Design a warship fun thread

Totoro

Major
VIP Professional
Have fun, make drawings of various ships and explain why you think they're a good design. Have people comment and discuss the design.

I'll start it off with an aircraft carrier that I believe may be good enough for PLAN's next carrier.

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I used the Nimitz carrier as a reference, so you can see the differences in size and layout.

Plane lines are modeeled on F18E. Which could be roughly what J-31 might be. Maybe F18E is even a bit bigger.

Carrier is 322 long and with a total width of 72 meters. It's a bit hard to see, but the front part of the runway needs more deck overhang, so there's a protrusion in deck width there. The island also protrudes over the rest of the deck. Without that island protrusion, total width of the deck would be just 68 meters.

Island is drawn in purple color.

Yellow rectangle is approximate size and shape of CV-17's island, for reference. So the question is, is it plausible for new carrier to have an even smaller island, while still using conventional propulsion? The underlying design for the carrier is conventional, NOT nuclear propulsion. Though, as we can see, even Nimitz with its nuclear fueled propulsion still doesn't really have that much smaller island complex.

Catapults were made to be as long as ones on Nimitz. But, I am not fully sure that's necessary. Charles de gaulle has 20 meters shorter catapults and seems to be using both E-2C and Rafale M just fine. Shortening the cats could help quite if goal is to make the whole ship smaller. That way the whole displacement could basically be the same as CV-17. But since we have those satellite images of cats being tested in China, I went with 120 meter long ones, as that's closer to the model China has been testing.

I do believe if CV-17 is some 60ish thousand tons, and Nimitz is close to 100, a carrier of this size could be made to displace 70-75 thousand tons.

Whole idea of the design is to keep it fairly small, displacement wise. I found that length of carrier is more important to being able to cram all the functions in it than the width of the carrier. So i deliberately went with a carrier that's even a bit narrower than CV-17. Even though, of course, more width would have solved some issues.

Big issue I have with my design is very, very little clearance between runway and island. Is seems barely enough to move various deck vehicles there, without interfering with landings, and it makes it impossible to move any aircraft without the same. Then again, does Nimitz move planes there while there's a landing happening? I basically assume that my design won't even use that whole rear part of the deck near the island for planes that often, that it will be a deck part for helicopter ops.

Critique away. answer my questions if you can.
 

Totoro

Major
VIP Professional
Addenum: Just measured Ford carrier's catapults. They're roughly 110 meters long. (So Chinese ones are longer for some reason). Plus, their end is placed closer to the edge of the deck, further making them seem shorter. Certainly a differnt ship could be devised if made over Ford's image, using some if its standards.
 

SinoSoldier

Colonel
Not wholly my intellectual property, but here is an interesting one:

1. Type 071-based cruiser/destroyer
2. 3 x 3 railguns (two turrets at the bow, one at the stern)
3. 128 VLS cells (9 m depth, 850 mm diameter)
4. Possibly nuclear-powered
5. 2 x Type 1130 CIWS
5. 2 x laser CIWS

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Totoro

Major
VIP Professional
Not wholly my intellectual property, but here is an interesting one:

1. Type 071-based cruiser/destroyer
2. 3 x 3 railguns (two turrets at the bow, one at the stern)
3. 128 VLS cells (9 m depth, 850 mm diameter)
4. Possibly nuclear-powered
5. 2 x Type 1130 CIWS
5. 2 x laser CIWS

Not taking into account the fact that having so many railguns is plain silly and mostly useless, apart of very niche shore bombardment role, the other big issue with the design would be the fact it HAS to be nuclear powered. Because otherwise it has no room for engine intake/exhausts, which usually take up a lot of real estate on every conventional powered ship. Also, the VLS well seems to be positioned between two tall masts which may be too close to it and launches have adverse effects on all those electronics. Having ALL the those VLS cells in one place may also be a bit dangerous, as it lacks redundancy in case of damage.
 

Lethe

Captain
No comment on this specific concept, but why do multi-barrel railgun setups make little sense? As I understand it, barrel life is a major hurdle for railgun setups. Having multiple barrels allows for reduced wear on the barrels at a given rate of fire, plus the option of to provide an accelerated rate of fire in circumstances that require it. 3x3 turrets might be a bit much even for a vessel designed primarily to provide fire support for amphibious operations, but I could see 2x2...
 

damitch300

Junior Member
Registered Member
Not to only mention the structural strength being taken away by all those VLS....

These are my latest designs...
Still a Work In Progress
2lbkgmw.jpg

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Totoro

Major
VIP Professional
No comment on this specific concept, but why do multi-barrel railgun setups make little sense? As I understand it, barrel life is a major hurdle for railgun setups. Having multiple barrels allows for reduced wear on the barrels at a given rate of fire, plus the option of to provide an accelerated rate of fire in circumstances that require it. 3x3 turrets might be a bit much even for a vessel designed primarily to provide fire support for amphibious operations, but I could see 2x2...

EM guns have for the most part solved the short barrel life issue and are now not lagging that much behind regular guns in that regard. Still, they require a lot of real estate, compared to a regular gun. Having several of them on a ship requires a large ship, mostly dedicated to them. And assault shore bombardment is such a niche role. Air power would be more cost efficient to use, instead of keeping such ships for that role, for decades and decades.
 
What about a supersized catamaran like an enlarged LCS Independence or Tuo Jiang? Done right by modular design and weight distribution of course. Maybe as large as the Pioneering Spirit?

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Lethe

Captain
Sino-Kirov

25-30k ton full load displacement
Nuclear propulsion, top speed 32 knots
256 strike-length VLS cells
2x 6-8" railguns
4 CIWS.
3 helicopters (or equivalent UAV).

~6 units.

In combat these vessels would accompany carrier or amphibious groups. They would mount the most powerful primary radar ever seen aboard a warship, providing unprecedented capability against esp. VLO targets and ballistic missiles to be shared amongst the battlegroup. Additionally, they would offer a very heavy offensive punch courtesy of the scaling effects of increasing VLS cells (i.e. self-defence and standard AAM loadout remains relatively fixed while the number of cells available for AShMs, LACMs, and specialised ABM AAMs increases greatly) and their railguns to provide gunfire support. And of course they would offer unparalleled command and control capabilities for the rest of the battle group. Finally, they would have formidable psychological presence value, equivalent to or exceeding the carriers themselves.
 
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