WesWorld

The RCN will be aquiring The Weird Sisters, C&G in Q4, and Furious sometime in '37

The plan is to razeé them mostly to the strength deck, and build a new double-hangar superstructure to accomodate roughly 60-72 planes, and to include a reshaping of the bow, bulges, reenginging, and all the usual refinements to make them effective fleet carriers.

Weapons layout is intended with the 5.5" guns in an essex layout fore & aft of the island for widest range of fire, and the 40mm countersunk at the four quarters of the flight deck, per usual.

Furious will be similar, mostly with smaller bulges due to her wider current beam.

HMCS Courageous, Canadian [Ex-British] Aircraft Carrier laid down 1915 (Engine 1937)

Displacement:
22,000 t light; 22,596 t standard; 24,711 t normal; 26,402 t full load

Dimensions: Length overall / water x beam x draught
740.29 ft / 735.00 ft x 81.00 ft (Bulges 90.00 ft) x 24.00 ft (normal load)
225.64 m / 224.03 m x 24.69 m (Bulges 27.43 m) x 7.32 m

Armament:
12 - 5.50" / 140 mm guns (4x3 guns), 83.19lbs / 37.73kg shells, 1935 Model
Dual purpose guns in turrets (on barbettes)
on side, all amidships, all raised mounts - superfiring
64 - 1.57" / 40.0 mm guns (8x8 guns), 1.95lbs / 0.88kg shells, 1935 Model
Anti-aircraft guns in deck mounts
on side ends, evenly spread, all raised mounts - superfiring
48 - 0.79" / 20.0 mm guns (24x2 guns), 0.24lbs / 0.11kg shells, 1935 Model
Machine guns in deck mounts
on side, evenly spread, all raised mounts
Weight of broadside 1,135 lbs / 515 kg
Shells per gun, main battery: 150

Armour:
- Belts: Width (max) Length (avg) Height (avg)
Main: 4.00" / 102 mm 565.00 ft / 172.21 m 12.00 ft / 3.66 m
Ends: Unarmoured
Main Belt covers 118 % of normal length

- Torpedo Bulkhead and Bulges:
2.00" / 51 mm 480.00 ft / 146.30 m 22.00 ft / 6.71 m

- Gun armour: Face (max) Other gunhouse (avg) Barbette/hoist (max)
Main: 2.00" / 51 mm 1.00" / 25 mm 2.00" / 51 mm
2nd: 1.00" / 25 mm - -

- Armour deck: 2.00" / 51 mm

Machinery:
Oil fired boilers, steam turbines,
Geared drive, 4 shafts, 161,717 shp / 120,641 Kw = 33.00 kts
Range 10,000nm at 15.00 kts
Bunker at max displacement = 3,806 tons

Complement:
985 - 1,281

Cost:
£2.206 million / $8.824 million

Distribution of weights at normal displacement:
Armament: 142 tons, 0.6 %
Armour: 3,656 tons, 14.8 %
- Belts: 1,110 tons, 4.5 %
- Torpedo bulkhead: 781 tons, 3.2 %
- Armament: 235 tons, 0.9 %
- Armour Deck: 1,530 tons, 6.2 %
- Conning Tower: 0 tons, 0.0 %
Machinery: 4,482 tons, 18.1 %
Hull, fittings & equipment: 8,270 tons, 33.5 %
Fuel, ammunition & stores: 2,711 tons, 11.0 %
Miscellaneous weights: 5,450 tons, 22.1 %

Overall survivability and seakeeping ability:
Survivability (Non-critical penetrating hits needed to sink ship):
36,318 lbs / 16,474 Kg = 436.6 x 5.5 " / 140 mm shells or 4.9 torpedoes
Stability (Unstable if below 1.00): 1.22
Metacentric height 5.2 ft / 1.6 m
Roll period: 16.5 seconds
Steadiness - As gun platform (Average = 50 %): 51 %
- Recoil effect (Restricted arc if above 1.00): 0.10
Seaboat quality (Average = 1.00): 1.24

Hull form characteristics:
Hull has low quarterdeck
Block coefficient: 0.545
Length to Beam Ratio: 8.17 : 1
'Natural speed' for length: 27.11 kts
Power going to wave formation at top speed: 56 %
Trim (Max stability = 0, Max steadiness = 100): 41
Bow angle (Positive = bow angles forward): 10.00 degrees
Stern overhang: 0.00 ft / 0.00 m
Freeboard (% = measuring location as a percentage of overall length):
- Stem: 30.00 ft / 9.14 m
- Forecastle (20 %): 28.00 ft / 8.53 m
- Mid (50 %): 28.00 ft / 8.53 m
- Quarterdeck (15 %): 18.00 ft / 5.49 m (28.00 ft / 8.53 m before break)
- Stern: 18.00 ft / 5.49 m
- Average freeboard: 26.66 ft / 8.13 m

Ship space, strength and comments:
Space - Hull below water (magazines/engines, low = better): 116.6 %
- Above water (accommodation/working, high = better): 223.9 %
Waterplane Area: 41,346 Square feet or 3,841 Square metres
Displacement factor (Displacement / loading): 129 %
Structure weight / hull surface area: 126 lbs/sq ft or 617 Kg/sq metre
Hull strength (Relative):
- Cross-sectional: 0.97
- Longitudinal: 1.30
- Overall: 1.00
Hull space for machinery, storage, compartmentation is cramped
Room for accommodation and workspaces is excellent
Good seaboat, rides out heavy weather easily

Automatic Dual-Purpose twin 5.5" guns simmed as triples.

5300 tons for 72 planes
(36 upper hanger, 24 lower hanger, 12 spare/deckpark)
150 tons for Radar and other equipment

but but ... they are capital ships! Don't you want to hurl their armored hulls at the foe and hope to inflict massive casualties due to laughter?

I would suggest a larger magazine, while you are unlikely to use your current loadout in any one combat, even considering that it is actually 225/gun a campaign may see multiple and you also may want more than one sort of shell.

It sounds like you are doing a 50% refit, in which case the old barbettes are being retained, in which case you should likely allocate some miscellaneous weight to that. Not sure what that does to engine spaces. The misc weight is warping the % hull underwater number.

Quoted

Originally posted by Kaiser Kirk
It sounds like you are doing a 50% refit, in which case the old barbettes are being retained, in which case you should likely allocate some miscellaneous weight to that. Not sure what that does to engine spaces. The misc weight is warping the % hull underwater number.

Uhm, were the barbettes retained during the original/historical conversions? Please remember I'm not converting the 'virgin' battlecruisers, but modernizing the carrier conversions already carried out by the RN in the 20s.

IIRC the Courageous class retained their aft barbette which was used for the pilots briefing room ect. I'm not sure about the forward barbette.

I'll do a bit of digging on that one from the sources I have. With reguards to the hangars I'm not sure why you would redo them unless your recieving Furious. I'd simply extend them.

I'm (eventually) recieving all three, with an eye towards all three having roughly the same specs and capabilities. Superstructure work (which includes the hangars on these three) costs the same as reengining them, so there isn't any real reason not to obtain the best capabilities possible for the cost.

IMO Furious could definately use a complete raising down to the strength deck and a rebuild to Courageous standards. The Courageous and Glorious however most likely only need the hangars extended forward and armaments upgraded.

I think that reworking from the main deck upwards incorporating two hangars should really fall underneath a 75% refit. Its a massive change to the ship.

I'm not sure they would even need that, the funnel uptakes will still be the same, just a few minor changes to the hangar. The 30.5 knot speed is still very respectable. It would be much cheaper to simply extend the hangar/flightdeck forward and give them a new main armament. Given the fact your adding new structure forward a catapult can be added with ease.

The hangars are fairly large already. Replacing the flying off deck with extra hangar space is probably best along with revised uptakes and island for the new machinery. Theres still a hump in the flight deck which would restrict operating heavy aircraft.

Well you could always just raise the aft flightdeck, might have to make a few Island alterations as a result.

Not really. The aft flight deck angles upwards until a point just forwards of the superstructure where it angles down towards the bow and then stops at the flying off deck.

The pictures I've seen show the hump closer to just aft of the Island structure in the Courageous/Furious. You'd just have to remove the entire flightdeck, difficult yes but much less work than raising her to the main deck and starting over.

I'm curious as to how the hump would restrict heavier aircraft?

Quoted

Originally posted by howard
Just two engineering comments.

The catapult has to be braced into the strength deck. Those mechanical loads on a light flight deck superstructure? Uh uh. Big aircraft carrier no no, with the 2.5 ton+ aircraft now entering WW service.

How was it done on the Yorktowns then?, their strength deck is the main hangar deck and not the flight deck yet they had 3 cats, 2 on the flight deck and one athartships.

Wouldn't any work on installing new engines basically include tearing large holes in the flight deck and hangar just to even swap the machinery? At that point, doesn't it become more productive to just rebuild that structure to improved standards?

And what do you mean by 'heavier aircraft'? I'm not planning to operate B-25s from them.

I'm also dubious on the prospect of a ski-jump being effective for launching aircraft until you start operating modern jets.

Quoted

Originally posted by ShinRa_Inc
I'm also dubious on the prospect of a ski-jump being effective for launching aircraft until you start operating modern jets.

Your right to be dubious, the ski-jump needs a far greater thrust to weight ratio from an aircraft than anything in service in WW, because as you advance up the ramp, gravity starts to work against you.
Also the airflow coming over the Ski-jump will be more turbulent than that coming over the edge of a normal flight deck. In fact, you would be better following British practice in this regard, the rounded edge used on Ark Royal and her sisters actually smoothed out the airflow, giving the aircraft the best possible chance to acheive aerodynamic lift BEFORE reaching the deck edge.
You do not want to have a plane relying solely on it's engine to haul it into the air as it comes off the deck.

Here's an earlier thread on the issue, inverted that time!!

It depends what sort of catapults you use. The British types didn't require much strengthening. Single cat offset over the bow should be fine. The ships were quite fine forwards (enough buoyancy to have a full length flight deck though), but you run into size constraints below for the catapult machinery.

Running up the hill towards the bump takes more energy. With larger, heavier planes, they'll be needing more of the flight deck to accelerate and take off from. Eventually you get to the point where the planes have to be launched by catapult.

New machinery doesn't require massive holes to be cut in the deck. Entirely new island and double hangars is more structural and should need 75%.