Shipbucket

Not fully happy but I'm busy and am going to be out of town for the last few days so I may as well post her now.



Designed and built in the Early 1920s, the Aeroplane was the first Aircraft Carrier built for the Shintari Navy. She is pictured as she appeared when she entered service in 1926 prior to her first refit. The Aeroplane was built at a time when the configuration and role of the Carrier within a battle group was still a matter of theoretical debate, in addition carrier operations were a complete unknown. The large number of unknowns led to the ship entering service with some distinctive eccentricities. The most noticeable was her Island arrangement. Rather than integrating the stacks into the island as on most carriers, the ship was built with the smoke stacks placed port and the island was placed starboard. The reason for this was the late addition of the island to the design, Naval Intelligence had reported that the Collective Assembly's newly commissioned carrier had an island and the Shipyard was instructed to incorporate one into the design shortly before launch. Unwilling to reroute the smokestacks, the builders added the island on the starboard side. Primary Armament was five 5" guns. Four were located in casemates with the 5th in an mount on the bow. Secondary armament consisted of a pair of triple torpedo tubes and four 50 caliber machine guns for air defense. The Aeroplane's Air Wing consisted of just over 30 aircraft and a comparable number of spares. Aircraft were stored in two hangars, an upper main hangar and a secondary sub hangar below it. The Sub Hangar was primarily used for storing the disassembled spares. As built the ship had a stern crane for recovering float planes.

The ship's design was quickly found to be inadequate and follow on ships were canceled in favor of a new clean sheet design. Aeroplane herself was returned to the yard within a year following her initial trials to be fit with a new island. Further refits over the following years saw additional changes including additional AA guns, a Hurricane Bow (In place of the forward gun), the removal of her torpedo tubes, and eventually radar Even with these refits by the outbreak of the Trans-Oceanic War in 1940 she was hopelessly outdated and ill-equipped to fight. The majority of her wartime service was spent as a training ship in home waters, with the occasional trip to ferry aircraft overseas. Following the war she was broken up for scrap in 1948. Her main anchor was preserved and placed at the gates of Naval Aerodrome North Bay before being moved to the Naval Aviation museum in 1974.

HMS Amphitrite (I55)



Launched three years prior to HMS Argus, HMS Amphitrite took longer to come into service, being held up repeatedly by redesigns and materiel shortages. Starting life as SS Statendam, she was initially requisitioned as SS Justicia but was taken in hand for conversion to an aircraft carrier. A two storey hangar was built atop the hull which at the time were the largest enclosed spaces in a warship, unlike HMS Argus, she was only completed with two fire curtains, dividing each level in two. Additional aircraft and spares could be stowed in either of three holds, size permitting.

Eventually entering service in mid 1918, HMS Amphitrite was leviathan in the Royal Navy, displacing more than any other vessel in service at that time and would until HMS Hood entered service two years later. With a crew of just 412 and a airwing of 390, she was considered an empty vessel, crews being able to usually have twin berths, all officers having spacious cabins. atop the weather deck. Her heavy emphasis

HMS Amphitrite avoided scrapping in the WNT by being established as experimental and was converted to an aircraft repair depot ship, she served as such from 1925 through to 1939 where her replacement was planned as HMS Unicorn, however the Second World War offered respite, she would be used for convoy escort across the Atlantic for most of the war till early 1944 when a torpedo struck her forwards. Able to limp into Belfast, she was used as a training hulk for the remainder of the war where she was scrapped in Scotland, 1946.

Length: 740'
Beam: 125'
Draught: 29'
Displacement: 35700t
Speed: 17 knots
Armament: 2x 5.5" BL guns
3x 4" HA guns
3x 2pdr AA guns

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Work list(Current)
Miscellaneous|Victorian Colonial Navy|Murray Riverboats|Colony of Victoria AU|Project Sail-fixing SB's sail shortage
How to mentally pronounce my usernameRow-(as in a boat)Don-(as in the short form of Donald)Dough-(bread)
"Loitering on the High Seas" (Named after the good ship Rodondo)
There's no such thing as "nothing left to draw" If you can down 10 pints and draw, you're doing alright by my standards

FIRST OF THE ANGELS

I normally would have some sort of lore write up for these but I haven't got much in my head right now.
Other than them being huge twin hanger decked carriers built off left over battleship hulls.

Challenge Extension
The First Aircraft Carrier Challenge has been extended by one week. You may now work on your submission until Sunday, 9 July. Entries will close at the normal time - 23:59 (UTC-12). If you have already submitted an entry, you may wish to exploit this extension to improve your work.

Exsplorar Class Aircraft Carrier



Historical background:

This ship was build as an experimental unit in order to transfer the innovation of military aviation to the seas and oceans of the world. Ocissana Federal Republic had a fast-growing aviation industry and the Admiralty favored innovation, and hence, in 1911, the concept of building a ship capable of carrying aircraft for their service, take-offs and landings was born.
Two issues influenced the decision to start designing a new ship. Firstly, the fleet needed planes to conduct reconnaissance, and their land-based homing presented many logistic problems. At that time, aircraft carrying only machine guns were not capable of fighting fleet ships, but they were assumed to be useful against the smallest units. Secondly, it was assumed that with the development of aviation, the usefulness of the aircraft would be increasing, and for this reason, aircraft ships would be more and more useful on the battlefield. The rapid introduction of the airship gave an advantage in experience over other navies.
The hull of the Lanzatori class battlecruiser was chosen as the base for the new ship in order to speed up the design period. The hull was large enough to accommodate an aircraft hangar without giving up the artillery armament entirely. A battlecruiser's hull was also cheaper than a battleship's. Construction of the ship began in 1912 and was launched in early 1914.

Technical and construction issues:

The ship was equipped with a single-level aircraft hangar, covered with a flat deck. The length of the deck was chosen to ensure the take-off and landing of light wooden biplanes as well as to leave free space at the bow and stern for two main artillery turrets. Due to the auxiliary role that aviation could play, the ship had to have full-fledged combat features in the form of strong armament. The hangar was serviced by an elevator and two seaplane cranes. The command of the unit was located between the bow navigation station and the starboard ship and air operations command tower. The ship does not have anti-aircraft defense due to the lack of aviation in foreign fleets and the lack of dedicated anti-aircraft armament developed at that time. The vertical armor of the ship has been reduced compared to the original. Horizontal armor remained unchanged.

Specifications:

Displacement: 15.550 t
Length of hull: 161.8m
Length of flight deck: 88m
Beam of hull: 21.5m
Draft: 7.7m
Installed power: 33.500 Shp
Speed: 24.5w
Armament:
4x205mm
8x155mm
4x95mm
Armor:
Vertical: 85mm
Horizontal: 75mm
Aircraft carried: 17+3

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The heavy aviation cruiser Karl Marx

Captured during the Russian Civil War, the Imperator Nikolai 1 was a modern battleship that the Soviets had captured before its completion. No work was done on her, until the Billy Mitchell trials and further books of his began to reach Soviet embassies, and eventually defense staff. With the Japanese bound by the Washington Naval Treaty, the Soviets began to ponder their potential for carriers and capability to match both them, and the ability to have a capital ship was considered of vital importance. As such, the Nikolai 1 was completed as a testbed carrier, to train pilots and crew, and test tactics.

It primarily was responsible for scouting for a battleline, but could also provide attack and air defense locally to a fleet. The ship was completed in 1934.

182 metres long, 20 metres at the beam, a 10 metre draught, and capable of going 22 knots.
Armament:
2x 120 mm pattern 1905 guns (for anti-ship action as well as torpedo boat protection)
3x 130 mm pattern 1913 guns (for anti-air as well as surface action)
6x British 12 lber guns captured during the Russian Civil War (anti-air)

Aviation:
5x Fairey III Reconnaissance aircraft. 6 of these were captured during the Russian Civil War, with one being sent to the VVS for trials and the other 5 being modified for use on the new carrier hull. These primarily do long range scouting missions.

4x Blackburn Darts. These were bought in a trade deal with the UK, and are the ships torpedo bombers and heavy offensive power.

10x I-15. A homebuilt fighter, the I-15 was one of the most built aircraft of the interwar period and some were tested on the carrier. These were used to escort the bombers, as well as for air defense.

8x R-Z. A Soviet Scout-bomber, the R-Z was used for gunnery spotting for the fleet, as well as light attack missions and supporting the Faireys in observation missions.

This ship performed in both the Black Sea, and the Pacific, and kept its iconic torpedo nets well into the Second World War, where they actually saved the ship from a torpedo volley. It performed convoy escort missions through the majority of the war, its aircraft (by then, more modern types) sinking two U-boats and 13 patrol or civilian craft. It later was turned into a training depot, and then a museum.

Gaspare Eusebio Duca di Vancamento




Originally planned as the second of three Timoteo Luciano-class super dreadnoughts, the cancellation of the three BBs due to budget cuts led to the Trepaglian Royal Navy discovering that her hull, which was nearly 90% complete at the time, would be perfect for the creation of the nation's first aircraft carrier. As such, the order was placed for the shipyard to complete the ship as a carrier. However, it was to fit the doctrine of the Regia Marina in that it must be capable of defending itself from other surface warships and not rely entirely on its aircraft component. As such, it was up to Admiral Enrico Bernardi to design a hybrid to fit the wishes of the navy.

Gaspare Eusebio Duca di Vancamento would be commissioned into the navy in 1925 and become the most interesting capital ship in the world due to its strange design. Most obvious was the inclusion of two quadruple 9" turrets fore and aft of the hangar, and the incorporation of a large flight deck. Secondly was the curved aft of the ship, which was the way in which it recovered seaplanes. The aircraft would float up to the deck where they would be secured to a carriage that would carry them into the aft hangar. Smaller seaplanes would be lifted onto the main deck by the crane just rear to the 3rd funnel. By the 1930s, the design was found to be inadequate for the rapid improvement in aircraft technology and she was refit into a more standard design. She would participate in WWII, but was found to be too slow to be employed in frontline service. After the war it was briefly proposed that she should be preserved as a museum, however this did not go anywhere and was sold for scrap in 1948.

Length: 740'
Speed: 24 knots
Armament: 2x quadruple 9" turrets
6x 120mm DP turrets
12x 13.2mm machineguns

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Menghean Aircraft Carrier "Hangmo Il-ho" (Carrier No.1)



Length: 548 ft (167 m)
Beam: 67 ft (20.4 m) hull
Draft: 24 ft (7.32 m) at full load
Displacement: 11,030 tonnes standard

Speed: 26.2 knots
Range: 3,650 nautical miles at 12 knots
Powerplant: 6x water-tube boiler, coal-burning with oil spray
Propulsion: 2x steam turbine, 22,000shp each, 2 shafts

Armament:
- 2x1 Type 10 125mm L/50 LA gun in Type 10 mount
- 4x1 Type 16 75mm L/40 HA gun in Type 22 mount
- 6x1 Type 15 7.5mm "Magŭsim" AA machine gun

Air wing:
- 12x Gloster Type 23 Carrier Fighter (licensed Gloster Sparrowhawk)
- 12x Chanam Type 24 Reconnaissance Bomber


Boy, this was a fun one to modify last minute!
Before the scoring begins... does anyone want to take a moment to look up when all-transverse arresting wire schemes first entered service?

In the 1910s and early 1920s, Menghe was engaged in a naval arms race against Dayashina, its maritime neighbor across the Sea of Fuso and, at the time, its most serious geostrategic threat. Thus, when rumors emerged that Dayashina was building its first aircraft carrier, the Federal Assembly eagerly authorized construction of a Menghean aircraft carrier to keep pace. The new ship's keel was laid down on 13 March 1922, squeaking in ahead of the Selkiö Naval Treaty and securing her classification as an "experimental" vessel that would not contribute to Menghe's treaty tonnage. Despite this classification, and a number of features to facilitate experimental operations, she was in all respects a fully combat-capable vessel, and she would later go on to see service in the Pan-Septentrion War.

Rather than convert an existing tanker, oiler, warship, or liner, the Menghean Navy insisted on a keel-up design which would minimize compromises inherited from an old hull. One such optimiziation, visible from the arrangement of the funnels, is that her six large water-tube boilers are located aft of the turbines, thus keeping smoke somewhat further from the forward flight deck. Another was her cruiser-like armor scheme, with 3" armor plating over the machinery spaces, steering gear, magazines, and part of the forward waterline. This protection was chosen to prevent critical damage from destroyer- and light-cruiser-grade guns, and not much else, the idea being that shrewd planning would keep the ship out of combat. This was also reflected in the armament, with two 125mm low-angle guns on the quarterdeck to engage pursuing vessels. The other guns, at the time of construction, were high-angle only: four 75mm flak guns and six 7.5mm water-cooled machine guns.

Early design sketches proposed aircraft braking on the deck without help from arresting wires. During construction, however, the Navy concluded that current and especially future torpedo bombers would require some kind of wire-based arresting system, and began experimenting on land with systems derived from Anglian technology, quickly settling on longitudinal arresting wires as the least risky option. Crews nicknamed this system the "Gayagŭm" (a traditional zither) for the long parallel cables, which served the dual purpose of slowing down a landing aircraft through friction, and preventing it from veering too far to either side. Three ramp-like structures, which could be individually raised and lowered, elevated the wires above the decks for landing operations, and a systme of pulleys routed through the forward entry point kept adequate tension on the wires. Though primitive by comparison with the transverse arresting wires that later became ubiquitous, longitudinal wires were arguably the most mature type of arresting system of the mid-1920s.

The addition of the arresting system obstructed the initial planned location of the aft elevator. Because planking this over would seriously hinder the launching and recovery rate, and relocating it aft would require shrinking it and imposing other changes, in the end the designers chose to move it further forward, creating a 150-foot-long arresting space positioned nicely toward the end of the flight deck. With the erection of a safety net amidships, it became possible to conduct launch and recovery operations simultaneously; with an aft safety net erected and only the rear section of the arresting array raised, it was even possible to recover the lightest fighters while using the rear elevator, though in practice this was risky and seldom done.

One feature not altered between design and completion was the flat, washboard-like flight deck. The navigation bridge was situated in an enclosed arc suspended under the flight deck, with protruding wings on either side; flight operations were overseen from a platform on the starboard side of the flight deck. Visibility from both was quite poor, and a watch station on the main mast was not usable while the mast and radio lines were folded down. On the plus side, the lack of protruding funnels and islands did reduce the collision risk for new pilots.

An open hangar was chosen in order to allow aircraft to run up their engines before being brought up to the flight deck. In addition to benefiting the average sortie generation rate, this would allow test-runs of engines while at sea, useful in testing and maintenance. A further advantage of the open hangar is that it allowed more generous growth margins in the event that newer aircraft might be brought into service, or at least trialed temporarily aboard the Il-ho.

At the time of commissioning, the air wing consisted of Type 23 Carrier Fighters, licensed versions of the Gloster Sparrowhawk, and Chanam Type 24 Reconnaissance Bombers, a domestic design. Both were fitted with distinctive horizontal bars forward of the landing gear, under which were hooks to snag the parallel arresting wires. The Type 23s did not have folding wings, but their small wingspan reduced their hangar footprint, and the relocation of the aft elevator further forward enabled parking changes which raised the size of the initial air wing from ten to twelve fighters. The Chanam Type 24 did have folding wings, and with wings folded, it was possible to park two of them on the aft elevator. The forward elevator was likewise long enough to bring up two Type 23s, or one Type 24 with wings folded.

This twin-plane-on-elevator layout was actually found to be inefficient in early service, because Menghean carrier doctrine of the time stressed immediate strikedown of landing aircraft, with all servicing and rearmament taking place inside the hangar. Along with the open hangar, well-positioned twin elevators, and below-deck warmups, this allowed higher sortie generation rates on average, because the deck was generally kept clear for new aircraft coming in to land. The tradeoffs of this doctrine included a reduced air wing size, because of the lack of provisions for deck parking, and a reduced "surge" generation rate, because it was cumbersome to amass a large number of aircraft on the flight deck in preparation for a large strike. This tradeoff reflected early Menghean Navy assumptions about the role of carrier aircraft, which emphasized reconnaissance, local air patrol, and small strike packages launched on a rolling bases, rather than massed airstrikes involving a large share of the serviceable strike wing. Though defensible in the early 1920s, these assumptions had become hard-wired into Menghean doctrine and carrier design by the late 1930s, hampering the Menghean Navy's transition to carrier-centric naval warfare.

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Currently posting my latest ship art on my Menghean Navy AU thread, but most of my stuff is on iiWiki.

A bad peace is preferable to a terrible war.

Polls Now Open
The submission period for the First Aircraft Carrier Challenge has ended.
Please consider rating each entry here.
Options for the next challenge can be ranked here.
Both challenges will remain open until Thursday 13 July 2023, ending at 23:59 (UTC-12). Countdown Timer

Options for Next Challenge
1960s Supersonic V/STOL Strike Fighter (FD Scale)
1. Your submission must depict a fictional supersonic strike fighter designed between 1960 and 1969 in FD scale.
2. In clean configuration the aircraft should be capable of reaching Mach 2 at altitude.
3. It should be capable of taking off and landing vertically with a 2000 lb (907 kg) nuclear weapon.
4. While carrying this weapon, the aircraft must have a strike radius of at least 250 nautical miles (463 kilometres).

Real Life Challenge: FD Edition (FD Scale)
1. Your submission must depict a real vehicle in FD scale.
2. Your drawing(s) should be suitable for inclusion in the Shipbucket archive.
3. The chosen vehicle must not already appear in the archive. You can draw a derivative of a vehicle already in the archive if it differs substantially from the original (e.g. the M74 recovery vehicle derived from the M4 Sherman).
4. Never built designs are permitted if you present a realistic interpretation of their appearance in service or an unmarked version identical to the real life proposal.

If chosen, Drawing Quality will be this challenge's sole category. Also, the number of views and drawings permitted in each entry will not be restricted.

Cold War Primary Trainer Aircraft (FD Scale)
1. Your submission must depict a fictional primary trainer aircraft.
2. The aircraft should enter service between 1946 and 1991. Development may commence before this time frame.
3. The aircraft must be designed from the outset as a trainer and that should be its primary role.
4. Maximum takeoff weight must not exceed 15,000 lbs (6,803 kg).

Men-At-Arms Challenge (Soldierbucket)
1. You must draw three Alternate Universe military or law enforcement figures sharing a common theme. Non-standard poses are permitted.
2. The three figures must be shown on the special 'book cover style' template shown below, with an appropriate 'title' reflecting your chosen theme.

Example entry and blank template.


Anti-Materiel Rifle Challenge (Gunbucket, Weaponbucket, Pistolbucket)
1. Your entry must depict a fictional anti-materiel rifle.
2. The rifle should fire a projectile at least 12.7 mm (0.50 inches) in diameter.
3. The rifle's effective firing range must exceed 1000 m (1094 yards).

Challenge Results
The polls have closed. Thanks to everyone who participated, especially the fourteen artists who made this challenge possible. In first place with 353 points is Soode who drew the Menghean aircraft carrier Hangmo Il-ho. They also achieved the highest score in both categories. Rodondo attained second place with 335 points for their submission, HMS Amphirite. A mere two points behind Rodondo is Armoured man whose ES Atropus achieved third place.





The Men-at-Arms Challenge is now open to all who are interested.
Listed in order of popularity, the other options were: Cold War Primary Trainer Aircraft, Real Life Challenge - FD Edition, 1960s Supersonic V/STOL Strike Fighter, Anti-Materiel Rifle