Shipbucket

[Note from the future: all the drawings that were here have now been removed, and can be viewed instead over at the following thread in personal-designs: http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... 15&t=11040]

Hi everyone!

This thread is for all of the shipbucket-related work that I’m going to be doing related to my alternate history timeline, TL-34. I’ve already done quite a bit of experimentation and posted a ‘beta version’ of this TL to Spacebattles.com under the name Blue Waters, but I’m going to be completely redoing it, this time with the Eugenics Wars from Star Trek included! In fact, the number of changes means that this TL will, in all likelihood, look less like an edit to Blue Waters and more like an original one with some elements carried over.

With that out of the way, on to the ships!

Firstly, for now I’m going to do some work on the USN from the 1970s to 1994. The ships here will be similar to OTL, but there will be changes. US fleet doctrine calls for battle groups to be formed, with a capital ship providing offensive firepower surrounded by a number of AAW and ASW escort ships. As of the early 1970s the US had 9 carriers with a couple more on the way, for a projected average over the next few decades of 12, along with 5 guided missile battleships.

Standard US doctrine is to have all nuclear capital ships have at least one nuclear cruiser running escort, so that they can keep fighting even if the enemy surrounds them and cuts off their lines of supply. In addition, fleet plans projected a need for around 4 nuclear cruisers running independent action missions. This meant the US wanted a total of 15 modern CGNs.

As AEGIS started to mature in the early-to-mid 1970s plans were drawn up for the CSGN, or guided missile nuclear strike cruiser. The existing CGN Long Beach was converted into a prototype and eventually 8 of the final Helena-class CSGNs were built. Combined with the 4 Virginia and 2 California-class CGNs, that gave them the necessary 15 ships.

To fill out the rest of the escort slots left, Spruance-class destroyers were modified to carry AEGIS and used as fire directors, while regular Spruances given AAW refits were used as cheap missile batteries / ASW platforms. The AEGIS Spruances were christened Ticonderoga-class guided missile destroyer leaders.

As time went on and the early 1980s rolled around, it became apparent that a new DDG design was needed. Two designs were considered, both using a new hull shorter and wider than a Spruance, DDGX, which called for a 8000 ton ship equipped with AEGIS but no helicopters, and DDGY which had no AEGIS but did have helicopters and was both cheaper and 1000 tons lighter. Since at this point AEGIS cruisers and destroyer leaders were quite abundant, DDGY was chosen to be built, but not before a considerable amount of design work had already gone into DDGX.

Japan, interested in expanding its navy to counter the recent naval build up by China and lacking any AEGIS ships, signed a joint development contract with the US in 1983 for the DDGX, and would eventually commission them as the Kongō-class in 1988. Further development of the design, such as the addition of a helicopter hangar, led to the creation of the Ashigara and Musashi-class DDGs in the very early 1990s.

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Alright, on to the drawings!

Flight I Johnston-class DDG:
(the top-down view is WIP right now)

[Image removed, see http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... 15&t=11040]


Kongou-class DDG:

[Image removed, see http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... 15&t=11040]


Ashigara-class DDG:

[Image removed, see http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... 15&t=11040]


Musashi-class CG:

[Image removed, see http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... 15&t=11040]

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And here are some ever-so-slightly altered versions of already-drawn ships to update them and make them fit with the visual style of the ships I’ve been drawing:

Spruance-class DDG:

[Image removed, see http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... 15&t=11040]


Hayler-class DDH:

[Image removed, see http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... 15&t=11040]


Ticonderoga-class DLG:

[Image removed, see http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... 15&t=11040]

_________________
"Oh, absolutely not. Trinitite may be an eldritch being that breaks the laws of physics, but even she can't replicate the insanity that is German Engineering!" - PyrrhicSteel on whether Trinities' machine shops can make a new gasket for a crane
“Yes, strategy,” she replied to Evelyn’s withering look. “Because I am merely an amateur. I cannot talk logistics.” - Seven Shades of Sunlight, in a latter chapter of Katalepsis

Minor comment here: The name of the last artist always comes last. So on your initial 4 drawings here, the credits now say this was drawn by Vossiej based on original work from the others, while it was the other way around

I'm not sure if the hull shading you put on the spruance and tico hulls is accurate, but looking at the missile loadout these are very strictly in AU territory anyways so it isn't an real issue

If you really want to bring the tico up to date, don't forget to update the satcoms, SPS-49, phalanx etc. as well.

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

I think I've fixed most of the problems you listed. The hull shading on the Spruances and Ticos I have no references on. As for munitions, I depict the ships in the states they were in as of commissioning or close to it, but (mainly due to time constraints) the missiles as the loadouts carried as of the 2010s or so. I might change that if I have time and try depicting the missiles from the same period as the ship.

_________________
"Oh, absolutely not. Trinitite may be an eldritch being that breaks the laws of physics, but even she can't replicate the insanity that is German Engineering!" - PyrrhicSteel on whether Trinities' machine shops can make a new gasket for a crane
“Yes, strategy,” she replied to Evelyn’s withering look. “Because I am merely an amateur. I cannot talk logistics.” - Seven Shades of Sunlight, in a latter chapter of Katalepsis

wasn't the Spruance AAW version called the Kidd class?
4 built originally for Iran and nicknamed the Ayotolla class

Yes. Ayatollah class (or Kouroush Class). Originally 6 ships ordered to reduced to 4, all named of ancient Persian kings and later names changed to great Ahatollahs. None received by Iran because of the 1979 Revolution. Instead, these ships commissioned into USN and sold to Taiwan in early 2000's.

So, it’s taken a while but I’ve finally finished the next batch of ships for this AU.

Firstly, a fairly familiar design to start off with - the CSGN. This is a derivative of the 1976 design, and most of the changes were in updating the drawing to modern SB standards. Not too much more to say here, really, we’ve all seen CSGN before.


[Image removed, see http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... 15&t=11040]


Next, something those of you who participated in the recent ASW flagship drawing challenge might be familiar with, the JMSDF aircraft carrier Yonaga.

The story behind this is quite interesting; I was originally inspired by a surprisingly good KC fanfic called Eternity by Sheo Darren, though in my quest to make her history as plausible as possible most of the links to that IP have been dropped. Basically, at some point in the 50s the JMSDF decided to buy an aircraft carrier, and some politicians in the US who were upset at the decision to scrap Enterprise CV-6 managed to convince them to buy and refit her instead of an Essex or Midway. She started out fitted for an anti-surface role and served for around 35 years, gradually being refitted every now and then until Japan finally started building more carriers, at which point she got redesignated as an ASW flagship and given a bunch of helicopters to shepherd around.

As part of her initial refit before being sent to Japan she was given a hurricane bow and enclosed stern, a completely new flight deck and island, and large anti-torpedo bulges to help support all the added topweight. This did reduce her speed quite drastically though (I'm not sure quite how much, but probably to somewhere between 23-27 knots I'm guessing given the size of the bulges). As part of her later refits, Seasparrow and Phalanx point-defense systems were added, as well as better radar and electronic systems, though her SPS-43 was retained due to its exceptionally long range.

I have no idea if the 1950s-era JMSDF would use those sorts of deck markings or more American-style ones, but I went with the rule of cool and gave her proper red-and-white stripes. Her new name, Yonaga, is Japanese for Long Night and is in reference to the darkness that descended over their nation during WWII. Japanese carriers use symbols called Katakana to distinguish them from the air, with each carrier having the symbol that represents the sound of the first part of their name. So for example Kaga had カ, which is pronounced "ka". The Katakana for "yo" is ヨ, which happens to look like an inverted E, which is very fitting in my opinion. In addition, if one counts all of the aircraft carriers built or ordered for construction by the Japanese Navy (but not the Army, which also had its own carriers), then Yonaga would be the 44th. This is also fitting, as the Japanese symbol for 4 is the same as their symbol for death, and of course, Enterprise is known for sinking a great many ships, including three aircraft carriers on the exact same day.


[Image removed, see http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... 15&t=11040]


And finally, we have Yonaga’s replacement. In the late 60s and early 70s it was rapidly becoming apparent that the aging Yorktown-class couldn’t continue to be effective in an anti-ship role for very long, and preparations began to transfer her from the carrier strike force to the ocean escort force, however this resulted in a problem: Japan would be left without any fixed-wing air cover for their strike groups, something that left them vulnerable, and also without any sort of real strike capability either as up to that point Yonaga had constituted pretty much the entirety of their anti-ship capability. For some time the JMSDF had been trying to obtain new aircraft carriers, however this was considered politically unacceptable and they were constantly denied.

As a result they had instead started investigating the idea of using large guided missile cruisers for the role, but the sudden transfer of Yonaga away from the strike forces meant that their hypothetical cruisers would be left without any sort of fixed-wing air cover when operating far from Japan’s shores. A solution, however, quickly presented itself: the United States was working on designing a series of new nuclear-powered strike cruisers, and one of the plans on the drawing board was for a so-called aircraft-carrying cruiser, a modification of the basic CSGN design that allowed it to have both over a hundred VLS cells and the capability to carry a dozen or so aircraft.

The JMSDF was instantly interested, and so in 1975 they signed a joint development contract with the US. The initial plan was for Japan to order 12 of the ships, named the Ise-class, to be placed in four groups of three. Unfortunately, the realities of the naval budget resulted in this being cut to 8, and then to 6, but at that point things had steadied out and their future seemed certain.

However, in 1977-78 the sudden rise of the Great Khanate resulted in a massive panic, as was to be expected from the appearance of a potentially unfriendly superpower almost right next to Japan, and the JMSDF’s long-denied requests for more aircraft carriers suddenly started being accepted. As a result, the last four Ise-class ships were canceled on the slipways, and their funds were diverted into the Kaiyō-class development project. In the end only the first two ships, the JS Ise CGN-96 and JS Kaga CGN-97, were commissioned into the JMSDF.


[Image removed, see http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... 15&t=11040]


That’s all I have for now. As always, any thoughts you have would be very much appreciated!


EDIT: I've updated the Ise-class design a bit to take into account the advice of the people below, she should be more realistic now.

_________________
"Oh, absolutely not. Trinitite may be an eldritch being that breaks the laws of physics, but even she can't replicate the insanity that is German Engineering!" - PyrrhicSteel on whether Trinities' machine shops can make a new gasket for a crane
“Yes, strategy,” she replied to Evelyn’s withering look. “Because I am merely an amateur. I cannot talk logistics.” - Seven Shades of Sunlight, in a latter chapter of Katalepsis

These drawings are very nicely executed. Any changes I'd suggest would mostly be cosmetic.

The artwork on these is really nice, although I’m not in love with the large monolithic blocks of bridge windows on your Yorktown/Yonaga.

The Ise - class is very interesting to me although I’m somewhat perplexed by the aircraft handling facilities. I don’t see any external aircraft elevators, which leads me to believe there must be some hangar entrance via the superstructure? Given the footprint of your VTOL fighter, is there sufficient space for this?

I'm not particularly fond of them either, and I'm looking into whether or not I should change them. As for the hangar on the Ise-class, while she has a lot of differences from the real CSGN Mk2 proposal, the inclusion of a belowdeck hangar is not one of them. All of her planes are stored in the superstructure, in fact, I have a very basic diagram showing that:

[Image removed, see http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... 15&t=11040]

I checked and yes, those aircraft do have enough room to maneuver out of the hangar, though doing maintenance on them will be tough.

_________________
"Oh, absolutely not. Trinitite may be an eldritch being that breaks the laws of physics, but even she can't replicate the insanity that is German Engineering!" - PyrrhicSteel on whether Trinities' machine shops can make a new gasket for a crane
“Yes, strategy,” she replied to Evelyn’s withering look. “Because I am merely an amateur. I cannot talk logistics.” - Seven Shades of Sunlight, in a latter chapter of Katalepsis

Interesting. You have a lot of top weight stacked on top of what amounts to essentially a hollow box. Maybe there is room for structural members on the interior but I’m not sure how workable that would be - I’m not a naval engineer by any means. Maybe someone who is more knowledgeable can weigh in.

Generating any appreciable sortie rate is going to be tough with the way your jets “stack” in their hangars. For example, what if the furthest left (fore) aircraft has a last minute mechanical breakdown? Now you need to use the middle or furthest right aircraft, but because of the way the wings overlap, you now need to move the broken jet out of the way first before you can release your serviceable one.