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AWS Athena II Refit 1958-1960

The Athena having been completed in 1945 was virtually unused and received no damage during its WW2 service. In the ten years between 1945 and 1955, a whole revolution of parts for aircraft carriers came to pass. Angled decks being the most visible, with mirror deck landing equipment and myriads of other aids and detection gear being dreamed up and fitted. Athena had had some but not all of these parts fitted through to being docked in 1957 for a three year refit to bring the ship right up to date. This included a new outfit of aircraft aboard as well. With brand new Buccaneer, Sea Vixen, Tracker and Wessex aboard. In 1964, four Hawkeye are added to the complement.



As larger aircraft were produced, the height of Athena's hangar decks came into question. Some of the new aircraft would just not fit. Atlantis had made a heavy investment in the BAC TSR-2, some of which were earmarked for use on the Athena to replace the early Buccaneer models. Atlantis wanted a supersonic strike aircraft on their carrier. This would be matched with the supersonic Hawker Sea Hurricane (P1125).

Billions would have to be spent to modify Athena to be able to carry these aircraft. The decision was made to keep Athena as it was through to 1980-85 (depending on structural integrity), when it would be decommissioned.

Two new aircraft carriers would need to be built to handle the new aircraft. Laid down in 1965 for completion 1970.

AWS Hyperion and Demeter.

The very first thing to notice is that these ships are nuclear powered. Atlantis had been willing to pay the USN to be a part of the Nuclear Navy trials. Atlantis was rich enough to be able to afford nuclear powered vessels, but the cost of these two vessels spent the navies budget for almost five whole years. Only basic maintenance work on existing ships could be carried out till more funds became available for the navy. It was not just the cost of the ships themselves but also the aircraft to serve on them that were expensive. The Atlantean armed forces invested heavily in British designed and built aircraft that were to be used for both the Air Force and Navy. The ships were based on the previous Athena class with slightly enlarged dimensions (mainly wider beam). The ships were built with a radical new layout. With the much faster jets involved, the through/angled deck was kept on the port side while a new 'launch' deck was fitted to the starboard side. The work with the Malta class was carried forward with the bridge structures on these ships. Aerodynamics being applied to the superstructure to ensure the winds did not swirl over the stern of the ships but were directed off to the starboard of the stern to keep them clear of the aircraft landing on. This is where the change to nuclear power was most felt. No exhaust gasses to try and keep clear of the landing path. The only armament carried was the Atlantean long range, supersonic version of SeaCat, named Supercat. Four quad mountings were fitted two on each side.

Laid down in 1965, four years after the completion of the USS Enterprise, Atlanta had paid for the privilege of not only the nuclear engineering project but also the results of the nuclear installation on the Enterprise. This allowed Atlantis to see if they could add any improvements. Both ships were completed in 1970.



The aircraft aboard on commissioning were:

Hawker-Sidley, P.139A Guardian, AEW, Mk.1

Hawker, P.1125 Sea Hurricane, SFAW, Mk.1

BAC, TSR-2 Tempest, SAWS, Mk.2

Westland, Sea King Helicopters.


I am not yet happy with the layout, so it is still a bit of a work in progress. The landing on side is a bit narrow. I can not use the Tracker/Hawkeye series as their wingspans are too big. I will have to have a think about it.

Edit:
Moved bridge and launch area to starboard.

Wow,that's an unusual design but interesthing.

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Impressive stuff! Keep up the good work

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AWS Olympia

With only 10 years of service in, the Olympia's fate was being discussed on high. The Admiralty was looking at the manning problems with finding 2500+ people even at minimum service level. The only way to get manning levels down was to spend money on upgrading as many systems to automatic as possible or scrap the ship. The United States Navy was spoken to as to what they were doing with the similarly aged Iowa class ships. US answer was that they never had any trouble getting enough men (and women) to man their ships. The Atlantean Navy was in the middle of designing the missile upgrade of the Hemera and a similar upgrade package was sought for the Olympia. The missiles and other weaponry would require much less crew to run so it was a good move to the Navy and would make the Olympia a more useful unit for more than 10 years to come.

 

Displacement: 50,000 tons standard, 62,000 tons full load,
Dimensions: 869 x 112 x 30
Machinery: 4 shaft, Geared Turbines, 180,000shp
Speed: 30 knots
Endurance: 12,000 miles at 18 knots
Armour: 16" belt, 7" deck, 16/9/6" turrets
Armament:
6 x 16" (2x3)
12 x 5" (6x2)
20 x 51mm (10x2)
2 x Twin Terrier Launchers
Aircraft: 2
Crew: 2750


Olympia - Service/Fate: Retired from service 1994 after 50 years, as it was the last WW2 ship, it was made into a museum ship.

They look nice, especially the BBG.

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carrier: Keep an eye on the fact that the bridge superstructure will have an direct impact on your hangar space. I think this will in this case result in basically an forward and aft hangar, as the space remaining in the hull might be less then the width of most aircraft. in addition, while them being placed aft this poses less of an problem, I think your flight deck will buckle due to the undrounded state of your elevators. and elevator openings. you also lack an gallery deck, which means your ready rooms, equipment and briefing rooms all have to be placed in the superstructure or in the hull, very far from the flight deck.

The hangar can (for structural reasons) not extend in sponsons, so the width of your hull is defined as the space between your elevators. are you certain that is the width you want your ship to be? The freeboard seems also somewhat low.

for the BBG, I am not certain what Mk 10 variant you have used (you have the hatches of the horizontal loader but the launcher of the diagonal one, and something went wrong with the copy-pasting of the launcher), have you used the belowdeck parts to find out if it all fits? I think you covered up one of the reloading hatches with an illuminator in the forwardmost GMLS. I am not certain of the ASROC's placement (they mostly fire forward but their arc is sideways) and about the use of them, without an sonar. I think you also used some outdated radar drawings on your foremast

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The freeboard and hangar height are taken from CV-A-01. With the ready rooms - there is a lot of space from the hangar wall out to the edge of the flight deck. Some of that space with 8 foot/ 2.4m height can be walled off and used for the ready rooms and other rooms that may be required close to the flight deck. The width between the hangar walls aft is 150 feet for the breadth. Which means that the ship has no interest in the Panama Canal, unless I do what I do for the split American Countries, build two across the isthmus, one at Panama and one across the Lake Nicaragua version that was contemplated. That is part of my Terran AU or Solarium AU depending on which version I am drawing for.






Removed the ASROC - a BBG has no place chasing submarines. That area could possibly be used for vertical launching of Tomahawks in the future a'la the Iowa's.

CVA-01 still has one full deck of hangar height less, IIRC, due to an gallery deck between the flight deck and the hangar roof.
you will need most of this space anyways, as the span over the hangar with aircraft landing on top needs reinforcement, which I doubt you could fit in the 2 pixels of space you have now. your carrier will be both lighter and stronger by having some height there instead of reinforcing it all close to the plate itself. The only postwar aircraft carrier I could find which did not have an gallery deck in this position is the Invincible class CVS, but all other, including the ghiradella spruance and vertical support ship, have the gallery deck so I think they have good reasoning for that
as for freeboard, the CVA-01 is quite a lot smaller then your ship, and hull depth and with that freeboard increases with the ships length. while it is acceptable as of now, I would recommend heightening it, as you do not want water in that hangar

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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

Added more freeboard and a deck under the flight deck.