Author Topic: Frigate-Mothership Hybrid  (Read 4187 times)

Offline dy031101

  • Yuri Fanboy and making cute stuff practical- at least that's the plan anyway
  • Prefers Guns And Tanks Over Swords And Magic
Frigate-Mothership Hybrid
« on: March 13, 2015, 02:00:00 PM »
Taking a detour from doing the ROCN SATOBAR carrier......

Based on illustrations posted here and here.

Judging from the illustrations, it would appear at least to me that the Dock Ship configuration is comparable to that of the Fast Crane Ship, so I started with RP1's Fast Mothership drawing on the Shipbucket website but got rid of the cranes in favour of an open-topped stern well deck that is to accommodate four Sa'ar 4.5 class FACs.

I want it to be able to provide some fire support to the FACs via 100mm auto-loading gun, area air defense missiles, and maybe two quad Harpoon launchers.  I do want a fire control suite that's cheaper than those used by dedicated AAW ships and was looking into i-Mast 500 with APAR, but that mast just doesn't look beefy enough.

I might replace the Panther helicopters with Wildcats as well.  IIRC, the two do have comparable footprints when folded (gotta fit into the hangars of Aliya subclass Sa'ar 4.5 boats).

*See Next Post*
« Last Edit: March 18, 2015, 10:17:32 AM by dy031101 »
Forget about his bow and arrows- why wait until that sparrow has done his deed when I can just bury him right now 'cause I'm sick and tired of hearing why he wants to have his way with the cock robin!?

Offline dy031101

  • Yuri Fanboy and making cute stuff practical- at least that's the plan anyway
  • Prefers Guns And Tanks Over Swords And Magic
Frigate-Mothership Hybrid
« Reply #1 on: March 18, 2015, 10:15:10 AM »


Designed at the behest of Frontier Navy Foreign Auxiliary in order to make wider use of the many patrol boats integrated into their jurisdiction (making them useful for long-range patrol works, for example), this vessel serves as both a tender and a fire support ship for those boats.  The aft half of the ship is allocated to an open-top well deck that allows up to four small corvettes and patrol craft to be docked whereas air defense missiles and a rapid-fire artillery turret are mounted forward.  Two hangars, each capable of servicing a light helicopter (Lynx/Wildcat, for example), and a flight deck are provided amidship.

A Cassidian TRS-4D active electronically scanned array radar serves as the main sensor of the ship; while the ship is equipped with hull-mounted sonar, it's primarily intended for detection of mines and hostile demolition divers, not for combatting submarines.

In order to provide fire support to the "daughter" boats against hostile aircraft and surface targets armed with heavy artillery, this ship possesses a 100mm auto-loading gun, 48-cell Mk.41 Tactical Length VL missile launcher, two quad Harpoon anti-ship missile launchers, two Marlin weapon stations with a 25mm KBB cannon each, three 25mm KBD gatling guns (installed in upgraded Phalanx Block 1B CIWS), and two 12.7mm machineguns.

Comments and suggestions welcomed.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2015, 09:53:21 AM by dy031101 »
Forget about his bow and arrows- why wait until that sparrow has done his deed when I can just bury him right now 'cause I'm sick and tired of hearing why he wants to have his way with the cock robin!?

Offline dy031101

  • Yuri Fanboy and making cute stuff practical- at least that's the plan anyway
  • Prefers Guns And Tanks Over Swords And Magic
Maybe A Target
« Reply #2 on: April 12, 2015, 12:22:08 PM »


The League of Kings and their clients are well-awared of the fact that if their raiding fleets are to stand a chance against the Frontier Navy and co-belligerent forces of off-world civilizations, they need a comparable variety of aerial supporting assets.  Aerial tankers allow their carrier aircraft to stay in the air longer (important, as most of their carriers are afforded with none more inspiring than navalized MiG-21), and electronic intelligence and warfare aircraft are valuable both to guide raiding fleets into ambush positions and to warn them of or even thwart enemy search-and-destroy efforts.  While the warlord alliance do possess land-based support platforms, the immense distances often involved in order to provide coverage to their raiding fleets have limited such platforms' responsiveness and flexibility.

Since traditional carrier-based support aircraft are beyond what the majority of their carriers, equipped with skijumps, are capable of launching, and they initially lacked a matured development for a helicopter-based platform, several League of Kings' original founding groups combined efforts to modify an amphibious aircraft design into several variants, one equipped with a so-called "Balance Beam" active electronically-scanned array radar, one serving as an aerial tanker, and one fitted to carry out airborne jamming.

Next challenge comes in the form of ships capable of supporting them.  Unlike Frontier Navy's co-belligerent off-world partners, a few of whom do operate seaplanes as well and proceed to build heavily-armed seaplane carriers and incorporate such ships into naval action groups, the League of Kings prefer the more-concealable auxiliary cruisers and submarines to support the seaplanes.  The latter option comes in the form of I-590 Type Ho nuclear-powered submarine.

Each I-590 Type Ho is capable of refuelling up to three flying boats at the same time and can carry small spare parts as well as even replacement aircrew; alternatively it can carry up to eight 40-foot ISO containers.  Armaments include six bow-mounted 533mm torpedo tubes with either 12 torpedoes or 24 mines; while the warlord alliance reportedly developed a submarine-launched version of Noor anti-ship missile that can be fired from 533mm torpedo tubes, such missiles are never issued to these submarines, ostensibly to discourage non-defensive combat behaviours amongst their captains.

Comments and suggestions welcomed.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2015, 10:47:25 PM by dy031101 »
Forget about his bow and arrows- why wait until that sparrow has done his deed when I can just bury him right now 'cause I'm sick and tired of hearing why he wants to have his way with the cock robin!?