Shipbucket

Better than the stuff I presented so far.

Thank you, Tobius, you're stuffs not bad, but there are too many angles, these classic vessels had soft curves. Just my constructive criticism.

Good point. I tried to be more angular than RTL Cramp and Sons (the chief inspiration and main builder of American battleships at the time.) I wanted an AEG Vulcan feel to Mister McKinley's fleet. More German than British.

Unless you make provisions for using a "German" style on US warships of the era, it looks all wrong, personally.

You again have a point, but let me suggest the what-if;

RTL when the US was trying to design modern breechloading artillery and the ships to carry them, they sent William Sampson overseas to examine the best Europe had to offer. He chose Schneider, Hotchkiss and Vickers over Skoda and Krupp. There were some good reasons for it at the time, but if he had chosen Krupp and Hotchkiss stayed home, the AU logic follows that Germans would have been technical advisers not the British who participated heavily in the design of Maine, Texas, and Baltimore after the nativist ABCD ships proved less than successful.

It would have been emphatically logical since von Dederichs, the German guy who would eventually prove to be George Dewey's biggest headache at Manila had actually mid-shipped aboard an American steam frigate in the 1870s during the first Korean War. When the Prussians modernized their navy in the 1860s, they sent their best and brightest to America to learn how to run a navy. This reciprocity soured quickly after the Franco-Prussian War. So the link is there if it had not gone south between the two nations.

General characteristics
Class and Type: Kentucky class battleship
Displacement: designed; 16,000 tonnes (15,747 long tons; 16,347 short tons)
full load; (17,716 long tons; 19841 short tonnes)
Length: 140 m (459 ft 3 in)
Beam: 25 m (82 ft 3 in)
Draft 8.45 m (27 ft 9in)
Installed power: 18,650 kW (25,000 ihp)
Propulsion: 2 x vertical triple expansion riciprocating engines
2 x electric motor generators as final drive
24 Niclausse boilers
Speed: 40.28 km/h (21.75 kn; 25 mph)
Range: 12,870 km @ 19 km/h (6,950 nmi @ 10 kn; 8,000 @ 12mph)
Complement: 50 officers, 550 rates.
Armament: 8 each (4 x 2) 30 cm (11.8 in)/40 cal Model 1890 BLNR Mark II
8 each (4 x 2) 15 cm (5.9 in)/45 cal guns Model 1888 QFNR Mark II
18 each (1 x 18) 9 cm (3.54 in) 50 cal guns Model 1896 QFNR Mark I
up to 30 each 7 mm (0.275 in) machine guns Hotchkiss Model 1897
Armor: Belt; 15 to 30 cm. (5.9 to 11.8 in)
Decks: 4 to 9 cm (1.57 to 3.54 in)
Barbettes: 25 cm. (9.84 in)
Gunhouses: 15 to 30 cm (5.9 to 11.8 in)
Casemate shields: 20 to 25 cm (7.9 to 9.8 in)
Conning tower: 9.8 in (25 cm)
Notes: Lessons of Sino-Japanese and Spanish American Wars theoretically applied
--- speed and turning radius to outmaneuver enemy ships and avoid torpedoes.
--- many quick fire guns to deal with enemy torpedo boats.
--- uniform battery of main guns to improve salvo accuracy at longer ranges.
--- thicker deck armor to keep out skipping ricochets.
--- armor over machinery, magazines, and internal communications.
--- no armor anywhere else as thin armor is useless against even medium caliber shells.
--- limit superstructure as shellcatchers.
--- more internal subdivision of compartments.


The first American dreadnought in the AU, too late for the war of course. But six years earlier than the South Carolina.

The lessons learned were of course not really applied to this class, but were theoretically incorporated into the ships. The war only confirmed that correct guesses had been made. Speed and turning circle proved to be vital as was the need for a wide beamed steady gun platform. Other such guesses proved not to stand up to the test of combat. Such a glaring mistake was the positioning of hull casemate 9 cm quick fire guns at bow and stern on this class. The guns could not be worked in any sea state approaching sea state 4 which was the usual anticipated Atlantic weather that an American fleet could expect if they had to fight... say the French in the Gulf of Guinea Ghana in defense of the Liberian protectorate. The bow and stern chaser guns sited could not be manned or used during such a battle either, as the main armament blasts over bow and stern literally blew the exposed gun crews over the side.

It was not the first dreadnought of this AU as the Japanese had contracted with the British to build the HIJMS DOREDONUTI to test out similar ideas they had engendered during the First Sino Japanese War. The DOREDONUTI, an ill-fated ship otherwise, still beat the USS KENTUCKY into the water by sixty days, so the British still built the first dreadnought.^1

^1 Yes, DOREDONUTI, that is the Japanese borrow word from English for DREADNOUGHT.

It was a most profound embarrassment for the British who built her, not only because her 10-12 inch guns could equal the broadside of any two other British battleships combined, but also because she blew up in transit to Japan with a fully British crew on board.

How did that happen? Hmm.

Hi Tobius,

A quick question - I note that on your Fiske-Bushnell fire control you've got the movable mirror on the left-hand side. From what reading I've done on the matter, the movable mirror on a rangefinder was normally on the right side to make thing easier for the 90% of the population who are right-handed - does this constitute a different way of doing things, one of those early mistakes that crops up or just happenstance?

Regards,
Adam

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Functionally it really makes no difference as the controls are for a giant compound reflex telescopic sight. The c setup at the coincider is operated by cable/gear linkage not much different from astronomical telescopes of the era. The man coinciding the image is the man who has to see the images superimpose, so he has to have the controls local with him. He can't relay the instructions except by direct teleoperation mechanically.

The mirror adjustment for superimposition comes after the initial rangefinder acquisition, that is rotate the compound telescope either left or right, and sight through a center barreled target finder monocular telescope, then shift to the coincider. It is there that you can set the controls for coinciding split images any way you want. It is the eyes you use, not your hands to determine cranked input limits.

In the AU, it's also a quirky American thing. Don't do it the British way. The British, as they do and did with so many things, will set the world standard at the time with their Barr and Stroud optical ranging systems. The rationale the British use becomes accepted reasoning in the 1910s, but like driving on the wrong side of the road established at the same time, you can do it the British way, but you don't have to do things the British way. The other way works just fine. too.

On 15 February 1898 the USS Maine suffers an explosion close aboard and sinks into the Havana harbor mud.

That would have consequences. By 1 April 1898 frantic Spanish efforts to accommodate the angry Yanks, run into serious domestic and foreign opposition. McKinley, under tremendous political pressure himself, sends a warning message to Congress alerting them that he may ask for a declaration of war. The Spanish Cortes is receiving a similar warning from Sagasta the civilian head of the Spanish government at about the same time. This is not too different from the RTL.

The US Army flatly tells Russell Alger on 22 April that it is not ready for war despite the McKinley call up of 200,000 volunteers. (RTL). In the AU this remains true.

In the meantime, John Long, under stress like the other key players in the McKinley administration takes ill as an old illness overwhelms him.







Theodore Roosevelt is in the Catbird seat as John Long is currently out of commission due to his bout of Malaria. As acting Navy Secretary Roosevelt has already set in motion on or about 12 April 1898 parts of the overall plan that the US Navy has been practicing for a decade. These events he set in motion were options exercised as part of the ongoing set of fleet problems that the fleet used to train up the New Steel Navy. These parts of the plan have to be started early and have to arrive on station in anticipation of foredoomed scripted events already known to be in the pipeline such as

On 19 April 1898, McKinley proclaims a quarantine around Cuba, Puerto Rico and "such other Spanish controlled waters as might be deemed necessary". That significant part of his declaration passes unnoticed in Madrid.

On 23 April 1898 the Spanish Cortes declares war on the US suggesting that this "quarantine" is in effect a declared blockade and an American unprovoked act of war. The American Congress returns the favor the following day once the cable arrives announcing the news. Dithering in Washington stops.

Crossing the Atlantic in secret for these four ships Roosevelt sent is the easy part of the master plan as these events transpire. Nobody pays attention to these ships as they avoid the normal Gulf currents and normal trade routes. The four ships arrive at their assigned targets and commence their operations about 25 April 1898. Results will take a while (a week maybe.) because these types of iffy experimental operations rely on secrecy, stealth and patience.

By 28 April 1898 Spain will know that she is at war. KABOOM! This quarantine McKinley has declared has teeth.

My question on your Kentucky BB: where the heck are the bridge controls? As far as I can tell, there's no viable means of controling that vessel in a safe manner, say during passage in confined waters. Even the most rudimentary bridge systems after the introduction of the cage masts after 1910/11, had bridge wings and some flying bridges as well as a chart house.

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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