Your Nation's Warships, Batch 3

[United Earthlings]

So I may have just remembered that mine has triple turrets so there may be a slight biast in the number of guns.

Just you wait, I've decided that come 1938 I'm going to go ahead and build that monstrosity with 250mm guns.

At which point someone builds a facsimile of one of these as a counter rendering all those vessel types quoted above as white elephants.

If your building priority for a blue water navy by the start of the forties is not focused on Carriers {both large and small/escort}, destroyers and submarines followed later by support vessels you're doing it wrong.

Besides, vessels tend to operate in groups/fleets and if you wisely ignored any naval treaties imposed limits, pending you also haven't already suffered horrible battle losses, you should have plenty of good battleships built from the late 1910s to the early 1930s that would be more than a match for any of those vessels. A dozen pre-war 406mm armed battleships acting as escorts for various task forces composed of Escort carriers plus a few other supporting vessel types would be a tough opponent to engage let alone defeat.

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

PMT carrier proposal, revised:

model is a WIP, still needs screws and rudders (amongst other things)

Galaxy Class Aircraft Carrier

Basic Information:

• Type: Aircraft Carrier
• Displacement: 200,000 tons full load
• Complement: 1600 crew, 2400 air wing
• Length: 430 m
• Beam (flight deck): 100 m
• Beam (waterline): 50 m
• Draft: 18 m

Propulsion:

• 2x 400 MWe (900MWt) Molten Salt Reactors (MSR)
• 4x helium/nitrogen closed-cycle gas turbines driving 4x superconducting homopolar (SCH) generators
• 2x backup diesel generators
• 4x 7 bladed skewback propellers driven by superconducting homopolar (SCH) motors, 100,000 shp each

Performance:

• Top Speed: 30 knots
• Range: crew endurance

Sensors:

• SPY-3 MFR/SPY-4 VSR Dual Band Radar (DBR)
• SPN-48 Joint Precision Approach Landing System (JPALS)
• SQR-20 Multi-function towed array sonar

Countermeasures:

• SLY-2 (V) Advanced Integrated Electronic Warfare System (AIEWS)
• MK36 SRBOC with Nulka
• SLQ-25 Nixie Torpedo decoy system
• Surface Ship Torpedo Defense (SSTD) Torpedo hardkill system
  

Armament:

• 64x mk 57 VLS cells, 256 ESSM
• 3x 30mm mk 46 mod 2 GWS
• 1x 1.5MW Free Electron Laser (FEL)

Aircraft Carried:

• 75 aircraft and tiltrotors

Aviation Facilities

• 4x EMALS catapults
• 4x deck edge lifts
• 2x center-deck lifts
• double story flight hangar

[New Chilokver]

What kind of air wing did carriers had back when fixed wing ASW aircraft were still in service with the USN?

[Gallia-]

The best way to answer that question, without delving into actual reasons, is to look at cruise books. These have lists of people who were on the aircraft carrier during a given cruise and what squadrons or detachments were embarked as part of whichever CVW.

http://navysite.de/cruisebooks/index.html

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

What kind of air wing did carriers had back when fixed wing ASW aircraft were still in service with the USN?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_air_wing

Look at the sections for the 2003 iraq war or the 1991 gulf war

[The Kievan People]

PMT carrier proposal, revised:

http://www.navy.gov.au/history/angled-flight-deck

[Gallia-]

PMT carrier proposal, revised:

http://www.navy.gov.au/history/angled-flight-deck

does australia know more than the US Navy? ):

the real problem is his "pmt carrier proposal" is almost my age and had an air wing the size of Coral Sea

[Palmyrion]

What's good and bad about tumblehome designs?

Why did the US Navy install two 155mm guns on the Zumwalt? Is 1 not enough? I thought one gun has MRSI capability of 6 155mm howitzers.

[Pharthan]

Why are you replying to him? He doesn't know what he is talking about, that's obvious.

I'm replying to him because he doesn't know what he's talking about. Unlike you, Gallia, some of us aren't born knowing everything. We have to do this thing called "learning," (derived from the Old English leornian, meaning "to get knowledge, or to cultivate"), whereupon we start of not knowing something or have a "knowledge deficiency," and then someone communicates to us, or we learn of our own experience.
See, I learned these things I'm telling TS from experience, so I'm communicating them to him so that he becomes knowledgeable, and then can pass it on again. If he's willing to learn, I've helped him. I like teaching, so that makes me feel good when he learns. He's already shown he's willing to learn. If he says, "You know what, this guy served on a carrier for 5 years and probably gleaned some knowledge about how the airwing works during that time, he's probably a reliable source," or "This guy literally spends his time around nuclear reactors for a living, he probably knows a thing or two about them," and learns, then I've done a good job, and feel better for having helped someone else.
If he refuses to learn, I can belittle him for not trusting someone who technically qualifies as an "expert" in some of the discussed fields, and I can boost my self-confidence by stomping on someone who refuses to learn. Either way, I feel better for it.

TL;DR: Because I'm not a dick.

The previously listed dimensions are the earlier version, I've since enlarged it quite a bit. It's about 120 feet longer than a Nimitz, 25 feet wider, and ignoring the island about 40 feet taller (keel to flight deck). I'm perfectly open to making it even larger if necessary. Like I said earlier the two-story hangar is basically intended to be two stretched nimitz hangars (about 100 feet longer) stacked on top of each other with two center elevators, one aft and one stern, that move aircraft between the lower and top hangar. The goal is to make it as "roomy" as possible to make moving aircraft around and maintenance/refueling/rearming a smooth process.

As for berthing I'm hoping the Zumwalt's reduction in crew size compared to a burke (158 vs 323, or around 50%) will translate into a reduction in ship crew for my carrier from the 3,200 of a nimitz to 1,600 while the air wing will stay the same (2,400) so total crew is 4,000 compared to 5,600 for the nimitz. Part of my reason for wanting LMFRs is that they would have higher power densities and lower manning requirements, freeing up space and crewmembers for other tasks.

You're not doing it by a substantial amount. 100 feet in length buys you maybe 4 aircraft. 25 foot in width isn't quite enough to be substantial, but might buy you an additional aircraft or two for probably 4 of the bays. In the end, you went from ~40 aircraft to ~50 aircraft.

But you're missing the point of a stealth-carrier, and in the process of trying to have a jack-of-all-trades carrier, you're making it utterly pointless. The point of a stealth carrier is to be able to deliver a sudden strike-force that can knock out enemy defenses. By trying to make it have the capacity of a Nimitz, you're wasting valuable resources when you could instead, for the same amount of money, just have both a small stealth carrier and a Nimitz and have much, much more versatility.
The point of having a high-capacity carrier like the Nimitz is to be able to sustain nearly 24/7 sorties over an area and keep constant air superiority, as well as be able to have a massive in-theater air power. It's point is to have a giant shlong to wave around when you need one. A big, scary ship that no one wants to toy with.
That is not the point of a stealth-carrier. If a stealth-carrier has to pop up out of nowhere and then continue to maintain theatre air-presence to defend itself before being relieved by a supercarrier, it's dead. Stealth is good for surprise attacks. The second you start launching catapults, moving elevators, and full on operations, your stealth is gone. They know you're there, your hope is just that they don't have time to fight back before your small force immobilizes their nearby defenses. Then you recover everything and run away, or you maintain presence as the rest of your fleet moves into position to keep your stealth-carrier from finding itself on the bottom of the ocean when all the enemy subs find it.

So don't try to have a massive airwing. If you've got over 40 aircraft, you're doing it wrong. You can't do a mass-launch-and-recovery of more aircraft than that.
Cut the size back down to ~100,000 tons at most, save the other ~100,000 tons for a supercarrier to back it up. Would you rather have one ship with ~70 aircraft, or two ships: one with ~30-40 aircraft and another with ~70 ?

As far as LMFRs:
Fast reactors are bad for naval applications. We can get into the physics of it, but I'd rather not. I just spent the last 8 hours teaching nuclear power, I don't want to do any more of it right now. Generally speaking, of all of the forms of naval reactors, they work. And they produce quite a bit of power. But that's the type of trap you get into when thinking only on the engineering side of the house. When it comes to personnel, logistics, everything else, it's dumb. Unless you really want to make your ship have to go into RCOH like a bajillion times more than if it has a PWR. Which you don't, because that means you lose it for like a year at a time.
That and it really won't be that much better for personnel. Just go with PWRs. I wrong a narrative on this type of thing in the NS Draftroom forum. It's long, and basically says, "If you're going purely for power density, you're doing it wrong."
While I'm willing to admit defeat over the airwing capacity thing to a very knowledgeable NS'er (though with reluctance, seeing as I, you know, was actually on a carrier for a number of years), you're going to have to get sources of a guy with Nuclear Engineering degree within the past decade saying I'm wrong before I'll capitulate over naval nuclear power.

As far as crew: You're not going to get down to 1,600 for crew without also reducing size and reducing airwing. Model your ship after the QE, not the Nimitz, and certainly not the Zumwalt. Destroyers are not aircraft carriers. Similar comparisons don't work like that. Basically, you might reduce many things by ~25%, not a full 50%, but not everything will be reduced. Larger crews require more specialization. Whereas you might get away with just a couple of corpsmen on a destroyer, you need a miniature hospital on a carrier, to include a physical therapist, surgeon, dentist (and dental staff), psychologist, et cetera. Some jobs on a destroyer will be collateral duties of personnel otherwise assigned, while on a carrier they need a full division to do that one job. (Example: a submarine has no Boatswain's Mates. A carrier has a full deck department made of Boatswain's Mates and it's one the biggest department on the carrier).
The reason why you base off the QE as opposed to Nimitz is because the QE is doing a similar job. It can't do 24/7 sorties like the Nimitz, and it doesn't need to - so it can afford to have a smaller crew, since not nearly as many people have to work in shifts.

What's good and bad about tumblehome designs?

Why did the US Navy install two 155mm guns on the Zumwalt? Is 1 not enough? I thought one gun has MRSI capability of 6 155mm howitzers.

Pro: Can haz stelf. (Good at cutting waves/water, for reduced wake, and the more obvious reduced RCS)

Con: Can haz sink. (Too good at cutting waves.)

[New Chilokver]

What kind of air wing did carriers had back when fixed wing ASW aircraft were still in service with the USN?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_air_wing

Look at the sections for the 2003 iraq war or the 1991 gulf war

I'm really looking more at the differences between air wings during the Cold War, Gulf Wars and present day.

[Gallia-]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_air_wing

Look at the sections for the 2003 iraq war or the 1991 gulf war

I'm really looking more at the differences between air wings during the Cold War, Gulf Wars and present day.

Are you just going to ignore the link I posted or what?

That literally shows you basically every carrier air group between WW2 and the late 1990s or early 00s.

[New Chilokver]

I'm really looking more at the differences between air wings during the Cold War, Gulf Wars and present day.

Are you just going to ignore the link I posted or what?

That literally shows you basically every carrier air group between WW2 and the late 1990s or early 00s.

No, I went through and read it. And it was a good read, but I just wanted to understand some of the reasoning on why those aircraft were used, at that time.

[Novorden]

So I may have just remembered that mine has triple turrets so there may be a slight biast in the number of guns.

Just you wait, I've decided that come 1938 I'm going to go ahead and build that monstrosity with 250mm guns.

Hopefully it should be able to escape as it has a specified top speed of 65 km/h (35 knots), however it was able to reach 70km/h in high speed trials, although this is not recommended.

[Korva]

Elektrograd drew up this frigate for my sci fi nation:


It is home to 5 officers and 30 enlisted such as these men who are geared up for a boarding action:

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

You're not doing it by a substantial amount. 100 feet in length buys you maybe 4 aircraft. 25 foot in width isn't quite enough to be substantial, but might buy you an additional aircraft or two for probably 4 of the bays. In the end, you went from ~40 aircraft to ~50 aircraft.

3C was a "medium air wing" proposal which was to have around 60 aircraft. Dimensions for 3C were 330 meters LOAL, 95 meter beam, and a 108,000 ton displacement. I'm going for 75-80 aircraft so I have to make it somewhat bigger. Look at the newest version I posted. I sized it based on the CVNX S2 proposal (red box), which based on the drawing has a LOAL of around 1300 feet. Based on its volume 200,000 tons seems to be reasonable estimate for the full-load displacement which would include some 20,000 tons of JP-5 and 10,000-15,000 tons of ordinance.

But you're missing the point of a stealth-carrier, and in the process of trying to have a jack-of-all-trades carrier, you're making it utterly pointless. The point of a stealth carrier is to be able to deliver a sudden strike-force that can knock out enemy defenses. By trying to make it have the capacity of a Nimitz, you're wasting valuable resources when you could instead, for the same amount of money, just have both a small stealth carrier and a Nimitz and have much, much more versatility.
The point of having a high-capacity carrier like the Nimitz is to be able to sustain nearly 24/7 sorties over an area and keep constant air superiority, as well as be able to have a massive in-theater air power. It's point is to have a giant shlong to wave around when you need one. A big, scary ship that no one wants to toy with.
That is not the point of a stealth-carrier. If a stealth-carrier has to pop up out of nowhere and then continue to maintain theatre air-presence to defend itself before being relieved by a supercarrier, it's dead. Stealth is good for surprise attacks. The second you start launching catapults, moving elevators, and full on operations, your stealth is gone. They know you're there, your hope is just that they don't have time to fight back before your small force immobilizes their nearby defenses. Then you recover everything and run away, or you maintain presence as the rest of your fleet moves into position to keep your stealth-carrier from finding itself on the bottom of the ocean when all the enemy subs find it.

So don't try to have a massive airwing. If you've got over 40 aircraft, you're doing it wrong. You can't do a mass-launch-and-recovery of more aircraft than that.
Cut the size back down to ~100,000 tons at most, save the other ~100,000 tons for a supercarrier to back it up. Would you rather have one ship with ~70 aircraft, or two ships: one with ~30-40 aircraft and another with ~70 ?

The carrier needs to be capable of sustained operations and needs to be survivable in the face of enemy defenses. A quick "sneak attack" with 40-60 aircraft will not knock all enemy defenses which pose a threat to your carrier. Maybe a few of them, certainly not all of them. Low RCS shaping means AWACS and other radar based systems will have a harder time trying to track the ship while radar based AShMs will have their effective seeker range severely degraded. Ditto for IR and sonar based weapons. Larger size also means more passive protection. After the sneak attack is launched the carrier needs to be able to launch sustained sorties like a traditional supercarrier and needs to be able defend itself against subs and enemy aircraft. So like you said the stealth-carrier has to pop up out of nowhere and then continue to maintain theatre air-presence to defend itself. Having your strike aircraft be stealthy also helps in this regard because your enemy will not be able to deduce the origin of the original attack. And "the second you start launching catapults, moving elevators, and full on operations" your stealth is not gone, the carrier is laid out so that aircraft being launched an/or recovered spend the minimum time possible on the flight deck. Radar/IR blockers on the lower deck also prevent sensors from getting a LOS view inside the hangar bay while operations are being carried out. Stealth will obviously be reduced compared to having the flight deck be clean (travel configuration) but you will still be orders of magnitude less detectable than a nimitz in the same scenario. Stealthy aircraft with lower radar/IR signatures will help in this regard as well.

As far as LMFRs:
Fast reactors are bad for naval applications. We can get into the physics of it, but I'd rather not. I just spent the last 8 hours teaching nuclear power, I don't want to do any more of it right now. Generally speaking, of all of the forms of naval reactors, they work. And they produce quite a bit of power. But that's the type of trap you get into when thinking only on the engineering side of the house. When it comes to personnel, logistics, everything else, it's dumb. Unless you really want to make your ship have to go into RCOH like a bajillion times more than if it has a PWR. Which you don't, because that means you lose it for like a year at a time.
That and it really won't be that much better for personnel. Just go with PWRs. I wrong a narrative on this type of thing in the NS Draftroom forum. It's long, and basically says, "If you're going purely for power density, you're doing it wrong."
While I'm willing to admit defeat over the airwing capacity thing to a very knowledgeable NS'er (though with reluctance, seeing as I, you know, was actually on a carrier for a number of years), you're going to have to get sources of a guy with Nuclear Engineering degree within the past decade saying I'm wrong before I'll capitulate over naval nuclear power.

Removed the fast reactors, went to a thermal design

As far as crew: You're not going to get down to 1,600 for crew without also reducing size and reducing airwing. Model your ship after the QE, not the Nimitz, and certainly not the Zumwalt. Destroyers are not aircraft carriers. Similar comparisons don't work like that. Basically, you might reduce many things by ~25%, not a full 50%, but not everything will be reduced. Larger crews require more specialization. Whereas you might get away with just a couple of corpsmen on a destroyer, you need a miniature hospital on a carrier, to include a physical therapist, surgeon, dentist (and dental staff), psychologist, et cetera. Some jobs on a destroyer will be collateral duties of personnel otherwise assigned, while on a carrier they need a full division to do that one job. (Example: a submarine has no Boatswain's Mates. A carrier has a full deck department made of Boatswain's Mates and it's one the biggest department on the carrier).
The reason why you base off the QE as opposed to Nimitz is because the QE is doing a similar job. It can't do 24/7 sorties like the Nimitz, and it doesn't need to - so it can afford to have a smaller crew, since not nearly as many people have to work in shifts.

Ford is 4,600 compared to 5,600 for a nimitz so a roughly 25% reduction. The air wing for the S2 should be the same size as a ford (required for 70-80 aircraft), crew might be larger since the ship is larger.

[The Soodean Imperium]

Just you wait, I've decided that come 1938 I'm going to go ahead and build that monstrosity with 250mm guns.

Hopefully it should be able to escape as it has a specified top speed of 65 km/h (35 knots), however it was able to reach 70km/h in high speed trials, although this is not recommended.

My 1930 Ginpo-class cruiser can reach 34.3 knots, though it "only" carries eight 20cm guns.

The original 250mm proposal by Commodore Kapsung could only reach 31.2 knots, but after 10 years of progress in engine and structural design and given a larger displacement, the 1938 version would surpass this by some amount. I've been doing modern things lately though, so I probably won't roll out the definitive design for a while.

I am curious about how your cruiser would behave in SpringSharp though, for me it takes some insane shaft horsepower to get a 15K-tonne vessel to 37.8 knots.

Just you wait, I've decided that come 1938 I'm going to go ahead and build that monstrosity with 250mm guns.

At which point someone builds a facsimile of one of these as a counter rendering all those vessel types quoted above as white elephants.

If your building priority for a blue water navy by the start of the forties is not focused on Carriers {both large and small/escort}, destroyers and submarines followed later by support vessels you're doing it wrong.

Besides, vessels tend to operate in groups/fleets and if you wisely ignored any naval treaties imposed limits, pending you also haven't already suffered horrible battle losses, you should have plenty of good battleships built from the late 1910s to the early 1930s that would be more than a match for any of those vessels. A dozen pre-war 406mm armed battleships acting as escorts for various task forces composed of Escort carriers plus a few other supporting vessel types would be a tough opponent to engage let alone defeat.

I already have pre-war 40cm armed battleships, as well as destroyers, carriers, and support vessels. Although ICly Menghe's navy was slow to grasp the importance of independent carrier task forces and the declining likelihood of Jutland-style line battles, which along with bad geopolitics and a poor industrial base contributed to its defeat in 1944.

But the question was about heavy cruisers. And while it's only by a fluke of my region's naval treaty that 15K tonnes standard with 4x2 250mm guns counts as a "heavy cruiser," it would be unsportsmanlike to enter a heavy cruiser comparison with "yeah but my battleship and carrier can blow it away hurr hurr"

[Palmyrion]

Why did the US Navy install two 155mm guns on the Zumwalt? Is 1 not enough? I thought one gun has MRSI capability of 6 155mm howitzers.

[Novorden]

My 1930 Ginpo-class cruiser can reach 34.3 knots, though it "only" carries eight 20cm guns.

I have tried to make mine a western style Mogami-class like design, it has good firepower and speed but relatively low/medium armour.

[Garecious]

WARBORN CLASS: GSS Ancient, GSS Retaliation, GSS Neptune, GSS Savage, GSS Supreme, GSS Garecious, GSS Shockwave, GSS Ascension,GSS Copper Head,GSS Invincible,GSS Catastrophe,GSS Unstoppable,GSS Unthinkable,GSS Intervention, and GSS Crusader

LENGTH:1968 ft

WIDTH:292 ft

TYPE:SUPER HEAVY MISSILE CRUISER /SUPER DESTROYER/SUPER-MEGA CARRIER/ULTRA DREADNOUGHT

ARMAMENT: 68x Warlock war heads,79x long-bow torpedoes,24x 450mm guns, 121x AAA missle silos,140x ALTC systems, 167x thermonuclear warheads, 132x ASMs, 357x AAA guns

CREW:10120;6000 soldiers,265 pilots,3000 SDOs,the rest is CLASSIFIED

COMPLEMENT: 131x LAVs, 84x HARH-types helicopters,623x HMGVs,762x heavy tanks,384x light tanks,67x HALCs,87x LTBs, and 433 HITVs

History: Made it's debut during the Shki-Wargo wars. This unstoppable dreadnought was the most advanced and most powerful warship ever deployed by the NFG(Naval Forces of Garecious).These ships were built for one purpose: Destroy EVERYTHING.It was so powerful, it stopped and ended the war in less that 2 years,which was predicted to go one for at least 9 years.

[Laritaia]

My 1930 Ginpo-class cruiser can reach 34.3 knots, though it "only" carries eight 20cm guns.

I have tried to make mine a western style Mogami-class like design, it has good firepower and speed but relatively low/medium armour.

Interesting, so you've gone with what is effectively a light cruiser with heavy cruiser guns?

so i'm guessing something along the lines of 3.5-4 inches at the armours thickest point?

[Pharthan]

3C was a "medium air wing" proposal which was to have around 60 aircraft. Dimensions for 3C were 330 meters LOAL, 95 meter beam, and a 108,000 ton displacement. I'm going for 75-80 aircraft so I have to make it somewhat bigger. Look at the newest version I posted. I sized it based on the CVNX S2 proposal (red box), which based on the drawing has a LOAL of around 1300 feet. Based on its volume 200,000 tons seems to be reasonable estimate for the full-load displacement which would include some 20,000 tons of JP-5 and 10,000-15,000 tons of ordinance.

Ever consider the fact that there might be a reason why it never got beyond proposal?
Because you can't do what you're trying to do. A five ounce bird cannot carry a one pound coconut. A stealth carrier not utilizing flight deck space cannot be reasonably sized and have a large airwing. You have to get to such massive dimensions you negate the "stealth" factor. You have to make the thing out of much more sturdy materials than Zumwalt. In the end the ship will be so large that it will have the same signature as a much smaller Ford, or a large destroyer at the very least, and the same aircraft complement, regardless of angles. It won't be stealthy.
You aren't going for 2 times the hangar space of a Nimitz. You have to get closer to 3 times that size. Not exactly, but much closer. I don't care what a old proposal says. I've seen what a Nimitz can fit, even your 200,000 ton proposal won't fit 75-80.

The carrier needs to be capable of sustained operations and needs to be survivable in the face of enemy defenses.

No. It. Does. Not.
The airpower needs to be present.
Once you launch, you lose all stealth, and your carrier is suddenly at a massive disadvantage to a much smaller (~100,000) regular, non-stealth supercarrier. So you have it protected by a few stealthy escorts initially, but once all hell breaks lose, a waiting supercarrier, several hundred miles out, will have already launched it's own airwing.

A quick "sneak attack" with 40-60 aircraft will not knock all enemy defenses which pose a threat to your carrier.

#ThatsWhatEscortsAndSSGNsAreFor.

Your aircraft play SEAD and render their radars defenseless. Everything else you bring along does the rest of the heavy lifting.

Low RCS shaping means AWACS and other radar based systems will have a harder time trying to track the ship while radar based AShMs will have their effective seeker range severely degraded.

The fact that you can't make it out of flimsy materials means that they don't care. You'll get enough returns as to make such a massive vessel visible, and you can't just go about coating a ship in RAM. The larger the ship gets, the more stresses it has to endure, the more sturdy it's frame has to be. The larger the aircraft complement it tries to support, the larger it's hangars, which means you have to support the weight above that as well with an even stronger, RCS-gigantic frame.

Larger size also means more passive protection.

Larger size also means loud af.

The notion of making something so massive as a 200,000 ton carrier stealthy is laughable at best.
You can't do it. You're not just arguing against me, you're arguing against everyone I bounced this exact same idea off of when I was standing watch and insanely bored, and was gloriously shot down. I might add, those people have the same or better pedigrees than I do.

Ever been in an aircraft carrier's engine room? Sure, you can get rid of a lot of the sound, but with the dimensions you're talking about, you can't do enough.

So make one small, stealthy carrier, and one large non-stealthy supercarrier to back up. It'll be much easier and much cheaper.

[Gallia-]

yeah your carrier might have like the RCS of a frigate or destroyer.

totally worthless but good attempt at making it invisible!

[The Akasha Colony]

Why did the US Navy install two 155mm guns on the Zumwalt? Is 1 not enough? I thought one gun has MRSI capability of 6 155mm howitzers.

Zumwalt was always intended to be a littoral combatant, for supporting ground operations or attacking ground targets. Thus the greater emphasis on gun armament over missile armament.

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

snip

better?

Basic Information:

• Type: Aircraft Carrier
• Displacement: 108,000 tons full load
• Complement: 1600 crew, 2400 air wing
• Length: 333 m
• Beam (flight deck): 95 m
• Beam (waterline): 40 m
• Draft: 12 m

Propulsion:

• 2x 300 MWe (700MWt) Molten Salt Reactors (MSR)
• 4x helium/nitrogen closed-cycle gas turbines driving 4x superconducting homopolar (SCH) generators
• 2x backup diesel generators
• 4x 7 bladed skewback propellers driven by superconducting homopolar (SCH) motors, 70,000 shp each

Performance:

• Top Speed: 30 knots
• Range: crew endurance

Sensors:

• SPY-3 MFR/SPY-4 VSR Dual Band Radar (DBR)
• SPN-48 Joint Precision Approach Landing System (JPALS)
• SQR-20 Multi-function towed array sonar

Countermeasures:

• SLY-2 (V) Advanced Integrated Electronic Warfare System (AIEWS)
• MK36 SRBOC with Nulka
• SLQ-25 Nixie Torpedo decoy system
• Surface Ship Torpedo Defense (SSTD) Torpedo hardkill system
  

Armament:

• 32x mk 57 VLS cells, 128 ESSM
• 3x 30mm mk 46 mod 2 GWS

Aircraft Carried:

• 60 aircraft and tiltrotors

Aviation Facilities

• 4x EMALS catapults
• 3x deck edge lifts
• 2x center-deck lifts
• double story flight hangar

[United Earthlings]

I'm really looking more at the differences between air wings during the Cold War, Gulf Wars and present day.

Edit: Since, what I previously posted contain a few to many factual errors, here's instead a couple of links which should be more accurate and therefore more helpful.

Midway's Air wing in the 1980s/1990s plus a few typical ones for the other Carriers in the fleet.

A wiki page full of Carrier Air Wings, of course...

And finally I know not the best source to reference around here, but look at all the pretty pictures...

USS Midway, USS Kitty Hawk and USS Carl Vinson

I already have pre-war 40cm armed battleships, as well as destroyers, carriers, and support vessels. Although ICly Menghe's navy was slow to grasp the importance of independent carrier task forces and the declining likelihood of Jutland-style line battles, which along with bad geopolitics and a poor industrial base contributed to its defeat in 1944.

But the question was about heavy cruisers. And while it's only by a fluke of my region's naval treaty that 15K tonnes standard with 4x2 250mm guns counts as a "heavy cruiser," it would be unsportsmanlike to enter a heavy cruiser comparison with "yeah but my battleship and carrier can blow it away hurr hurr"

It wouldn't be any more unsportsmanlike than bringing what is clearly a battlecruiser to a heavy cruiser fight, especially if your nation never specifically built any battlecruisers.

So, yeah, forgive me if I choose to fight asymmetrical and bring a gun to a knife fight, don't blame me if I use my nations good industrial base as an advantage to build more battleships and/or heavy cruisers than you. You probably don't have to worry about a two/three-ocean front war.

Though I don't have specific specifications worked out or a design layout for a 1930s heavy cruiser in keeping with Commonwealth Naval doctrine would have stressed two things, range and protection. Since, nine 203mm guns would have been deemed sufficient and carried over from previous classes, focus would have been on a hull size that could be protected from those same guns and still achieve a speed of 32/33 knots. Later designs would probably grow in size to permit greater protection levels.