Shipbucket

Hello everybody

I was going to call this a first attempt at a Shipbucket drawing but it isn't really: it is a kitbash, pure and simple, posted with Syzmo's permission. Very early days yet, but as this marks the current limit of my knowledge re warship construction, I thought that it was a good place to start.

So far, all I have done is remove the turrets that Syzmo's original drawing had, and replace them with the main turrets used for the Helgoland-class: I am positing an alternate history where the Helgoland-class is scrapped after WWI, and the turrets used to equip a class of 6 'super'-cruisers. Is such a straight swap as I have done here plausible, or would the ships have required differently designed barbettes?

Many thanks,
Amartus

Welcome to shipbucket,

With all your drawings in SB, make sure they are saved in 'png' format, not jpg. You will see from your drawing that the jpg leaves grey smear traces which rather ruins the drawing.

As to your concept, if you are designing a ship to take the Helgoland 12" turrets, part of the design will be barbettes big enough for the turrets. The difference between turrets designed in 1923 and 1908, is vast. Rate of fire, shell power, range of shells, all are superior in the more modern weapons. The only reason you would recycle turrets and guns is for 1. financial reasons, 2. speed of building the ships.

The Schlachtkreuzer designs are good but it will depend on how much armour and speed you want it to have, that will determine how good the end result will be. The more armour you put on, the slower it will go, and vice versa. There is an optimum for a ship of that size for the speed of the hull, how much engine power (propulsion) you can fit aboard, with armament and armour. It is always a balancing act with size limited ships.

Hello and welcome to the bucket

The concept seems technically feasible - after all, the original was designed for 350mm weapons, so downscaling to 305mm should be no problem. Turrets and barbettes will be available at the start of the design process and can easily be incorporated; they would even allow for more speed and better protection to be worked in. And it is certainly a quite economical solution.

On the minus side, the 305mm turrets were restricted to 16° elevation and had limited range; I have no idea whether there was any growth potential left to increase range. And range was considered important in German gun design after 1918; they no longer designed ships for a close quarters battle, but rather as raiders, which needed longer ranged weapons to keep them as far out of harm's way as possible. IMHO this would kill such a project in its cradle. IF the turrets could be modified to 30+ degrees elevation and at least 35 kilometers range (without having to design new ones, in which case the economical advantage would be lost and heavier caliber guns would make more sense, given the size of these ships), I think your scheme might work out.

Great Britain would of course have to be struck by the black plague before such a building programme became a political possibility...

Greetings
GD

Hi guys

Thank you both for your comments.

I have changed the thread title as I incorrectly described it originally: my kitbash is Helgoland-Class turrets on the 1928 German BC Design as rendered by Syzmo.

AFAIK, this design was always posited as having 305mm guns, not a 350mm guns, so the swapsie is not a downsize as you described GD. However, given your comments and Krakatoa's, I am taking away that while having the design the same as in OTL except with the Helgoland-Class turrets somehow available to transpose is technically feasible, it does not necessarily make the best sense in terms of design quality.

Best regards,
Amartus

Interesting idea. Just remember to not use antyaliasing or .jpg it's lowering the quality of drawing as I'm afraid it did with the picture you post.

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