Treaty Carriers

The Washington Treaty Combat rules open up more possibilities for carrier models but continues the restriction of BB cannons to bow and stern quadrants.

The rules give carriers more combat units if they were converted from another type of capital ship (i.e Furious has 4 units as a BC and 5 as a full carrier) and there's a great range of possible speeds, combat units and sizes.

How to choose a carrier??

Supersize:

Build a Shinano, Midway, Lexington or Graf Zeppelin - reasonable speed, huge targets but also huge hull volumes so they're quite difficult to sink, especially with a couple of pumps aboard (and they can spare the units for them).

With their great length comes slow turning and difficulty targetting more maneuverable models with their bow and stern cannon arrays. There are battleships they can't outrun or out-turn that can hang on their flanks and riddle them.

Medium Size:

A wide variety of carriers ranging from converted liners (big CVEs) to CVLs and some fleet carriers. Great speed variation within the group and quite a spread of combat units, depending on type of carrier.

In this group the fast Japanese carriers based on cruiser or seaplane tenders may be the best choice. Fast, with heavy cruiser equivalent armament and moderately good turning ability. Again, there are some ships that can stick to their flanks.

Small Carriers:

CVEs converted from tanker or freighter hulls, plus a few oddball fleet carriers of small size (LOA under 600') and often low speed (HMS Argus, Hermes, FNS Bearn). Small carriers trade speed for maneuverability and smaller target size, but have little firepower.

1/144 Carrier Hulls:

Very few suitable fiberglass hulls are available in North America, and only two are specifically for a carrier.

IJN Shinano - Ralph Coles and Battlers connection sell Yamato hulls suitable for conversion

IJN Ibuki - Ralph Coles sells the Mogami hull, with a somewhat different bulge shape but close enough for a successful conversion

USS Sangamon - Eric Broderick sells a T2 hull suitable for this CVE Class

HMS Pretoria Castle - John Coffill makes liner hulls suitable for this conversion to a large CVE (~600' LOA)

HMS/HMAS Albatross - WWII seaplane carrier hull (made by me)

HMS Furious - my hull is suitable for the WWI carrier, and 'legal' for the WWII version which had larger volume bulges of the same beam. The WWII version would be a very complicated build!

The Swampworks Cleveland Class hull was fine for conversion to a CVL but is no longer available.

Looks like there may be a small market for a carrier specific hull. But what to build? Small and simple like HMS Argus (the "ditty box"),
the slightly bigger, more heavily armed and equally slow FNS Bearn (dual rudders, low aft casemate guns), a medium size and complicated hull design (HMS Illustrious), or the simpler Casablanca Class CVL?

Bob

 

Swampy did not make the Cleveland. He made the Brooklyn. Battler's Connection has the Cleveland. There is a little differance in the two hulls.

 

Good, that's one more hull available for conversion to a carrier.

Bob

 

Bob are you interested in doing a British Carrier or open to suggestions? I would love an Ark Royal, just for the history. Or a USS Lexington, heck I'd probably buy two hulls.

 

You forgot a hull...BC makes the Prinz Eugen, which can be used to build the Seydlitz, which the Germans began to convert to a CVL. At 33 knots, good hull volume, and single shaft/rudder she might be the best of the CVL bunch.

My theory (and that's all it is...no carrier experience yet to back it up) is that the CVLs and smaller CVs (4-5 unit) will make the best combat carriers. Given the weapons placement (fore and aft), they'll behave much like a cruiser and use similar tactics. They've also generally got good speed, hovering in the 33-34 knot range for ships like the Unryu, Soryu/Hiryu, and Yorktown. The Brit CVs are a little slower at 31 knots, but with their three shaft, 1 rudder layout, I'd think they'd be beautiful turners. Graf Zeppelin with her speed and rudder layout looks REALLY nice. Slower CVs such as Eagle, Wasp and Ranger might be at a bit of a disadvantage.

The big 6+ unit carriers I think will have too much mass to start and stop quickly which may hamper their effectiveness in a fleet battle. They've also got a lot of side target area, and no way to defend it if a capital ship manages to "snuggle" a little bit, not to mention their length which will hinder turning. AIf the builder builds it right though, there's some potential there, and big ladies such as Lexington, Akagi, Kaga and Shinano get BC and BB pumps to help their survivability.

The CVEs have some potential too. They're generally pretty short and plucky, I think the single shaft ships in particular might be nice turning ships. 1.5 units isn't a whole lot to play with, but as class 1 ships they also get the advantage of the 2 minute rule as opposed to the 5 minute rule. That gives these little ships more effective survivability then they'd have as even 2.0 unit ships. In a scenario battle, the 2 minute rule allows them to "turn around" (reload) faster too because they don't have to wait a full 5 minutes before coming off the water.

All in all, I think the various carriers have their own strengths and weaknesses which tend to balance out in the long haul.

 

Of course if there is any carrier based scenarios, the big boys will come into their own, imagine trying to hunt down a USS Lexington at 33 knots with massive hull volume and a pump or two or six.If a Graf Zepplin can survive at NATS with no pump with numerous BB's pounding on her I think it would be next to impossible to sink a big CV that had pumps.

 

Don't forget the French Bearn. It has lots of hull volume for it's size and gets a battleship sized pump. It also has 4 shafts and twin rudders which makes it turn pretty well. It's only real disadvantage is that is it slow slow. Heh.

 

Very true HMCS, it's one reason I'd like to see more scenario battling as opposed to a steady diet of fleet battle. Scenario games can change everything, and ships you usually wouldn't see suddenly become nice.

Something else I failed to mention about the CVEs is, as class 1 ships they can also use spurt guns. With the ability to place the gun wherever you want more or less, I can see that being very very dangerous, especially in a scenario which allows you to reload...

 

2 more hulls to add to the list, Dreadnought in Oz makes the USS Midway(although they may have to cut it in 3 rather then 2)as well as the Normandie BB,not sure how much the actually BB hull was modified to get the Bearn CV.

 

Have you guys stateside come up with any ideas for some Carrier scenarios?

 

This winter I am going to propose a rule change that would allow 1 barrel per side as part of the unit count on fleet carriers this will stop the cruiser conversions from having side mounts that their beam would be to unstable just like the cruisers.I think this would open up some new adventures

 

I posted something in the scenarios section here a year ago or so...

 

Myself, after useing the Pretoria Castle(name change do to loa) i was inperest with the turning and the way it survived for the battle. If it hadn't been for some hot glue in the hose it wouldn't have sank. I turned well for a single rudder ship and did what it was supposed to do.

 

I think the deal with the single rudder ships is that single shaft (or triple shaft, center powered) puts all of the propwash over the rudder, which helps them turn better then the 2/4 shaft ships with a single rudder. That's one reason I think the Dutch CL Java might be a very nice little cruiser should someone make a hull.

 

I would love to see a Midway, Lexington, Enterprise, or even one of the big older japs out there, but I have too much on my plate already, so I will just finish one of my Bearns and run her.
She will be a pretty good ships. As Mike mentioned, she should turn fairly well, and with good gun placement, and the battleship pump, she will be able to both dish out damage, and take a fair amount.
I do know from big-gun experience, that anyone running a carrier will see plenty of action, as they will always be a primary target. So reliability will be a must. More-so than the other ships.
Mikey

 

I was talking to Ralph Coles last night and requested a Mogami hull for use as the Ibuki. Unfortunately he'd just sold the mold to someone in Ontario, had already packed it for shipping, and has no spare Mogami hulls in stock. Whoever bought the mold doesn't plan to start making hulls for quite a while so I'm out of luck. No Japanese light carrier for me.[]

Bob

 

Bob: I think Eric still has one of the Mogomi hulls.

 

Hey Bob, I have a very nice plan for the Hiryu.
745 ft -- and the island is on the port side, so it looks like it is sailing backwards.......

Of course you would have to build the hull, but what's a couple of hundred extra hours of work.....

 

Rob,
I'll take a look at the plans for Hiryu. Do you have the Profile Morskie books on HMS Victorious and Queen Elizabeth?

I'll also follow up on John's lead abut Eric's Mogami hulls - I remember he made 2 from Ralph's mold but hadn't started the models before leaving the hobby. I think the Ibuki would be more effective (and a lot easier to transport) than the Hiryu!

I've bought a 1/1250 model of the HMS Argus in WWII configuration and have enough data and photos to to build an accurate mold above the waterline. I'd have to wing it for the underwater hull contours, having just a side view, but it was a typical early 1900s liner with 5' wide bulges added. I'm not sure what it would be classified as. A CVL? Deep displacement was about 20,000 tons, LOA 565' and speed 20 knots. Carried only 20 planes.

Bob

 

Hi Bob,
I have a Profile Morskie for the Queen Elizabeth.

I have AOAS for the Victorious, but the lines appear to be for the post WWII refit (although I think the original lines are in there as dashed lines)
I also have a Russian plan for the Victorious, but the hull lines look suspiciously simple. Certainly doesn't show any sponsons.