Shipbucket

I love this AU! It's almost the same as reading Jane's Fighting Ships. Well done my friend

In saying that, the quality of all the AU's on this forum is nothing short of outstanding.

_________________
There is no "I" in TEAM but there is a ME


______________________
Current Worklist:
Redrawing my entire AU after a long absence from Shipbucket

Glad you like it.Actully I try to write some background history of everything I post here.

When the Elli Class cruisers were converted to Guided Missile Cruisers, they received several structure refits, due to their fatigue from the WW2 war and again in 1968-69. In early 1970's the Royal Hellenic Navy was needed a new CG with ASW helicopter facilities and AAW capability. So, they ask Ministry of Defence and Foreign Affairs to fund designing of 2 new ships. These were an enlarged Andrea Doria Class helicopter cruiser and revaeled in Decenber 1973. The Miltiades Class CGH (here this designation appeared for the first time) was to had 2 ships,built at Neorion Shipyard were also the pre war cruiser classes Alexander the Great and Nikiforos Fokas built. The design was top heavy and had several flaws (among them the recycling of the old Mk4 Terrier launcher from the Elli Class).

Propulsion was shared with the Kimons, an 600psi variant of the pre-war METKA M40 Steam Turbine, which was designed for cruisers in 1934. Post war variant M40-II (Kimon Class) had full electronic monitoring (based on that of French Suffren class) and reduced fuel consumption about 30% from its pre-war ancestor, giving good range.An interim variant,the M40-IA/B at 600psi was used to Hellas family ocean liners. (These three near sistership liners designed and built by Neorion Shipyard from 1958 to 1969, of which only the last one survives).

But the destiny of the Miltiades was to remain in paper. Just after the design was approved for construction the Cyprus War started and building delayed, so the old cruisers were send in East Meditteranean in several missions. The war experience shown that a different ship was needed for East meditteranean, so the Miltiades was cancelled finally in May 1975. But the experience from her design passed to the highly succesfull Lysandros and Orion Classes, both powered by gas turbines instead of steam.


screenshot

In previous page I refer to the reduction of oil consumption in Hellenic Kingdom.The program started in 1973 with some assistance from European Economic Community (no comments for that, still to decide some matters).

1) Elimination of diesel consumption for producing electric power (replaced by renewable energy resources)
2) Cogeneration of energy and heat in industry (everywhere it is possible)
3) Improving energy efficiency of local industrial plants
4) Research for alternative fuels (includes biomass and bio gas also)
5) Improving and expansion of public transport service
6) Improving fuel quality
7) Solar heating (buildings and water)
8) Green building
9) Research in Renewable Energy Sources

Today Hellenic Kingdom produces about 30% of its electricity from renewable energy sources, there are even several "green" small islands in Aegean and Ionian Sea. Rest electricity in Hellenic Kingdom is produced by lignite thermoelectric stations (about 40%), which belong to Hellenic State Electric Company and they have been improved significantly through the years for efficiency and reducing environmental effect by the R&D of State Electric Company (indigenous lignite solar powered drying systems, filters and a biologic method for removing sulfur from lignite), some with university cooperation and other alone. METKA has also develop special designed lignite boilers for thermoelectric stations. About 20% of electricity is produced by natural gas (both indigenous and imported), 8% from hydroelectric plants and a 2% from biomass/bio gas. Another measure was to link all islands to Hellenic State Electric Company network, to provide electricity even in failure of local energy producing systems. Also some lignite thermoelectric stations are kept in reserve and not dismantled. The Faliro Steam-Electric Plant is now a museum plant (build in 1903 by Thomson-Houston and was among the first such stations in Hellenic Kingdom) after its closure in 1971. The Faliro Museum Electric Station opened in 1980 and is visited by several thousand visitors annually, including schools.

Hydroelectric Plants are not new project, several of the 200 small plants actually build in midwar period for Hellenic Railways Electrification Project together with three lignite thermoelectric stations (all closed now). First primitive solar cells based on PbS appeared in 1937 together with first electronics. But the first solar cell plant installed in Crete in 1975 and first solar thermal power plant in 1978 (Sterling), followed by other under a joint Israeli-Hellenic Project. Geothermal power was already used for many years for heating in Mineral Spa and in limited scale in agriculture since 1930's, but after 1973 use of renewable sources is gradually increasing with small, careful steps. In 1990 RES covered already 12% of Electricity Production, rising to 30% in 2012.

Something tells me that electricity bills in the Hellenic Kingdom must be horrible (considering price of "green" energy).

Miltiades cruiser looks impressive (even if bit top heavy) despite resized picture.

About two thrid of "green" energy belongs to private electric companies, while rest belong to the State Electric Company-which also has all green islands. The private electric companies in Hellenic Kingdom follow the US way-built the station and sell energy-not that we have in Europe,where you install the PV and sell energy to State Electric Company in a high price. Although kWh average price is higher that that in real Greece, is fairly low compared with some other European countries. And also those "special taxes" of real Greece on bills are not excist in Hellenic Kingdom due to much better tax collecting system and tax money use.

Another program in municipal scale was the "green pavement" (this is real, I heard it yesterday in news, and I also introduced it here), which first appeared in 2008 by one of the many municipals of Athens. In squares PV and all necessary electronics are installed built in the ground, replacing also the traditional cement pavement places with marble near by. The electricity produced from the photovoltaic cells is stored to batteries and used in night for the public lighting in the square. The whole system is locally developed and manufactured. More and more municipals install these systems every month.



Picture of Miltiades cruiser seems resized, but expand by clicking on it.
The design was indeed impressive, but as I said, had several flaws (obsolete missile lauchers,Mk4 & Mk25, latter without reloads, not very good ASW systems-only the Mk32 torpedo tubes, while most other electronics aboard were to be recycled from the Elli Class). The Miltiades was already obsolete in mid 1970's and it would be really expensive for RHN to modernise her .

AU VC10 type numbers in Hellenic and Cypriot Service (all these did not used in real world)

1156 Super VC10 for Olympic Airlines, 6 built
1159 Super VC10 for Cypriot Airways, 4 built. Had Autoland System
1169 Super VC10 for Olympic Airways, 4 built. Had large side door

1167 Super-200 VC10 for Olympic Airlines, 6 built. Had fin fuel tank and Conway Rco.43/2 engines
1168 Super-200 VC10 for Cypriot Airways, 2 built. Had fin fuel tank, Conway Rco.43/2 engines and Autoland System


I went for the fin fuel tank for two reasons:

-A wing tip tank stresses the structure of the aircraft, even a very strong built as the VC10 was.
-Fuel capacity is 19,300 imp.gal instead of 18,750 with the wingtip tanks.

Note: The 1167 is not proportionally correct,but I will do all my AU Vc10s in FD-scale.Also in SB scale.

This APC was based on US M39, of which several hundered were given to Hellenic Army during and mainly after Korean War. The modification was designed by an tank engineer officer of Hellenic Army and carried out by Army's own factoris in 1960's. It was the only vehicle of Hellenic Army used the twin 6-71,however several other HA vehicles were powered by two stroke GMC diesels.The M39H weight was about 20tn, but not very well protected for its bulk, noisy and cramped but served for about 20-25 years. Hellenic Army also received later M59 and M113, so the M39H was modified to serve other roles, among them ammunition carrier.Mortar carrier did not developed, since there were M59 mortar carriers and some M106 available in service in early 1970's.Experience from this modification passed to later concepts of Hellenic Army Base Factories.
The phase out of Widcat from front line started in early 1980's, due to Leonidas APC and tranfered to Islands Defense Force. Some may still survive, especially the Anti-Tank variant and the ammunition carrier.

Variants

-Basic APC (0.5" Browing HMG)
-Heavy Armed APC (20mm Oerlikon)
-Command Center
-Anti Tank (4 X SS-11),later modified to laser guided SS-11L
-Artillery Observation
-Ammunition Carrier (will be post later)-similar with the Taiwanese CM-24, powered by GM 8V-71T


screenshot on pc

Very nice APC.

are you planning to do the Leonidas or is it already done?