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I’ve always wondered why the military hasn’t created massive airship aircraft carriers using a collection of small bladder cells each isolated from the other, i
by jmpman 7y ago
I’ve always wondered why the military hasn’t created massive airship aircraft carriers using a collection of small bladder cells each isolated from the other, inside of a heavily armored hull.
Such a platform could remain stationed above a battlefield, above the range of small arms fire, and if properly constructed, even tolerant of multiple SAM hits.
- alexhutcheson 7y agoPhysics, mostly. To hold the weight of any significant armor, fuel, materiel, etc. you would need an unbelievably large interior space surrounded by a relatively thin exterior. Deployment is another issue - how do you get it to where it needs to be quickly? Armor also isn't a good defense against modern missiles. The goal is to intercept or avoid getting hit in the first place, rather than sustain multiple hits.
- jmpman 7y agoI’m thinking more about a battlefield like Afghanistan, where the opponents aren’t firing anything larger than a stinger, and there is already air superiority. As buoyancy is a function of volume, which increases to the third power, and armor just needs to increase proportional to the surface area, which is the second power, a heavily armored floating aircraft carrier seems possible.
- jmpman 7y agoA 97000 ton aircraft carrier is equal in weight to the amount of air in a 450M x 450M x 450M cube. Aircraft carriers are only 320M long, so this doesn’t seem that far fetched.