1943 British Battleship Aircraft Carrier Concept

[Ron5]

Apologies if this has been shown before but I was unable to find a previous topic. This was shown recently on the WarshipPorn website and is a scan from 1943 Popular Mechanics. The artist was George Davis. Please feel free to delete this post if it is a duplicate.

 

[Archibald]

Well... no need for catapults for the unfortunate aircraft on that hybrid monstrosity.
Just put sails on them, and let the gun blast launch them overboard !

Or better, catapult the aircraft and then, as it pass over the turrets (below the dec) - fire the guns. The deck will bent upwards with the blast, launching the aircraft upwards ski-jump style !

 

[Tzoli]

Idea surely based on the concept of the Lion Battleship-Carrier Hybrid which was proposed at the same time

 

[Ron5]

Well... no need for catapults for the unfortunate aircraft on that hybrid monstrosity.
Just put sails on them, and let the gun blast launch them overboard !

Or better, catapult the aircraft and then, as it pass over the turrets (below the dec) - fire the guns. The deck will bent upwards with the blast, launching the aircraft upwards ski-jump style !

The extensible flight deck would indicate that the intention was to either act as a battleship or as an aircraft carrier but not simultaneously despite the articles headline.

 

[Purpletrouble]

In Dk Brown’s Nelson to Vanguard he mentions this and the response by DNC Goodall:

A table showing two options:
5 of these things with 30 16” guns and 70odd aircraft on 225k tons.
Or
3 Lion and 3 Audacious with 27 16” guns and 144 aircraft on 200k tons.

He then asked “which force would you rather command?”

That ended this debate although this idea of hybrids, conversions did lead to the Colossus Light Fleet carriers apparantly.

 

[starviking]

I can see the extensible flight deck being an operational and maintenace nightmare.

 

[Jason Dykstra (Wyvern)]

That proposal was based off of the Lion-class battleship as a means to save the program which was getting cancelled. The battleship was round about the size of the Iowa-class.

 

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

That proposal was based off of the Lion-class battleship as a means to save the program which was getting cancelled. The battleship was round about the size of the Iowa-class.

The hybrid was clean sheet design, not an attempt to save the Lions (On which design work continued on the original 1939 design until 1942) but was instead the result of an unsolicited proposal by the Director of Air Material in 1940 to add a hangar containing ten fighters and a short flight deck to the KGV class. This idea was then sent it the Director of Naval Construction, who then drew a number of hybrid designs ranging from Battleship Carriers to Aircraft Destroyers, none of which were acceptable, and the concept did in October 1941.

 

[Purpletrouble]

DK Brown however assigns the concept as delivering the gestation of the light fleets, specifically says this is an example of how something useful can come from a crazy idea.