Shipbucket

Pretty graceful looking ships I'll have to say, something about the original look that I love. The modernised versions look more effective but somehow loose some of that character and personality that the as-builts have.

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Thanks! I do like the original look as well, mostly couse I like ships of that era. A lot of the modernisation, especially the Stoltieten, involved taking away any old systems possible to make room for new tech, mostly AA and new engines.
I think my favourite is the modernised Stoltieten. IMO she still has quite some character, even though I'm not sold on the bridge. Might remake it in future posts.

Looks good so far. How do you handle the big boat in the mid?

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Thanks!
A pair of davits. The modernized version is easier to see(Those small almost mast-looking things just fore and aft of the larger boats.
The as-built version has them just behind the boats. I'm replacing those in the upcomming V3 though, with a pair more similar to the modernized ones.

So this is a pre-dreadnaught coastal defense battleship, correct?

Artistically, very nice...better I think than the ships I draw.

Tactically, the Pre-Dreadnaughts were obscelete by 1906....Is there funding issues that prevent this ship from being replaced later on?

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Yes, this is a Pre-dread. Or rather, half- a semi-dread coastal defence ship. Thank you! If I remember correctly, Dreadnought entered service in 1907.
But yes, this along with all other CDSs built during this time, WAS obsolete. But what can a country like Erikrike do? It's expensive being poor.
I have a design from the late 30's which I'm seriously considering, which is basicaly a mini-deutchland, but I don't want to post it yet, due to several reasons.

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The biggest tactical considerations with pre-dreads is that they're going to be slow (the fastest one could do only 18 knots) and significant firepower is tied up with insufficient range. You could treat the medium-caliber guns as a secondary battery but then you're stuck with only two turrets vs. four or five with most early dreadnoughts.

Anyway, the ultimate pre-dread would probably be something like this:

Actually, klagldsf, the fastest speed any pre-dreadnought could make was 20.73 knots, recorded by the Italian Reina Margharita on her trials! 18 knots was the fastest possible mean top-speed for fleet operations (with ca. 15 knots mean sustained speed), for sure, but it won't preclude the notion of higher speed, despite the VTE machinery! Thus you could do as the Italians did, build a class or two of fast pre-dreadnoughts, with an average top speed of ca. 20 knots.

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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

Well, the Manligieten had much heavier artillery than earlier classes. Sure, by 1906, most super-power navied considered "all-big-gun"-designs, and so did Erikrike(to a minor degree), but such a design is simply to expensive for such a small country. I think I mentioned designs with more guns were considered, but it was judged that the heavier shells and greater range of a 12" gun would be more necessary than a fast ROF(fast ROF by more, smaller guns).
The hitting stones are economy and plausability. Sure, I could give this nation a full-sized dreadnought, but then I'd be hammered for how unplausible it would be.

Anyways, here we have a design from the turn of the century. Being quite heavily influenced by the IRL Oden and Äran classes, she is armed somewhere between them with two 240mm and six 152mm, the latter in shield mounts along the sides. I think I'm going to squeeze in a class between this one and the Manligieten.
The last class of CDSs built as part of the 1893 naval programme, the newest feature of the Oden class was that the casemates for the secondary artillery had been dropped, and replaced with shield mounts. Her main artillery was a well-balanced gun, combining accuracy with a relatively fast ROF.
Four all in all(Oden, Thor, Niord and Balder), this class was the largest class of CDSs built in Erikrike. Two would serve in their original role onto WW2, after having seen both the reserve and several refits. Oden, the oldest, was converted into an experimental airplane tender in 1924, and scrapped in 1942 when the new aviation cruisers made her utterly unneeded. Thor suffered a crippling explosion in 1919, belived to have been caused by a drifting mine, and was scrapped soon there after.
Niord and Balder would serve as the backbone of the baltic navy during both WWs, but was in hopelessly bad condition at the start of the second. Both were transfered into the reserve in 1944-45, and scrapped two years later.

Hope you like it!

This was actually one of my more uninspired classes... ah well!
I'm probably gonna get it for those small(and few) boats, but I like the arrangement.