A modern cruiser?

Firefinder said:
You at most need 4 helicopters for 24/7 ASW work these days thanks to improvements in both sensors, doctrine and gear.

1 in the Air.

1 on standby

1 in maintenance

1 spare.

That will allow you to keep a sonar in the water 24/7 with enough capacity to surge if need while doing 20 knots. Especially if you do a similar sprint drift tactic to use the hullborne system to allow the copter to leap forward.
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naval helos average 4 flying hours per day.
That's 6 needed + 1 attrition reserve
Thus 7
 
johnpjones1775 said:
By who? One random person on this forum?
Their idea had pretty big holes poked into like immediately.
You went from ‘I think this’ to ‘well someone else suggested this’
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Looks like you can read more replies than I can, for I simply don't see that.

Feel free to follow the links I posted to judge whether that was just a random opinion or maybe grounded in 80 book pages worth of writing.
 
johnpjones1775 said:
By who? One random person on this forum?
Their idea had pretty big holes poked into like immediately.
You went from ‘I think this’ to ‘well someone else suggested this’
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Well, it doesn't means it didn't have some merit. Cruiser as "micro-group" command ship might be an actually viable idea. I would not insist that it's the right idea, but it's the idea interesting to toy with)
 
Dilandu said:
Well, it doesn't means it didn't have some merit. Cruiser as "micro-group" command ship might be an actually viable idea. I would not insist that it's the right idea, but it's the idea interesting to toy with)
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What is a micro-group?
Cruisers have almost always been functioned as command ships of some sort since they stopped using sails on them, so of course a modern cruiser would be leading groups of other ships.
 
johnpjones1775 said:
Cruisers have almost always been functioned as command ships of some sort since they stopped using sails on them, so of course a modern cruiser would be leading groups of other ships.
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Erm, no. For the majority of cruiser history, they were autonomous patrol units operating alone first, battleline support second.
 
Dilandu said:
Erm, no. For the majority of cruiser history, they were autonomous patrol units operating alone first, battleline support second.
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For sail powered cruisers sure, but as I said once cruisers lost their sails they were very much ships built with the capability to lead groups of ships, whether it was scout cruisers leading desrons, or armored and protected cruisers leading other groups of ships including older/smaller cruisers, destroyers, and other smaller ship types.

Cruisers were often the flag ships of colonial fleets.
 
If the requirement is for the ship to be able to operate autonomously, both escort (AAW, ASW) and strike capabilities have to be packed inside a single hull.

This is not uniquely Soviet philosophy, however, I can quote Hobbs "British Aircraft Carriers" here:

... became a ‘dumping ground’ for every aspect of surface warfare. Invincible had the sea-boats of a cruiser, the missile system of a destroyer, and the sonar system, but not the ASW weapons, of a frigate, but she had the only relatively big flight deck in the fleet.
 
It can be argued, of course, whether the concept is viable, but if we are trying to figure out the minimum working layout for an autonomous general purpose surface combatant with any survivability expectations, this is somewhere where we end up.
 
Martes said:
It is absolutely possible to place 2x30 VLS launchers (3 with some effort) aside of the ski-jump on the Invincible (instead of the Sea Dart magazine and mechanics), and fill the sides and superstructure with smaller launchers. There is a lot of unused space there. The main difference is that you would need better ASW suite, larger sonars, probably VDS and towed decoys, and a drone/mission bay, as @Dilandu mentioned with some changes to the hull to accommodate all this.

Kiev is too large to operate alone, but a properly equipped Invincible-sized ship fits the bill of an autonomous GP platform perfectly.
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Just because you can fit them doesn’t make them useful.
It’s the battle-carrier issue. Will utilizing the VLS next to the ramp or along the flight deck interfere with flight ops?

if yes, then the flat design is kind of pointless.
Look at the soviet missile armed carriers. Most of the time they have a traditional cruiser style bow where all of the missiles are, with an angled flight deck to the side to operate aircraft, and they’re a lot bigger than 15-18k tons.
 
Martes said:
A group of micro units rather. Aircraft, drones, USV, UUV. The same sailing frigates did in the day - boatwork, autonomous operations, all that.
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All (relatively) large ships will likely be doing that in the nearish future, from MCMs, to frigates and destroyers, to notional cruisers, up to amphibs and carriers.
 
Honestly, any modern cruiser, is just going to be a DDG with command facilities. Modern guided missile destroyers have long since passed the point where there's any meaningful difference from a cruiser in sensor and weapon fits. The primary job of a modern day cruiser is command and control of an escort group's anti air assets.

All the other stuff that's being thrown around with adding large flight decks and jets, and this and that? You're trying to reinvent the wheel. You really feel the need to make your cruiser stand out from your destroyers? Make a touch bigger, slap an extra 20 VLS cells on it and call it a day.
 
johnpjones1775 said:
It’s the battle-carrier issue. Will utilizing the VLS next to the ramp or along the flight deck interfere with flight ops?

if yes, then the flat design is kind of pointless.
Look at the soviet missile armed carriers. Most of the time they have a traditional cruiser style bow where all of the missiles are, with an angled flight deck to the side to operate aircraft, and they’re a lot bigger than 15-18k tons.
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When did you last look at the Kuznetsov? Her VLS is literally inside the ski-jump.

VLS launch near the ski jump would prevent a launch for several seconds, and has no effect on landing (which is vertical and performed from stern-port side of the ship.
 
johnpjones1775 said:
For sail powered cruisers sure, but as I said once cruisers lost their sails they were very much ships built with the capability to lead groups of ships, whether it was scout cruisers leading desrons, or armored and protected cruisers leading other groups of ships including older/smaller cruisers, destroyers, and other smaller ship types.
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There is no such thing as "sail powered cruiser". The "cruiser" as ship class was born well in steam era - essentially a combination of screw corvette and screw sloop (point on "screw", they were steam-powered ships with sails as auxilary propulsion) designed to either harrass enemy maritime trade, or protect their nation maritime trade by catching enemy cruisers.

The initial goal of cruisers was strictly patrol. While they could operate together, they weren't designed as any kind of "command ships", merely a group of similar class ships.

Later, the original patrol functions of the cruiser were augmented by the role of fleet scouts (fast ships seeking for enemy navy) and battleline support (when firstly armored, then protected cruisers were invented). Again, there were no concept of using cruisers to "lead group of ships".

The idea of cruisers leading groups of destroyers were much later invention. And it wasn't exactly popular function. Up to WW2, the main role of the cruisers was still a patrol one.
 
If anything, we would be looking at something like this:

1750957121425.png


or this:

1750957232327.jpeg

johnpjones1775 said:
All (relatively) large ships will likely be doing that in the nearish future, from MCMs, to frigates and destroyers, to notional cruisers, up to amphibs and carriers.
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Right. But size of the units and their quantity still matters. You will have a problem housing a squadron of F-35 on an MCM. :)
 
SSgtC said:
Honestly, any modern cruiser, is just going to be a DDG with command facilities. Modern guided missile destroyers have long since passed the point where there's any meaningful difference from a cruiser in sensor and weapon fits. The primary job of a modern day cruiser is command and control of an escort group's anti air assets.

All the other stuff that's being thrown around with adding large flight decks and jets, and this and that? You're trying to reinvent the wheel. You really feel the need to make your cruiser stand out from your destroyers? Make a touch bigger, slap an extra 20 VLS cells on it and call it a day.
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I could see cruisers having expanded helo capabilities but that’s about it.
 
Martes said:
If anything, we would be looking at something like this:

View attachment 776000


or this:

View attachment 776001


Right. But size of the units and their quantity still matters. You will have a problem housing a squadron of F-35 on an MCM. :)
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Why are you trying to make a cruiser an amphib or a carrier?
This weird obsession some of y’all have with f35s on tiny hulls?
 
johnpjones1775 said:
I could see cruisers having expanded helo capabilities but that’s about it.
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I can't even see that, honestly. Design it to hanger 2 SH-60 sized helos and that combined with all the other helo carrying ships in the DESRON/ESG/SAG/CSG means you have more than enough birds to maintain a 24 hour airborne ASW force. The only time you're going to see a ship as valuable as a cruiser operating independently is during goodwill port visits in peace time (or the exceptionally rare freedom of navigation exercise, which almost always takes place with a carrier not all that far away).
 
Dilandu said:
There is no such thing as "sail powered cruiser". The "cruiser" as ship class was born well in steam era - essentially a combination of screw corvette and screw sloop (point on "screw", they were steam-powered ships with sails as auxilary propulsion) designed to either harrass enemy maritime trade, or protect their nation maritime trade by catching enemy cruisers.

The initial goal of cruisers was strictly patrol. While they could operate together, they weren't designed as any kind of "command ships", merely a group of similar class ships.

Later, the original patrol functions of the cruiser were augmented by the role of fleet scouts (fast ships seeking for enemy navy) and battleline support (when firstly armored, then protected cruisers were invented). Again, there were no concept of using cruisers to "lead group of ships".

The idea of cruisers leading groups of destroyers were much later invention. And it wasn't exactly popular function. Up to WW2, the main role of the cruisers was still a patrol one.
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The term cruiser was interchangeable with frigate in the age of sail.

Cruisers leading groups well before WWII.
Battle of shipu, sino-French war(1885)
Chinese forces led by a cruiser
Battle of Zhenhai, sino-French war (1885)
Rio De Janiero Affair, (1894)
US squadron lead by a cruiser
Battle of Yalu River, first sino-Japan war (1894) Japanese fleet flagship was a cruiser.
Battle of weihawei, first sino-Japanese war(1895) a cruiser is the flagship leading 2 other cruisers
Battle of Manila bay, Spanish American war (1898)Flagships of both fleets/squadrons were cruisers.
Battle of Cienfuegos,(1898) spanish squadron led by an unprotected cruiser
Battle of Guantanamo bay (1898) US squadron lead by an unprotected cruiser
Second battle of San Juan(1898) Spanish cruiser leading a destroyer
Third battle of San Juan (1898) spanish cruiser leading a squadron
Battle of aguedores (1898) US cruiser lead 2 gunboats
Battle of nipa bay(1898) US cruiser leading smaller ships
Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905)
Battle of chempulo bay, both flagships on both sides were cruisers.
Hitachi maru incident, russian squadron was 3 cruisers meaning a cruiser was leading the group.
Battle of korsakov, Japanese cruiser leading another cruiser.
Battle of Ulsan, Japanese force led by a cruiser
Only three battles during this war included battleships.


I think I’ve proven that cruisers acting as squadron/flotilla/fleet flagships predates WWI quite convincingly.

Edit
Just realized in my fervor to prove my point I included auxiliary cruisers without thought. I’d be willing to hear arguments against their inclusion, but there’s still plenty of examples of purpose built cruisers leading formations.
 
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Martes said:
When did you last look at the Kuznetsov? Her VLS is literally inside the ski-jump.

VLS launch near the ski jump would prevent a launch for several seconds, and has no effect on landing (which is vertical and performed from stern-port side of the ship.
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Lmao, Kuznetsov is the ship you want to model a ship after? How about her sister ships? Do they still have that design in use? Or the the shandong which is a subclass?

So you want jets flying toward your ship while you’re launching SAMs? Yeah…that sounds like a good idea.
 
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The biggest difference for a Cruiser and Destroyer/Frigate modern wise is likely endurance.

A Destroyer Frigate needs refueling every Week and Food every 2 assuming weapons are still good.

A Modern Cruiser should probably be Good for a Month without Resupply.

Off course the big limit is the weapons and when a missile is out of missiles...

They are nearly useless.
 
Firefinder said:
The biggest difference for a Cruiser and Destroyer/Frigate modern wise is likely endurance.

A Destroyer Frigate needs refueling every Week and Food every 2 assuming weapons are still good.

A Modern Cruiser should probably be Good for a Month without Resupply.

Off course the big limit is the weapons and when a missile is out of missiles...

They are nearly useless.
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…Burkes don’t need refueling every week.
We refueled every 2-3 weeks to stay above a certain fuel level, but we could go a month or more.
Range/endurance is pretty irrelevant
 
johnpjones1775 said:
I think I’ve proven that cruisers acting as squadron/flotilla/fleet flagships predates WWI quite convincingly.
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You seriously mixing "cruiser used as flagship" with "cruiser intended to lead the other ship". It's not the same thing. Chinese forces in Yalu, for example, were lead by ironclad battleship - so apparently the function of battleship is to lead other ships in battle?
 
SSgtC said:
The only time you're going to see a ship as valuable as a cruiser operating independently is during goodwill port visits in peace time (or the exceptionally rare freedom of navigation exercise, which almost always takes place with a carrier not all that far away).
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Only in US doctrine though
 
Dilandu said:
You seriously mixing "cruiser used as flagship" with "cruiser intended to lead the other ship". It's not the same thing. Chinese forces in Yalu, for example, were lead by ironclad battleship - so apparently the function of battleship is to lead other ships in battle?
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The point of a flagship is to lead other ships.

Even destroyer leaders their sole function wasn’t to lead destroyers.

You got proven wrong, and you’re trying to obfuscate now.
 
johnpjones1775 said:
Just because you can fit them doesn’t make them useful.
It’s the battle-carrier issue. Will utilizing the VLS next to the ramp or along the flight deck interfere with flight ops?

if yes, then the flat design is kind of pointless.
Look at the soviet missile armed carriers. Most of the time they have a traditional cruiser style bow where all of the missiles are, with an angled flight deck to the side to operate aircraft, and they’re a lot bigger than 15-18k tons.
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This made me think a bit. A modern take on this kind of "aviation cruiser" would most likely rely on aircraft for it's offensive punch. Utilizing aircraft armed with missiles, bombs and torpedos to combat other ships, land targets and submarines. While also maintaining a decent amount of VLS to defend itself, which in conjunction with other defense systems, would increase survivability.

It's size, aircraft complement and defenses against missiles and submarines would in theory make such a vessel fairly independent. Aircraft fuel and munitions probably being the bottleneck here limiting endurance.

As for placement of the VLS on an aviation focused, large surface combatant, I think there are two major options that avoid the pitfalls of established Soviets designs. One being extensions on the side of the vessel, probably angled inwards to not have the VLS extent too far straight down. This would obviously eat a bit into internal volume, but not as much as the solution on Kuznetsov for example. The other solution would be having a VLS battery as an extension of the vessels super structure, behind the bridge and exhaust. That would reduce deck space a good bit towards the rear I assume. So it's a trade off.

I once again threw something together in Hypic on my phone, USS Bougainville donated it's body to my delusions. Nothing is in scale or anything (I had to made the VLS myself, that was a pain in the butt), it's just meant to illustrate what I suggested above:
retouch_2025062622055102.jpg
My rationale was that in these positions the VLS wouldn't interfere with incoming or launching aircraft.
 
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I suppose one definition could (in the future at least) be ability to perform BMD/HGV defence (alongside present stuff like command facilities) and/or slinging such large hypersonic missiles? Whilst existing ships (destroyer or cruiser) can of course manage the former it could arguably be done better with missiles not constrained to the present Mk.41 VLS volume, something more like what the present DDG(X) studies call for to be able to be inserted in Mk.41 spaces if needed - ratio of such could be another defining factor, with ships possessing more large volume cells than small ones fitting more easily in the cruiser category.
 
US Cruiser despite being set up as task force leads often Cruised alone just as much


In WW1 the Armor Cruisers got despite to form lone pickets on the convoy routes to make the u boat live hard to recharge their batteries.

WW2 had multiple cruisers alone acting as Johny on the Spots and high valuable transports as seen with the Indianapolis.

While in the cold war the Nuke Cruisers like Long Beach often play lone sentry doing racetracks in the ocean and QRF to trouble spots to lock down the Area. Sometimes they reinforce the CSG and other times they GOT reinforcement from the CSG.

Even today the Ticos are Set up as lone ABM ships cause cruising at 15 knots is easier on their old hulls as often as they are playing task force lead.

US Cruisers are expected to do both the flagship and lone wolf as needed.

And has been since the age of sail.
 
johnpjones1775 said:
This weird obsession some of y’all have with f35s on tiny hulls?
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It's a descendant of a venerable obsession to put harriers on tiny hulls.

My point is simple, though - if you plan a ship that combines AAW, ASW and ASuW roles (which we might suppose a cruiser should have), and the resulting ship exceeds 15k tons, and you have access to VSTOL jets in your inventory, there is no excuse not to put a flight deck on it.

Whatever the arising complexities, the resulting expansion of the platform capabilities is worth it.
 
EmoBirb said:
This made me think a bit. A modern take on this kind of "aviation cruiser" would most likely rely on aircraft for it's offensive punch. Utilizing aircraft armed with missiles, bombs and torpedos to combat other ships, land targets and submarines. While also maintaining a decent amount of VLS to defend itself, which in conjunction with other defense systems, would increase survivability.

It's size, aircraft complement and defenses against missiles and submarines would in theory make such a vessel fairly independent. Aircraft fuel and munitions probably being the bottleneck here limiting endurance.

As for placement of the VLS on an aviation focused, large surface combatant, I think there are two major options that avoid the pitfalls of established Soviets designs. One being extensions on the side of the vessel, probably angled inwards to not have the VLS extent too far straight down. This would obviously eat a bit into internal volume, but not as much as the solution on Kuznetsov for example. The other solution would be having a VLS battery as an extension of the vessels super structure, behind the bridge and exhaust. That would reduce deck space a good bit towards the rear I assume. So it's a trade off.

I once again threw something together in Hypic on my phone, USS Bougainville donated it's body to my delusions. Nothing is in scale or anything (I had to made the VLS myself, that was a pain in the butt), it's just meant to illustrate what I suggested above:
View attachment 776010
My rationale was that in these positions the VLS wouldn't interfere with incoming or launching aircraft.
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But why are we trying to turn LHD/As into cruisers is my question.
 
Martes said:
It's a descendant of a venerable obsession to put harriers on tiny hulls.

My point is simple, though - if you plan a ship that combines AAW, ASW and ASuW roles (which we might suppose a cruiser should have), and the resulting ship exceeds 15k tons, and you have access to VSTOL jets in your inventory, there is no excuse not to put a flight deck on it.

Whatever the arising complexities, the resulting expansion of the platform capabilities is worth it.
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There will be a flight deck…for helicopters.

I do not think you can reasonably include enough VLS to viably call something a cruiser, and have a flattop with enough VTOL jets and helicopters, and lower end/closer in weapons at 15-18k tons.

As an example I believe the Iowa refits would have only carried like 9 harriers had they gone that route. Just enough to be able to have 2 jets on cap, 2 on quick reaction standby, 2 on long reaction standby, and 2 in maintenance, and 1 extra.

The Cavour has 32 VLS and weighs in at over 27k tons with an airwing of roughly 20-30 aircraft at most, hangar can only hold 10
 
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Part of the problem is the sheer number of VLS cells necessary for a ship to be able to operate off by itself.

You need ABMs, anti-hypersonics, SAMs, anti-submarine missiles, and lots of them. Note that those are all defensive missiles. A dozen ABMs, a dozen anti-hypersonics, half a dozen to a dozen ASW missiles, maybe a dozen long-range SAMs (could be shared with anti-hypersonics), at least a dozen short-range SAMs (ESSM-class), 5 dozen medium-range SAMs, ... Most of 96 cells, all for your defensive missiles.

Then you can add the offensive missiles: land attack missiles and antiship missiles. Some of those land attack missiles maybe hypersonics, and most hypersonics are larger than 21" VLS cells can support. Based on US examples, we're talking another 30-40 land attack missiles, a dozen or so dedicated AShMs, and then the hypersonics.

For the US, I think you're going to end up with 3 different types of VLS outright. The standard Mk41, Mk57 PVLS around the helo deck (assuming no deck park), and the big-tube VPMs for hypersonics.

We're bluntly talking about a ship large enough to hold ~200x Mk41 cells or more.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Part of the problem is the sheer number of VLS cells necessary for a ship to be able to operate off by itself.

You need ABMs, anti-hypersonics, SAMs, anti-submarine missiles, and lots of them. Note that those are all defensive missiles. A dozen ABMs, a dozen anti-hypersonics, half a dozen to a dozen ASW missiles, maybe a dozen long-range SAMs (could be shared with anti-hypersonics), at least a dozen short-range SAMs (ESSM-class), 5 dozen medium-range SAMs, ... Most of 96 cells, all for your defensive missiles.

Then you can add the offensive missiles: land attack missiles and antiship missiles. Some of those land attack missiles maybe hypersonics, and most hypersonics are larger than 21" VLS cells can support. Based on US examples, we're talking another 30-40 land attack missiles, a dozen or so dedicated AShMs, and then the hypersonics.

For the US, I think you're going to end up with 3 different types of VLS outright. The standard Mk41, Mk57 PVLS around the helo deck (assuming no deck park), and the big-tube VPMs for hypersonics.

We're bluntly talking about a ship large enough to hold ~200x Mk41 cells or more.
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I’d love to know where you’re pulling those numbers from.


But as for the 200 cell thing, HHI’s BMD ship, plus has a big flight deck, and hangar deck capable of operating at least 1 osprey.

Only issue is it’s relatively slow. Still think there has to be some way around that if an engineer actually put their brains towards it.
 

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