Saipan Class Carrier CVL-48 Saipan / CVL-49 Wright
The Saipan-class aircraft carriers were a class of two light carriers Saipan (CVL-48) and Wright (CVL-49) built for the United States Navy during World War II. Like the nine Independence-class light carriers, they were based on cruiser hulls. However, they differed from the earlier light carriers in that they were built from the keel up as carriers, and were based on heavy rather than light cruiser hulls. Completed too late for the war, they served as carriers until the mid-1950s, then were converted into a command ship (Wright) and a major communications relay ship (Saipan) in the late 1950s, and in those roles served until 1970.
They were both scrapped in 1980.
Intended to offset expected wartime losses of the smaller Independence-class light carriers, the two ships of the Saipan class were designed from the keel up as aircraft carriers, with many improvements based on experience with the Independence class.
The Saipan class was based on the hull and machinery of the 13,600-ton Baltimore-class heavy cruiser hull rather than the smaller Cleveland-class light cruiser upon which the Independence class was built, allowing better sea keeping, improved hull subdivision, enhanced protection, greater magazine volume, a stronger flight deck, an expanded air group and a slightly higher speed than in the Independence class. Compared to their cruiser half-sisters, they were eight feet wider in beam to accommodate the size and weight of the hangar and flight deck.
They had very brief service lives as light carriers, serving respectively from 1946 to 1957 (Saipan) and 1947 to 1956 (Wright). As carriers, they were swiftly outdated by the deck space eating jet aircraft of the 1950s, and quickly rendered far too small in a military environment where the 900-foot (270 m)-long Essex-class aircraft carriers were increasingly seen as cramped and small. The two ships were seen as valuable hulls, however, with a large void space within the ship that could easily be translated to other use. They were converted for non-carrier duties in the late 1950s, Saipan as the communications relay ship USS Arlington and Wright as a command ship. In these capacities the two ships served until being decommissioned in 1970 and scrapped in 1980.
Ships within the first package :
WWII Ships
CVL-48 Saipan
CVL-49 Wright
From the 1950s
CVL-48 Saipan
CVL-49 Wright
Special thanks: I use the carrier from maxromash, (Sketchfab ), under licence Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) with different changes I did to this ships.
Mr Bing Chandler (Skippy) from flyingstations.com for his permission to use his barrier and the gauge from his very nice Victorius Early War carriers
I used other freeware models for this too. Most aircraft models are original from CFS2 and converted to FSX.
Surely all models i use are freeware. So please don`t use all the elements of this models in other way as freeware without the permission of the designers.
I hope you will enjoy these models.
Klaus Nowak (aka klnowak in Sim Outhouse)
Oktober 2019
klnowak@web.de
