Shipbucket

I will drop on you a Great Wall o' Text later this evening regarding all sorts of feasibility and design issues, because I think you'll listen and I'd like to see the result.

Thank you, I will do my best to amend the ship.

That seems likely to happen not-today. Fourteen hours working today and not done yet...

very well, I shall wait.

Not adding anything useful but...I guess I've been on Shipbucket for too long when that thing starts to look positively tiny.

I like this!

Though I'm far from a fan of modernized/modern battleships.

Well!

(Part 1 of xxx?)

This may come out pretty stream-of-conscious-y. We'll see.

Let's first talk purpose. Why do we have this? You mentioned shore bombardment and fleet command. Area air defense and at least self-defense ASW can be assumed. These tasks can be amply handled by, assuming you're demanding what look like about 18" guns, a Yamato and (to be super extravagant) a CGX-of-doom. Why put it all in one hull? This cramming will have serious issues. We'll talk about that. But let's say that it has to be all in one hull... because.

So, okay, we've dipped our first toe into the waters of the less-than-sane. That's okay. These can be fun. But let's sink deeper and deeper into the depths only when necessary, and only upon great reflection. One wouldn't want to drown.

Let's say we need a battleship-class gun armament, give or take. Well, we're worried about shore bombardment. Even if there were other modern battleships around, no electronics could ever reasonably be armored against more than splinter damage. We presumably need big guns for range and for large HE shells. How big is big, in this case? In WW2, the Nazi 240mm gun was renowned for being a one-hit kill against any target extant. Smaller guns mean more shells and better gun tube life (or a smaller ship, or more guns, or what have you). They also mean less blast impingement on the rest of the ship, and superior ammunition handling. Note blast is potentially a real killer; I have heard that it prevented the fitting of Sea Sparrow aboard the BBs in the 1980s. Whether or not this is true, I've seen it repeated enough that people that know more than I do think it's at least plausible. Meanwhile we don't want to go the route of WW2-like ammunition handling. The crews required were immense, and people cost a shit-ton of money. I think it's hard to justify anything in excess of 10-12", but I have seen it mused that larger shell diameter can be useful to pack in eg. more smart submunitions and such. So, fine, 18" or thereabouts.

As an aside, why not something like VGAS? This would dramatically reduce ship impact, cut gun crews to almost nothing, simplify and improve armoring (if you care about that sort of thing), and give the option for all sorts of extravagantly silly blast mitigation systems. Well, maybe we need direct fire for some damned reason. I'm starting to feel a little woozy.

How many gun tubes do we need? Marines care more about the number of independent turrets than they do about the number of barrels, IIRC. You can only lay fire on one target at a time per turret. Assuming modern additives can improve gun tube life sufficiently, a few twin turrets might be just fine. This would probably simplify ammo supply over a triple. Rate of fire isn't really important, at least not compared to staying power (which means total number of rounds in this case). We'd also like all turrets to be well forward. We might need organic aerial spotting, and helos don't mix well with big guns. For that matter, we might shift all of the VLS aft (let me know when this starts sounding familiar). So maybe something like Nelson/Rodney, with twin turrets so we can push A turret as far forward as possible. We lose 360deg field of fire, but that sort of sucked already (no way we can fire much past 90deg from the turret nominal direction). And you don't care about that for shore bombardment anyway. So, uh, maybe there are archipelagos around that we might need to land on (so we need 360deg). And, uh, maybe we did care about that armoring; a triple turret is the closest to square and is so is apparently the most efficient weight-wise.

I think even Colosseum would concede that we've already made a lot of concessions in the pursuit of elan. But oh, we've barely just begun. We haven't justified why the BBGMN needs Fleet speed (rather than 'phib), or why we couldn't offload all of those self-defense systems to a nearby destroyer squadron (works for a carrier, after all), etc etc. But fuck it! Enough paragraphs.

Note that if it were up to me, we'd be talking about three twin 240mm turrets forward, B superfiring over A and C. I think. With an aft Iowa-refit configuration, and all radars shoved as far aft as we can manage to help with blast. Nuclear is probably reasonable, as I can shamelessly use the ski-jumps to justify high speed.

Part 1 concludes. Typing continues.

(Part 2 of 3?)

So. We've handwaved the need for a big missile battleship, with area-AAW capability and probably some aircraft. Let's move on to some general design considerations.

• Oh, she BIG. 1170ft LWL, or thereabouts. Compare to the E-class at 1250ft or so.
• Oh, she WET. And plausibly broken in two. Only about a 70ft deep hull girder (vs. 54ft for the much smaller Iowa, and something like 110ft for the E-class). This isn't so good and it could easily be so much better (I'm looking at you, weird aft cut-down and cutouts). Only 20ft or so of stern freeboard at full load, compared with about 25ft on the much smaller Forrestal or 50ft for the E-class (at the bow, 50ft is probably acceptable). Draft-wise, I see about 41ft to the top of the boot topping. This is probably reasonable. All three of these have detail implications we'll visit later. I do wonder about beam...?
• That's a lot of draft; enough that lots of ports are already inaccessible. This means NO MORE SHIT ON THE KEEL. Scrub it all away... all of it. Cold-water intakes can go elsewhere. We want keep depth and navigational draft to be equal.
• How fast? Regrettably, I have never and probably will never get around to getting Springsharp happy. I'd love to know what speed someone thinks this beastie could achieve on, say, 9:1 length to beam and 300,000shp. Ignore dangers of cavitation; we have deeper screws than Springsharp expects. Anyway, this is a big damned boat and two Nimitz-scale reactors might not get us all that far. If she can't run with the Fleet, then there's no point in dramatically outrunning the 'phibs. This means that (per the traditional USN metrics) 30.01 knots is good, and 25 knots is good, but there's no useful difference between 26 and 27. By the way, I am even more highly uneducated in the ways of the engineers outside the US Navy, so that's what you're going to get, at least in terms of my mental doctrine.
• There's not going to be much point in a CONAS plant, at least one that's less than monstrous. Mixed plants really suck for training, spares, crew size, and a host of other things. All of the disadvantages, few of the advantages. I have my own dubiously fair biases against CODAG, but this is even worse.
• On a ship of this scale, I might argue that a multiplicity of systems loses some luster. One can afford to throw a little extra tonnage at, say, a 100mm gun instead of a 76mm. Likewise, a 9m and a 7m RHIB (instead of 2x9) would feel a little silly. Streamline your spare parts problems!
• On the other hand, some redundancy can be justified. My pet example is a trainable phased array to make up for the loss (to damage or maintenance) of one of the fixed arrays. The infrastructure is there already, the crew and spares are there already, and damnit we're building a five billion dollar 200,000 ton deathwagon and we don't want to lose it to a cheap AShM shot because somebody spilled coffee on a control circuit.
• You have no real UNREP provisions. Like, at all. You want those.
• Also, life rafts. So everyone does not die.

Part 2 concludes. On to the details.

(Part 3 of 3)

KEY

• 1. Two CIWS types? NO. BAD. NO BISCUIT. We can MAYBE justify something loony like Kashtan/Kortik/whatever. Note that I do not favor these bow mounts at all. I do not think they would survive in service. Iowa had 20mm here, but a crew-served 20mm is... not very fragile. Not compared to these suckers.
• 2. Tons of crew-served machine guns because...?
• 3. This is a lousy spot for satcom, as above.
• 4. Anchor size is probably not going to cut it. I'd think strongly about a submerged installation to cut down on spray. No reason to be wetter than we have to, especially if you persist in putting expensive and delicate things on the bow.
• 5. Sonar dome should be: rubber if possible, definitely no lower than the keel, and as huge as you can justify. This is the only one you get, unless you want retractable MF/HF units (which is totally doable). But seriously, money is no object; SQS-53 should be the absolute minimum size. Strongly consider additional fixed arrays aft of the dome proper, as seen on Udaloy and some Burke Flight III proposals from the late 1980s.
• 6. These little guys are cute as a button! They may, may, turn the ship around in less than a week. Massively enlarge or delete. I favor the latter; the flow noise off of these will be considerable, and that will be bad for sonar performance. As for the dome present here, remove. More draft is bad.
• 7. You've got an immense ship. Fin stabilizers are not likely to be necessary; in any event, these are too small to matter worth a damn. If you insist on keeping them, be aware that their rotation shafts (at least in Russian service) penetrate far into the ship. They cannot be abeam major caliber turrets like this. Consider also retractable units as seen on many cruise ships (although the cutout for these would be awful for TDS reasons).
• 8-10. Relocate or delete. I know you made mention of a keel reinforcement. If you need to reinforce your keel outside the shell of the ship, U R DOIN IT RONG. Design the hull properly and it'll be stronger and better anyway. Besides, with modern box beam construction, I am suspicious that the actual keel proper is more useful as an assembly jig than as some sort of absolute Strength Member o' Doom.
• 11. Your screws protrude below the bottom of the keel (or they will after you remove all that other crap!). This can be a very expensive mistake. Try as hard as possible to make the spendy and fragile things be above the cheap and strong things.
• 12. This thing is huuuuuge and mechanically probably dubious. Shamelessly steal the overall design of the E-class rudder (or even the Iowa).
• 13. Well deck? Too small to fit a landing craft of consequence; big enough to have nasty structural effects. If you want small landing craft, this is why God invented davits. Besides, you probably want a towed array here, and Nixie or equivalent. If you want large-caliber ASW torpedos (of course you do!!), they should probably fire right out the stern.
• 14. The shit? Cranes and helos are a bad mix. Remove this and the machine gun. The anchor is... eh. I don't think I'd keep it, but your mileage may vary.
• 15. NO. NO HULL CUTOUTS. BAD. You have enough damned machine guns, and a stupid RHIB can go anywhere.
• 16. This stupid little drop-down in deck height is lousy for structural strength, and it's not like you really really need the clearance. It's also bad for freeboard, and this helo hangar is really quite a bit smaller than is appropriate. Take a page from the WW2 USN cruisers (and, for that matter, Kirov). Go with a fantail hangar. It'll be bigger, and dryer overall (because the deck will be higher). It will also save centerline length, which is a lot longer than ideal (you can't transit even the new Panama locks, for instance). Or, maybe better, have the same length and many more aircraft. In the CVS era, the USN considered a group of five helos equivalent to having one aloft constantly. This is nice for ASW, for ASuW (for over-the-horizon targeting), and for surface bombardment. Ten helos would be magnificent; compare to Moskva, which had (IIRC) hangar space for 14 in a quite large below-decks hangar. You maybe need another deck level for something this <strike>absurd</strike> glorious, but hey you needed more freeboard anyway.
• 17. Here's where I get a little dubious systems-wise. I think that all of the ASuW weapons at right can fit in a 650mm tube, although I am not totally sure. Maybe even 533mm? Either way, the AAW systems... eiugh, weird mix. S-300 (SA-N-6) takes a 1m-diameter tube. SA-N-12 should be removed immediately as redundant and arguably shitty. SA-N-9 has its own VLS that should be used. Why the shit is Sea Sparrow here? And that last one... SA-N-4? Whatever, get rid of it. If you want to be Soviet, go with Kashtan/Kortik/whatever for CIWS, SA-N-9 (middle green one) for point defense, and S-300 and 9M96E2 for everything else. If I had maybe hypothetically been pondering a giant stupid Soviet battlewagon, I'd have been planning on a 1.2m-or-so common VLS that could support S-300, quadpack Klub/Onix/etc, and nine-pack 9M96(E2).
• 17. You have no ASW Klub. Fix this. You want it. The nose is huge and red on Golly's parts sheet.
• 18. Oh, yes, this. Well, the optical rangefinders can probably be removed. You'll want one or two aboard, but you want them high up so they can sight on distant land targets. The radar is 2D, which isn't really necessary. You don't care about target height; target is on the water (if it's visible by radar at all). You want a radar here that looks like a standard surface search set -- low and wiiiiide. This equates to a vertical fan beam, broad in elevation but very precise in bearing.
• 18. It really really would make life fantastically easier if we deleted this turret entirely, or moved it forward. See previous post.
• 19. Not sure what you wanted here. I'd rather remove this portion of hull entirely; you may wish to fit more 130mm.
• 20. Tons of medium-caliber is much more justifiable than you might think; the vast majority of US shore-bombardment fire in WW2, even from battleships, was 5/38. Good enough for most targets, tons of turrets, great ROF, and it doesn't wear out barrels like large-caliber fire does. Although if I were you, I'd shift to the over-under twin 152/155mm that has been bandied about. The AAW value of 130mm isn't that great compared to the vast range/payload advantage afforded by 155mm.
• 21. Shit if I know what these are for. Delete. We'll talk about main battery fire control later. Maybe replace with a trainable #22?
• 22. I'm envisioning these as a S-300-appropriate active phased array. This means THESE ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS ON THE DAMNED BOAT. They must be placed with appropriate respect. This means move them higher, for one thing. Even big ships pitch, and the radar array can't direct a beam through the shell of the ship. We must see the horizon at all times, ship motion be damned. Phased arrays are assumed to be X/C band, so not super great for search.
• 23. Lots of crap, surmounted by what looks to be a very nice rendering of an out-of-date AU 2D/3D radar like early Sovremennys had. Probably S-band. Update to planar array like later Fregat. S-band is still useful for high resolution search. If you want to go real crazy, replace it with Big Bird. Raise this entire section if possible (along with those phased arrays!). A small optical rangefinder (say 20ft base) would be cute here.
• 24. I'm not fond of the ship's boats situation. Four or six RHIB should be enough for anyone. If you want to go big, fit a few proper LCVP or something in davits. Inchon was fitted with two LCVP late in the design process; this was considered worthwhile on a helicarrier.
• 25. As previously discussed, it would take a huge steam plant to be worthwhile on a nuke boat. This is Kirov-size and ergo something like 40,000shp. Profoundly not worthwhile. Delete. Below this is a nice place to have refueling access for what should be one of your two reactors. Keep this nice big open section. We'll need another one towards the bow...
• 25. The ECM features in this region are... unexciting. Shamelessly <strike>steal</strike> borrow the ECM present aboard the recent major Russian units. You will want them to stand proud of the surrounding superstructure, so that you do not irradiate the crap out of anybody nearby.
• 26. More gunk, surmounted by something like a Top Pair radar. L-band. This is good; L-band is excellent for search. However, replace this with the flat-face array of Kerch, and return to a nice 2D fan beam antenna on the back of the array. 2D is pretty much always better for search than 3D. I also spy SA-N-9 directors, of the obsolete drawing. I think you can justify use of the phased arrays for all major/medium SAM tracking and illumination. If you'd like to have discrete SA-N-9 directors, you want four of them. Put them lower; this system has rather low range and so it's not worth spending high-up real estate on the directors. Up here, you want some good surface search, and you probably want one major (20ft baseline at least) optical rangefinder. If your AU nation (??) has any major bridges, now is the time to consider them. Otherwise, raise those minor masts to infinity and beyond. You want awesome horizons for, especially, ESM, TACAN and other comms.
• 27. USN has been using SPY-1 for AAW gunlaying since the late 1970s. You really don't need these anymore. However, a few Positiv short-range air/surface search sets would be nice (big white dome associated with Kashtan/Kortik). Keep the dome, even though recent marks don't use it, because domes are awesome.
• 28. Since you are getting rid of this, this might be a good spot for that main optical rangefinder/main battery director and/or another trainable phased array. The fixed phased arrays below this could, again, be moved up a deck level at least.
• 29. Though you may rightly want an expansive fleet command space, the four-star aboard doesn't give a damn about a clear roof over his head. Move this aft into the main superstructure. This is structurally superior and dramatically improves the phased array field of view. Also, less cancer for the admiral. He'll like that. Meanwhile, you now have your second major nuclear refueling access.
• 29. I saw a few life rafts way way back on the fantail, and I haven't seen any since... I hope you don't plan on sinking.
• 30. This VLS, I think, will be forced to be much narrower than you expect. This sucks; it's already killing you for blast reasons, but it's also hacking a huge huge hole in the upper strength deck. You want VLS holes to be relatively square for this reason, I suspect. Try to shift to as few VLS types as possible, as aft: I'd personally prefer a new-designed 1.2ish-meter major VLS and the SA-N-9 minor type. Aft VLS are probably closer to Y turret than would work in practice, now that I think about it.
• 31. This, above. What is this? Other than a feature you borrowed from Kirov. Also, those rivets. They look nice and fun, but not when they're only on the bow...

To be clear, I am not an expert in this. I merely like to read Friedman. If you are unsure or disagree on a point, ask RP1. He is an expert.

I reeeeeeeeeaaaaly appricieate all of the time you have put forward into you posts erik_t, I can see that you when to town on this design. However I would like to say a few things, first off, I will create a version that goes by the designs as you suggested, I like everything that you said. however some things must be mentioned. First off, I located a plausible location for construction in Northern Columbia. The Other CIWS are Missle based and meant for extremely close aircraft and to have a slightly greater range than the 30mm. The main guns are smoothbore 16s 3 each with the idea of sabowing the hell out of anything that can be thrown. The Ship Is the product of a Clustering of Central American and Northern South American countries that have some tech available and have to kit bash the rest, essentially a product of the rising 3rd world. The purpose of a multi rolled ship shush as this is to make up for the lack of slipways necessary to meet demand, thus the ship must fill the roles of those which are not completed back at home. This ship is big, yes it could have been smaller, but so could the Nimitz class. The main threat this ship would be facing in the AU would be marginal air superiority and other surface combatants that are of similar strength. Be noted that this ship even when finished for the AU will have a few weaknesses, this is after the "bad guy" so I have to kill it off somehow (virginai class).