What-If USN CVN, BB & CB designs

[Sr. Gopher]

Here are the drawings:
Kearsarge class large cruiser:

Beast class Medium cruiser:

Dwarf class AA cruiser:

Cannonball class large cruiser:

Nebraska/Minnesota(same except with twin 18" instead of triple 16") class battleship:

Monitor/Nantucket (same basic design other than twin 21" instead of triple 16")class monitor:

Gunpowder class escort battleship:

I'll continue in another post...

[ArizonaBB39]

Your designs are very interesting. I especially like the first two Cruiser designs. I might draw one or two of these out if that is ok with you. Do these designs play in to your What-if story as well? Id be interested to hear what made you decide on these designs. You've seen my cruiser design, right? Here's one of the ships of the class:

[Sr. Gopher]

Abram, it would be great if you could draw them out! The designs do play into my what-if story, which now seems like a short book (66,102 words, and I still have 2 more theaters to finish up). The designs well, the idea for first 2 cruisers just came when in my story, huge numbers of Allied cruisers are very lightly armed (6" main batteries for 2/3 of them), and well, the Axis ships are large numbers of destroyers and heavy cruisers, which are showing a great number of successes. Building a cruiser that could sink a cruiser with a single volley, and possibly a battleship, seemed reasonable for a large cruser such as that. To make things better, I made the 8" turrets automatics from the Des Moines class. The actual design is really supposed to be an enlarged Des Moines class, but with 6" and 5" secondaries. The "medium cruiser" USS Beast was created as a lighter combatant than a heavy cruiser, but larger than a light cruiser in terms of armament. It's armament arrangement also was supposed to try and trick the eye of an enemy pilot, (something I'm trying to apply to everything now), making the ship look like a battleship. If everything is in the same camo scheme, and with a smilar layout, cruisers could look like battleships. the Beast was meant mainly as a convoy escort, and a submarine or surface raider could possibly mistake it for a battlesruiser design I'm working on, the USS Mustang, which looks very similar to your design above, armed with 2 twin 18" guns, 2 triple 8" guns, and 8 5" twin guns. It is supposed to try an masquerade as a Cleveland class cruiser.

[Sr. Gopher]

Well, here are two more I got to add:
Enterprise class carrier:

Hornet class carrier:

I'm having some difficulty trying to resize the images, so I'll try and post again.

[Sr. Gopher]

Unicorn class maintenance carrier:

Wildcat class maintenance carrier:

Illustrious class maintenance carrier:

Salt Lake City class light carrier (Pensacola class carrier conversion):

Jefferson City class light carrier (Northampton class carrier conversion):

Lafayette class carrier (SS Normandie conversion):

Jaguar class medium carrier:

Next post...

[Sr. Gopher]

Lincoln class flightdeck cruiser (Omaha class conversion):

Bear class tanker/carrier and Chimera class large seaplane carrier (Kearsarge was sunk while offloading supplies onto the beach, then large cruiser Kearsarge commissioned soon after):

Clemson class large destroyer:

Tarawa class large LSD:

Guadalcanal class large APA (sorry it got cut off, those are 2 single 5" closed mounts, and in between is a twin 40mm flanked by 2 20mm Oerlikons):

Pearl Harbor class LST:

Normandy class LHD:

America class LHD:

Rescue class hospital ship:

Italia class carrier (Chitose class conversion, bought by Italy from Japan for conversion to a carrier):

Well, that's all of them so far!! And that's not even counting the planes too!!

[ArizonaBB39]

Those carrier designs are also interesting. One some of them are the circles on deck for helicopter landing spots? HAve you seen my drawings for flight deck cruisers?

The first two are actuall USN designs that were never built and the last one is one I did based on a Baltimore class hull. (These small drawings are not to scale)

[Sr. Gopher]

The first two are awesome, but if possible, might I suggest one thing for your design? It is a very nice one, but I think you switch the starboard open 5"/38 mount with the aft most twin 40mm mount on the port side. Just to even out the distribution of firepower, where the starboard side already has coverage from air attacks from the twin 5"/38, if aircraft on the deck cannot permit the firing of the aft twin 5"/38, then only 1 5"/38 can cover the aft port area. The twin mount can freely cover the aft starboard side of the ship by itself. Also, it would help counter the wieght of the island a bit. You could possibly even keep the twin 40mm mount where it is, and replace the single 5"/38 with a quad 40mm Bofors.

[ArizonaBB39]

Thats an idea I had not thought of. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Sr. Gopher]

Sorry to bring this old thing back, but Abram, if you see this, could I ask one more thing? I was wondering to what standards your drawings were made. I'm working on bringing some of these vessels onto a digital canvas in Paint, and was wondering if you have any scale or template that you based your Large (USS Philippines), Medium (USS Prescott) and Small (Destroyers/AA craft) ships on. I'm working with Shipbucket standards right now, not getting as much detail as I would want, when I remembered how much detail you managed to fit in zooming in on your ships.

Thanks,
Gopher

By the way, I am in no way trying to advertise or discredit Shipbucket here.