Re: Superships and Fighter capacity.

On Thu, 3 Jul 1997, Peggy & Jeff Shoffner wrote:

> Actually, I had a question about that limit;	A Nimitz class CVN
carries 
> approximately 90 aircraft;  why is a fleet carrier limited to only 36?
 Yeah, 
> I know this isn't sea warfare, but come on, it's supposed to be a
FLEET 
> carrier....

In WWII American carriers has more carrying capacity than British
carriers
for the reason that the Americans were willing to store their aircraft
on
deck, whereas the British required that all aircraft carried could be
stored within the armored hangar.  That is also the case today where
most
of the planes are normally stored on deck with the possibility of
fitting
everything below deck if everything is packed as close together as
possible (limiting usage)  So the FT example would be a fleet carrier
with
6 squadrons internal and 6-12 squadrons externally on racks.  Reloading
could only occur in the 6 interior bays though.

> 
> Another question I had is why are fighter bays only limited to Cap.
ships?	A 
> large enough cruiser could carry a squad of fighters.....
> 
Bays imply the space to launch and recover fighters.  In a previous
discussion launch racks for carrying prasite fighters was hypothesized
and
I believe several suggestions for rules posted.  Although the mass of a
bay is small (6 mass) it may imply a large area - enclosed for
reloading,
recovery and launch as well as gneral maintenace etc which may be far
bulkier than the mass implies.

--Binhan