Post by Relyt on Nov 19, 2011 4:52:29 GMT 1
Certainly! The ship itself can only be an American supercarrier, which would belong to the Forrestal, Kitty Hawk, Enterprise, and Nimitz classes (The new Gerald Ford class is still a work in progress, so I shan't include it in the possible choices.
The radar dome near the plane that crashed into the water would narrow the choices down to the Kitty Hawk class, Enterprise and the Nimitz class, since the earlier Forrestals had been decommissioned by the time this dome was installed.
The aircraft rule out the possibility of the Kitty Hawk class because they are F/A-18 Superhornets, recognizable due to their rectangular air intakes. The variant would be the F/A-18 E. Its canopy is small, so I can see that it has one crew, and the F variant would have a larger canopy because has two crew, a pilot and copilot. These would only be used on the Enterprise or the Nimitz class. The other aircraft I see is an EA-6 Prowler, an electronic warfare variant of the A-6 Intruder. It could technically be the Intruder, but the Superhornets are designed to replace the Intruder, so they would not be on the same ship and the plane, therefore, must be a Prowler.
So now we're down to two choices: the Enterprise, and a member of the Nimitz class. The Enterprise and the Nimitz class share a virtually identical hull form. This makes a hard choice between the two, since the island house is obscured. The island of the Enterprise is square-shaped, whereas the Nimitz has a longer, thinner island house. The presence of the Superhornets indicate that this takes place after one of the Enterprise's refits, during which it gained a mast similar to the one on the Nimitz class. Before that, it had a conical mast instead of the pole mast we see here. By the time the ship received Superhornets, it had the pole mast.
So now there's only two ways to solve this. I could guess, or I could point out the single feature that solves this dilemma. In the previous paragraph, I said that their hull forms are virtually identical. The key word is "virtually." There is one difference shown here: the bulb at the foot of the bow. This bulb is only present in the Nimitz class, and in the class, only the last two ships are fitted with one. That's because the bulb houses a sonar array. The America also had a bow sonar, but it was a Kitty Hawk class carrier, and is ruled out by the Superhornets. So now, it can only be one of two ships: USS Ronald Reagan CVN 76, or USS George H. W. Bush CVN 77. Both ships are externally identical.
So there you have it. Thanks to the study of the hull form, the ship's airwing, and the sensors (The radar dome and the sonar bulge), I have concluded that this ship is one of the two last members of the ten-strong Nimitz class, out of the 19 supercarriers that have been built. That sure was fun! ;D
The radar dome near the plane that crashed into the water would narrow the choices down to the Kitty Hawk class, Enterprise and the Nimitz class, since the earlier Forrestals had been decommissioned by the time this dome was installed.
The aircraft rule out the possibility of the Kitty Hawk class because they are F/A-18 Superhornets, recognizable due to their rectangular air intakes. The variant would be the F/A-18 E. Its canopy is small, so I can see that it has one crew, and the F variant would have a larger canopy because has two crew, a pilot and copilot. These would only be used on the Enterprise or the Nimitz class. The other aircraft I see is an EA-6 Prowler, an electronic warfare variant of the A-6 Intruder. It could technically be the Intruder, but the Superhornets are designed to replace the Intruder, so they would not be on the same ship and the plane, therefore, must be a Prowler.
So now we're down to two choices: the Enterprise, and a member of the Nimitz class. The Enterprise and the Nimitz class share a virtually identical hull form. This makes a hard choice between the two, since the island house is obscured. The island of the Enterprise is square-shaped, whereas the Nimitz has a longer, thinner island house. The presence of the Superhornets indicate that this takes place after one of the Enterprise's refits, during which it gained a mast similar to the one on the Nimitz class. Before that, it had a conical mast instead of the pole mast we see here. By the time the ship received Superhornets, it had the pole mast.
So now there's only two ways to solve this. I could guess, or I could point out the single feature that solves this dilemma. In the previous paragraph, I said that their hull forms are virtually identical. The key word is "virtually." There is one difference shown here: the bulb at the foot of the bow. This bulb is only present in the Nimitz class, and in the class, only the last two ships are fitted with one. That's because the bulb houses a sonar array. The America also had a bow sonar, but it was a Kitty Hawk class carrier, and is ruled out by the Superhornets. So now, it can only be one of two ships: USS Ronald Reagan CVN 76, or USS George H. W. Bush CVN 77. Both ships are externally identical.
So there you have it. Thanks to the study of the hull form, the ship's airwing, and the sensors (The radar dome and the sonar bulge), I have concluded that this ship is one of the two last members of the ten-strong Nimitz class, out of the 19 supercarriers that have been built. That sure was fun! ;D
During the process of the previous post I did think that the 'bulge' may just be the standard bow shape of the earlier carriers, minus the America, since the angle the ship is at does not provide enough information to discern its proper shape. And we all know about the illusion the water created now.
