Ideal battleship design

[dunmunro]

... South Dakota´s upper deck was not capable to de fuze, in time, incoming ordnance that will hit and penetrate it´s armor deck.

I read this quickly and just passed on. After a couple more posts on it I'm confused about what our point is.
From what I remember most BB caliber AP rounds have a base detonating fuse so essentially no armor is likely to "de fuze" such a round that will penetrate otherwise. From what I recall SoDak's upper deck was designed to initiate the fuse of AP bombs. So couldn't this critique be applied to any battleship? Just what particulars are you considering here?

I suspect that Karl is referring to decapping, not defusing.

[Legend]

How's this for ideal battleship? Not exactly WWII vintage but still...

[Karl Heidenreich]

Hey Legend, nice ship!

Have you seen the Dreadnought Era threads? Look for the British Super Battleships and Battlecruisers!

[Legend]

Sorry... the images over there aren't working, for me atleast. I wrote mine up in CAD Classic and illustrated it in Word Paint. Crappy program I know but it did the job. Strapped 12x16in guns, 2xPhalanx CIWS, 2xRAM CIWS, 12x76mm Otobreda DP, and a ton of VLS tubes... making it nuclear powered and taking the stacks off gave allot of room for the helicopter pad and VLS tubes.

[boredatwork]

To understand my own "ideal" battleship a brief preface to the conditions that spawned it:

When I was a kid I made my own Naval war game based on AH's War At Sea. Not content with the limitations of "history" (too few BBs built!) I set it within a good/evil fantasy world and drew my own ship counters for two massive fleets. (Eventually numbering ~6000 hand drawn BBs, BCs, and CVs + 2200 photocopies at it's peak.) My first ships were quasi historical, being influenced by styles but not actually based on any specific ship (in this way my Bismarck class was 12 strong, with German and british names and resembling a dumpy Montana!). In time as the quality of my drawing and knowledge improved I began to add real ships and canon-ize my designs into a coherent development narrative. Additional designs were added for variety and to fill the evolution "gaps" to create a complete range of armament/armor/speed options for each historical "style." (ex 14", 15", 16", and 18" British looking ships classes with speeds ranging from 21-33 knots).

In the context of the game, I wanted to add something to the good side that would help them defeat hordes of poorly designed but mass produced ships on the evil side. Extremely large "Super BBs" not appealing to me, I decided what I wanted was a BB with a Star Trek like cloaking device that could close to short range before pummeling a surprised opponent with a hail of devasting fire.

However a cloaking device would be too much of a stretch for WW2 technology, even for my ficticious setting. It was while looking at a book on modern warships that the solution struck me - I loved the sleek look of the then yet to be built American Arleigh Burke destroyers - why not make a similar BB with low observable technology which would just fit my fantasy setting?

Thus was born a series of classes of all sizes that represented no more than 10% of the fleet but formed an elite spearhead.

avalon.jpg (36.94 KiB) Viewed 2228 times

Although far from the largest or most powerful ship in the fleet the Avalon class BCHs (Battle Cruiser, Heavy (ie fully armored)) were my favorite and when I purged the fleets in attempt to bring the numbers down to more remotely believable numbers she was the only stealth class that survived, and was upgraded from the original 14" armament to 15" to make her the pinnacle of Gun armed capital ship design.

Standard Displacement: ~55,000
Main Armament: 4x3x15"/50
Secondary Armament: 10x2x5.25"dp (in better designed mountings!)
AA Armament: 16 Quad Bofors, 8 Twin Bofors, 50 Oerkilons
Radar: 4 Phased Array radars with perfomance slightly better than the best WW2 air search sets.
Armor: AoN, deep 14" Belt inclined at 15 degrees, 5-6 inch deck
Aircraft: Up to 6 early helicopters for gunfire and ASW spotting
Engines: 8 Boilers, 4 Turbines, 212,000 SHP + 4-8 early gas turbines 80,000SHP - 4 shafts - either electric or preferably hydraulic if practical
Speed: 36knots Max
Range: 20,000 nm @ 20 knots
Missiles: Although illustrated with a missile armament generally I avoid emphasizing developments which could obsolete the big gun. In this case the missiles involved are short range (15k) radio (or wire) guided weapons designed to provide a one shot supplement to the first surprise blow to disable enemy FC, light ships, exposed command personel, etc.

Long after abandoning the game and the fleets I used the concept for a college 3D modelling project...

[Karl Heidenreich]

Hey boreatwork;

It´s really nice, and it also looks like much to the 1921 British concepts, specially the Battlecruisers. Your 3D looks awesome!

[Legend]

That is SWEET! What program was used in the making?

[boredatwork]

Thanks=)

I used 3D Studio Max v4 - If you've used a CAD program it's similar in concept, though orientated more to the entertainment industry.

These are actually work in progress renders - you might have noticed for example that 3 out of 4 main turrets, all of the secondary turrets, and the forward superstructure are missing their textures - I've lost the final pics I handed in to be marked and have long since lost access to my "borrowed" version of the program to re-render my files.

It was also the largest (and, for over a decade now, last) of a series of models built out of Lego... >_>

[alecsandros]

Very fine work!

Great!

[Karl Heidenreich]

The "cutted" stern looks like that of HMS Vanguard. Nice detail.

[Legend]

Yes, the Transom Stern... very similar to the Nimitz Class hull... I always wondered the possibilities of designing a BB (Montana Armament) inside the hull of the Nimitz Class...

[Karl Heidenreich]

Hey, Legend. Somewhere in this forum is an old thread regading even the possibility of a nuclear powered BB.

[RF]

Somewhere along the line you could have turned those triple turrets into quads, or if you follow the Kaisers' thinking on slightly smaller calibre guns, quintuple turrets......

[Karl Heidenreich]

Quads are not that good idea, specially with the flash tight mechanisms.

[neil hilton]

Warship design is similar to tank design, there are 3 main criteria designers consider. Speed, protection and firepower. The Washington Treaty forced designers to compromise their fantasies in one or two of these categories in favour of the third. Or accept a balanced design that was slightly inferior in all 3 categories. Thus the Tiger tank, big gun and thick armour but slow and heavy. Also the T34 being the well balanced option.
From this I would say that the KGVs emphasised protection at the cost of the other 2 stats and the NCs and SDs partially emphasised firepower and speed at the cost of protection. The Rodney class also emphasised firepower but went with protection and cut back on the speed.

If I could design my fantasy mid ww2 BB I would base it on an enlarged Vanguard hull, probably around 52 to 55000 tons. Very good seakeeping and stability.
4 x triple 15" 55cal main armament. More ammo stowage compared to 16" equivalent thus longer sustained fire. More barrels equals more chances to hit, even with radar FC more shells in the air is better.
I would try to go with two sets of steam turbines COSOS. one set for economical speed 18kts and one set for high performance 32-33kts. (Like what most navies did with their post war designs).
15" belt armour and bulkheads, 7" deck armour, 16" barbettes and turrets.
2 x triple 6" mk23 secondaries per side (those installed on the Southampton class)
36 x twin40mm bofors per side and 12 x 20mm Oerlikens per side.

How does that sound?