tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874352492088086371.post7435099271753953200..comments2023-09-14T09:05:28.328+01:00Comments on Naval Requirements: Is there a possibility for Amphibiosity in conversion?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874352492088086371.post-49897945634863072542009-09-19T00:15:01.130+01:002009-09-19T00:15:01.130+01:00Further to your critique:-
1.) A CC needs only o...Further to your critique:- <br /><br />1.) A CC needs only one or two fully loaded runs to make back its original cost. Anything beyond two runs is pure profit. Losing an older but fully functional CC is no big deal. For instance, in the current shipping slump many perfectly good CCs are being scrapped as keeping them idled costs more than they are worth.<br /><br />2.) CCs are powered by giant low speed two stroke diesels that cannot change revolutions easily. They are well tested high efficiency and high reliability engines. The single prop is sized to the engines revolutions to provide maximum efficiency. The propshaft is connected directly to the engine's output shaft. There is no gearbox. The engines are started with compressed air. To reverse the engine is stopped and compressed air used to restart the engine in the opposite direction. Since a CC's stopping distance is several miles every maneuver has to be preprogrammed more than an hour ahead. If you want to bomb a CC it will be impossible to miss. <br /><br />To install podded engines is to contradict the whole basis of using existing CCs in wartime service. Podded engines have no place in commercial CC trade as they have unneeded capabilities plus the complexity will require more crew hands. No podded CCs will be at hand for quick conversion to wartime duties.<br /><br />3) No ship can outmaneuver a guided missile. In the event of a missile attack the CC should act as a bomb magnet to draw the poison to itself and away from more expensive and critical naval assets. In so doing it also defangs the attacking force. The idea is not survivability per se but to survive long enough to defang the enemy and to let the crew abandon ship in an orderly manner. Therefore you want to have as few crew onboard as possible. <br /><br />4) A damaged ship has only scrap value. A sunken one is a small loss. One or two of the enemy's missiles will probaly cost more than the CC is worth, a very profitable exchange.<br /><br />5) Cheap functionality means that it will be practical to field a few similarly converted CCs to provide alternative landing decks for recovering aircraft. It also means more bomb magnets. Attrition in missiles and other equipment will compromise the enemy's ability to sustain offensive operations.<br /><br />Armchair Chinese AdmiralAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874352492088086371.post-89928862117015536562009-09-18T13:29:40.834+01:002009-09-18T13:29:40.834+01:00Armchair Chinese Admiral (go easy on my landlubber...Armchair Chinese Admiral (go easy on my landlubber's use of naval terms.)<br /><br />I had been giving some thought to this subject too (Containership Conversions CC.) Some parameters. The chances of a surface ship surviving a modern naval engagement unscathed is practically nil. Containerships are optimized to cruise at 27 knots and has neglible capacity to maneuver. They are easy targets. If not sunk they will likely suffer enough damage to require port repairs. A CC ship is therefore good for only a single battle and its loss must be expected. Equipment must be quick and dirty. And plenty cheap too.<br /><br />A CC's best defense against being sunk is its huge volume, too big for even a number of missiles and bombs to sink. This defense is enhanced with empty containers that act as space armor and as bouyancy cells. Containers filled with sandbags and fire suppression foam systems can protect selected equipment.<br /><br />Another advantage of CCs is that ordinary ship operations are largely automated and require only a crew of 12 to man even for the largest ship. The rest of the war footing crew can then be military personnel for just aircraft operations. 24 Su 27s is enough to form a credible deterence. This manning is at most one or two hundred instead of the 5 to 6 thousand in a USN super-carrier. <br /><br />All high tech sensors, weapons systems and their specialists will be manned from accompanying destroyers and frigates. The large CCs form a very useful and effective shields (sacrificial ships) for these high value naval ships for can hide behind the CCs in the event of an incoming missile attack.<br /><br />The CC plies its trade as an ordinary containership in peacetime. Its already paid for should it be sunk in wartime. In wartime it is quickly converted by adding a baqre bones long angled flight deck, long enough for navalized Su 27s to take off without catapults and to land without arrestor wires (may still need them.) All support supplies and equipment can be prepackaged onshore in containers and quickly loaded. It is cheap enough to sail several such CCs (useful redundency)for each mission. Their mission is not to challenge the USN carrier group in a one to one brawl. That will be a pointless bloodletting for both sides. In a real fight it will be missiles not planes vs planes or planes against ships. The usefulness in China carrier based aircraft is to establish a trip wire where the USN will think thrice before sailing a USN carrier group to intimidate China.<br /><br />Such a CC will have the island on the stern port corner so that the angled deck runs forward from starboard stern to the port bow. This leaves room for an aircraft park on the starboard bow area. There is a "hatch" or two that are not aircraft lifts. Two long boom cranes one on the island and one at the aircraft deck park (design proposal) will be used to transfer aircraft to and from below deck, to remove wrecks and to transfer aircraft to a separate repair ship. All the mother CC does is to fuel/refuel and arm/rearm the planes. They are not required to undertake major repairs (re. single mission parameter.) The quick-built conversion need not be durable or stressed for bad weather. Current ships already use weather forcasting to avoid bad sailing conditions. Aircraft launch and recovery will be under close to ideal weather conditions. This should avoid the requirement for sophisticated equipment and procedures, factors often cited for phoo-phooing China's ability to field a carrier force.<br /><br />The mission of a Chinese CC aircraft carrier is to keep the USN carrier group (no other navy is a threat)as far offshore from China as possible in the event of tensions. A patrol line 200 miles off the coast is plenty and the PLAN ships enjoy the protection of shore based defenses. 200 miles is close enough to port not to risk losing one too many damaged ships.<br /><br />If operations require it replacement ships will quickly be converted. China has plenty of large containerships that will be idled anyway in time of war.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7874352492088086371.post-65694764938822588172009-09-17T12:50:37.926+01:002009-09-17T12:50:37.926+01:00Alex, as long as they Navy is wholly focused on pr...Alex, as long as they Navy is wholly focused on projecting power ashore against Third World dictators, or trying to stop China from invading Taiwan, they will have no time or money for alternatives like this. We must get spending priorities straight or we lose our edge. The West having been at the forefront of change for centuries, is now wholly committed to the declining dominance of carrier air, when there are so many other power projection alternatives, as well as needs for the small low tech warship and auxiliaries.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com