Shipbucket

It will be great to see You back with new work!

I haven't drawn much in the time away other than some more aircraft designs and a bit more design refinement for the C3 cruisers.

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"The first rule is not to lose; The second rule is not to forget the first rule"

Yay! You're back!

Good to see you back Denodon.

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Worklist

"If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would ever get done." ~Ludwig Wittgenstein

Thanks all.

The biggest decision I made about the AU whilst I was absent from the site was more working out of its history post war as well as some organisational practices.

In the immediate post war years until around the late 60s-early 70s, Sieran remained on relatively good grounds with the allied powers and whilst it sought to fulfil its own needs with its own designs and equipment where possible, imported some equipment from these nations, primarily their oldest, pre war ally the United Kingdom and the later France. A change of government during the 70s however saw many of Sierans policies shift more in line with those of its more soviet inclined neighbours. Whilst some claimed this was the result of bribery from the Soviets, it was in the event an alignment towards an ideology that better matched their own along with having historical pretext. Relations with the allies remained neutral as Sieran never officially aligned itself with either side of the Cold War, however after the 70s mixtures of soviet and NATO equipment were found in the nation, predominantly within the Air Force but a small amount in naval weapons and systems.

As for the organisational stuff, I have decided to divide the Sieranian Republic Navy into three divisions or Fleets; the North Fleet, East Fleet and South Fleet.

The North fleets role is to maintain passage of Sieranian and allied vessels through the arctic sea and is the smallest of the three fleets, comprised predominantly of military ice breakers and a few small craft.

The East fleet is responsible for the security and patrol of Sierans interests in the Bering strait. This force again is fairly limited in scale and undertakes much patrol work.

The South fleet is the largest of the three, incorporating the training flotillas, the striking fleet, the patrol fleet, coastal fleets and much more. The south fleet has the advantage of ports that are ice-free year round with deep harbours and well equipped shore facilities. Naval command is situated in the South fleet at its base in the capital Anadyr.

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"The first rule is not to lose; The second rule is not to forget the first rule"

I started this drawing before my absence but finally got around to completing it; the Kop'e (Lance) class Large Destroyers;



Laid down between 1935-1936, the Kop'e class Large Destroyers were effectively modified Veters with a larger hull to improve sea keeping and gain additional bunkerage. The ships were also up gunned from 120mm guns in 4 single mounts to 130mm guns in three twin mounts. The extra weight meant that speed dropped somewhat and the ships were cut down to a lower height to improve sea keeping. Other modifications included the addition of a second quad 2pdr for anti-air and additional 20mm AA guns.

The Kop'es were designed to fulfill a need outlined by the navy for a seaworthy, longer range destroyer capable of escorting the C3 cruisers throughout their mission. The initial plans saw the Kop'e with the same armament as the Veters and solely using their greater size for range. Later evolutions focused on increasing torpedo capability however late in the design stage it was decided to upgun the Kop'es but leave their torpedo armament the same as their smaller relatives. The Kope's would work as screens for the C3s with additional supplementary firepower and some role in the torpedo runs whilst the smaller, older Veters would work as the primary torpedo craft. This shift in strategy and its need for bunker ships to be available for the smaller destroyers resulted in part for the push by the Navy to introduce a new class of small destroyers to take the place of the Veters.

The Kop'es themselves proved somewhat of a mediocre ship. Whilst their stats and appearances were striking, in practice their 130mm gun mounts proved slow and prone to malfunction and their seakeeping was not as good as had been desired. Despite sharing much with the Veters to save costs, they proved to be expensive to produce and their complexity resulted in them requiring the use of shipyards that could otherwise construct small cruisers instead.

Ultimately, of the originally planned 16 Kope's to be constructed, only 7 were actually completed and launched with the rest cancelled before construction began. 4 of the class survived the war against Japan and were laid up shortly after its end before all but the class leader were scrapped, the sole survivor being used as a landlocked training vessel for a further decade before also being cut up.

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"The first rule is not to lose; The second rule is not to forget the first rule"

Great work!
And yeah, with total of 6 130mm guns, it's seakeeping (mainly stability) could indeed be an issue.

Thanks

Yeah you're not wrong there. Still, at a time when the Japanese are supposedly building cruisers the same size with 6in guns (we all know how poor those ships actually performed) political pressure sometimes exceeds common sense.

Also took the time to update all the index pages so that they show the drawings previously missing. Now it's as easy as following the links from the first post to see all the designs so far produced.

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"The first rule is not to lose; The second rule is not to forget the first rule"

Beautiful! Love their sleek lines!
My only thought is that you could omit the two outer pixels on the ends of the B-tube, to make a slightly more smooth transition between the different parts of the guns.

Modified the image as mentioned and yeah, it does make the transition smoother.
As for sleek designs, I like all ships that are sleek and elegant, I find a sleek profile looks far more menacing too than a bulky one, plus it's rather a distinctive trait of Sieranian vessels along with the semi clipper, semi ice breaking bow.

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"The first rule is not to lose; The second rule is not to forget the first rule"