The Ship Model Forum

Ok, well I have been toying with what to do with my already built (poorly done though) 1/350 Essex kit. I had been thinking of turning her into an angled deck conversion of one of our carriers off Vietnam, but decided that I want to indulge my what-if idea instead, which will free me up to use my imagination instead of another long research-intensive project. I have kicked around some ideas with CliffyB, and here is what I have planned so far. I started hacking away at the Essex kit a couple weeks ago, but am open to other ideas as well.

Plan-
Still teetering on weather or not she will recieve an angled deck, but leaning towards yes, to accomodate my ever growing air wing.

Ship will be a special operations carrier, who's sole purpose is inserting and supporting small USMC and SEAL units. Airwing will be all USMC birds, whose pilots are specially trained in extreme close air support of the ground units. Units will all be inserted via helos (usually and preferred) and occasionally inserted by fast riverine craft. No ground vehicles will be embarked, as these units will be foot-mobile. Basically the air wing is dedicated support for the special ops ground units, and the carrier is designed around being 100% self-supporting (leaving the air to air up to the Navy and USAF who have that role well covered) so no fighters will be included in the air wing.

Air wing will include:
CH-46's
UH-1's
early AH-1 (maybe, still debating)
Skyraiders
C-47 converted to a carrier capable "Spooky" gunship to loiter for long periods and rain some serious hate and discontent when needed.
And possibly a few trumpy B-25's converted via scratchbuilding into carrier capable upgraded B-26's armed to the teeth for close support of the ground troops. These could even employ the JATO technology if it seems that they would not be able to launch on their own. Just to make them look more modernized and add to the cool factor, I will try to put the booms on the wing tips as well.

There will be 4 PBR's with 2 pre-rigged on the flight deck for helo insert to provide an additional quick response for troop exfiltration and/or riverine fire support. The 2 additional PBR's will be stored on the side of the hull and handled by the ship's crane to be dropped in the water.

Inspiration for the ship's details and the island are being taken from various real ships from the vietnam period, but this carrier will be a total what-if, not based even loosely on any of those actual ships. the island will be either completely scratch-built or heavily modified from the kit. Ship's armament will be minimal, maybe retaining a couple of the dual 5" guns, but her "teeth" are the SEALS/ USMC Recon Marines, and the supporting aircraft.

The Spooky may be the biggest "stretch" of the imagination, but I really wanted to build one of l'arsenal s new C-47's and since I don;t build any dios, this is the only excuse I could come up with for adding one to one of my builds.

Ship will be christened as the USS Douglas T Jacobson designated special operations carrier CV(SO): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_T._Jacobson

What do ya think fellers? This is not just an idea, she will be built, I am going to use as much as I can from the ever growing spares box to try to thin that out a little...

_________________
Enlisted men are stupid, but very cunning and deceitful and bear considerable watching." - Marine Corps Officers Manual, 1894

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

A number of aircraft have been turned into "gunships" with side firing weapons to support the orbital flight profile typical of that weapon system - so your "stretch" is quite reasonable, but perhaps you should consider a carrier-capable airframe.

There have been proposals for example to convert S-3s into gunships. Ergo, why not look at some of the earlier turbo prop carrier aircraft:

- Grumman C-1 Trader
- Grumman C-2 Greyhound

You will not get a 105mm on either airframe, but they certainly could mount a pair of gattling guns and other ordanance, and still be carrier capable and supportable.

The A-1 Skyraider is in every capacity a superior attack aircraft/bomber than the B-25 and B-26 (A-26???), except for range. Something like the A-1 should still be in the USN arsenal (sorry, rant off).

The B-26 (Marauder) had very high wing loading, very fast landing speeds, even by land based aviation standards: not a good candidate for carrier operations.

Thanks for the info!

As for the C-2/C-1 airframe, I agree that would be more logical, but using one of the new C-47's from L'arsenal is a "must have" for me, so I figured this would be the only opportunity to include one of them in one of my ship builds

I love skyraiders, so those were a no-brainer. The range of the B-25's or A-26's (that is what I meant, not the WW2 B-26's, so I don't know if that makes a difference with respect to the landing speed, as I am not very familiar with these AC) is why I was thinking of adding these. Giving the greater range of support, or ,longer time to loiter in the air not far from where our spec ops guys are, to provide faster support if it is needed. But again, I am not familar with the finer details of all these aircraft, hence me posting this here.

_________________
Enlisted men are stupid, but very cunning and deceitful and bear considerable watching." - Marine Corps Officers Manual, 1894

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

Got it and cool project.

The A-1 just rules over the other aircraft listed in terms of speed, bombload, flexibility, etc..

I agree 100%, the skyraider is one of my favorite aircraft, and definately my favorite prop driven.

So do you think the A-26 idea is at least feasable for a carrier-borne support?

I had really wanted to somehow add a Neptune to the flight deck, but I don't think that it would really have a place to fit in with the mission specific airwing tailored to supporting the ground troops.

_________________
Enlisted men are stupid, but very cunning and deceitful and bear considerable watching." - Marine Corps Officers Manual, 1894

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

Ryan, look into VAH-21! They flew AP-2H Neptunes out of Cam Ranh Bay during Vietnam in the late 1960's and sported a really neat multi-tone gray disruptive camo. They were modified P2V-7 (final production model) originally intended for ECM work for the USN but proved to be very lethal attack bombers. From the end of 1967 to mid 1969 they were used to drop electronic sensors on the Ho Chi Minh Trail as well as do nighttime interdiction work. They added a low-light TV camera in a pod under the nose, replaced the big belly radar with a smaller that looked more like an ECM pod, re-installed the twin 20mm tail turret, suppressed the engine exhausts (IR signature), and loaded them full of bombs and napalm. They even added some neat 7.62 minigun pods fixed at a downward 30 degree angle! I'll send you drawings/photos later. The camo scheme will look really cool mixed in with some nighttime SEA schemes on the Spads and Spooky!

_________________
Drawing Board:
1/700 Whiff USS Leyte and escorts 1984
1/700 Whiff USN Modernized CAs 1984
1/700 Whiff ASW Showdown - FFs vs SSGN 1984

Slipway:
1/700 Whiff USN ASW Hunter Killer Group Dio 1984

Cliffy,
I know that the P2V/P-2 had taken off from a carrier, but I hadn't heard that the plane could land on a carrier. It would be wonderful if it could. It really was a great wingy thing!

SgtRyan13,
Sec Ops Carrier? I would think that such a ship being reported in an area would immediately alert any land entities that they could expect a visit. Not much of a stealth, surprise, undetected insertion possibility there.

Same here Russ and that was on CV-41, not CV-9 class. Let's look at it this way though for the sake of whiff purposes. A B-25 took and landed multiple times from CV-38 during the war completely unassisted. I don't know the load(s) it carried though but we don't need to know for our purposes here. Its max takeoff weight was 35,000 lbs. The Neptune's was just shy of 80,000 lbs. The A-3 Skywarrior, a plane slightly smaller than the Neptune could takeoff at 82,000 lbs. A-3s operated from SCB CV-9s albeit needing cats and arresting gear. Those are max takeoff weights though, I don't know what the max cat shot weights were. For the whiff world, I don't think its too much of a stretch to say a carrier capable Neptune was developed and used on an old SCB CV-9.

The Neptune beats both in range but is second in ordnance load with the B-25 at the very bottom and the A-26 just above it. The A-3 actually would be the best choice for a heavy attack bomber but if using L'arsenal and a prop bomber is the requirement, I'd add some kitted out Neptunes to your Spookys, Spads, and helos. Would keep things in the USN/USMC family too

_________________
Drawing Board:
1/700 Whiff USS Leyte and escorts 1984
1/700 Whiff USN Modernized CAs 1984
1/700 Whiff ASW Showdown - FFs vs SSGN 1984

Slipway:
1/700 Whiff USN ASW Hunter Killer Group Dio 1984

Well I would really like to have an excuse to put a neptune on there...

Russ, my idea is that the carrier would not be a surprise to anyone really, but the missions I envision the teams carrying out would n ot necessarily be coastal operations, so the location of the carrier may not be all that telling. There would be other carriers in the same general area carrying out their missions. I am just using the carrier as a floating platform to insert spec ops troops whereever they are needed. I guess with a mission similar to other amphibs, but with a beefier air wing and fewer ground troops, but the whole point being that she is entirely self supporting, making secret missions and their supporting assets easier to coordinate. Well that is the main point along with indulging my inner child that wants to stage my own battles on the living room floor!

_________________
Enlisted men are stupid, but very cunning and deceitful and bear considerable watching." - Marine Corps Officers Manual, 1894

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html