk in combat, to my reccollection.

There aren't really any aircraft carriers with angled flight decks out there apart from the small Australian cruiser-carriers. You don't really gain much by going to an angled deck with period aircraft. They're light enough that the barrier can stop them. Period aircraft have rather different approach paths to jets as well. You're pretty much making a powered approach and then cutting the engine in order to fall onto the deck. With high landing speeds and longer response times you can't do this with jets and the angled deck becomes more useful.

Utility of armoured decks on aircraft carriers - we've got quite a few more potent dive bombers around in WW. Midway got a lot more than just flight deck armour as well. Much thicker belt armour, bulkheads and deck armour, and more torpedo defence. There are quite a few large carrier designs being built at the moment, most have quite significant amounts of armour.

I would have thought that Garibaldi was a better comparison with the Attack Carrier (C-2 1946) I posted given the same catapult layout.