Shipbucket

This is based on an actual Elswick design (the parameters that is) that the VCN asked for in 1888 but was cancelled for a couple of reasons but I run an AU so I can stretch that outcome a bit.



HMVS Hotham was the final part of the 1880's expansion plan, ordered in 1888, she was launched in early 1890 where she was fitted out and prepared for the 13,400nm voyage to the Colony. Departing Newcastle, she called in at Portsmouth, Gibraltar, Malta, Alexandria, Aden, Bombay, Singapore, Fremantle (and an unplanned visit to Adelaide), the out bound voyage took 117 days and went without fault bar damage sustained to the sponsoons and fittings in rough weather off the SA coast. Hotham arrived to fanfare in March 1890, where she was feted as the fastest cruiser gun-boat in the fleet, capable of 16 knots on normal load and 17.25 on light load. Hotham would go on to a fairly boring first ] decades of service, variously being in active service and reserve until 1900 when she was tasked to help escort Colonial Troops to the Boxer Rebellion. There she served mainly as a guard ship, also lending her two rotary guns to shore parties. In 1911 when decisions about the future of the fleet were being made, pressed with the strong possibility that HMVS Victoria (III) would be taken overseas in a conflict, Hotham was old enough to escape such notice and she was rebuilt mainly to the same degree as she was originally but with built up superstructure to endure the blistering summers and winter storms. At the Outbreak of war, Hotham was stationed off WA and NT operating as a patrol and survey vessel. In 1918 she returned to Victoria for the final time, going into reserve before the war was concluded. Having sailed some 88,000nm during a 30 year career, she spent two years in reserve, sitting idly off Altona as post war cuts whittled her down to just a caretaker. With further cuts looming, Hotham was sold for a paltry 320 pounds to a scrapyard who cut her down almost to the waterline and she was used for target practice for three exercises off the South Channel Fort before being sunk in Half Moon Bay as a breakwater in October 1923. Her name was temporarily used for a stone frigate from 1937-1941, before another ship was commissioned of the same name

Length: 195ft
Beam: 33ft
Draught: 11ft 2in
Displacement: 1040t
Speed: 16 knots, 9knots cruising
Machinery: Two Triple Expansion Reciprocating Steam Engines, 1300hp each, delivering 2600hp, four boilers
Armament: 3 x 6 inch gun (one twin forward, 1 single aft),
4 x 40(4.7") pounders,
8 x 3 pounders,
2 gatling guns,
1x fixed Torpedo tube (bow)
Range: 2450nm @ 9knts
Complement: 8 Officers, 63 Enlisted
Armour: .75-1.5" Protected Deck over machinery and magazine spaces (65% of length)

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Miscellaneous|Victorian Colonial Navy|Murray Riverboats|Colony of Victoria AU|Project Sail-fixing SB's sail shortage
How to mentally pronounce my usernameRow-(as in a boat)Don-(as in the short form of Donald)Dough-(bread)
"Loitering on the High Seas" (Named after the good ship Rodondo)
There's no such thing as "nothing left to draw" If you can down 10 pints and draw, you're doing alright by my standards

I like this design very much, a powerful cruiser for coastal defence duties and certainly suitable for deployments further away and probably fairly economical in manpower and costs too.

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Hood's Worklist
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Interwar RN Capital Ships
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I second Hood's opinion, looks purposeful even while very modest. I'm very glad you decided to make 3 views too!

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Hatsuyuki-class Escort Ships . . . <3

Yes! Is a nice and well done vessel! And for the size, well armed!

I'd like to comment as well, but it seems the image isn't working D:

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Best regards,

RegiaMarina1939

Hello all! I saw ABetterName used his RTW design-turned-SB drawing cruiser here so I decided to do the same. I played a game in RTW as the CSA and designed a class of armored cruisers with the following specifications:

Armament:

-2 x 9.2-inch Mk. XII guns in single turrets fore and aft

10 x 6-inch Mk. XII guns in hull casemates, 5 per side.

4 x 4-inch QF Mk. III

2 x 37-Hotchkiss 1-pounders in single mounts port and starboard of the bridge.

4 x 18-inch submerged fixed broadside torpedo tubes

Protection:

Belt: 4-inches

Decks: 1.5-inches

Turrets: 5-inches

Casemates: 3-inches

Conning Tower: 5.5-inches

Machinery:

2 x 3-cylinder Vertical Triple Expansion steam engines

18 x Babcock and Wilcox coal-fired water tube boilers

2 shafts, 23,000 horsepower, 20 knots

-Laid down in 1899, these two ships were the largest cruisers yet built by the Confederate Navy. They were ordered as a response to American designs such as USS Maine and her successor classes who sported massive rams and guns of up to 10-inch caliber. These new Confederate ships were also the largest ships to date that were built locally, being laid down at Newport News Navy Yard, while her ordinance was manufactured by the Tredegar Iron works to designs by companies such as Vickers and Elswick. They were completed and commissioned in 1903-1904, and joined the fleet as the largest vessels besides the battleships. While they may not have carried as heavy of a broadside as some of the contemporary Union designs, they did have better rate of fire, accuracy, and ammunition handling characteristics in the form of their single-gun turrets. The ships received their first deployment mission to the Caribbean in 1906 to show the Confederate Flag among the islands to try and sway them away from supporting the Union. In 1914, they were placed on alert as war was declared in Europe. Declaring an isolationist policy, the Confederacy placed the ships on patrol around the East Coast, the Teaser being based in Wilmington while the Tacony was stationed in Charleston. They were sent to Europe when the Confederacy joined after the Lusitania sank and killed several citizens. It was the first time in history that the Union and the Confederacy fought on the same side in a conflict. While there, the cruisers mainly performed routine escort duty and served rather quietly. After peace was declared, the ships served to repatriate Confederate troops deployed to the European continent. Decommissioned in 1919 under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty, Tacony was scrapped while Teaser was used as a stationary target for air force bombers throughout the 1920's. She sank in 150 feet of water off the Florida coast, and was finally towed out to the open sea and deposited as an artificial reef in 1949. She currently lies in 390 feet of water off the coast of Bermuda.

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Best regards,

RegiaMarina1939

Not a bad design, but the thing that immediately strikes me is that the 9.2in barrels are too long.

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Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

That's those turrets that I did for the Norwegian Coastal defense ships of the Bjorgvin class, in UK Gorgon class. And yes they was so long, it was a long barreled artillery gun that was modified for use on the Norwegian ships. And that gun are on the official UK-partsheet

Navweaps:
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_92-51_mk12.php


Gun length was over 12 meters, so perhaps they might be a few pixel long.

[/quote]

Navweaps:
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_92-51_mk12.php


Gun length was over 12 meters, so perhaps they might be a few pixel long.
[/quote]

If that's correct the ship is to old to use those guns ("Date Of Design about 1913")..........

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JE SUIS CHARLIE

Interesting, yeah I just took the one off the parts sheet because the ship in RTW had 9-inch singles.

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Best regards,

RegiaMarina1939