Posts:2504 Joined: July 1st, 2014, 12:20 am
Location: New Zealand
Contact:Website
Yes the Mk37 FC units for the 5". One on the bridge should be sufficient. It would be nice to have two, but that would mean removing the aft tripod and building a new superstructure aft to put the Mk37 on, then replacing the removed tripod with a pole mast.
Posts:2504 Joined: July 1st, 2014, 12:20 am
Location: New Zealand
Contact:Website
That looks good.
My only query would be the FC Mk37 by 1943 would have their own radar attached, plus the 4 twin 40mm would have the tachymetric directors fitted for them. They would go in the bridge wing to replace the 20mm there, and in a tub beside the new superstructure aft and above the boat on davits there. They are the radar control directors for the 40mm.
You've used the ugly old Mk.37 director shields which have been replaced by a much more accurate version in my signature. I would suggest fitting the Mk.37 director with Shield Mk.2 Mod.2 and the Mark 4 (FD) radar (the first in the list of assembled directors).
The 40mm tubs should be accompanied by Mk.51 directors in tubs (also in that sheet). The Mk.51 was a lead-computing director that allowed the guns to be controlled from a more advantageous position away from the mount, but in most cases this just meant a small tub was positioned above and offset of its slaved gun mount. On an early ship like this it might be interesting to mount some Mk.49 directors on it in place of the Mk.51 just for difference's sake.
Mk.57 directors (with their ranging radars) don't generally appear until much later refits, and even then only on larger combatants where they typically sit in a position above the pilot house to provide backup or all-weather/blindfire capability to the ship's 40mm battery (and sometimes its 5"/38 battery).
That crane just doesn't look very American to me. I would replace it with the crane from the Brooklyn and early Clevelands.
The Harrisburg seems like a bit of a waste. It's a large ship with
very little more than the firepower of a destroyer. The Porter class
destroyer leaders had 4x2 5 inch guns and one or two sets of torpedo
tubes on a much smaller hull. The Atlanta class had 8x2 5 inch and
two sets of torpedo tubes on the approximately the same size hull.
I don't think that the Navy would authorize such a lightly armed ship.
Posts:2504 Joined: July 1st, 2014, 12:20 am
Location: New Zealand
Contact:Website
The Atlantas were 60-70 feet bigger and had to reduce the armament to 12 because of topweight issues. Porter/Somers had to remove a turret each to improve their AA potential. Substituting the 5" for the 6" helps with the topweight and allows extra AA to be fitted. These conversions would make excellent leaders to all the DD's armed with 4-5x5".
The Navy would probably like more.
Remember the RN rebuilt the CL Delhi with 5x5" and it was considered a good conversion.
Posts:2936 Joined: July 26th, 2010, 11:38 pm
Location: Midwest US
In fact, I believe the Atlantas lost their beam 5/38 twins as wartime compensation for additional 40mm mounts, not because the ships as designed/built were insufficiently stable.