Shipbucket

This is a huge ship, dimensions taken from drawing: 860.5 x 91 feet. Displacement would be well over 30,000 tons. It is as long as the battlecruiser Hood and armed with 12x6"?

I have wondered what the rope like accessories on the 6" and 4-5" secondaries are. The only thing I could think of was water cooling system for the automatic weapons to help keep the barrels cooler.

she is an monster, there was build two of these monsters and several smaller cruisers and they was all tasked with protecting aircraft carrier.

the rope thing, is water cooling systems, since these guns are an early mechanical automatic guns. The other reason for the water cooling is that these ships is expected to travel from the cold North to the hot south, and need every thing they can get to protect the barrels from warping!

Work in progress

This is the F class, was designed to supplement the much bigger Kruze class, and was and fleet plane of ships designed to protect aircraft carriers.

For a 1953 CA would it not make sense to,
- cut the float planes (if you are escort for CVs ?)
- cut the 20mm to cut manpower/costs
- go for a uniform 57mm or 40mm (or IMO fast 3' with VT shells ?)
- not sure that anything but geared ST makes sense in 53 ?

With the following you could cut the size/cost and build more of them so you can ring your CVs (or just save money) ?

- She was designed for having float planes but was never equipped with them. The admiralty didn't find it necessary to equip them since she is traveling with an CV that have far better facility to carry planes.

- the 20 mm will stay, there are no reason to cut them out. on a ship of this size. and with a crew of 1400-1800 there are no manning problem at all. there is also no cost on this guns, since they are taken from ships she is replacing.

- 57 mm guns is heavy, and thus having a ton of them would be perhaps a little to mush, so to get as many metal in the air as possible, old refurbished 40 mm guns are used next to the 57 mm.

another reason for the guns... - if you read the text close she is using a geared turbines with the addition for the electric motors (the electric motors for this kind of ship, is most likely an early version of today's electric motors)

- There was planned up to 7 of them, but only build 2 of them. these Heavy cruisers travel often together with several other cruisers and destroyers. so to say it's only these two heavy cruiser to protect the CV is not totally correct, since there are several other cruiser in the 170 meter range backing here up.

Although the Heavy cruiser was planned originally as an cruiser that could single handily make an dead zone around an CV with the amount of metal she can get up in the air. Even the 6" guns (aka 155mm) can do long range AAW, but with a limited ROF.

But what are the 20mm guns for? By 1953 they have neither the range nor the punch to bring down an attacking jet and the fire control isn't good enough yet to bring down bombs and missiles.
I don't really see how having a large crew is going to help manning them either. Those 1500 people presumably have their own jobs to deal with. We're talking at least five people per gun btw (Gunner, two loaders, at least two ammo carriers) plus the guys who man the directors and the magazines. So around fifty people give or take a few, for a weapon that has essentially no use.

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Source Materiel is always welcome.

yeah you are perhaps right on that.

IIRC, the 40mm guns actually replaced the 20mm in service.

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Shipbucket Wiki admin

Hope you don't mind a long ramble but,
My idea was that you cut crew number to cut costs/weight.
If we assume that crew wise you need,

6' twin crew = 42 (from 6"/47DP Mark 16, Manning was twenty-one crewmembers in the gunhouse, ten in the turret officer’s booth and eleven in the gun house)(212 mt)
This gives you x4 for a 168 crew and 848t for your main guns that are a good pick IMO

Then we get complicated secondary AA guns

- 14 x 57mm single (why not twin ? you can only point at as many targets as you have directors anyway ?)
cant find a single weight or crew but twin Sweden 57 mm/60Model 1950: 23 tons (24 mt)(crew ? assume 10-15 for twin ? so maybe 8-10 for single ? with weight of 14t ?)

- 12 x 40mm twin crew = 11 (5 + 6 ammo ?) (USN For twin and quad mounts, the crew consisted of a Mount Captain, Pointer, Trainer, a 1st Loader for each gun and then however many ammunition passers it took to get back to the ammunition supply point. In addition to the guncrew, there was normally a Mark 51 (or later) Director crew consisting of a Pointer and a Range Setter.)
weight (4445 - 5897 kg)

- 8 x 20mm twin crew = 5 ? (Mark 24: 1,400 lbs. (635 kg))

Why not a 3' twin unless you don't have assesses to VT shells ? RN 3/70' twin 12 crew (37,716 kg)

- your option gives a total crew of (14x10+12x11+8x5) = 312 men and (14x14+12x5+8x.6) weight = 260.8t

a uniform 3'/70 (260.8/37.7= 6.9) so you might well get 7 (or 8) twins (with the reduction in structural weight and directors) this would only need 7x12 = 84 men (or 96 for 8 twins) saving over 216 men (more due to directors etc) (and that will add up to saving in all other departments that support them).

IMO a 8x 3'/70 would be much better (if you have VT shells)(as it should be as both USN/RN picked that option post war !)

If you don't have them VT then a full 57mm is next best IMO, this is not even taking into account that the 20 (and really the 40 as well) are mostly obsolete and to short range to help much.

Hm! I have to look at little on that tomorrow. (I'm going to adjust the armament, and move refurbished 40 mm to small combatants as corvettes and small patrol boats) I can probably go for an solution of 3" for and after and two as flank turret, and move around the 57 mm as third weaponry on here. (layer defense) 6" triple turret for the long range engagement, 3" twin, for medium range engagement and 57 mm as short range engagement.

On other side note, I have just updated the smaller cruiser. it show how I work when drawing! (note this is the cruiser that was build many of)