HvyCgn9 wrote:
costampede wrote:
Heres something I have been playing around with.
I like this one ALOT!! Keeps aft turret and Add's a decent Hangar (is that Sprucan/Tico sized??) gives my my twisted little 1/72scale mind some ideas!
Cheers N Merry Xmas
Bruce
For sure it's interesting! I have seen this type of thing for sure. While this is possible, this is not what I had in mind. My idea is a minimalist but highly effective modernization, hence utilization of the below-deck hanger and existing structure. Plus there are a lot of things wrong with that picture and only require some tweaking to offer a reasonable picture:
- The VLS needs to be elevated quite a bit. It cannot penetrate that deep into the ship. That penetrates the vital second armored deck.
- The foremast is super way too big. Cut it by 1/2 and you would be accurate.
- Since it is operating with a Burke mast it is obviously a very modern conversion. Thus it needs 2 RAM mounts, likely 1 Phalanx and 1 RAM per side instead of 2 Phalanx only. They also need to be elevated to the O3 deck for proper coverage.
- All the 3" magazines are doing in that picture are taking up deck space. They should be cut off completely.
...but hey those are only my suggestions. While only a little tweeking would need to be done and you could have a pretty decent arrangement. But this is a huge rebuild, more of an Albany-type complete rebuild, and to be perfectly honest, if you want to go this way, HvyCgn9, I would suggest you go a little further if not all the way. I have thought about this kind of rebuild, so let me share it with you.
A Little Further:
You could have a modernized Mk74 Tartar New Threat Upgrade Weapon Direction System with 2 arrangements of 64 VLS cells. I would also suggest with this Albany-type re-build you rebuild the whole superstructure. In this situation you could redesign just a little if not a whole lot the bridge structure. I would suggest a new stack, too, such as a large version of a large Burke-style flat-sided aft stack with four staggered exhaust vents at the top. Then directly behind that your stack.
- In this picture, the mast is about 2x too big. So chop it down by 1/2 and you would be close to the right size.
- The aft VLS you could indeed put in the place of the below deck hanger and build in additional deck around it to fill in the rest of the hanger opening.
- This way you could have the monstrous modernized AAW system with 128 VLS tubes and the armament of the Des Moines.
- Two custom masts. Forget the stupid Burkes mast. People get such boners of "Burke masts". Unless it's going to be really, really close to a Burke (like my CGN) make your own mast. The Burke mast is dumb, because it holds nearly nothing. You would need two masts, one to hold a SPS-49, SPS-48, SPS-67, and a SPQ-9B. Those are all big radars and need some stout strucutre. Then consideration of the weaponry:
- 9 8"/55caliber rapid-fire guns
- 4 Mk45 mod4 5"/62caliber guns
- At least 16 Harpoons
All the Way:
- The above with Aegis instead of NTU
I can't wait to see you get started on your super heavy cruiser!