Shipbucket

Now for something completely different.

HMS Naiad was a one off Anti-aircraft cruiser built utilising the new fully automatic 4"/54cal twin mounting. The ship was made big enough to mount 10 twin mountings with 300 rpg. The Naiad was 593 x66 feet in size, with an 80,000shp power plant to move the ship at 32 knots. Completed in February 1945 the Naiad was transferred to the British Pacific Fleet, where its sheer anti-aircraft firepower would be second to none. In service it was found that the barrel life was short when the new weapons were fired at fully automatic for more than 10 minutes at a time. With the advent of the Kamikaze attacks starting at dawn and continuing throughout the day, the 4" guns were being fired at a greater rate than the guns were designed for. By the end of its first month long deployment the Naiad had to be withdrawn for a set of new barrels, the ship had been firing out of smoothbores for its last few days. At 20 rounds per minute, it only took 15 minutes of continuous fire to empty the magazines. Resupply of 4" ammunition was a daily event when in contact with Japanese forces.

I like and the 4" mount would offer very good possibilities post war for frigates (even up to the type 12/Leander's)

A nice looking ship and a nice turret too, I agree an auto 4in might well have been an ideal answer, especially for arming postwar frigates and such.

Re: FIDO etc. I wouldn't be too worried about the XXI outrunning the torpedo, with a fast destroyer and decent sonar it would be possible to aim the splash-point ahead of the target or quite close, you just need an acoustic homer that goes live quick enough. Maybe the magnetic fuse would help here too?
I like JSBs launcher, I think you would need some elevating mechanism to give more ballistic arcs.

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Interwar RN Capital Ships
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The turrets are from BC Renown, I agree they look good. The auto 4" would have been good for all of the conversions to 'fast' frigates in place of the manual twin 4" that was used.

With JSB's mounting, it could be an amalgamation between my launcher which does have elevation capabilities and his fixed mounting and weapon.

Nice work! I like that implementation of the Mk.24-based WWII proto-ASROC.

Interesting Badge Krakatoa

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I like the conversion, a navy with 4" and 6" split would make an interesting post war set-up with lots of FFs with 4 twins (then maybe 4" singles like Chile or France) and a few cruisers/DDGs with 6" triples (town/crown developments) then twins (tiger style and finally maybe a single for the later DDGs ?)

(As to my luncher I was assuming it could go to 45deg ? its based on the URP one could that could elevate or is it just fixed at 45ish deg ?)

Yes, that looks good. A useful conversion, you could even stick some fixed Bidder ASW torpedo tubes on too just for more torpedo options.
Right now with the ASW rocket torpedo and twin Squid it looks a powerful combo and the twin 4in can deal with aircraft and surface targets nearby threatening the ship.

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Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

Any questions about ahead thrown torpedoes have to have the following answers.

a. Do the British have the right kind of rocket motors? You cannot gunpowder launch an electric torpedo of the era. You will wreck the battery cells and set off the warhead (inertia hammer, hit to kill fusing). In other words you blow yourself up. The United States found that out the hard way. The RAT had a nasty tendency to explode in the launch rack.

b. Do the British have the right kind of torpedo? The FIDO was slow, with a 6000 meter run endurance and it was designed for PARACHUTE air drop. CUTIE which was its submarine torpedo tube launched counterpart was designed to home in on a charging Japanese destroyer too dumb to turn and run.

c. Given A and B and an era limited 2500 meters active detection range for sonars, how about a British copy of the German G7e designed to home in on the propeller noise of the German U-boat using the FIDO's circular descent hunting logic and its shadow noise acoustic seeker? A heavyweight torpedo so designed would make sense as it would have the 10,000 meter run of the German weapon and it would have an ASW restricted acoustic seeker (prevent own sinking by putting a surface ceiling in the search logic). It would of course be tube launched by compressed air from a torpedo tube... safely. It would get to the target just as fast as RAT and it would not need to address issues A and B at all?

Just to finish on the RAP torpedo idea, concensus is it would not work with the available resources. That is fine. On with the next project.


As a follow on to the big 12x15" fast battleships. Completed in 1944-45 equivalent to the US Iowa class, The Vanguard was the last of the British WW2 battleships and to keep it in commission would require the ships conversion to more modern equipment. Missiles.

I have used NIGS as being the next generation of missile system after Sea Slug. It is a big missile and would require a large ship to mount the weapon systems. Required is something to locate the target(s), process the information, then take the appropriate action.

To locate the targets I use the Type 984 3D system with one mounting fore and aft to give 360 degree coverage.

To process the information a new ADAWS system is fitted into the bridge structure.

The appropriate action is the armament. The NIGS missiles are mounted at the front of the old 15" barbettes. The barbettes themselves are kept, but all of the shell handling equipment is removed. In its place is fitted a new vertical rotary loading system. The different missile loads are fitted in pairs into the rotary loader which then spins the correct load into position under the launcher where a ram system then pushes the missile up out of its loading tube till it is engaged on the launching arm. The missile is launched at which time it comes under control of the guidance system, which guides it to the target. Allied with the NIGS system is the short ranged SuperCat missiles. On one version the ship retains the forward 15" which are linked to a radar control system for increased accuracy. Two last ditch gun types are retained. The twin auto 4"/54 is a dual purpose weapon with high rate of fire (20+ rpm). Lastly is the four 20mm high speed weapons for use on light craft or trying to hit missiles coming for the ship that have evaded all the other defensive measures.




I have no idea whether all the systems match as a lot of them were never completed so no systems were ever put in place to work together. This is definitely an AU product so be kind to it.