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What about a through deck destroyer? Something along the lines of a Mini Invincible / Ocean hybrid?

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I was thinking about that. What sort of size do you think, maybe 125-130 metres?
It doesn't need to be particularly big, but just enough to land some troops from the sea...

Maybe something along the lines of the fearless... just Russian...

well, then I would rather use an small LPD/LHD then an flight deck destroyer.

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I simply don't know yet. I would be happy with something that could operate aircraft, and a dock would work just as well. I'll have a look at various designs. I'm just trying to hash out some capabilities...

Two questions:

1. What is the ship's primary mission? Is it a carrier or is it a 'phib first and foremost?
2. How large are you looking at?

The answers to those two questions set the stage for what it's going to look like.

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Size should be less or around the length of the town class cruiser, which was the basis for my Oberon design.

In terms of capabilities... well carrier preferably. But I don't think I'm getting fixed wing onto something so small. I might be wrong though.

Through-deck destroyers tend to be primarily anti-submarine warfare ships (this was the original mission of Invincible and the primary mission of the Japanese "through-deck destroyers"). Note that these "destroyers" are also large (Invincible was in fact originally classed as a cruiser). You can put a through-deck and hangars on a smaller hull, but you're not going to carry as many helicopters (obviously).

Helicopters are probably the best weapon against submarines due to their warload, response speed, and the fact that they carry dipping sonar (and hence why they're so emphasized in ASW operations), but they have other uses too. A through-deck ship can carry out heli-borne assaults (and hence why they're also sometimes listed as amphibious assets). Hangar spaces can be converted into troop staging areas (of course this means all your copters are now above-deck all the time) or you can build them into the design of the ship (Invincible had this too because the British already had extensive experience with heli-borne assaults with WWII-era carriers). A well deck would also be your staging area and increase your ability to deploy troops via true amphibious assets, but would now start interfering with your ASW mission by taking up space and calling for a bigger ship than necessary (Tarawa, probably the smallest ship that can get away with it, is 35,000+ tons).

Helicopters can also prosecute (hehe, "prosecute") unconventional or asymmetric waterborne threats (i.e., pirates and smugglers). But your primary mission is going to be ASW.

Another thing to consider - you can put a smallish phased array set on a through-deck carrier and VLS cells (all the way up to tactical and strike-length if you want, though now you're getting into interference issues just like with a well deck) to give you better "multi-role" capability. ESSM gives you the ability to strike at air, sea, and to a limited degree, land targets. Harpoon would further extend your ability to engage sea and land targets.

Oh, and you are NOT going to get a true NGS capability on a ship like this. Tarawa actually had two Mk 45s, but they were removed from service. And once again, that was a 35,000+ ton ship. A through-deck destroyer at 15,000 tons or less will simply not have the room, especially with VLS cells of any length thrown into the mix too.

I'm not getting VLS and ESSM. It's a 70's russian nation so that's out of the question.
Am I really stuck with something so large? What would happen to it's complement if I halved the length. Could I get 12 heli's in?

Could do something like this (it might have been suggested earlier):
http://www.shipbucket.com/images.php?di ... 201960.gif
Does anyone have any ideas on its suggested capabilities?

Barnest42
The image you mentioned was for a 15,000tons ship, in effect a cruiser (it says so in the cation). It was intended as a fleet escort, and area defence ship (hence Sea Slug). It was also intended to combat submarines using helicopters much like the Italian Andrea Doria class, and also was to cary IRRC 4 to 6 Wessex or similar sized helicopters.

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