Shipbucket

Now, I haven't drawn a shipbucket-style ship yet, and probably won't be doing this for some time, at least until I fiure out how....

But what is the general consensus about ship size? Not necessarily real ships, but rather own designs.

For example, I'm (still) working on a AU story about the "Northern European Union", and have designed a few very large ships for it. Which are a 550 meter Dual-Tramline LHA, a to 570 meter Trimaran CVN and a 715 meter MPF-ship.

My idea was this, if someone could design a 1,500 meter ship (Freedom ship) then these military ships could work too, especially since the funds are readily available (not yet determined how/why, just that they are) and the NEU would be in the 21st century (story plays around 2030) what the United States was in the 20th century.

Any comments/ideas?

Interesting, say more about it.

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Ace and I work on such one!

The Norhern European Union originated from the present day EU. After he financial crisis, and the problems with the 'Southern' countries such as Spain, Portugal and Greece, the 'Northern' countries decided to take matters in to their own hand and abandon the Brussels-dominated EU. The Nothern Eropean Union consists of Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Finland), Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Iceland and The Netherlands. They have again closed their borders to non-NEU nations, but have still good relations with France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Japan and Israel.

Italy (with it's problematic leader Berlusconi) is almost completely ignored, while the southern countries struggle to restore their economy. The Balkan is again in a civil war, and is a threat to the security of the NEU.

The economy of he NEU on the other hand is booming. Thanks to breakthroughs in environmentally friendly power generation and nuclear waste disposal, as well as a leading authority in science the standard of living is higher than ever before.

The United States are a whole other story. After four years under the leadership of president Obama, another ultra-conservative Republican president rose to power. The national debt increased even more, and the economy was all but completely destroyed. The once proud nation is now on the brink of being a third world country, and has almost no meaning in Global Politics, the NEU has purchased many patents from the US, so hardware similar to Boeing, Bell-Textron, Lockheed-Martin and other companies is ow being developed in the NEU.

Russia is a little better, but still lacks freedom of press, and is still (unoficially) lead by Putin. Relations have improved however and there is a good deal of trade between the NEU and the Russian Federation.

Well, needless to say, the backgrond story still needs a lot of work, but this is more or less the base for my AU.

And yes, I know this is of topic.

And again ... Poland, Slovakia, Czech, Hungary are ignored.

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Nobody expects the Imperial Inquisition!

Welcome to the board. The issue with very large ships (larger than say 350 meters and about three hundred thousand tons deadweight) is that you run into structural issues that prevent even turning around in a reasonable amount of time or space without breaking the ship in two. Honestly the Freedom Ship concept is a bit silly. While I know it gets around some of the torque issues by having a massively distributed propulsion system, the lateral tensile and compressive loads on something that big moving makes me think that the designers forgot some of their materials engineering classes. For more detail and information, I’d suggest asking Thiel as he serves on a merchant ship.

This brings me to the next question. What missions are your NEU going to undertake that ships of that size are optimal for? Carrier wise, unless you are going to have an airwing of B-58 sized planes, there is little reason to move to larger ships than those of the Enterprise, Nimitz and Ford classes. This is because experientially it has been shown that above about a hundred aircraft you get rapidly diminishing returns for larger airwings. Similar issues undoubtedly crop up with LHAs and other amphibious assault ships.

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Well, large aircraft & rotorcraft will operate from these ships. The Karem OST for example, as well as the Sikorsky X2-JHL and a few other large aircraft, including a 40 meter wingspan stealth bomber based on the General Dynamics A-12 Avenger II. I'm also working on a 'what if' idea. The development of Sci-Fi vehicles into real world aircraft. Among these three different fighter jets from Yukikaze (STOVL-Sylphid, Super-Sylph and Mave), the C-21 Dragon from James Cameron's Avatar and the VF-0C/D and SV-51y from Macross Zero (non transforming of course). Besides, I just like large ships, and if you compare the carriers from today (well, Nimitz is basically a 1970's design) to the largest carriers from WWI or WWII, the increase in size and capability is very obvious.

The large size of the ships also means thicker armor (yes, and a higher displacement) and being able to support large amphibious landings without the need of a foreign port or airbase. The CVN will be able to resupply submarines between it's hulls. All of these ships will be 'warfare capable', meaning they will be equipped with VLS-systems and advanced electronics.

Contrary to the present day US-carriers, they will be more self-supporting. So the old saying 'the fleet protects te carrier & the carrier protects te fleet' doesn't aply to these ships anymore. The lage size of the LHA and MPF-ship also means a large well deck for LCAC's, LCU's, SSC's, combined capability WIG's etc.

yes, modern carriers are enlarged. BUT aircraft are enlarged a lot too. let's see. an F-14 tomcat is the size of an mid weight bomber from ww2. so the ships had to become larger. so the aircraft became 3 times as heavy (if not more) and the carriers growed only 100 meters or so. at the same time, the carrier design changed, having added a runway for takeoff and landing at the same time. this also increased the size a bit.

now about the aircraft choice: aircraft carriers don't have to carry large bombers, because these have the range to fly towards most battlefields themselves. I agree with you that most aircraft you are planning to carry are cool, but are they usable! let's see. mave, vf-0 and sv-51 are fighters/interceptors, I am not familiar with the C-21, so I can't say anything about that.... but an sylphid or an supersylph on an aircraft carrier!!!?????

and that carrier protects the fleet fleet protects carrier etc. is the backbone of almost every carrier force in the world. there is no point in the way you are thinking now.

for what I hear, you don't need an ship of this size, but more something like an mobile offshore base. the first mobile offshore base on shipbucket is an WIP from me and ALVAMA for my AU, and even the 'based on real concepts' design is a bit on the 'almost impossible' side of things. I like your way of thinking, but a little bit less ideas from movies and more from real life would be an good idea.

modern ships aren't that much armored anymore (don't know the exact reason, can somebody add that in for me)

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Don't worry, I still haven't worked it out completely. I might create a new 'Warschau-pact' of some kind, but without the influence of Russia this tme. My best friend is from Bulgaria, and she has told me many times about her country before the fall of the Soviet Union.

@Acelancelot, the Syper-Sylph is actually an (armed) recon plane, and would fulfill the role of AEW. Th Sylphid will be different from the anime version. It will have a lift fan behind the cockpit (like the F-35 JSF) and perform a similar role. It's internal stores would optimize stealth, combined with STOVL capability. The Mave (and Rafe UCAV) will be experimental aircraft, being tested from these ships for optimum security. The VF-0C/D (the larger delta-winged variant) would be used in a similar role as the F/A-18 Super Hornet. Little stealth, but heavy weaponsload. The stealthbomber is designed to give the Carrier a deep-strike capabilty. Flying from airbases to the other side of the world is nice, but a carrier based aircraft means easier maintenance and a higher rate of sortie per plane. Besides, it's not as large as a B-2, more like a FB-111, just with a lage wingspan because of the flying wing planform.

The SV-51y is not necessarily used on the carrier (Navy), but rather by the air force. Besides, despite being a new Union, the countries keep their own military, just with a greater degree of partnership. I will put the SV-51 in the service of the New Warschau pact and Israeli Air force, as a replacement for the Sukhoi Flanker and F-15.

Still, I know using movie-vehicles will cause (more than a few) problems, but hey, it's all make believe anyway.

BTW, if you finish the CVX-3c stealth carrier, I might have to 'steal' it from you for use in my AU
I have some good Deck-layouts of the ship if you need them. Found these after a long search on the web. Just shoot me a PM.

Here's a link to the (upcoming) scale model of the C-21 Dragon. Now this is a whole other kind of animal. C-17 and AC-130 combined in a (slow) VTOL package.
http://www.fantastic-plastic.com/C-21As ... ogPage.htm

I think we pretty much reached the upper limit for ship sizes when they extended the Jaahre Viking, at least as far as single huller go.
With a modern double hull, with cell structured ballast tanks, hanger type deck and on-deck supports we might be able to go a smidgen farther, but I'm not sure.
But it's really a moot point. Even if you could build ships that big, you'd still need to figure out where to put them. If I remember correctly, the Jaahre Viking has a draft of 25-30m fully loaded. In that condition it cannot enter any port in the world. Your ships are going to face similar and worse problems, since entire oceans will be out of reach. The baltics will be completely impossible to even try to approach due to a combination of shallow waters and "low" bridges. This may not be so bad, after all, you have plenty of nearby airbases. However, you won't be able to enter the Enlgish channel either. The only place you could maybe build a base deep enough to allow it to enter is in one of the Norwegian Fjords, and unless you go for the Oslo Fjord, you probably won't be able to turn it around in there.
Another problem would be the fact that no existing harbour tugs is powerful enough to assist you. You'd need fullscale oceanic tug.

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