Shipbucket

Interesting question. I've seen the same on the USN Northampton-, Portland-, and New Orleans-class CAs. Maybe a matter of space.

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Without knowing anything in particular about seaplane ops, it could be to give the rather underpowered aircraft of the time (Late twenties-early thirties) a better chance of getting airborne in a seaway if that makes sense.

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Worklist

Source Materiel is always welcome.

Not at all! Go for it!

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"Anybody remotely interesting is mad in some way." - The Seventh Doctor

and once more...

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"Anybody remotely interesting is mad in some way." - The Seventh Doctor

Nice one Zephyr.She looks like a good workable heavy cruiser to me. Maybe lower the catapault a couple of feet ?

With such high catapults, the space between them (and forward of the hangar) would remain clear during catapult use. Perhaps this was valued as a working space (unfolding aircraft, etc).

That was kinda my thinking, a space for running aircraft in and out of the hanger, unfolding wings, etc.

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"Anybody remotely interesting is mad in some way." - The Seventh Doctor

I've been looking at the as built Resolute and Illustrious class cruisers and for the life of me I can't figure out what they're for. On one hand you've got a lot of SP 4in guns which would make sense if you were making a scout cruiser/destroyer leader along the same vein as the Boadicea and Blonde classes but then you have two 6in guns which is enough to dramatically affect her structure and capabilities, but not enough to be useful. If the goal is to get an all-round cruiser, you'd be much better off by replacing the fore and aft 4in guns with six inchers.

Moving on to the reconstructions, the Mistral Bay would probably work, but I'd remove at least three 40mm guns from each side, four if you can live with it. I'd then move the midship 4in guns down to the main deck since I doubt there's enough space up there to operate them. I'd also retain the original crane since it was perfectly serviceable for its job and the new one is both heavy and extreme overkill.
Oh and please do something about that propeller.

As for the Caribou, I can't help but think that it's way too ambitious for a hull that's so old and small.

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“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

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Source Materiel is always welcome.

I was going for a RN C class "feel" with those classes, quickly built light cruisers to fill a scouting and escort role. They're armed and sized pretty much what the C's were, at least in original configuration. The rebuilds, I tried to follow how some of the C's and follow-on D classes were rebuilt in the 30's

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"Anybody remotely interesting is mad in some way." - The Seventh Doctor

and another try at Odin, with some good suggestions from Thiel.

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"Anybody remotely interesting is mad in some way." - The Seventh Doctor