Carrier of Large objects

Charles Gray

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In the early 1990's the David Taylor center had a deisgn idea for a "Carrier of large objects" which woudl be a large (40,000+) ton platform that would serve as the base design for most naval ships, complemented by large carriers (CVNs) and smaller "Scout fighters". i've never been able to find a great deal about it-- does anyone have information or a link to any details about what this plan entailed? Thanks!
 
Looking at th eship design, the one thing I find odd is the presence of the fullwidth deckhouse for the aviation varients-- even if they are carrying V/stol aircraft that would make it imopssible to recover any aircraft that couldn't make a VTO landing, even by such mechanisms as a deck crash barrier.
 
I agree. I would guess that the reason is that most of the aircraft envisaged for these ships would be either helicopters or Osprey variants that can't really benefit from barrier landings. Only the Carrier Dock Aviation (CDV) and CDVlong (a stretched version of CDV) would carry fixed-wing fighters, and CDVlong would have had a reverse-angle through-deck arrangement that could even handle fixed-wing aircraft to a limited degree. In any case, these were seen mainly as support carriers, removing ASW aircraft from the big carriers to free space for more strike aircraft.

In one of the other briefs I have on this concept, the author shows a bunch of alternative flight deck arrangements:

no superstructure and full-length flight deck
no superstructure but only a partial flight deck
side island superstructure
STOVL deck forward, VTOL pad aft
large (multi-spot) VTOL deck aft
VTOL pads fore and aft
VTOL pad aft only

Sadly, no explanation is given for why the STOVL forward option was chosen.
 
Bosworth, Kleiman and Matz: “Multimission Ship Design for an Alternative Fleet Concept”, Naval Engineers Journal, May 1991.

Definitely worth reading.
A previous post in this thread mentions some briefs concerning the CDM, CDVlong and other variants. Is it possible to get them and how?

Also, the paper mentions a CVNplus concept for an aircraft carrier described as:

1) Larger than Nimitz
2) Dual recovery lane
3) Centerline elevators

I looked in the web but could not find anything about it except that another NEJ paper briefly describes the advantages and disadvantages of the dual recovery deck configuration and provides a stylized drawing.
Was this configuration ever studied in detail are there any reports available?
 
From a related topic, for a bit more background:

Grey Havoc said:
It would appear that they haven't gotten around yet to declassifying the studies that are directly related to the design. However, the earliest mention of it that I've been able to find so far (via a reference) is in the 1988 Surface Combatants Force Requirements Study, which recommended the MEU as a replacement for the Iowa class Battleships, indicating that a fair bit of preliminary work on the concept had already been carried out at that point (serious work is likely to have started in January of that year, see below).

Some more clues about the design can be found in this unclassified 1991 CSC paper, which, while it does not mention the MEU as such, does provide some insight into the prevailing school of thought (the so called 'Revolution At Sea') behind it, and the design principles that flowed from that origin, such as the fact that it would have had an integrated electric drive.

Some of the relevant material:
In order to determine the future operational requirements
which dictate the design and construction of Navy ships, two
Revolution At Sea studies were conducted: the Surface Combatant
Force Requirements Study and Ships Operational Characteristics
Study (SOCS). A three-star led work/study group, called Group
Mike, was organized by the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) with
a charter to improve the reliability, maintainability, and
survivability of surface combatants of the 21st century. (6:37)
The SOCS "Operational Report" spelled out 12 imperative
characteristics for future ships, within four priorities:

Priority A: Cooperative engagement in all mission areas;
integrated machinery systems; survivability and the ability to "fight hurt."

Priority B: Embedded readiness assessment, mission
planning, and training; condition-based maintenance; torpedo
self-defense.

Priority C: co-location of ship control and combat information
center; access control and security; alternative (peacetime/
wartime) use of volume.

Priority D: Smooth topsides; new information management;
organic aviation and other off-board vehicles. (10:72)


Early efforts at designing the Revolution At Sea ships actually
started in January 1988, as engineers at the Navy's David Taylor
Naval Ship Research and Development Center in Annapolis and
Caderock, Maryland, and the Naval Surface Warfare Center at White
Oak, Maryland, started identifying technologies that showed promise
for achieving the goal of total weapon systems for the new family of
warships. Design work is expected to continue until the mid-1990s,
when the Navy will request funds to acquire the ships. (10:70)
According to Admiral Metcalf, if the Revolution At Sea is
successful, the warfighting design policy for the U.S. Navy will be
to maximize a warship's ability to deliver ordinance on target.
Ideally, in such a ship, the internal volume should be all weapons.
In a future strike cruiser, for example, this might mean cruise
missiles in Vertical Launch System (VLS) cells from stem to stern--a
modern-day HMS Dreadnought. (The Dreadnought was the first "big"
gun battleship in which the battle space was measured not in yards
but in miles. (6:38)

And, via Shipbucket, the Carrier Dock Multimission (CDM) variant:

USCDM-1a.png


USCDM.png


CDM2.jpg
 
Bosworth, Kleiman and Matz: “Multimission Ship Design for an Alternative Fleet Concept”, Naval Engineers Journal, May 1991.

Definitely worth reading.
A previous post in this thread mentions some briefs concerning the CDM, CDVlong and other variants. Is it possible to get them and how?

Also, the paper mentions a CVNplus concept for an aircraft carrier described as:

1) Larger than Nimitz
2) Dual recovery lane
3) Centerline elevators

I looked in the web but could not find anything about it except that another NEJ paper briefly describes the advantages and disadvantages of the dual recovery deck configuration and provides a stylized drawing.
Was this configuration ever studied in detail are there any reports available?

This article can be found online if you look. I won't repost since those copies are undoubtedly pirated.


Designing the Future U.S. Naval Surface Fleet for Effectiveness and Producibility is a Navy document, so I'm attaching a copy here:
 

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