Shipbucket

Another very interesting addition.
The Spruance hulls were perhaps the most numerous and experimented with in the modern era!

Awesome!

a first mod. I fixed the boat bay (it went trough the air intakes of the aft engine rooms) by moving one of the boats to the other side of the ship. the same goes for the forward air intakes: that engine room is on the other side of the ship and the air intakes were below the flight deck level so it would save space putting them at the other side of the vessel. the exhaust cooling intakes are now in the correct position under the uptakes, which I used to make the uptakes slightly higher. the elevator is now big enough for the AV-8B which would be in service at about the same time as this vessel.

the SPS-48 is now in the same position as it would be on the regular spruances. this allowed me to fit an SPG-60 aft to serve as guidance channel for the EX-83 mountings, allowing them to fulfill the CIWS role (the phalanxes, not listed in the textual description, are thus removed) an Mk 95 is added for the sea sparrow guidance, as on the spruance.

all in all, this is my view of how the ship, close to the commanders design but 'fixed' would appear in service. further modifications (I have tons of ideas!) would be strictly own designs and will appear in that section of the forums if you disagree that this ship could be in service like this, or anything else wrong with the drawing, please comment

I like it, but the original shows how even professional sailors don't make good designers!

Looking at these good drawings you have done of the air-Spruance(s) reminds of how the 'Escort carrier' genre came about. I can not see how these would have fitted in to a Carrier Battle Group, but they would be the central ship of their own squadron of ships. They would provide the direct air element and air-ASW, while extra AA and ASW would be provided by a group of Frigates, the whole squadron on convoy duty.

A question I did have. Would these Air-Spruance designs have been much slower than the normal Spruance design? Just that they look like they have the standard Spruance powerplant but are bigger and heavier than standard.

Krakatoa wrote:A question I did have. Would these Air-Spruance designs have been much slower than the normal Spruance design? Just that they look like they have the standard Spruance powerplant but are bigger and heavier than standard.

Ace can give a more exact answer, but for the most part, the ships would have suffered from the same drop in top speed that the Ticonderogas did relative to the Spruance. Remember, the Spruance had 33% more power than the original design called for (4 turbines vs 3), and as a result, had a very high top speed (and high acceleration to boot).

Another nice addition Ace.
This one looks the most practical so far for VTOL operations.

I have one nitpick (not just aimed at this drawing but the most recent CVNs too), could you colour the Grumman VTOL aircraft too?
I find it slightly jarring when people plonk aircraft on like parts and with different artists etc. they all look mismatched, like these above, the Seasprite looks good but the Grumman stands out as unfinished.
You wouldn't paste guns and missiles without altering the base colours and so it should be with aircraft (IMVHO).

@ Krakatoa: As mentioned in the text of the first post and by TJ below, the Spruance class had 4 gas turbines where 3 would have been enough to reach the required speed. to be able to sail 30+ knots on 3 gas turbines only gave her an slightly longer, narrow hull then would otherwise be needed, so the 4th gas turbine quite overpowered this efficient hull. This suggests first of all one answer: if they were slower, they were still fast enough.
The increase in weight was not that much on most of the designs. The Santa Fe above for example was about 9000tons, so only 200 tons heavier then the regular spruance. I think in her case this will cost her a little acceleration, but speed will hardly be affected.
the DGV and Ghiradella designs are actually lengthened spruance hulls, and since top speed comes closer to the hull speed the ships would in theory have the capability to be even faster. most likely this speed remains about the same due to more friction on the larger wet surface.
All in all, I think they would indeed react similar to the ticonderoga and the USS Thorn AGS conversion proposals, both listed as '30+ knots ships' still.

@ Hood : the reason I kept these grey is for the simple reason that I have no idea what paintjob these aircraft would get if you or somebody else could advise me on that, I'd gladly modify it (it might even be that the colour is ok, as on the seahawks, and it is just some markings on the aircraft that are missing)

Thanks for the info on the propulsion/speed question Ace/TJ. The other inquiry I had was for what usage the air capable Spruance's would have been designed for? (I went and re-read the page 1 info but that question was not covered.)