Shipbucket

Looking better.

I'm not sure three turrets fit forwards, the magazine space would be too small to feed six guns when they were designed only for two single 7.5in.
I'm still convinced at least one mount would be amidships to make use of the former beam position 7.5in magazines.

I'm still not convinced the DNC was on to a winner with this idea...

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English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

Putting a 5.25" turret in the center of the ship starts interfering with boiler and engine rooms. The beam 7.5's had their handling rooms right on the side of the ship. I think the 5.25" trunk would be too big to fit a pair of them on the beam. Not having an internal diagram makes it difficult to plot just where a twin 5.25" would fit. A better fit would be 2 twins forward and 3 aft with two singles on the beam. The only calibre to do that with is either the US 5" or UK 4.5". At that stage you are then off into AU/PD designs.

Best of all is just 5 twins, 2 fwd, 3 aft. But Smurf said it was a real contender so i'm still looking for a way to fit 6 twins without completely reworking the hull internals. If I could do that I would look at A/B P/Q X/Y in 3 lots of superfiring mounts with the middle set where I have the powered twin 20mm on drawing 2.



Having a read of Wiki:
Modernisation
In 1937–38 Effingham was given an extensive modernisation which radically changed her appearance. Her boilers were reduced from 12 to 10, as a result of which she was given a single vertical funnel in place of the two raked ones, and vertical masts. Her main armament was changed to nine 6" guns in single mountings, all along the centre line. The forwardmost three of these were superfiring, necessitating an extra superstructure deck built in front of the bridge, which was itself rebuilt. She also received four 4" A.A. guns in single mountings (in 1939 these were removed and replaced by two twin mountings), the torpedo tubes were removed, and she received a crane for handling aircraft, though the proposed aircraft catapult was not fitted and she never actually carried an aircraft. Similar modernisations had been planned for her sisters Frobisher and Hawkins, but were postponed and then cancelled due to the outbreak of the Second World War.

The questions I have from that are:
1. Would the fitting of the three 6" forward have needed an extra set of handling/magazine rooms or would the two 7.5" areas have fed all 3? Could that translate into allowing space for three turrets and magazines?
2. Would the removal of the two boilers (12 to 10) have created the space required for the beam turrets Hood would like to see?

Call me Leif Eriksen and give me a tutu, but BCRenowns comments are quite correct. The twin 4" was a much better DP gun than any of its larger cousins till the auto 4.5" came along.

So I tried replacing the single 6" with twin 4" and this is what I got.

I like the ultimate 'toothless terrors' the surface gunners would never agree but would be very useful as an escort.

Only exception was HMS Scylla of course, but she was armed with 4.5" twins

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Thank you Kim for the crest

"Never fear to try on something new. Remember that the Titanic was built by professionals, and the Ark by an amateur"

The Norwegian formere Norwegian football player or Leif Erkison the first European to set foot in the new world.

Krakatoa, she's probably not going to fly with the Admiralty but, you definitely have an AA cruiser. Perhaps though, you may want to consider using twin 4.7-inch DP mountings as used in the carrier Ark Royal. Nce work on the drawing, too.

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Keep well and keep drawing,

Monty

Thanks BCRenown,

I did think about the 4.5" UD mounts but they are almost 50% more than the weight of the twin 4" and would give me topweight problems again. The Admiralty would probably be more open to a 4.5" gun than a 4" on this big a cruiser. 4.5" UD 6304 lbs. 4" MkXVI 4495 lbs.

From the looks I could probably go, A, B, P, Q (beam), X, Y, Z. Losing the C and X 4" on the 4" Drawing. Replacing the 'Z' 6"/4x20mm area with the Z 4.5" UD. I will redo the drawing like that and see how it looks. I still have the 6x5.25" with beam mountings and inline 3x2 superfiring drawings to do as well.


I have just been having a look at gun weights, and it says for the single 6" from the CDE types is 15,428 pounds per mounting. That is a huge figure compared to the figures above for the 4.5"/4". Does anybody have different weights for the C/D/E class cruisers 6"? If that figure from Navweaps is correct then the 4.5" will have no trouble being fitted in like for like positions.

I like it. Plenty of dakka and being old ships anyway you don't need to spend too much to add some 4in twins and pom-poms.

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

The upgrade from 4" to 4.5" is very easy on a one-for-one basis using the weights listed above. The Admiralty might be more amenable to a cruiser with 4.5" instead of the previous 4" version. I have kept everything else the same as the 4" version above.





The last two drawings are the same with slightly different midships 5.25" placement. One has the beam turrets, the other superfiring turrets.