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erik_t
Post subject: Re: Timeline 34 - Late cold-war surface combatants (and more)Posted: November 26th, 2021, 11:08 pm
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I agree that the number of aircraft shown is probably optimistic (not that this doesn't happen in real life!). Two helos and six Harriers seems much more workable. Maintenance in the portrayed version, even routine and minor, seems very tricky.

Six Harriers seems like a convenient sweet spot in that you could realistically put up a pair whenever you wanted with relatively minor effect on the other aircraft and aircrews.


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BillKerman1234
Post subject: Re: Timeline 34 - Late cold-war surface combatants (and more)Posted: December 21st, 2021, 5:39 pm
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And now, it’s time for another addition to my little collection of ships here - but first, some backstory.

During the 1970s, the JMSDF desperately wanted new ships to replace the aging Yonaga, but political concerns prevented them getting authorization for the construction of new aircraft carriers. In their place, a joint development contract was signed with the USN, and the CSGN under development by America was modified into an aircraft-carrying missile cruiser capable of providing significant air cover, if they operated in groups.

Now the year is 1978. A new unfriendly superpower has just formed almost out of the blue in mainland Asia, with an industrial capacity set to one day eclipse the US and Russia combined, and the west is scrambling to meet this new threat. All of a sudden the JMSDFs requests are taken much more seriously, and most of the still-under construction Ise-class CGNs are scrapped as funds are diverted into a new development program for a full-scale fleet carrier, tentatively named the Kaiyo-class.

This new class of ship has a number of design requirements, and naturally she must be the smallest and most low-cost design capable of performing the missions needed, in order to allow her to be procured in large numbers.

- She must be capable of operating all modern shipborne aircraft up to and including E-2 Hawkeyes.
- She must be capable of conducting simultaneous launch and recovery with at least one of her catapults.
- She must be capable of fielding over 50 combat aircraft under normal operating conditions.
- She must have a top speed above 32 knots.
- She must have a significant self-defense capability as the enemy is likely to field extreme numbers of missiles in swarms that might overwhelm her escort screen.
- She must be capable of surviving at least 2 consecutive hits from heavyweight antiship missiles without sinking, with the first hit preferably not mission-killing her.

Additionally, due to the considerable public backlash after the announcement that the new batch of aircraft-carrying cruisers the JMSDF was acquiring were nuclear powered, a general consensus that the next major combatant should be conventional prevailed even after the rapid increase in tensions.

Japanese designers quickly realised that a hangar-limited ship would be smaller than a deck-limited ship (though it’s worth noting that at this point in the design process A-4 Skyhawks were still being seriously considered as her primary armament), and as such the design was based around the size of the flight deck. Previously as part of their CVV plans the Americans had done a series of studies into minimum flight deck sizes, and one of these was selected as the basis of the design. Consequently the hull sizing to support this was determined and the plans started to take shape by the end of the year.

Additionally, at this point in time the USN was in the process of developing an active torpedo countermeasure system named named SIFT (submerged interceptor for torpedoes), and as such launch tubes for them where incorporated into her fantail, although for cost reasons giving her a full hull-mounted sonar suite to utilise them was neglected, with her instead being fitted with a towed array. In any case, in the end the program was only able to produce a limited number of large, slow, and generally ineffective anti-torpedo torpedoes, and in the end the ships almost always sailed with regular Mk. 46 and Mk. 50 torpedoes in their magazines.

Her final form ended up being 918 feet long and 120 feet wide at the waterline, and she had a standard displacement of 55,000 tonnes, putting her somewhere between a modernized Midway-class and a Forrestal-class in terms of size. Her airgroup consisted of modernised F-4S Phantom IIs for her primary combat aircraft, though she would occasionally embark other planes like A-4 Skyhawks and even F/A-18 Hornets. She also carried S-4B Picaroons for anti-submarine warfare, aerial refueling, electronic warfare, and surface attack against lightly defended targets, while airborne early warning and control was handled by E-2C Hawkeyes, and carrier onboard delivery was performed by C-2A Greyhounds. Several SH-61s rounded out her airgroup, watching out for enemy subs and helping pick downed pilots out of the water.

In addition to her planes, which as with any aircraft carrier constituted her main armament, she was also equipped with a competent point defense armament in the form of three Mk. 29 guided missile launchers, directed by five Mk. 95 illuminators, and three Phalanx 20mm Close In Weapon Systems, all of which were arranged such that every arc around the carrier was covered by at least one Phalanx and one Mk. 29, with the notable exception of the port bow, which due to the positioning of the sponson could only rely on a single CIWS for protection until the ship completed a combat turn to bring her other weapons to bear.

In the end Japan would build two ships of the class, the JS Kaiyō CV-45, launched in 1985, and the JS Taiyō CV-46, launched a year later in 1986. The former’s name is Japanese for Sea Falcon and the latter’s means Greater Falcon. A third carrier, the JS Hiyō CV-47, (which loosely means Falcon Flying Away) was built to slightly modified specifications and launched in 1989, and to this day there are debates as to whether or not she was the same class of ship as her older sisters. Regardless of that the JMSDF would continue to develop their carrier fleet, with the first of the new 63,000 tonne Zuikaku-class ships (meaning Fortunate Crane) being laid down in 1991.

Anyway, that’s enough rambling, here’s the drawing, which depicts Taiyo as she was just before the start of WWIII:

[ img ]

Credit to the shipgirl in her crest goes to https://www.deviantart.com/kuavera, who’s an absolutely amazing pixel artist and one I highly recommend you check out. The rest of the crest and the ship herself is drawn completely by me, and is in many ways my best shipbucket drawing yet, with a shading and detailing style that’s once again slightly different from all my previous ones (I really should go and update them at some point). For those wondering, the shipgirl on the crest was originally Fusō from Kantai Collection, but I adapted her very slightly and I think she works quite well, though I do plan to eventually learn to draw pixelart figures myself and replace her. In any case, the in-universe explanation for why she’s on that crest despite her being launched several decades before KC became a thing is that one of the people on her design team came across this old photograph (https://i.redd.it/1qx6bod2ou621.jpg) and thought it would be a cool idea to do something similar.

This drawing is by no means finished - I doubt she will ever truly be - but I feel that now’s a good time to post her, and when I make small updates or add details in the future I’ll edit this post to include them. Thanks to everyone on the shipbucket Discord server for their help and support, I couldn’t have made her a thousandth as realistic as I have without them.

Thoughts?

_________________
"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


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BillKerman1234
Post subject: Re: Timeline 34 - Late cold-war surface combatants (and more)Posted: February 3rd, 2022, 11:52 am
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Alright, I’ve finally finished working on some more actual surface combatants for this! Not too much backstory for them, just some generic early 80s AAW and ASW destroyers. I do have a list of them, though:

AAW destroyers Flight I
DDG-655 Isokaze
DDG-656 Shimakaze
DDG-657 Umikaze
DDG-658 Kawakaze
DDG-659 Suzukaze
DDG-660 Yamakaze

AAW destroyers Flight II
DDG-661 Akizuki
DDG-662 Suzutsuki
DDG-663 Teruzuki
DDG-664 Fuyuzuki

ASW destroyers Flight I
DDG-665 Suzunami
DDG-666 Makinami
DDG-667 Ōnami
DDG-668 Kiyonami

ASW destroyers Flight II
DDG-669 Harusame
DDG-670 Samidare
DDG-671 Yūdachi
DDG-672 Shigure
DDG-673 Yūdachi
DDG-674 Murasame
DDG-675 Shiratsuyu

The AAW and ASW variants were ordered in one batch and built in parallel, and later on the latter ships from each series were reordered as Flight II's with VLS, hence the numbering system being the way it is.


[ img ]

[ img ]

[ img ]

[ img ]

Once again thanks to everyone over on the discord for giving me advice and help, I really appreciate it! Any thoughts?

_________________
"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


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BillKerman1234
Post subject: Re: Timeline 34 - Late cold-war surface combatants (and more)Posted: February 9th, 2022, 9:37 pm
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And now, something a bit bigger: Forty-eighth aircraft carrier of the Japanese navy, and first supercarrier built outside the United States, the Zuikaku-class nuclear fleet carrier JS Zuikaku!

This was a pretty big project, especially coming right off the back of the Kaiyo-class, but I feel like I'm pretty happy with how she turned out. Once again I've improved my shading style, so much so that I took a break midway though drawing her and during that time created an entire new set of rules for detailing my drawings, and then promptly had to unlearn a bunch of them because I didn't have the time to redo this drawing from scratch when I got back to her. Nevertheless though, I'm still confident that I've done the best I reasonably can for now. And of course, thanks a ton to everyone on the Discord server for helping out!

Anyway, without further ado, the drawing:

[ img ]

And some unfinished WIP internal diagrams:

[ img ]

[ img ]

_________________
"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


Last edited by BillKerman1234 on February 12th, 2022, 1:00 am, edited 6 times in total.

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Gollevainen
Post subject: Re: Timeline 34 - Late cold-war surface combatants (and more)Posted: February 10th, 2022, 11:26 am
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Joined: July 27th, 2010, 5:10 am
Location: Finland
Contact: Website
Very impressive work!

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Shipbucket mainsite, aka "The Archive"
New AU project "Aravala"


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erik_t
Post subject: Re: Timeline 34 - Late cold-war surface combatants (and more)Posted: February 11th, 2022, 4:08 pm
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Joined: July 26th, 2010, 11:38 pm
Location: Midwest US
Quite nicely drawn, but by 1994 the total (?) lack of satcom seems glaring. Post Gulf War, and probably before, the answer to "how much satcom does a carrier need?" always seems to be "more than it has".

I'm also not 100% sure the SPS-49 has enough room to rotate.


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BillKerman1234
Post subject: Re: Timeline 34 - Late cold-war surface combatants (and more)Posted: April 25th, 2022, 3:02 pm
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Joined: March 13th, 2021, 10:00 pm
It's been a bit of a while since I've posted here, but I do have another drawing to share. Well, actually I've had it for quite a while, but I forgot about it until I went back through my files earlier today, so here you go:

[ img ]

_________________
"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


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