Shipbucket

The landing ship looks okay, though I don't understand why it has bombardment weapons.

Thiel wrote:The landing ship looks okay, though I don't understand why it has bombardment weapons.

The Californian amphibious strategy is not based around the modern USN style of over-the-horizon assaults, but on one that requires getting up close and personal (90 ton MBTs help drive this). In that situations, having good CIWS and direct fire support doesn't add much in terms of weight, but does add in terms of survivability.

Is the over-the-horizon driven by how easy it would be to hit something big and close to a beach (ie its to easy to hide something before it fires and the flight time will be to short to intercept effectively) ?
Would CIWS/bombardment weapons really help that much v a peer opponent ?
JSB

The number of armored vehicles between this and the smaller LST which is not yet drawn should in theory permit assaults to be made at some distance from the final objective on lighter-defended beaches. Against a peer competitor, nuclear war is the most likely result of early engagements anyhow.

Designed to carry helicopters, both attack and transport, to support amphibious landings, these steam-powered ships were ordered in the mid 1980's. Based on the Shajar al-Durr Sultana combi-liner of the Red Crescent Line with minimal changes were made where-ever possible to keep costs down. 32 VL SAM, 4 x quad 30mm CIWS. Displacing more than 35,000 tons fully loaded, 28 knots, 4 shaft. 32 heavy-weight helicopter capacity, usual configuration is 12 attack helicopters, 4 super-heavy lift helicopters, 24 utility helicopters, 6 Peregrine VSTOL fighters. While a Sea Control Ship role is possible, it has only been attempted in trials during the late 1980's, never done operationally. The ships are fitted with a single standard-length steam catapult for use in flying off transported aircraft in peacetime. They have no aircraft arrestor capability. No ground force or cargo capacity. An export variant of the design built as a CTOL carrier had some success abroad.

If it looks sort of familiar, it should - stimulus spending in the aftermath of the financial crisis produced a follow on to the previous CVH class, for the same sort of role.

A class of large attack carriers ordered in the mid 1960's, this sextet of sister ships still serve today, with some of the newer vessels expected to remain in service into the late 2030's due to the slow build schedule of their intended replacements. Built to replace a hodgepoge of carriers dating from during and before the Great Pacific War which were showing their age, and part of a failed early effort at joint design work with the Royal Navy. Once requirements diverged, the Empress Amaras grew ever-larger, while the trio of Queen Elizabeths remained much closer to the original design size. Operating a total of thirty-six of a new generation all-weather fighter and another thirty-six long-range strike aircraft as built (along with six AEW and two COD aircraft and three SAR helicopters), they were considered quite acceptable into the 1990's, even if certain of the more "innovative" arrangements of the design proved problematic in service. When a new generation of aircraft was in the offing for the late 90's and early 00's, with increased sizes that would strain the aviation arrangements as originally fitted, a major reconstruction and service life extension (from their original forty years) programme was begun. The picture is of the first of class as she was fitted after finishing working up in early 1972.

(I both thank and fulminate at acelanceloet for prodding me into making the top view.)

Nice work!

Not truly battleships, these ships are intended to replace the pair of Alinga-class vessels (and their long-gone four smaller cousins) under the Imperial Naval Laws - a total of six on order, saving an estimated sixteen to twenty billion USD in crew costs over the two older ships during their planned service lives. They will have the Navy's first composite deckhouse with a new-generation of planar array radars. Capability to control short-range SAMs and four of a next-generation laser CIWS system. 29m beam, displacing ~30,000+ tons at full load. Naval construction standards, internal side protection and armored bulkheads between VLS clusters and armored covers for the 640 cells (in 128 cells forward, 256 cells amidships, and 256 cells aft), 22 knots sea speed. One reactor for long station endurance plus backup/boost diesel generators, integrated electric propulsion. Crew of ~200. First ship to be laid down in 2016, 18 years after the programme began.

With thanks to Blackbuck for coming up with a blue-green palette that actually works in a way my efforts never did;