and I agree miho, she would be an quite capable ship, although I will always frown when seeing the helipad between the 2 funnels, with all the windbreak and heat problems available. I would have respected the pilots who could land an seaking, or even worse, merlin, on this deck.
Actually, since it was amidshps, it would have been a MORE stable platform than the usual "at the end of a fulcrum" spot at the stern. The plan was that a pilot would approach from port, and then slide the helo onto the pad sideways.
But yeah, for a Seaking or a Merlin space is getting tight. She could have carried two Lynx though.
Which answers the ASM question too: Why the hell bother when you've got helicopters to dump those torpedoes into the water?
And Shippy: The intakes nor the uptakes on the DK brown design were duckted sideways: The engine rooms were simply offset, soo the in/uptakes actually came straight up. They HAD to be offset, because the shaft from the forward engine room had to bypass the aft engine room. Yes, that's long shaft, no, apparently there was no real extra danger from explosion shock damage. Long or short shaft, above a certain amount of stress damage occurred, with very little additional risk due to the longer shaft.
Honestly, why are you trying to reinvent the wheel? The only thing the T43 could have used was bigger magazines.