Shipbucket

Hello again!

While I'm being productive, why not venture into dangerous waters awash with people who know more about the subject at hand than myself. I stumbled across a very sketchy and very small linedrawing (published in Friedman's book about British cruisers) of a early 1940 design of a new generation heavy cruiser for the Royal Navy. The design was repeatedly altered until it was at last abandoned in 1942, but I only ever found that single drawing (there is a speculative one by someone named Tzoli floating around, but that looked somewhat unrealistic). Informations about size are contradictory as well; Friedman gives the initial 1940 design a draught of 6,10m, which seems awfully little, and 5,64m freeboard; together, these figures don't match the drawing. So I went for a draught of 7,32m, which is stated by Conway for a later 16.000 ts version; that figure seems more realistic and fits with the drawing if a freeboard of 5,64m is retained. Length is 198,25m pp and 204,35m cwl; that is mirrored by my drawing. Friedman gives the 15.500 ts version an armament of nine newly developed 203mm/50 guns, twelve 102mm flaks and 32 40mm pompoms in four octuple mounts; torpedoes were not part of the design. By way of speculation, I shaped the bridge with elements of late war british light cruisers (Swiftsure, Superb), added a mid- to late war radar outfit and 30 20mm cannon in eight twin and fourteen single mounts. Size and shape of the rudder and placement of shafts and bilge keel is entirely speculative.



Now, experts to the front - whoever has any more data about this design, fire away!

Greetings
GD

Very Nice GD

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Verusea Alternative Universe is starting to build up.

Very nice, would have been awesome ships.

But you might want to check this:



The angle of the front plate of the 6" turrets upon which you based these turrets was far too acute. After checking photographs of HMS Belfast I redid those turrets.

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Would you please not eat my gun...

I believe those 8"/50 (20.3 cm) Marks IX or X would use the same turret as the 8"/50 (20.3 cm) Mark VIII (some have same basic shape as the Mark II)

8"/50 (20.3 cm) Mark VIII on HMS Australia

Since the design specified TRIPLE turrets, I kinda doubt that....

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Would you please not eat my gun...

well more similar design, the main concern I have is that the 6" turret you are using is far to small to carry triple 8". even the 8" twin on HMS Australia is bigger than the 6" triple turret. and HMS Australia 8"/50 Mark VIII weight as mush as the 8"/50 Marks IX and X. they are using the same gun design after all, just with new type of safety, targeting, etc. So I would except an upscale version of the HMS Australia turret for carrying the 8"/50 Mark IX or X.

An Illustration done by someone, not accurate, but it give ideas about the turret design (for as he concluded, why design something new, when you can take what you have, and scale it up a bit, it's cheaper and UK likes that):

Nice looking ship GD. But it does have a few things I might change.

I would use the hangar position used by the previous classes of cruiser (mounted round the bridge and forefunnel). The main reason being the hangar doors are then pointing aft which makes it easier for aircraft maintenance and handling. The launch area has some cover from wind and sea.

As to the turrets, your turrets are inbetween the triple 6" (slightly larger) and Rowdy36's Ypres CA triple 8" (3-4 pixels smaller). I like the gun size you have used. An amalgamation of Rowdy36's turret and your guns would give a great looking turret.

Looks good to me.
I'll have a compare with Friedman and DK Brown's Nelson to Vanguard over the weekend (I think Brown has a John Roberts sketch), but I see nothing immediately springs to mind as being incorrect. I think the hangar was aft in these ships.

The turrets are tricky. I've no idea what they would look like for certainty since they were never built. My gut instinct is that they would more closely resemble the 6in triples in style rather than the early 20s era twins of the Counties. There is no reason to suppose they would keep the curved face when most RN turrets by 1930s were increasingly slab-faced.

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Hello and thanks for the feedback!

@MihoshiK: I modified the turrets with steeper angled fronts. I figured these turrets were likely to be upscaled 152mm triples from the Town and Crown Colony classes rather than developments of the old 203mm County class twins, so that modification made sense.

@Krakatoa: I know the hangar placement is sort of dumb, especially with the kind of space that is available aft of the bridge. Not my idea though; the drawing is no own design, but based upon a drawing by Friedman himself.

@Hood: Thanks in advance for looking this up. Another line drawing might come in handy, especially as there seemed to be half a dozen different versions of this cruiser between 15.500 and 18.700 tons.

I also added some shields to the 102mm twins, 40mm pompoms and 20mm twins.

Greetings
GD

Yes, GD's design follows 100% Friedman's sketch and I'm satisfied that Friedman copied that from the original sketch design.

D.K. Brown's 'Nelson to Vanguard' has a line drawing by Len Crockford of the 16,500 tons 1941 design.
Armed with 3x3 8in, 8x2 4in and speed 32.25kts.
Tizoli's drawing posted by Heuhen above is this version. It matches the book but the secondaries are 4in, not 4.5in and the turrets have slab, sloped faces.

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