Shipbucket

Heres the background to my alternate carrier for the RN of the 1980's onwards, the Centaur 2 class carrier. following the Fauklands war the RN re-saw the importance of fixed wing aircraft carriers, as Hermes, a Centaur class Carrier designed in the 40's and completed in the late 50's proved capable of holding a more viable and usefull airwing than the then new Invincibles being built (up to 28 Harriers and a further 6 Helo's) the admiralty returned to look at the design and comisioned the british ship industry to design and build 3 with the option of a 4th Carriers based on the design of HMS Hermes herself a modified Centaur class carrier. The design was for a Gas turbine or Nuclear powered Carrier of a maximum of 240m with Commando Carrier capabilities, the ability to operate as an ASW carrier in the NATO atlantic squardron, a Strike Carrier and as a Humanitarian relief ship, so had to be capable of deploying Harriers and any future STOVL aircraft, Helecopters for ASW, AEW, SAR, transport (Chinook). provision provided for conversion to a small Light CATOBAR carrier (hence the reason she was based on Hermes), The Invicible and Illustrious would subsiquently be sold to Austrailia (as romuored in reality the 80's), and the incomplete Ark Royal Scraped or sold to New Zealand or Canada. the ships to be named after the original class would be Centaur, Albion, Bulwark and Hermes (the original Hermes sold to India as per reality).
Here is my first rendition of ship 4 Hermes as in 2012 i am still working on this and more changes are to be made, much credit must go the Bombhead for his excelent Hermes. i am also working on a 1980#s version with harriers and some electronic deferances, the electronics fit on this ship is based on the Type 23, Invincibles and HMS Ocean as if these had been built the latter probably would not. and the former were being designed or built.



i would love to here what you think, bear in mind this is strictly a what if little project.

Interesting...nice work!

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I have doubts about the choice for gas turbines, especially keeping in mind the ability to convert to CATOBAR, for which you (at the time at least) certainly needed steam pressure.
also, gas turbines need large up and intakes which need to be placed in the island and thus enlarge this quite a bit (look at invincible)
putting 4-5 phalanxes on board seems a bit much too.
I am a bit in doubt if the seawolf could not be fitted better (and if she might take an better system then that, depending less on her escorts)
the final thing..... in-deck elevators? keep in mind that these are required to be inside the hull structure and not in the sponsons, so your elevators will be close to the centerline, something not always preferable for an convertable ship.

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
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catbar was a future plan, with the Harrier able to be upgraded till at least the early 2010's and kept viable i was thinkng EMAL's, as for elevators see Hermes top view by Bombhead, one lift is aft centerline and one is on the sponson oposite side, to convert to catbar, the landing craft on the other side would have to be removed to allow a missing peice of the angled deck to be filled in.

besides the option of CATBAR would probably have been dropped when the F35B was designed anyway... The carriers would swing between the LPH and CV role as required.

As for power plant, I was also considering submarine style PWR reactors, the same that would have been being fitted to Traffalgar class submarines, this would have provided steam for conventional cats and as the carrier is medium size two or three reactors may suffice and with 15 to 20 year fuel cycles probably affordable long term. May delete the funnel and redesign some super structure.

The high level of protection, 4-5 phalanx, 20mm and sea wolf, stem from lessons learnt in the Falklands but typical escort would have been Type 42 Destroyer, Type 22 or 23 Frigate and a Swiftsure or Trafalgar Class sub 80's to 90's. 2000's this would probably been a Type 45. Type 23 and an Astute.

Certainly an interesting idea, even if recycling 40-year-old design sounds bit strange.
Nice work, anyway. Keep it up!

Interesting. What you really have here is somewhat different to Hermes and there is no way they would be the same internally due to design changes and better modern standards. But it probably offers an ideal size. The radars seem a bit cluttered to me and I'm not sure the Type 910 would go onto a mast since its a heavy item and the Type 1022 is going to cause problems being that close (and vice-versa). It's an interesting concept though.

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Typical Airwings of the 1980's -90's

CV:-

26 Harriers (mix of FAA FA.2 and RAF GR7/9)
8 Sea Kings (mix of AEW, ASW, HAS)
2 Lynx HAS.2

ASW Carrier:-

12 Sea Kings (mix of ASW and HAS)
6 Harrier (FAA FA.2)
2 Lynx HAS.2

Commamndo Carrier

10 Sea kIngs ( Mix of HAS and Commando)
4 Chinook HC.3
6 Apache AH 64D
6 Harrier GR7/9
2 Lynx HAS.2

Typical Airwings of the 2010's onwards

CV:-

20 F35B
8 Merlin (mix of AEW, ASW, HAS)
2 V-22 Osprey (HC.1 and KC.1? Tanker)
2 Lynx HMA.8

ASW Carrier:-

12 Merlin (mix of FAA HM2 ASW and RAF Hc.3)
6 F35B
2 Lynx HMA.8

Commamndo Carrier

10 Merlin ( Mix of HM2 and HC.3)
4 Chinook HC.3
6 Apache AH 64D
6 F35B
2 V-22 Osprey (HC.1 and KC.1? Tanker)
2 Lynx HMA.8

thought radars looked a bit clutterd myself, i'm thinking of switching to the Nuclear powered option so a complete redesign of the super structure might follow including electronics placments and fits.

nuclear would be interesting at least, especially considering that the RN, as far as I know, never considered nuclear surface vessels. (idea comes to mind, nuclear CVL )

converting from STOBAR to CATOBAR as an future plan seems undoable, only if in the design they already thought about that it MIGHT be possible. this rules out EMALS as option as originally designed, because that was just not thought of back then.

and yeah, I doubt you would keep more from hermes then the hull design and maybe the hangar and flight deck dimensions. in 40 years, there has changed so much in technology and rules that all else would prove to be unsuited to modern practise.

_________________
Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

My design is an evolution of the Hermes modified Centaur, internally it would be up to modern (1980's) standards of fire control, manning, crew comfort and automation allowing reduced manning in certain high manning areas in the past.

My thought on EMALS was the RN invented the steam catapult there must have been some idea as a modern replacement as the RN was eliminating steam powered ships in favour of Gas Turbines and Deisel....

The RN did consider Nuclear power for surface ships as far back as the 1960's but at the time costs were to high and British (naval) reactor designs were not advanced enough. CVA 01 Was at one stage considered for nuclear but it was soon dropped. In my design by the 1980's Britain was one of the world leaders in naval reactor design so not to far out an idea.....

My final decision of power plant is 2 Rolls Royce PWR1 Reactors providing steam for 4 GEC Steam turbines (2 per shaft). With 4 WH Allen turbo generators at 3.2MW each, so power wise she is basically two RN Trafalgar class submarines strapped together.
I will be rebuilding the super structure to suit and sort out the electronics fit, moving the mast mounted 910 and for the 2012 a completely upgraded radar fit.
My decision to go for nuclear is based on Acelancelots comment on CATs, this solves the steam problem if she was to be converted from STOVL to CATOBAR. my decision to design a ship so that the option for conversion is there is based on the FAA having Harriers in the 1980's-90's but during the late 90's early 2000's rambling s of a navalised Typhoon or the FAA purchasing the F18. But as we now know the F35b was designed so the CATOBAR conversion would probably never happened.
One other thing I need to think about is a commission date, she was designed following the Falklands war so say 1983-4, so she would be built from 1985- (how long does it take to build a carrier). A years sea trials and crew familiarisation and training, so commission date ?..........