Vindictive a carrier like no other?

[kriegerfaust]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Vindictive_(1918)

 

Name	Vindictive
Ordered	April 1916
Builder	Harland & Wolff, Belfast
Yard number	500
Laid down	29 June 1916
Launched	17 January 1918
Completed	19 October 1918
Commissioned	1 October 1918
Renamed	June 1918 from Cavendish
Reclassified	Aircraft Carrier, then returned to cruiser, 1924. Training ship in 1937 Repair ship, 1939 Destroyer depot ship, 1944
Identification	Pennant number: 31 (July 1918); 48 (September 1919);[1] 36 (1920); I36 (1938); D36 (1940)[2]
Fate	Scrapped, 1946
General characteristics (as completed 1918)
Class and type	Laid down as a Hawkins-class heavy cruiser
Displacement	9,394 long tons (9,545 t) (light) 12,400 long tons (12,599 t) (deep load)
Length	605 ft (184.4 m) (o.a.)
Beam	65 ft (19.8 m)
Draught	19 ft 3 in (5.9 m) (mean)
Installed power	12 × Yarrow boilers 60,000 shp (45,000 kW)
Propulsion	4 × shafts; 4 × geared steam turbines
Speed	30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph)
Range	5,400 nmi (10,000 km; 6,200 mi) at 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph)
Complement	648
Armament	4 × single 7.5 in (190 mm) guns 4 × single 3 in (76 mm) guns 4 × single 3 in AA guns 6 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
Armour	Waterline belt: 1.5–4 in (38–102 mm) Deck: 1–1.5 in (25–38 mm) Conning tower: 3 in (76 mm)
Aircraft carried	6–12

[Jakob Knight]

Wait...she was started as a Heavy Cruiser, then converted to a Carrier (one with impressive speed for the time), then converted back to a Cruiser?

 

[kriegerfaust]

HMS Vindictive was a warship built during the First World War for the Royal Navy (RN). Originally designed as a Hawkins-class heavy cruiser and laid down under the name Cavendish, she was converted into an aircraft carrier while still being built. Renamed in 1918, she was completed a few weeks before the end of the war and saw no active service with the Grand Fleet. The following year she participated in the British campaign in the Baltic against the Bolsheviks, during which her aircraft made numerous attacks against the naval base at Kronstadt. Vindictive returned home at the end of the year and was placed in reserve for several years before her flight decks were removed and she was reconverted back into a cruiser. The ship retained her aircraft hangar and conducted trials with an aircraft catapult before she was sent to the China Station in 1926. A year after her return in 1928, she was again placed in reserve.

Vindictive was demilitarized and converted into a training ship in 1936–1937. At the beginning of the Second World War she was converted into a repair ship. Her first role after the conversion was completed in early 1940, however, was to transport troops during the Norwegian Campaign. She was then sent to the South Atlantic to support British ships serving there and, in late 1942, to the Mediterranean to support the ships there. Vindictive returned home in 1944 and was damaged by a German torpedo off the coast of Normandy after the Allies invaded France. She was reduced to reserve after the war and sold for scrap in 1946.

 

A cruiser

than a Carrier

than a training ship

than a repair ship

finally a troop ship before being scrapped after decades of service

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

Could be a fun tier 4 or 6 premium...or a start on British light carriers.

[kriegerfaust]

HMS Argus (I49) (ex-Conte Rosso)

18

15,775 long tons (16,028 t)

12 cylindrical boilers; 4 Parsons geared turbines, 4 shafts: max. speed 20 kn

1914

6 September 1918

Sold for scrap 1946

Ship	Aircraft	Displacement	Propulsion	Service
				Laid down	Commissioned	Fate
HMS Eagle (1918) (ex-Almirante Cochrane)	25-30	26,000 long tons (26,417 t)	32 Yarrow boilers, 4 shafts, Parsons geared turbines: max. speed 24 kn	20 February 1913	20 February 1924	Torpedoed and sunk 11 August 1942, by U-73

Ship	Aircraft	Displacement	Propulsion	Service
				Laid down	Commissioned	Fate
HMS Unicorn (I72)	35	20,300 long tons (20,626 t)	4 Admiralty 3-drum boilers; 4 Parsons geared steam turbines, 4 shafts: max. speed 24 kn	26 June 1939	12 March 1943	Sold for scrap 1960

[kriegerfaust]

A good carrier gimmick would being ably to launch planes individually or in individual flights

some ships can launch torpedoes one by one

and you do not have to wait for a full squad if you do not have enough aircraft

so if we have enough aircraft why is it that we cannot send four instead of eight or three instead of six or nine

[invicta2012]

Vindictive is an interesting one, for sure - but she's not like no other; Furious, Glorious and Courageous were all converted from BCs / Large Cruisers to full aircraft carriers, and you've also got to consider the US Independence class, all of which are converted from Cleveland class ships.

The main problem with an appearance in WoWs would be her planes. Very early WW1 era things like Sopwith Camels/Pups, with this thing as her main offensive weapon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopwith_Cuckoo .... especially when there are loads of useful RN carriers like Argus, Eagle, Formidable, Unicorn, etc, still to appear. 

13 hours ago, Jakob Knight said:

Wait...she was started as a Heavy Cruiser, then converted to a Carrier (one with impressive speed for the time), then converted back to a Cruiser?

The Hawkins class was a giant PITA for the Royal Navy. Built in response to fast German commerce raiders which never really arrived, they were both very modern and very dated in their design (heavy single 7.5 inch guns, manually worked, protected by gun shields... on a lively ship in mid-Atlantic. Not fun) and they set the bar for Treaty cruisers at a very inconvenient point, allowing other nations to build modern 10,000 ton ships when the RN was stuck with these doddery old things.  The RN spent years using them as test ships, de-arming them, making plans to add turrets (3 x 2 8 inch, like York, or 4 x 2 6 inch, like Leander), re-arming them again and generally wishing they had a couple more E class instead. Although Emerald in WoWs still gives people who played the original the shivers, the actual E class were very fast, had excellent range, could have radar and AA added without compromise and were generally Very Useful Ships - Enterprise was the test-bed for the twin 6 inch turrets used on Leander and Arethusa, and her bridge design was reworked in the 1920s, becoming a standard design for all RN cruisers after that point). 

I would quite like to see Effingham  in her rebuilt form, though - 8 x 6 inch guns with three at the front and rear, built up in threes like Dido. 

[Jakob Knight]

10 hours ago, kriegerfaust said:

A good carrier gimmick would being ably to launch planes individually or in individual flights

some ships can launch torpedoes one by one

and you do not have to wait for a full squad if you do not have enough aircraft

so if we have enough aircraft why is it that we cannot send four instead of eight or three instead of six or nine

 

Problem with this is twofold.

 

First would be that, in the current control scheme, a player can only control one unit at a time.  A Hybrid ship can control either the fighter squadron or the ship, but not both.  Launching planes individually would mean only a single plane could be aloft at a time.

 

Second would be a follow-on to the first.  AA firepower may be reduced from what it used to be, but just about any Cruiser, Battleship, Carrier, and quite a few DDs can shoot down a single plane before it can attack.  That would mean launching a single fighter would be only useful as scout planes, which is being nerfed soon.  In addition, while you might be able to send a series of scout planes out, it would take as long as an entire squadron to reach the same place.  If you then decided to launch a full strike on a target, you would have even fewer planes to spread the AA damage and deliver ordinance.

 

 

[Daniel_Allan_Clark]

1 hour ago, Jakob Knight said:

 

Problem with this is twofold.

 

First would be that, in the current control scheme, a player can only control one unit at a time.  A Hybrid ship can control either the fighter squadron or the ship, but not both.  Launching planes individually would mean only a single plane could be aloft at a time.

 

Second would be a follow-on to the first.  AA firepower may be reduced from what it used to be, but just about any Cruiser, Battleship, Carrier, and quite a few DDs can shoot down a single plane before it can attack.  That would mean launching a single fighter would be only useful as scout planes, which is being nerfed soon.  In addition, while you might be able to send a series of scout planes out, it would take as long as an entire squadron to reach the same place.  If you then decided to launch a full strike on a target, you would have even fewer planes to spread the AA damage and deliver ordinance.

 

 

Both hybrids and CVs can control the ship and the plane at the same time (autopilot exists)...hybrids can't fire their main guns, but their secondaries will fire.