Shipbucket

Hey Sumeragi,

With the turrets it is not the turret that needs to be the correct size for an upgrade just the barbette. The barbette needs to be big enough to contain the upsized weapons handling areas, hoists etc.

I did not draw the bridge I used which is why I credit Jabba. The bridge comes from his nearly finished HMS Nelson.

If you drew the hull yourself you have made a good job of it, well done.

The 4.5" guns on Matchless are my design and were designed for the period 1932-42.

Barbette: I based the size on 28 cm, so shouldn't be too big an issue.
Bridge: I'll just credit both of you, since the specific modifications were yours.
Hull: Thanks.
4.5" guns: Perfect, thanks for the basic form. I'll make them bigger to fit the size I had in mind for the turrets.

Might take some time to actually do the changes, currently busy with WoT and WoWS research and trying to design a 90,000 ton battleship.

"not the turret that needs to be the correct size for an upgrade just the barbette"
There is a sad story which was nearly a tragedy for the USN. The designers of the turrets for Iowa worked on the wrong 16in gun, and the intended longer gun nearly didn't fit. A gun with a longer barrel may be balanced with a greater length in the turret, or a balance weight added (KGV). You also need to consider recoil, though figures are rarely available. Navweaps gives 38in for Alaska's 12" and 48in for the USN 14" and 16in; 45in for KGV's 14". That doesn't seem a big difference, but turrets, being heavily armoured, would not be designed with space to spare.

The near tragedy with the Iowa resulted in the best guns ever imagined for a battleship. She was always deisgned for a 50 caliber gun, but someone thought she would use the Mk 2 guns intended for the SoDak/Lexington, but two different bureaus worked with two barbette sizes. The Mk 2 did not fit the smaller barbette, and redesigneing the ship for a larger barbette was too difficult because of weight The result was a new gun. Sometimes good things come from tragedies. But I digress.

Just to make sure, is it this?

This one:

Got any developmental history behind it? Would be interested in including some into the writing.

It is a turret version of the 4.5" BD mounting. The major change with these guns was the going back to separate powder/shell format rather than the combined ammunition supplied for the original BD mountings. The BD mountings entered service in 1938, the turret version in 1940 in time to provide the armament of the LM Class destroyers (that would be the real life timeline - for AU purposes I have the BD mounting in service from 1934 so that I can start rebuilding the old UK BB's a bit earlier).

For additional data:
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_45-45_mk1.htm

The real-life armament of the L,M destroyers (apart from four Ls with 4x2 4"HA) was the 62pdr 4.7" L50 in the MkXX weatherproof gunhouse (not turret, there was no rotating ammunition feed below deck) which gave an elevation of 50 degrees. These look very like the mounts depicted above on Musketeer.
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_47-50_mk11.htm
The turret version of the 4.5" BD (elevation 80 degrees)was as shown on Matchless 1957 above, but was fitted to the Battle class. Matchless never had them.

Hmmm..... I think I'll just stick to what I have. My mount is basically a differently shaped 5"/38 Mark 12 Mark 28 twin mount, nothing particularly advanced. Don't really see any particular reason to stick with 4.5" when it has no relationship to my 12.5 cm gun.