Shipbucket

Well I'm back.

I taken all of your suggestions to heart and employed them in this refit with a few execptions--the 6in gun looked rather tiny when compared to the 8in, but I've removed 4 turrets and retained the four on the main deck.

I've also opened one of the hatches in the hull to reveal life raft storage bays. You don’t think I’d let all of those poor lads drown now would ya?



The dorsal view fallows bellow.

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French Vice-admiral Louis-René-Madeleine Le Vassor de La Touche, comte de Tréville
The original spelling of my last name is: LaTouche.

The present ship is 1156ft over all--just a bit longer than the USS Gerald Ford Class Carrier.

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French Vice-admiral Louis-René-Madeleine Le Vassor de La Touche, comte de Tréville
The original spelling of my last name is: LaTouche.

those guns you are talking about 6in guns all I can see is an Oto Melara 76mm (3in) guns that you have maid to look like an twin gun.

there are probably things we could talk about, when it come to radar's and illumination. but you probably have them assigned to different things, that the real thing!

note: cutouts in the hull (like those hatches) are considered an weak point in the hull itself.

First: Your correct, there are no 6in guns. I stuck with the 8in and added the 76mm.

Secondly: Yes, I understand the hatched indentations are a weakness in the hull but I could not think of how to store that many rafts for quick dispersal and keep them protected at the same time. Do you have any suggestions?

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French Vice-admiral Louis-René-Madeleine Le Vassor de La Touche, comte de Tréville
The original spelling of my last name is: LaTouche.

nice drawing, but it's not yet entirely working.

I've taken a look at the montana, basically the only ship that can be seen as somewhat comparable. in steel, nothing much changed, so the relative dimensions should be about the same.

- the hull depth (keel to main deck) is about the same as that of the montana (16,61 meters vs 18 meters)
- the beam is 5 meters more then that of the montana
- the length is 36 meters more then the montana

montana:
L/B = 7,73
D/B = 0,47
L/D = 16,3

vermont:
L/B = 7,2
D/B = 0,39
L/D = 18,7

if we compare the two, we see that your ship is relatively a lot less wide. it is therefore possibly an faster design, but also has less resistance to the bending moment posed on it by the gun blast. it also has less stability. as you put a lot of heavy equipment on top, I would be worried about that.
we also see that your depth is relatively low. that means your ships hull will be weaker then that of the montana.

as the main guns are placed on about the same place (I think even more to the center of the ship, which is even worse) the relative dimensions above should be about the same. all the holes in the hull from VLS, RHIB bays etc make it even worse.

so far for general dimensions, I will return later on with more details.

EDIT: also, noting how 18in guns tended to be 40% heavier then their 16in counterparts, I think 20in tripple turrets will be an full 210% heavier then the main gun turrets on the montana. the ship needs to be far larger to accompany 12 20in guns. as we already concluded that such an ship would be unworkable to build and operate, there are 3 possibilities here: lower your caliber, lower your amount of turrets, or lower the amount of guns per turret.
if the guns are automatic and not manually loaded, as their WW2 counterparts were, then you are in for, I think, at least an additional 50% in weight. (compare the size of the 5in Mk 12 manual twin turret with the 5in Mk 42 automatic single, for example)

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
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I second ace in his thorough analysis, and would add the following: if this is intended to represent a battleship concept, then your cut-outs in her hull are very much flawed. A battleship was justified, not only because of her armament, but, perhaps even more, by her ability to withstand punishment, a fact repeatedly proven during the numerous engagements between battleships/-cruisers. So, my question is: where is your rationale for your design; I. E. not gave any discernible hull armor to be able to basically operate independently, if required? Those cut-outs effectively nullifies any kind of armor, since their very presence will create several vulnerable areas, and eventually impede the ship's overall stability, particularly in combat conditions.
I'm afraid you'd have to find another solution for your life preservers and the RHIBs.

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My Avatar:Петр Алексеевич Безобразов (Petr Alekseevich Bezobrazov), Вице-адмирал , царская ВМФ России(1845-1906) - I sign my drawings as Ari Saarinen

in addition, I think the propulsion unit that can fit amidships is somewhat limited, and I cannot see an good space for the refueling hatches of the nuclear reactors.
my suggestion would be:
- go for twin 16in automatic turrets. if the decision was made to replace the iowa's with an new BB, it would make sense to use the same barrel stock, as an new manufacturing plant would have to be set up otherwise. another idea would be tripple 16 in guns, but it would make sense to fit only 2 or 3 turrets then.
- go for an 4 to 6 5in gun plant as secondary, as was proposed for the iowa's http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... 88#p105288
- drop the 8in gun completely but add some anti-small craft guns
- 3 to 4 CIWS units, phalanx or goalkeeper, and 2 RAM launchers or RAM block 2 or ESSM from the VLS.
- forget stealth. it's not gonna work on a ship like this, so better make her optimal.
- keep the midships main deck empty for boats, liferafts and replenishment sytems. all but the liferafts can be placed behind hatches for blast protection.
- if you go for only 2 or 3 turrets, you might be able to fit the VLS between the superstructure and the gun turret. otherwise, go for Peripheral VLS.

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

Thanks Ace, You've given me plenty of grist for the mill. I placed the liferafts behind the hatches to protect them from blast and gunfire damage-- but I readily see your point. Where can I them?

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French Vice-admiral Louis-René-Madeleine Le Vassor de La Touche, comte de Tréville
The original spelling of my last name is: LaTouche.

Some comments, some concurrent with others but whatever.

1.) I am not sure of the background or rational of this ship but given the technology present I am going to assume the main gun armament is not meant for ship combat but for extemsive gun fire support. If that is the case the lack of effective armor against a similar main battery is not a concern, you are not expecting or planning for trading broadsides. Even if you do want to configure them for anti ship use, what other power has a similarly armed vessel to trade fire with? That being said what you have to remember about battleships is that their armor was not just for protection but was also structural.

2.) Given my assumption about the intended use of your main armament why are you going bigger instad of ADVANCED? I get that dropping a large warhead is still an advantage but I think you need to look at the balance of warhead size vs shipboard requirments vs technology to yield the same affect. What I am getting at is that you should look at having a smaller more advanced turret using ERGM or similar round with multiple warhead types and maybe rocket propelled as well providing a mix of size/flexibility/precision/extreme range instead of just plopping WWII tech onto a 21 century design. Maintianing a large gun armament on a modern combatant (let alone building a new hull with) is dubious enough as it is, so why not update them at least?

3.) Don't worry too much about protecting your life rafts, if this thing goes down it will be from specific damage from a missile strike not from dozens of HE round explosions raking the topside. Put on extra rafts and enough will survive to be effective. Look at a modern design for direction here.

4.) As I mentioned before I like the wraparound bridge from both an artisitic perspective and my actual maritime experiance. As for structural concerns I disagree with ace, given the substantual area within the superstructure at that pount there is plenty of load bearing potential. The DDG51 class has a wrap around brigte for 300 degrees only interupted by the mast so this is possible. I do, however, agree with him concerning the space for SPY. You at least another deck below or above to house the required equipment. I would just delete the flag bridge.

5.) I see no need for the secondary battery (6"). Again, assuming the main guns are there soley for gun fire support and you are going to have some sort of modern gun system (you have oto melaras, I would go for M110s) you are effectively duel arming this ship for the same mission category, and doing it in the most expensive way possible.

Well, I did bring the life raft problem up, before ace, but, yes, he has a point. After WW1 the designers in most countries (except Soviet and Germany for obvious reasons) decided to make the upper deck the main strength deck, i. e. armor it sufficiently to withstand a certain amount of plunging fire. The main-deck became a splinter deck instead, designed to deflect any penetrating residual blast from impacts on the upper deck. This is what your ship - in its intened role - would have been designed with. As it is now, your protective scheme - if you've got any - is little better than a Dreadnought battleship, possible worse. I other words, you're regressing design-wise! That said, your hull sides need to be free of any sort of penetrations, such as what you've got now, since the armored sides forms the sides of an armored box, beneath which the ships vitals would lay. And, missiles today are often describing a plunging decent, and even if not, then the hull cut-outs will render any armored upper deck virtually useless, since the blast will come from underneath it and deflect upwards.

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My Avatar:Петр Алексеевич Безобразов (Petr Alekseevich Bezobrazov), Вице-адмирал , царская ВМФ России(1845-1906) - I sign my drawings as Ari Saarinen