Shipbucket

The battleship faded into obscurity after the Second World War. Some endured for a while, but not even the mighty Iowa class could survive the end of the Cold War. Now they exist only as museum ships. Their role on the oceans has been occupied by the aircraft carrier and the nuclear submarine. Some people think that's lame. Welcome to Shipbucket's Modern Battleship Challenge! This topic was derived from suggestions in the future challenge ideas thread and chosen by popular vote after the Anti-Submarine Task Force Flagship Challenge. The challenge will run for two months instead of one. Please read the design requirements and challenge rules before posting a submission.

Design Requirements

1. Your submission must depict a fictional battleship or battlecruiser completed, refitted, or proposed after 1950.
2. The vessel must be armed with at least two guns of a calibre 11 inches (279.4 mm) or greater.
3. It must be a surface combatant.

Challenge Rules

1. Each participant must submit a single image.
2. The image should be a Shipbucket template modified to include the participant’s art. Templates which include a data sheet are allowed.
3. One side-view of the participant's ship must be included. One top-view is also permitted, but not required. All other views are prohibited.
4. If two views are included, they must depict the same ship, in the same configuration, at the same point in time.
5. All art must be in Shipbucket scale and conform to the Shipbucket style guidelines.
6. A textual description accompanying each submission is permitted, but not necessary.
7. Non-serious entries, or entries substantially deviate from the challenge requirements, are not allowed.
8. Off-topic posts will be reported to the relevant authorities.

This challenge will run until the 16th of January 2022, ending at 23:59 UTC-12 (International Date Line West).
A countdown timer can be found at this link.

A poll will be held after this date. Members of the Shipbucket community will have an opportunity to rate each submission. Please provide honest and meaningful scores for each entry. Responses which grant maximum scores to a select group of entries, and minimum scores to all other entries, will be deleted. Members of the community who manipulate the results in such a fashion may also be subject to a permanent ban. Scores will be allocated in two categories, each with a scale of 1 to 10:

• Drawing Quality - The overall quality of the drawing. One might consider detailing, shading, and accuracy.
• Design Quality -The quality of the design presented, irrespective of drawing quality. One could consider feasibility, practicality, and realism.

Design Requirement Changes
After receiving feedback on the Shipbucket Discord server, I have modified two requirements. Design Requirement 1 now says "Your submission must depict a fictional battleship or battlecruiser completed, refitted, or proposed after 1950." It previously did not include a provision for fictional unrealised designs. Design Requirement 2 has been modified to say "The vessel must be armed with at least two guns of a calibre 11 inches (279.4 mm) or greater." This is a 1 inch reduction from the previous 12 inch requirement.

Greetings!

Just wanted to confirm this challenge is still active - I would like to post an entry as this is an intriguing situation to explore - it will be my first time participating in a challenge and as I said over in my AU posts I have never drawn anything newer than 1927 so this should be fun!

Cheers!
Stealthjester

The challenge is active. since it's a take on modern battleships. it will take some time before people post drawings, and usually they post it in the last minutt

What if, just a what if the Netherlands did not build the Cruisers Kijkduin and Eendracht first? But what if they build the 1047 at that moment.
And just what if these ships where so far finished and undamaged during the war that they couldve been finished after WW2?

Well say hello to the De Ruyter Class battlecruisers!

Hr.Ms De Ruyter BC-801, finished in 1955
Hr.Ms Tromp BC-802, finished in 1956

These battlecruisers started their life as the BC1047 H-79 project 323, designed to encounter any enemy the Netherlands could have gotten in the Dutch Indies (Japan for example).

However these ships where not finished to be transfered to Great Brittain when the war started.
During the war the Germans started trying to build the ships, but this was canceled in favour of U-boats.

After the war the Dutch war ministeries requested a modernised design for both hulls, these where finalised in 1946 and the build was restarted.
The main armament of 28cm barrels where confiscated by the Germans in WW2 and relocated elsewhere, these where found back in the end of 1945 by the British in Wilhelmshaven and returned to the Netherlands.
In the new design the Bravo turret was taken away to free up space for a flag officer bridge and command centre. Plus an extra 120mm dual turret. Also to this reason was having a spare set of barrels when the ones used have had their fair share of wear and tear.

Both ships left the shipyard around 1955-1956 and joined the 1956 "Vlootdagen" (Fleet days) to be shown to the public. Ofcourse they became the main attraction and from there on the two ships became real legends.
Leading two seperate Dutch fleets in defence of Netherlands New Guinea against the Indonesians. And also the ASW fleets against the inceasing Sovjet submarine forces in the North and Baltic sea's.
Besides those fleets they also participated in many Standing Nato Maritime Group's in excercises.

Outside of this challenge i will also draw their future's.
I lack time to draw a top view, so this will come later. Perhaps even a front view.
However i will surely do a missile upgrade and perhaps something after that. I am actually excited for those!


Enjoy the eye candy!

_________________
Fryssian AU with Lt.Maverick 114
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=9802&p=193331#p193331

Embarked on: HNLMS Karel Doorman A833
To do list:
-Zeven Provincien class cruiser
-Joint support ship all sides
-F124 Sachsen class frigate
-F125 Baden-Württemberg class frigate
-Clemencau class aircraft carrier
-Zeven provincien class frigate
-Poolster class AOR
-Amsterdam class AOR
-Minas Gerais aircraft carrier

What a beautiful ship! I see shades of Iowa in there!

_________________

MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

HMS Tre Kronor, as proposed in 1952 for planned recommissioning 1955

By the end of world war 2 the Swedish navy saw most of its big gun vessels decommissioned. The relatively modern Tre Kronor-class, built in the second half of the 1930’s remained in service, but even they were starting to look somewhat long in the tooth with the various advancements made during the war, and due to the expense of running them, they were considered for mothballing and eventual decommissioning.
With the arrival of the Soviet Chapayev and Sverdlov classes of light cruisers the suggestion was brought up to modernise the small battlecruisers.
The modernisation would do away with much of their iconic, tube masted sillouete, and turn their appearence close to that of the just modernised Dristigheten class of light cruisers. The tube mast and conning tower would be removed, along with the now nearing on twenty years old 120mm/50 M/34. A slab sided bridge, not unlike British ones would be added in place of the old bridge, with new directors mounted on top of these, and a pair of tripods allowed for the installation of the radar suite.
The overhaul of the secondary armament would see the installation of twelve 57mm/60 M/50 in six twin turrets, replacing the old 120mm secondaries, and eight 40mm/70 M/48 installed in splinter proof mounts.
Keeping the large ships in service was however considered prohibitively costly, and as debates dragged on, the navy found its budget cut in favour of the army, and particularly the rising air force. The HMS Tre Kronor and HMS Göta Lejon were both put in mothball by 1954, and decommissioned and sold for scrap in 1959 and 1960 respectively.

15 200 tons standard displacement.

3x2 283/50 M/33
6x2 57mm/60 M/50
8x1 40mm/70 M/48

Belt: 185mm
Deck:60+25mm
Turrets: 250mm

80 000 HP
29 kts
6500NM/18kts

Ship loosely based off of a combination of various Swedish never were designs during the 1930's.

I voted for this challenge purely for the memes and when it was first announced as a possibility I took it as an inspiration and started on the classic meme that is the Arsenal Ship. A class of vessels which so often gets depicted as continuing the traditional battleship number schemes. My initial concept was relatively straightforward and simple. Take a commercial hull, slap electronics and Mk 41 on it and call it a day. While it wasn't strictly applicable to the challenge and it wasn't guaranteed that the Battleship Challenge would win, It was an idea I liked so I started work intending to finish it regardless of which challenge won.

The obvious choice for hull was the Alaska Class tanker, as there is a real life precedent for a militarized derivatives of the hull in the form of the Montford Point class and Chesty Puller Sub class. As a cost cutting measure I decided on less alterations to the hull. I'm not sure of a complete list of changes between the Alaska and the ESD/ESBs but some obvious ones a are the step down on the stern of the Alaska, the more vertical bow of the Navy ships. In addition the Navy ships are significantly shorter which I assume was achieved by whatever the opposite of a hull plug is.

I'd started on the hull and made good progress when the actual challenge actually started and the rules revealed.... Two 11 inch guns. The pure arsenal ship idea had been torpedoed and some new meme must rise from the ashes. Never one to waste work I began thinking of what possible justification there could be for sticking battleship guns on an arsenal ship and eventually decided on Congressional meddling. Several failed turret drafts later I decided to take a turn for the worse and switch to a vertical gun. Partly for the memes but mostly because it saved me the trouble of drawing turrets. Various bad ideas came and went during the development including a quartet of MLRS, ICBMs and at one point a below decks hangar for a half dozen ospreys before I reeled myself in to on deck parking for some seahawks and a single pair of HIMARs.

For the electronics fit I decided to be as minimal as possible. Mk 23 and Illuminators so she could carry Sea Sparrow for self defense. Originally I had a SPQ-9B but I realized that the main guns would never be engaging the sort of targets SPQ-9B is used to track. Instead I decided on a counter battery based on the inclusion of one on some old fire support ship concepts. Beyond that I gave her the various data links and satcoms she'd would need to coordinate firing at things, SLQ-32 for self defense and some various other generic electronic greebles representing no real specific systems.

Other things I added were launch/recovery gear for Scan Eagle as well as the RQ-21 Black Jack (Which technically uses different gear I decided not to draw to avoid clutter and totally not out of laziness) some replenishment gear, and reloading equipment for the VLS based on a NAVSEA concept prototyped in the 90s.

As far as weapons beyond the main guns go, I threw on a few light autocannons to deal with boghammers, a bunch of VLS, MLRS and your normal CIWS. For CIWS I debated on the exact breakdown/layout of Phalnax / Sea RAM Only 1, 1 of each, 1 of each again but arranged the opposite way or only the other. Eventually I settled on the current one for the drawing and decided it would vary between ships. The HIMARS set up is less than ideal. I kept them on the center line for survivability reasons so the canisters for the rockets can't just be chucked over the side and need to be removed between each salvo. They can fire the normal MLRS stuff, ATACMS, Rockets and also Ground Launched SDB. For the VLS I danced between 32 Cell Blocks and 64 before settling on 64 due to the potential to swap in a pair of regular Vertical guns during a refit. As far as missiles go she'd mostly carry tomahawks (And later arclight) for land attack, some LRASM for surface warfare and ESSM for self defense. She can also carry SM-3, SM-6, ASROC and Sea Lance if she has somebody to spot targets for her.

The Machinery is the same as the basic Alaska with the addition of some extra generators amidships for hotel load (Although in theory they could power the motors at a crawl in a pinch) . Nothing really special.

The Ship Badges were sketched up in response to some people on the discord drawing anime girl badges for their ships. I don't usually draw things like that but it was a fun exercise in doing something different.

Beyond that not too much to mention beyond the time I furiously checked charts after realizing that the Alaska Class Tankers were not in fact built with full loads of oil and that the completed ships would have issues leaving the yard they were built at. A nice exercise as it allowed me to bring the Pacific battleship fleet home after 80 years.



Initially proposed as Arsenal Ships, the Montana Class Battleships were fated to serve as a prime example of the pitfalls of design by congressional committee.
In the late 1990s with the impending retirement of the last Iowa Class battleships less than a decade out, the US Navy foresaw the newly proposed Arsenal Ship as the ideal replacement for providing fire support for the Marines. A low cost commercial derived hull could be packed full of Tomahawk missiles giving the ground
forces a seemingly limitless magazine of missiles at a relatively low cost. The powers that bee agreed with this initial assessment and the "Affordable Land Attack Ship"
program was begun. Initial design work began in 2001 with the selection of NASSCO's Alaska Class tanker as the base for the conversion. The center tanks would
be replaced with Mk 41 VLS and the side tanks would be filled with foam to provide reserve bouncy and increase survivability. With the majority of the design finalized
the ship was nearly ready to be laid down when Congress intervened. In the eyes of Congress, the idea of a battleship replacement without guns was outlandish and
they inserted a clause into the budget that stated that any potential Iowa replacement was required to have "A Main Battery of Battleship Caliber Guns." This was the
beginning of the program's long struggle with Congressional meddling. The changes demanded by congress were many. They ranged from the trivial (Demanding
"Battleship" replace "ship" in the program name), to the absurd (One Senator requested Joint Strike Fighters be embarked.) The Navy was able to eventually sway
Congress away from many of the extreme demands, but the damage was done. The ships ended up nearly decade behind schedule and what were once conceived as "affordable"
ships were now well over budget. As a cost saving measure 2 of the 6 ships planned were canceled.

The basic configuration from the early days of the program remained roughly the same with the main changes from the inital design being the replacement of half
of the VLS with four 16"/62 Battleship Vertical Guns (BVG) and the addition of navalized HIMARS launchers amidships (Crewed by the ship's marine detachment).
The magazines for both the guns and HIMARS were located in the bottom of the hull below an armored deck. The original tank bulkheads were reinforced into armored
bulkheads with a small number of hatches cut between them for crew access. While the center tanks were primarily replaced with armament, the side tanks were instead
filled with a mixture of ballast (For stability) and foam (For buoyancy in case of damage). Another significant change from the original Alaska Class hull was the addition of
armor around the machinery spaces and a set of backup generators to deal with the increased electrical load. Aviation facilities were minimal, with deck parking for
helicopters and accommodations for a number of UAVs. All four Ships were laid down at NASSCO San Diego, however their planned final draft was too deep for San Diego Bay
so fitting out was done at the newly reopened Long Beach Naval Shipyard. After completion BB-73 and BB-74 would remain stationed there as the newly revived Battleship Division One, representing the first time since 1940 that Battleships called San Pedro Bay home. Overall the ships saw moderate success in service and were not entirely White Elephants. Although they were slow to deploy to crisis zones, once in theater they offered considerable firepower with their deep tomahawk magazines and MLRS launchers. When it came to
Congress's much loved 16" guns however, more often than not the ship's escorts provided more effective support with their smaller, cheaper and faster firing conventional
5" and 8" guns.

Vermont class guided missile battleships:


After the Soviet Union shocked the postwar naval world with the launch of the 21,500 ton “heavy guided missile ship” Belorussiya in September of 1965, they ignited the most unlikely of events – a second battleship arms race. Within two years construction had begun on counter designs by the US, Great Britain, and France. The first to enter service was USS Vermont (BBG-72); she was commissioned in July of 1970.
The first battleships designed in the US since the Montana class (canceled in July of 1943), the four Vermont class ships; Vermont, Idaho, Nebraska, and Oregon, displaced nearly 27,000 tons standard and were 755ft (230m) long overall. The ships were capable of 33 knots with a range of 10,000 nautical miles and were armed with six 12”/55 Mk 9 rapid-fire guns in two triple turrets forward. The Mk 9 was based on the 12”/50 Mk 8 guns used by the Alaska class adapted for use with semi-fixed ammunition (based in turn on the 8”/55RF Mk 16’s used by the Des Moines class heavy cruisers) with a practical ROF of 4-6 rounds per minute and a maximum range of 21.8 nautical miles – slightly better than the 16”/50 Mk 7’s mounted on the preceding Iowa class. Secondary guns consisted of six single 5”/54 Mk 42 guns amidships.
The primary missile battery comprised a single Mk 18 four-round armored box launcher located aft for the RGM-33 Falchion anti-ship missile with an additional four reloads stowed ahead of the launcher. The Falchion was a turbojet-powered supersonic cruise missile with semi-active radar homing guidance and a range of 130 nautical miles. Surface to air defense consisted of two RIM-2 Terrier launchers fore and aft and two RIM-24 Tartar launchers amidships. Two ASROC box launchers provided a limited ASW capability. Two Kaman UH-2 Seasprite helicopters could be accommodated on the helipad aft with an additional UH-2 stored in the below deck hanger.
Of the four ships built, USS Nebraska (BBG-74) was sunk during the South China Sea Crisis in 1977. The surviving ships were modernized in 1983-84 which included switching out the obsolete Terrier and Tartar missiles for the new RIM-73 Tempest (although the existing Mk 11 launchers could only fire the short-range Tempest without the booster stage), and replacing the Falchions with RGM-81 Rapier anti-ship missiles fired from a single Mk 32 launcher with a protected below deck 20-round magazine. Four Mk 73 Paladin CIWS mounts as well as updated radar, fire control, and ECM systems were installed and the UH-2’s were replaced with SH-2F LAMPS I helicopters.
All three ships continued in frontline service until 2006 when they were decommissioned and placed in reserve.

In class: (4) Vermont, Idaho, Nebraska, Oregon

Built: 1967-1971

In commission: 1970-2006

Displacement: 26,930 tons standard, 29,300 tons full load

Dimensions: Length (o/a) 754.6 ft, length (w/l) 741.5 ft, beam 80.4 ft, draft (normal) 26.2 ft

Propulsion: 4-shaft, 4 x GE geared steam turbines, 8 x Babcock & Wilcox boilers, 178,000 shp

Performance: 33.0 knots

Range: 10,000 nm at 12 knots

Armor: STS-II alloy/Class C homogeneous. Belt 9” tapering to 5” ends, deck 4-6”, main turret face/other 12.8”/5.5”, barbettes 12”, secondary turret ammo hoists 5”, Falchion launcher 3”, conning tower 11”

Armament: 6 (2 x 3) 12”/55RF Mk 9, 6 x 5”/54 Mk 42, 1 quad Mk 18 ABL launcher for RGM-33 Falchion w/4 reloads, 2 x twin Mk 10 mod 2 launchers for RIM-2C Terrier w/80 rounds/launcher, 2 x Mk 11 launchers for RIM-24 Tartar w/42 rounds/launcher, 2 x Mk 16 8-round box launchers for RUR-5 ASROC, 1-3 Kaman UH-2 Seasprite helicopters

Sensors/Electronics: SPS-10 surface search radar, SPS-48 air search radar, SPS-40 air search radar, 2 x SPG-57 Falchion fire control, 4 x SPG-55 Terrier fire control, 4 x SPG-51 Tartar fire control, SPG-58 12” gun director, 4 x SPG-53 5” gun directors, SQS-26 sonar

Crew: 1,400

Cheers!
Stealthjester

Looks great. I really dig that AshM launcher