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Post by Adseria on May 14, 2019 9:33:07 GMT -6
It's already been shown plenty of times that it will be possible to convert old warships to aircraft carriers. However, it just occurred to me that many early carriers were actually conversions from non-combat vessels (for instance, the original USS Langley was a converted collier).
Will it be possible to do this? I'd expect it to work similarly to AMC or small corvettes, where you can build them at reduced cost. Obviously, there would be drawbacks, probably limited tonnage, speed, weaponry and/or armour. For example, a ship of no more than 20,000t, 20kts, 5" guns and no armour, but a discount of, say, 20% because of the lack of a need to build the hull and machinery. Wouldn't be a great ship, but it would be a lot cheaper than a purpose-built carrier, and wouldn't take away a front-line ship.
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Post by rob06waves2018 on May 14, 2019 9:57:34 GMT -6
If we go down this route, it amounts to refitting large AMCs as carriers. I'm all in favour of this - it was after all the main way of getting entry-level prototype carriers quickly for quite a few nations. However, this begs the question - what happens at the end of a war. Do they get scrapped like an AMC or kept on as a fleet carrier - potentially avoiding extortionate costs of building a carrier from the keel up?
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Post by Adseria on May 14, 2019 10:52:21 GMT -6
If we go down this route, it amounts to refitting large AMCs as carriers. I'm all in favour of this - it was after all the main way of getting entry-level prototype carriers quickly for quite a few nations. However, this begs the question - what happens at the end of a war. Do they get scrapped like an AMC or kept on as a fleet carrier - potentially avoiding extortionate costs of building a carrier from the keel up? Going back to my example, Langley was converted in 1920 and kept on until her conversion to a seaplane tender in 1936. I'd say you get to keep them. But, as I say, they'd be slow, unarmoured and lightly armed, and 20,000t wouldn't allow a huge amount of room for aircraft either. They'd be a lot worse in most roles than even a dedicated carrier built on the same tonnage. Basically, you'd get an escort carrier; terrible for fleet combat, but extremely cheap.
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Post by skyhawk on May 14, 2019 10:57:20 GMT -6
This is one of my hopes for the game...that we'll be able to convert non-combat vessels into CVs or seaplane carriers and then potentially keep them on after a war. Perhaps a low chance for each of the converted vessels but a chance none the less.
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Post by rob06waves2018 on May 14, 2019 11:04:46 GMT -6
If we go down this route, it amounts to refitting large AMCs as carriers. I'm all in favour of this - it was after all the main way of getting entry-level prototype carriers quickly for quite a few nations. However, this begs the question - what happens at the end of a war. Do they get scrapped like an AMC or kept on as a fleet carrier - potentially avoiding extortionate costs of building a carrier from the keel up? Going back to my example, Langley was converted in 1920 and kept on until her conversion to a seaplane tender in 1936. I'd say you get to keep them. But, as I say, they'd be slow, unarmoured and lightly armed, and 20,000t wouldn't allow a huge amount of room for aircraft either. They'd be a lot worse in most roles than even a dedicated carrier built on the same tonnage. Basically, you'd get an escort carrier; terrible for fleet combat, but extremely cheap. The problem would come as aeroplanes became more advanced and less reliant on a close, sturdy carrier. When you're launching an attack from 100 miles away, there's no need to have an all-singing-all-dancing fleet carrier. You could just build attack squadrons of carriers from AMCs and rely on superior aeroplane designs. To remedy this, I suggest that only planes designed before 1930 can take off from an AMC deck due to the newer launch and recovery equipment required. That would mean they are possible but less desirable as the game progresses, similar to CA conversions.
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Post by Adseria on May 14, 2019 11:27:01 GMT -6
Going back to my example, Langley was converted in 1920 and kept on until her conversion to a seaplane tender in 1936. I'd say you get to keep them. But, as I say, they'd be slow, unarmoured and lightly armed, and 20,000t wouldn't allow a huge amount of room for aircraft either. They'd be a lot worse in most roles than even a dedicated carrier built on the same tonnage. Basically, you'd get an escort carrier; terrible for fleet combat, but extremely cheap. The problem would come as aeroplanes became more advanced and less reliant on a close, sturdy carrier. When you're launching an attack from 100 miles away, there's no need to have an all-singing-all-dancing fleet carrier. You could just build attack squadrons of carriers from AMCs and rely on superior aeroplane designs. To remedy this, I suggest that only planes designed before 1930 can take off from an AMC deck due to the newer launch and recovery equipment required. That would mean they are possible but less desirable as the game progresses, similar to CA conversions. That makes sense. You're basically suggesting a simplified version of "faster, more modern planes need longer runways."
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Post by oldpop2000 on May 14, 2019 11:32:38 GMT -6
Going back to my example, Langley was converted in 1920 and kept on until her conversion to a seaplane tender in 1936. I'd say you get to keep them. But, as I say, they'd be slow, unarmoured and lightly armed, and 20,000t wouldn't allow a huge amount of room for aircraft either. They'd be a lot worse in most roles than even a dedicated carrier built on the same tonnage. Basically, you'd get an escort carrier; terrible for fleet combat, but extremely cheap. The problem would come as aeroplanes became more advanced and less reliant on a close, sturdy carrier. When you're launching an attack from 100 miles away, there's no need to have an all-singing-all-dancing fleet carrier. You could just build attack squadrons of carriers from AMCs and rely on superior aeroplane designs. To remedy this, I suggest that only planes designed before 1930 can take off from an AMC deck due to the newer launch and recovery equipment required. That would mean they are possible but less desirable as the game progresses, similar to CA conversions. I want to point out to you that escort carriers built on transports will not have good speed; probably about 17 to 18 knots maximum and a deck length of maybe 450-500 feet. Now, if you build a torpedo bomber, that weighs fully loaded with a torpedo, fuel, and ammunition it will weigh-in about 15,000 lbs. You are going to need about 25 knots over that deck to launch that bird even with a steam or hydraulic catapult. They did launch them from the escorts to augment the fleet carrier air wings when there were operational and non-operational losses. However, those birds were clean, no ordnance and minimum fuel to reach the designed fleet carrier. They even added additional tanks in the bomb bay for a long distance run but it was touchy getting off the deck. The best use of escort carriers was to have fighters for fleet defense and inner patrols against submarines. You could even design a reconnaissance aircraft that is dedicated and has a long range with two crew members. This could augment the fleet carriers relieving them of the task and preserving their air wings for strikes. The aircraft would have no ordnance except a machine gun for defense in the rear and possibly two, one in each wing to save weight. Example: TBF with one MK13 torpedo, 335 gallons of fuel had a take-off distance in calm of 1071 feet, in 15 knots about 650 feet, in 25 knots about 435 feet. SBD-3 with one 1000 lbs. bomb, 249 gallons of fuel had a take-off distance in a 25 kn. wind of about 500 feet. The flight deck length on a Yorktown class was over 809 feet. The distances for both of these aircraft could be less from a carrier doing about 32 knots.
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Post by stairmaster on May 14, 2019 12:08:37 GMT -6
So how do you actually convert ships to cvls?
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Post by aeson on May 14, 2019 12:14:54 GMT -6
So how do you actually convert ships to cvls? At the start of the game, it appears to me as though you need a ship no larger than 12,000 tons and you need to open the design for rebuild, go to the Flight Installations and Missiles tab, add a flight deck and a nonzero number of aircraft, lighten the ship to bring it to a reasonable tonnage, validate the design, and say 'yes' when the game asks you if you want to change the design classification.
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Post by marauder on May 14, 2019 12:16:57 GMT -6
So how do you actually convert ships to cvls? Right-click on a ship in your fleet, let's say a pre-dreadnought, and select "Open design for rebuild". Remove all guns from the design, then go to the "Flight installations, Missiles" tab. There you need to check the "Flight Deck" option and add at least 5 air capacity (4 or lower gives me an unrecognised ship type popup). After you've done that, click on the "Check design" button and the game should ask you if you want to reclass the design as CVL.
That's how I just converted one of my starting pre-dreads to a CVL in the demo.
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Post by rob06waves2018 on May 14, 2019 12:18:57 GMT -6
The problem would come as aeroplanes became more advanced and less reliant on a close, sturdy carrier. When you're launching an attack from 100 miles away, there's no need to have an all-singing-all-dancing fleet carrier. You could just build attack squadrons of carriers from AMCs and rely on superior aeroplane designs. To remedy this, I suggest that only planes designed before 1930 can take off from an AMC deck due to the newer launch and recovery equipment required. That would mean they are possible but less desirable as the game progresses, similar to CA conversions. I want to point out to you that escort carriers built on transports will not have good speed; probably about 17 to 18 knots maximum and a deck length of maybe 450-500 feet. Now, if you build a torpedo bomber, that weighs fully loaded with a torpedo, fuel, and ammunition it will weigh-in about 15,000 lbs. You are going to need about 25 knots over that deck to launch that bird even with a steam or hydraulic catapult. They did launch them from the escorts to augment the fleet carrier air wings when there were operational and non-operational losses. However, those birds were clean, no ordnance and minimum fuel to reach the designed fleet carrier. They even added additional tanks in the bomb bay for a long distance run but it was touchy getting off the deck. The best use of escort carriers was to have fighters for fleet defense and inner patrols against submarines. You could even design a reconnaissance aircraft that is dedicated and has a long range with two crew members. This could augment the fleet carriers relieving them of the task and preserving their air wings for strikes. The aircraft would have no ordnance except a machine gun for defense in the rear and possibly two, one in each wing to save weight. Example: TBF with one MK13 torpedo, 335 gallons of fuel had a take-off distance in calm of 1071 feet, in 15 knots about 650 feet, in 25 knots about 435 feet. SBD-3 with one 1000 lbs. bomb, 249 gallons of fuel had a take-off distance in a 25 kn. wind of about 500 feet. The flight deck length on a Yorktown class was over 809 feet. The distances for both of these aircraft could be less from a carrier doing about 32 knots. In real life, this is all true. However, in the game one could legitimately build 20,000t AMCs in a few months at 25 knts. That is going to be expensive, but still not impossible. If these can then be rebuilt as carriers, the player has possibly circumvented 30 months of CV building in a few months. For the sake of realism, I would like this to be possible, but not to the extent that they become more useful than dedicated CVs.
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Post by oldpop2000 on May 14, 2019 12:26:42 GMT -6
I want to point out to you that escort carriers built on transports will not have good speed; probably about 17 to 18 knots maximum and a deck length of maybe 450-500 feet. Now, if you build a torpedo bomber, that weighs fully loaded with a torpedo, fuel, and ammunition it will weigh-in about 15,000 lbs. You are going to need about 25 knots over that deck to launch that bird even with a steam or hydraulic catapult. They did launch them from the escorts to augment the fleet carrier air wings when there were operational and non-operational losses. However, those birds were clean, no ordnance and minimum fuel to reach the designed fleet carrier. They even added additional tanks in the bomb bay for a long distance run but it was touchy getting off the deck. The best use of escort carriers was to have fighters for fleet defense and inner patrols against submarines. You could even design a reconnaissance aircraft that is dedicated and has a long range with two crew members. This could augment the fleet carriers relieving them of the task and preserving their air wings for strikes. The aircraft would have no ordnance except a machine gun for defense in the rear and possibly two, one in each wing to save weight. Example: TBF with one MK13 torpedo, 335 gallons of fuel had a take-off distance in calm of 1071 feet, in 15 knots about 650 feet, in 25 knots about 435 feet. SBD-3 with one 1000 lbs. bomb, 249 gallons of fuel had a take-off distance in a 25 kn. wind of about 500 feet. The flight deck length on a Yorktown class was over 809 feet. The distances for both of these aircraft could be less from a carrier doing about 32 knots. In real life, this is all true. However, in the game one could legitimately build 20,000t AMCs in a few months at 25 knts. That is going to be expensive, but still not impossible. If these can then be rebuilt as carriers, the player has possibly circumvented 30 months of CV building in a few months. For the sake of realism, I would like this to be possible, but not to the extent that they become more useful than dedicated CVs. I would prefer the game to as realistic as possible, not a fantasy but that is just me.
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Post by rob06waves2018 on May 14, 2019 12:38:26 GMT -6
In real life, this is all true. However, in the game one could legitimately build 20,000t AMCs in a few months at 25 knts. That is going to be expensive, but still not impossible. If these can then be rebuilt as carriers, the player has possibly circumvented 30 months of CV building in a few months. For the sake of realism, I would like this to be possible, but not to the extent that they become more useful than dedicated CVs. I would prefer the game to as realistic as possible, not a fantasy but that is just me. It's not fantasy - that's the problem! It's perfectly feasible but only a reality with hindsight. That's why I want it included in the limited way I've outlined.
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Post by Fredrik W on May 14, 2019 12:43:31 GMT -6
At present, you cannot rebuild AMC into carriers. Maybe a later addition.
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Post by oldpop2000 on May 14, 2019 14:09:06 GMT -6
At present, you cannot rebuild AMC into carriers. Maybe a later addition. Well, that is probably a good move. I am not certain that most nations in the world could really use those kinds of ships. Just my opinion.
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