NationStates Jolt Archive

Valiant-class Trimaran super carrier
Dimensions:
Length: 502 m; Beam: 178 m; Draught: 18 m
Displacement: 374,000 tons light; 402,000 tons full
Aircraft: Space for 185 fighters or 140 fighter/bombers and 10 helicopters.
Complement: 13,090 including air crew
Armament: 4 x 96 cell VLS; 12 x 35 mm Millennium Gun CIWS; 8 x ‘Yellow Jacket’ mini-SAMs.
Protection: 254-305 mm advanced steel composite featuring aluminum, titanium, ballistic ceramics, and kevlar. Double bottomed hull and reinforced keel along with void spaces to provide additional protection against submerged threats. Hardened crossbeams installed across bulkheads. Additional protection over key systems provided by outriggers.
Propulsion: Eight Pebblebead nuclear reactors; four shafts; waterjet propulsion system.
Speed: 32 knots normal maximum; 36 knots short range all out sprint; 29 knots cruise
Range: Limited only by nuclear fuel and consumables. Able to carry up to nine months of supplies and stores for sea and air crews.
Countermeasures: Six towed arrays; four anti-missile and six ASW decoys. Anti-jamming measures designed to anticipate attempts to jam communications and prevent attempts. Command center allows the Valiant to serve as a fleet flagship for up to 100 ships.
Price: $75 billion
Running Costs: $3.5 billion per year

The Valiant-class Trimaran super carrier is the first of its kind to be commissioned by the Portland Iron Works. It is designed as a survivable, seaworthy platform for aerial attacks and extends the principles of protection of Trimaran-hulled ships to the one ship in your navy that must remain afloat at all costs. The class is named after the legendary Vengeance-class aircraft carrier ISS Valiant that served the Sarzonian navy with great distinction over the course of many wars.

[OOC: Constructive feedback strongly welcomed. It's not my first attempt to design a Trimaran carrier, but it is the first time I tried to design a Trimaran-hulled super carrier. Should I go into greater detail with this in spots or should I blow 'er up (figuratively) and start over?]

OOC: Looks good, personally I would ditch the 24" guns. If you can get that close you're no using your carriers right and they take up far too much space to justify their inclusion.

The armour is also way too thick for the displacement you stated, and to be honest would be crippling expensive ona vessel this size, as well as bumpin up construction costs no end. Eight to ten inches will give you more than sufficient protection against supersonic ASMs.

OOC: Nice work, but i would personnally ditch all the 24"s(like freethinkers said), but i would go further and get rid of the 6" ers also, i dont see the point in them, in theory your carriers should only be attacked by aircraft and missiles, up the ammount of SAM perhaps instead if you want, but no RL super carriers carry guns suchas that that i know of.

A higher top speed would be useful, and the crew could perhaps be lowered, although not godmode, i would say its a bit understated, a ship of that size would come only at an age when better powerplants were available, so power to go fast should be fine...

Other than that i cant say much really, i dont know much about ships, not enough to try and design them at least. Lots better though than some ships available im sure!

ooc: I use 2 Trimaran carriers The Baby SeaDragon holds around 300 VTOL planes, and has 3, 350m long runways.

The SeaDragon Class Uber Carrier has 3, 1600m long runways and holds more than 1200 planes.

140 planes on that thing? Not enough. Definitely not enough.

[OOC: The point behind having the guns originally was to have it serve as a point defense in the event a ship got past escorts or somehow managed to sneak around or behind an escort fleet, it would meet a rude surprise with a few well-placed shells. It was also a nod to the Soviet aircraft carriers (having a strong self-defense armament that would make having escorts a good idea as opposed to the American carriers where escorts was essential).

I'll definitely keep those comments in mind though since this really was a first draft of a design I've wanted to build for a long time.]

I agree with MassPwnage, although that many planes i think is a bit over the top upping the ammount on a ship of that size would not be godmoding, but in fact something that would happen in RL on something of that scale!

[OOC: The point behind having the guns originally was to have it serve as a point defense in the event a ship got past escorts or somehow managed to sneak around or behind an escort fleet, it would meet a rude surprise with a few well-placed shells. It was also a nod to the Soviet aircraft carriers (having a strong self-defense armament that would make having escorts a good idea as opposed to the American carriers where escorts was essential).

I'll definitely keep those comments in mind though since this really was a first draft of a design I've wanted to build for a long time.]

OOC: Soviet Aircraft Cruisers (they never really produced a dedicated Carrier) we so relatively heavily armed because the Red Navy lacked the CBG organization of the US Navy. The American Navy was, arguably, designed around the carrier. The Soviets developed aircraft cruisers almost as an after thought. Since they couldn't, or wouldn't, waste the time and resources to develop full fledged CBGs their designs had to reflect that.

It should also be said that the Aircraft Cruisers that carried that weaponry were fairly small, heavily armored, and fast. Just what one needed for a strike in the Med. or the North Sea. With a fleet carrier such as this if you get within the range of your main guns, your carrier is as good as already sunk.

OOC: Guns removed except for CIWS system. Aircraft complement increased to 185.

Sigh. I dislike aircraft carriers on general princibles. I Hate trimarines. Trimarine carriers even more so. Trimarine SUPER carriers...

That being said, you did a good job here. Nice, realistic design, especially with the 24"s removed. I disaprove of the VLS systems since the carrier's weapon is aircraft, not missiles, but I'll assume thats a doctrinal thing... Towed sonar arrays are a waste of resources since this thing is going to have a pack of helecopters and destroyers making damn sure that no sub gets close. On the other hand, the more listening platforms the better... perhaps reduce it to a single array?

Make a little writeup about it... right now it lacks personality, and if it's a fleet command ship, it needs character.