Yeah you heard that right, the US almost used a British ship design which I had made earlier in the week about the Type 24 and 25 Frigates

If you are wondering what that looked like

https://preview.redd.it/jnbxtn80auj61.png?width=951&format=png&auto=webp&s=65e82ee5dd09c19e9e010a9b016b5f0376984717

Side Note: my time management isn’t good and when I’d found information on the ships, I’d want to share cause I was sure no-one had even heard of the ship….but let’s get back to ship

Unlike the British who used the 4.5″/55-calibre Mark 8, the US Navy would use the 5″/42-calibre Mark 42.

For its offensive missile armament, it was to have two 4-cell Mark 141 Quad Launcher for 8 RGM-84 Harpoons probably the RGM-84D Harpoon

The Anti-Air Defense was two 8-cell Mark 29 Guided Missile Launcher System with 16 RIM-7 Sea Sparrow

Like most UK-designed ships, it would have used two twin 30mm cannons likely the 30mm GCM-A03 Twin Oerlikon Autocannons.

Her Aviation Wing was to be two helicopters probably two Kamen SH-2 Seasprites as given the size of the Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King might not allow two onboard, I’d say she was more than likely gonna be equipped with Kamen SH-2 Seasprites.

So why did the USN turn this down? What might have happened had the USA bought the Type 24 frigate? well for one the Constellation Class Guided-Missile Frigate would have been its replacement had it been built.

There are multiple reasons for starters this would have been going up against the Oilver-Hazard Perry Class Design

And as Reddit user Fantastic_1 highlighted

Most sources indicate this was a cheap export or ASW-centric design. Along with the Type 25, these exercises in design eventually rolled into the Type 23. Given the sparse details, it is really doubtful the Type 24 was actually offered to the US.

No business case for the US as a customer. At the time, the US had a massive shipbuilding capacity, with several combatant designs in production or beginning production in the 70s.

So I’d like to wish you all a Happy Christmas and Merry New Year, and a Happy 2024

So the US Medium Aircraft Carrier or as I call her the Thunderbird Class

The carrier was designed in the 1970s to be cheaper than the Nimitz class supercarrier and could have been used to replace the ageing Midway class Aircraft Carrier, she had two steam catapults and three arrestor wires for the Catobar system.

Her Propulsion was to be six boilers with steam turbines driving two shafts generating 100,000 shaft horsepower giving a speed of 27–29 knots and a range of 8000 miles.

The ship’s electronic warfare system was to be the AN/SPS-49 2 dimensional Air-Search Radar and the AN/SPS-48 3 dimensional Phased Array Radar

Her defensive armament was two 20-millimetre Mark 15 Block 1 Phalanx CIWS guns and her total air wing was to be 55–65 aircraft and helicopters

Had the ship gone into service I think this was likely gonna be her aircraft and helicopter configuration

14-20 F-4N Phantom II Fighters, 6-8 A-6E Intruder Strike-Aircraft and 6-8 A-7E Corsair II Strike-Aircraft with 2-4 E-2C Hawkeye AEW Aircraft, 2 C-2A Greyhound COD Aircraft, 2 KA-6D Intruder Tankers, 4-6 EA-6B Prowler EW Aircraft, 7 S-3B Viking ASW Aircraft and 2 SH-3D Sea King ASW and 2 HH-3A Sea King SAR helicopters.

Sadly it was cancelled

Why well I quote

The problem with the CVV wasn’t that it wasn’t as cost-effective as the Nimitz or any supercarrier. The problem was that the program took long enough that the higher-ups who took a second look at the program later on forgot what the point of it was, causing them to cancel it.

A big flight deck will always be superior to a smaller flight deck (common sense). On top of that, CVV was conventional instead of nuclear (which earned the ire of Admiral Rickover). These are all huge points against CVV.

But CVV could be built (and overhauled) at more yards than you could do the same for supercarriers. Pound for pound it was much less cost-efficient than a Nimitz, but even the program’s promoters knew that–they could send it to minor deployments that didn’t warrant a full-up Nimitz but were too much for an ARG with a lone Harrier detachment.

It was borne from Admiral Zumwalt’s idea of a Navy with many flight decks, big and small, vs. the prevailing idea of the time of maximizing the efficiency of every flight deck. Zumwalt’s idea had way more cons than pros at the time, and that’s why all his small deck programs got cancelled (SCS, VSS, and CVV). But in hindsight, it might have been better to take that hit of inefficiency.

Yeah you heard that right, the US almost used a British ship design which I had made earlier in the week about the Type 24 and 25 Frigates before the Warship Reddit moderators took it down due to my over posting..

Side Note: my time management isn’t good and when I’d found information on the ships, I’d want to share cause I was sure no-one had even heard of the ship….but let’s get back to ship

To remind you the US Type 24 would been armed with a single 5-inch naval gun likely the mark 42 naval gun along with two 4-cell Mark 141 Quad Launcher for 8 RGM-84 Harpoon probably the RGM-84D Harpoon while the Anti-Air Defense was two 8-cell Mark 29 Guided Missile Launcher System with 16 RIM-7 Sea Sparrow and two twin 30mm cannons likely the 30mm GCM-A03 Twin Oerlikon Anti-Air Guns.

Her Aviation Wing was to be two helicopters probably two SH-2 Seasprites as given the size of the Sea Kings might not allow two onboard, I’d say she was more than likely gonna be equipped with SH-2 Seasprites.

So why did the USN turn this down? What might have happened had the USA bought the Type 24 frigate? As the Constellation class would have been its replacement had it been built.

There are multiple reasons for starters this would have been going up against the Oilver-Hazard Perry Class Design

And as Reddit user Fantastic_1 highlighted

Most sources indicate this was a cheap export or ASW-centric design. Along with the Type 25 these exercises in design eventually rolled into the Type 23. Given the sparse details, it is really doubtful Type 24 was actually offered to the US.

No business case for the US as a customer. At the time, the US had massive shipbuilding capacity, with several combatant designs in production or beginning production in the 70s.

Picture of Type 24 Frigate:

https://preview.redd.it/jnbxtn80auj61.png?width=951&format=png&auto=webp&s=65e82ee5dd09c19e9e010a9b016b5f0376984717

The United States Class Aircraft Carrier the first Supercarrier of its era or proto-Supercarrier of the USA well would have been had politics and other factors not interfered

She was to have eight 1200 psi Foster-Wheeler boilers driving four Westinghouse steam turbines totalling 280,000 horsepower which drives four 20 foot diameter screws giving a speed of 33 knots.

Her armament originally was to be eight 5-inch Naval Guns mostly likely the 5-inch Mark 12 Dual-Purpose Naval Guns with sixteen 3-inch guns whether Naval or Anti-Aircraft in 8 twin turrets which can only be the 3-inch/70 calibre Mark 26 Anti-Aircraft guns and twenty 20-millimetre Oerlikon Anti-Aircraft Cannons.

Her Aircraft carried were to be 12 to 18 Specially modified P-2C Neptune heavy bombers and 54 FH-1 Phantom or likely the F-9 Panther or F2H Banshee fighter aircraft but she was supposed to carry a B-36 Peacemaker although that would probably be impossible given its size even with the flushed deck design and was to have four catapults.

The ship was to cost $124 million in 1949 or $1.2 Billion in 2019’s cash or a half a Gerald-R-Ford class carrier but she was cancelled in the 1950s although I bet had she been built she would have had a flight deck redesign during her development

So given the likelihood of a major design change during construction had she not been cancelled

What do we think would have about this ship?

This is a description of her very likely redesign that I came up with a while back

A 1090 feet long United States Class Aircraft Carrier that had an angled flight deck with a single carrier island and a single runway and extended forward runway. The bow of the ship had four 5-inch Mark 12 Dual-Purpose Naval Guns with four 5-inch Mark 12 Dual-Purpose Naval Guns aft.

Scattered across the ship were 8 twin-turret 3-inch/70 calibre Mark 26 Anti-Air Guns.

Picture of the United States Class Aircraft Carrier

https://preview.redd.it/v8z190yfrr861.jpg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=27afb8f6146650ceabe592c8d01f9805b9731c23

Yeah you heard that right, the UK was part of the Common New Generation Frigate program in the early 90s that became the Horizon Class Air-Defence Frigates for France and the Orrizante Class Guided-Missile Destroyers but the British had CNGF idea too

The CNGF was intended to replace the 4 Suffern Class Air-Defence Frigate of the Marine Nationale, 2 Andrea Doria Class Anti-Submarine Warfare Helicopter Cruisers and 2 Audace Class Guided Missile Destroyers of the Italian Navy and the 4 surviving Type 42 Batch 1, Batch 2 and Batch 3 Guided Missile Destroyers of the Royal Navy.

Why do I say surviving, well I’ll get to that later

The UK CNGF was to use a Combined Diesel and Gas Propulsion system consisting of a single Rolls-Royce Marine Spey and two Diesel engines with an electromotor for silent running.

As for her intended armament, that was to be a single 76mm OTO Melara 76/62 Super-Rapid with a 30mm lse (no idea what that is) while Anti-Ship Missile Defence was the task of the single 30mm Goalkeeper CIWS, the ship was also armed with two 4-cell Mark 141 Quad Launchers for eight RGM-84 Harpoon SSM, the Anti-Submarine Warfare was to be done by the four Stingray Anti-Submarine Warfare Torpedoes while ship-based Anti-Submarine Warfare Helicopter was to be a single Westland WG.13 Lynx.

Sadly the UK pulled out of the program which I’ll get to later but the UK CNGF work wasn’t in vain as it helped the UK when they designed the Type 45 Destroyer or Daring Class Destroyer as it’s known.

So why did the UK leave the CGNF well…

The first problem was the size of the ship as the Royal Navy wanted a large destroyer of more than what Marine Nationale and Marina Militare who wanted a smaller aircraft carrier escort ship and Italy wanted it capable of operating in the Mediterranean whereas the Royal Navy wanted a ship to patrol large areas like the Atlantic Ocean, despite an agreement being reached, this problem never really faded.

The second problem was capability as France and Italy wanted a small aircraft carrier escort ship and Italy wanted it to work with cover from the Aeronautica Militare except there was an elephant in the room as the Royal Navy wanted a ship with a wide area defence.

Why did the Royal Navy want more you may ask?

Well over a decade earlier, in 1982 the British had fought the Argentinians in the Falklands War who despite having mostly World-War 2 era ships had destroyed 2 Sheffield Class Guided-Missile Destroyers but to the UK these ships were supposed to be state of the art except they were anything but and war has a nasty habit of changing requirements.

The Royal Navy having been shown that their air defence system of Type 965 Long-Range Aircraft Warning Radar and Type 992Q Medium-Range General-Purpose Radar and the SeaDart SAM were inadequate, along with them, 2 Amazon Class General-Purpose Frigates, 1 Round-Table Class Landing Ship Logistics and 1 Landing Craft were lost.

The Royal Navy had pretty much learned that air-cover from the Air Force was not guaranteed, this problem was resolved with the radar choice.

The third and final problem was industrial structure as the UK wanted to use its larger requirement to exert its influence as the UK desired to have Macroni as a prime contractor which France would agree to if DCN or Direction des Constructions Navales which was what the current Naval Group was the prime contractor for the combat systems but the UK wanted a consortium lead by British Aerospace, wouldn’t accept this

Given the recent history with Australia, it could be understandable why the UK wanted that at the time.

Honestly, it makes sense cause the British have been the ones who’ve covered the Atlantic for centuries and have to design their ships accordingly and the lessons of war had been taken on board and seem to have stuck.

So I wonder what might have happened had the UK not left the CNGF Program to pursue the Type 45 Destroyer?

The Swedish aircraft carrier or the Harry Abom probably would’ve been known as the Harry Abom class of which the Harry Abom seems to be an Aircraft-Carrier-Cruiser idea.

The proposed Harry Abom class had an overall length of 148.2 metres with a designed waterline length of 140 metres with its beam being 28.4 metres with its beam at the design waterline is 20 metres and the design draft was to be 5.5 metres.

She was to have a standard displacement of 7,800 tonnes and a full load displacement of 8,100 tonnes.

Her powerplant is unknown but it could generate 28,000 shaft horsepower for a speed of 25 knots.

She would’ve had a crew complement of 535 and would’ve had a 75mm waterline armour belt plus 25mm armour apparently in the torpedo compartment and 25mm armour with another 50mm of armour for the ship’s deck.

Her Artillery was to be eight 12cm guns in probably 4-twin turrets, sixteen 40mm Bofors autocannons in a mix of single and twin mounts and seventeen 25mm autocannons in single mounts.

Her Air Wing was to be 20 De Havilland Dh-100 Sea Vampires probably the De Havilland Sea Vampire F.20s or F.21s or some kind of J28 licensed variant of the Dh-100 Sea Vampire.

Although given Sweden’s location on the Baltic, What benefit would this ship have given had it gone into service? and What would have been its cons of going into service and how would it have affected the balance of power in the Baltic Region? and How would it have affected the balance of power in the Baltic Region?

Not very much really as

Sweden also has no need for force projection capabilities.

The Swedish had no need for it so I can see why they cancelled it. The Swedish Navy is oriented towards Coastal defence and at that time it was meant to support a network of coastal defences.

If built it would have found itself as a helicopter carrier quickly for Anti-Submarine Warfare duties.

The Soviets would prefer they didn’t build a helicopter carrier either.

The Harry Abom
https://preview.redd.it/vipnwj96o9i61.png?width=1053&format=png&auto=webp&s=c4fea5bd18f7d156bfa536a1a19e83f48ede87d7