Shipbucket

I'm playing around with designs for small interwar battleships and coastal defense ships, and I was wondering how hard it would be (or even if it would be practical) to remove main gun turrets, barbettes and casemate guns (secondary guns for pre-WW I capital ships) and re-use them. Also, would be possible or practical to re-mount the casemate guns behind shields. TIA, Jay

Hi seeker,

Well, I'm not an expert on this but the main gun turrets for most of the really heavy guns weren't actually fixed to the ship - they rotated freely, and, if the ship capsized, fell out. Barbettes were a part of the ship, however, and I doubt they would be easy to remove.

I'm sure I recall some talk on one of the threads here about Jacky Fisher having the secondary guns from warships under his command removed while he was in command of the Mediterranean fleet, I think, so certainly possible to remove the guns, but I don't know what you'd put in their place if you're retaining the original ship - I suspect it'd have to be substantially similar if not identical in order to fit.

Regards,
Adam

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Guns and even turrrets where regularly removed for large refits (QEs/Kongos/etc), its not super cheap and you need a big crane for any big turrets but fine. Casement guns should be easy to remount (used a lot with DAMS), the only problem is that gun technology was advancing so older guns are heavy and have less good rate of fire/range (but you may help that with better shells a bit). So they will end up relagated to 2nd line units (ie DAMS) or if you are in a hurry or to cheap to buy new.

JSB

TY for the comebacks, guys. I am looking at using older guns for new construction to save a few bob. For example, mounting 15.2cm casemate guns behind gunshields.

Howdy Seeker,

Utilising the older 6" in that way is quite possible. If using in shields on a BB/BC I would point you to the layout the Hood used for its secondaries. For cruisers you need the extension to the deck above that helps shield the gun below from the blast of the mounting above.

Both the Italians and British spent money refurbishing their 12" (to 12.6") and 15" respectively, trying to achieve longer range and/or firing heavier shells in the Italians case.

I have included a pic of a 6" triple being fitted to UK cruiser which shows the various bits of the workings that go inside the barbette.

It might be possible to reuse the old barbette as long as the old ship is scrapped at the same yard that builds the new one.

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Source Materiel is always welcome.

The guns and turrets for HMS Vanguard were first fitted on the battlecruisers HMS Courageous and HMS Glorious and placed in storage when they were converted to aircraft carriers.

Another option could be to recycle guns from 3 in and below from decommisioned ships for coastguard vessels. There is real life example, the Hamilton Class of USCG, which had old 5"/38 guns from scrapped WW2 destroyers when built.

Thanks for all the help.

Our 5/38s on the Long Beach were from scrapped DD as I believe were those on the Garcia/Brooke class FFs.

Using lighter guns for new ships gives me a few ideas as well OD.

Thiel that sounds workable.

Krakatoa great pic that helps a lot.

In my AU will do this exactly. Wait to see Hellenic Coast Guard AU vessels in Cold War period. They used recycled medium caliper weapons from WW2 ships (40mm and smaller) with some exceptions.