Posts:111 Joined: January 4th, 2012, 12:43 am
Location: Reno Nevada
Hello all
this is my first posting and I wanted to share this drawing of what I think was a never built design of the battle cruiser USA Lexington. I have included files that I took of the web. If any one know of a better source of information. By the information that I have I can not make the bridge area with any real design. I cant even be sure if this was a legitimate design or some ones fantasy ship. Since the design is over 1200 feet it may be bogus. I still have to work on shading and details. So it is still a work in progress. Thanks for any help I could get.
Charles
I HAVE PUT THE LATES ADDITION PNG FILE IN PLACE OF THE WHAT I STARTED WITH.
Last edited by Chuck ship art on January 30th, 2012, 4:55 am, edited 6 times in total.
Posts:307 Joined: July 29th, 2010, 2:47 am
Location: South Carolina
Contact:Website
It's a real design. Not a very practical one though. She was one of the early designs for a high speed Battlecruiser. To get the speed they wanted she had to be huge in order to hold all the machinery. I did the B&W drawing in your post based on stats in Norman Friedman's U.S. Cruiser Design History book and someone else made a CG model based on that. Later I found this design drawing on the Naval Historical Center website. Its not the exact same design, but its part of the design series. I think this was separate from the Lexington design. There were several different Battlecruiser designs proposed before WW1. http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar///Onlin ... 84072c.htm
Posts:111 Joined: January 4th, 2012, 12:43 am
Location: Reno Nevada
CanisD
Thanks for the information yes it is a monster ship but there have been a few that where designed like that that never where built. I like your b&w drawing and thanks for giving a few nights of entertainment drawing it up. I was wondering did they put cattapults on ships that long ago ore was that lterary licence. that's one of the reasons I thought it might be part of the alternet universe.
Posts:307 Joined: July 29th, 2010, 2:47 am
Location: South Carolina
Contact:Website
They had simple flywheel catapults at the time and one reason the Lexingtons had the lowered quarterdeck was to make room for one to be installed so I added one to this design as well. When I first saw the stats for the design in the book I was convinced it was a typo until I read the description of the design. To get the 30+ knot top speed back in 1914 they needed a massive amount of boilers and a long, thin hull to reduce water resistance. One concern with the design was the massive length. There were serious fears about its structural strength and there wasn't a drydock in the country that could have held her. Luckily advances in technology allowed future designs to be smaller.