Super Battleships and the progress of technology.

[Guest]

Regarding heavy armament on carriers on a later date I could also cynically bring up Magomi, Tone, Chikuma, Ise and Hyuga, the contemplated conversion of Richelieu and Lion class BB to half-carrier, half battleship configurations, and last, but certainly the most, that infamous design by a famous American naval engineering firm for Soviet union which involve a 79,000 ton battle carrier with 9X16" guns on a hull driven by 6 shafts.

[JWintjes]

Regarding heavy armament on carriers on a later date I could also cynically bring up Magomi, Tone, Chikuma, Ise and Hyuga, the contemplated conversion of Richelieu and Lion class BB to half-carrier, half battleship configurations, and last, but certainly the most, that infamous design by a famous American naval engineering firm for Soviet union which involve a 79,000 ton battle carrier with 9X16" guns on a hull driven by 6 shafts.

Of course, none of the true hybrids (to which you can add the German Gro�flugzeugkreuzer) were ever built.

Mogami, Tone and Chikuma are no carriers by any sensible definition, and Ise and Hyuga are rather floating flying-off platforms than "carriers".

Jorit

[Guest]

That American design for a 80,000 ton battle carrier was impressive, thou.
It was designed by the same firm that later designed SS United States. The name of the firm escapes me for the moment.

It was designed to meet a Soviet need for a nucleus of a far east fleet that could enable the Soviets to compete with IJN on more equal terms. It was not entirely clear if it had been a soviet solicited design, or if it was designed on a speculative venture. It was also unclear how it was imagined that the US Government would have ever allowed an American firm to build a 80,000 ton battleship for a foreign power when itself was still nominally limited by treaty to 45,000 tons.

It featured 4 triple 16"/50 cal turrets, 2 forward, 2 aft in Montana like arrangement, a long, low flat topped super structure topped by a hanger deck and a flight deck the size of a good escort carrier. The hanger and flight decks are slightly offset to port. The normal battleship upper superstructure, including conning tower, foremast, other fire control directors, and smock stacks are all there, but offset to starboard side. it had 7 5"/38 cal turrets on each side, above main deck but below flight deck level.

It's not clear if the Soviets ever received the design, or what they thought of it. But the design is still in the archives of the American firm in the late 1970s.

I hope to build a scratch 1/350 scale model of it one day.

The vessel was over 1000 feet long, and broad of beam. It was propelled by no less than 6 shafts and over 300,000 shp.

[Guest]

In fact, the hull shape of that hybrid super battleship was very close to the Montana, right form the clipper bow to the counter stern. Only it was sustantially longer and broader.

Of course all battleship-carrier hybrids are total nonsense unless one could somehow make the guns shoot about as far as the reach of its airwing.

[Guest]

Francis and Gibbs, that was the design firm. Responsible later for the passenger ship SS United States.

[Guest]

Sorry, Gibbs and Cox. Aging memory is failing me.

[Werner]

Francis Gibbs is the Gibbs of Gibbs & Cox. Kind of a Webster Hubble to FDR.

They were also responsible for Atlanta and some destroyers, I think Somers. The unique chine on Atlanta is attributed to Gibbs and Cox, as was the rumour that she did 42 knots on trials.

[Laurence Batchelor]

The Gibbs & Cox design for the Russian government you mention is this fellow:-

There was also a design c which was a scaled down version.

I actually think the best hybrid design ever put on paper was the American attempt of a flying-deck cruiser, this drawing by John Roberts shows it well:-


The book you should all get with loads of them draw in (including the above) and many whacky things from Japan and less famous designs from Germany is: The Hybrid Warship : The Amalgamtion of Big Guns & Aircraft by R D Layman & Stephen Mclaughlin.

I notice this book is around �120 on Amazon!
There's a mint one for �15 on abebooks!

[JWintjes]

Ehm, Laurence,

I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but I'm pretty sure the through-deck cruiser, so to say, is an American design...

By the way, I can only recommend the book - it's the best thing on hybrid warships I've ever come across.

Jorit

[Laurence Batchelor]

Sorry guess I was still asleep this morning

Duly corrected

I also have a small Japanese paperback about hybrid and never were designs, thats good also.

[Werner]

Immediately after WW.I. Gibbs & Cox came up with a design for a thru-deck passenger ship for the La Havre - New York run. The airplanes would load priority mail and parcels and deliver them to Long Island at least 8 hours before the ship docked.

The Germans actually put this idea into service briefly in the 1930s, although they used a catapult and a modern seaplane.