Shipbucket

I think you should work a bit with overhang shading. The drawing looks good, but it looks very flat and almost unfinished at the moment.

"Seine Majestät der König und Kaiser befiehlt dem Kommandanten des Ostasiatischen Geschwaders nach Manila aufzubrechen, um sich eine persönliche Meinung zur spanischen Situation (edit: vor Ort), zur Lage der Eingeborenen und ausländischen Aktivitäten zu bilden.

Beschützen Sie mit dem Geschwader deutsche Interessen in den w.Carolinen und Paloa Inselgruppen. Senden sie dorthin Schiffe ab sobald auch die Amerikaner dies tun."

Transliteration

"His Majesty the King and Emperor orders the Commander of the East Asia squadron immediately to Manila, to establish (with his own eyes) a personal opinion on the Spanish situation there, to make clear sense of that situation of the indigenous and foreign activities (at that place).

Use the squadron to protect German interests in the Western Caroline Islands and Palaus Island groups. "Send your to ships off [at once] (to head off) the Americans (if necessary). Do this (at once)."

"What the HELL are the Germans doing here with an entire squadron?"

Commodore Dewey, of the American Asiatic Squadron.

Oh !@Q#!

Sir Edward Chichester, Ninth Baronet, C.B., Royal Navy aboard his flagship H.M.S. Immortalité.

"I am here by order of the Kaiser, sir!"

von Diederichs

Merde!

Captain Jean Caveaux

だめだ！

Watanabe, Ito

From my own research:

The big problem the pre-dreadnought designers had:

a. shock mountings.
b. propellant stowage.
c. shell stowage.

The shock mounting (recoil) problem in US ships' main battery barbette mounted guns up to and through the first world war was largely handled by a counter mass vertical weight system that was built into the main gun cradles and formed the front face of the rotating barbette. As the barrel recoiled on its slide, it raised the weight and then as it moved forward back into battery the weight fell. The gun lay problem is OBVIOUS. One does not obtain a four round per minute rate of fire with this kind of system. One does not even obtain two rounds per minute. As this was the only practical solution for shock mounting guns of 21 cm bore or larger before robust recuperators were developed around 1905, it appears at least for American tech, any claims of 30.5 cm guns firing more than every 90 seconds is simply not true. Physically impossible. Once large reliable hydraulic recuperators (from France) become practical, then (the Germans first) recuperated main armament becomes the battleship norm.

I have to admit that I cheated for Mr. McKinley's Navy. I hand waved the annealing problem for really large brass cartridges for unitary rounds and declared that the Americans solved it by 1890. The Germans really wanted to solve that problem because the wedge block breech guns they adopted seem made for unitary rounds and single hoist solutions. Before 1925 when Krupp and Rheinmetall finally solved the problem, for really large bore guns (again the break seems to be 21 cm bore) the brass cartridge, once subjected to breech chamber pressures, ballooned out of round too much to reuse without mechanical reforming and a new heat treat to set the rounding (annealing). The Spanish bitterly complained, during the Spanish American War that their 14 cm and 16 cm brass cases came back from Schneider and Ansaldo out of round; and as a result, caused breech plug jams and or blew out the breech blocks of their Hontoria copies of Schneider Canet 5.5 and 6.5 inch guns rapid fire guns. I believe them. But even at that, the "German" system of that era above 15 cm bore seems to have used a three hoist system and three lines of charge feed to load a Krupp naval gun. The first unit hoisted was the bullet. This would be a cast shell, a bit further advanced than the Paixham shell of the 1840s, but really not materially that much different as a cast iron or mild steel bodied round. It was highly susceptible to shatter-gap against the new Harvey and Krupp plate steels coming into service. Then in the German system would come the first bagged charge that for the Germans was made out of a specialized wool case fabric instead of the silk that the French and the British used. There are financial, political and technological reasons why the Germans could not obtain silk, but suffice it to say, that the Germans sold their solution to second tier navies who quickly discovered that wool rots and this can degrade ammunition propellant and interact with it in dangerous ways if you are not conscientious and rotate your stocks or use them. The Germans were careful. Brazilians and Spaniards were not. It hurt them badly. But back to the German system. The first bagged charge (called the fore charge) was followed by the aft charge or the "kicker". This charge was nestled by hand into a brass button breech plate complete with a lead gas seal ring. The sequence was bullet, fore charge, aft charge, and the brass seal breech plate or ring in the loading tray, all rammed in sequence, bullet first to seat the driver bands into the lands and grooves, fore charge up against the bullet, then depending on the gun model, either the aft charge and brass button together or the aft charge and then the brass button. It was Germanically hideously complicated as a loading procedure. One is surprised at how safely and quickly the German gun crews could do it inside the cramped gunhouses of the Brandenburgs. So, when I AU had the Americans adopt this system instead of the de Bang system, I emphasized that the AU Americans would have a lot of trouble with it. Their new steel navy ships blow up and some of their Endicott forts disappear in massive explosions. They would eventually solve it by rigorously developing a native annealing technology and special brass alloys that allow them to develop cartridged naval shells up to 30 cm bore, but I essentially cheated on this assumption since RTL history does not show anyone solved it until after WW I.

So... Battleships in [this] AU I should expect to have a string of Mutsu type accidents. A lot of accidents.

Shell stowage comes in two basic how not to do it solutions. Lay the shell on its side so it can be rolled to the shell hoist, or stand it on its base. Seaman Fumbles, whether the shell is base fused (American q1898) or nose fused (most everyone else same era) will find a way to bump the fuse and activate the shell in the powder handling room. Pre-world war one, when it was by muscle and carts, stand the shell up. That is safer.

PROPELLANTS: here is where you have your USS Maine type catastrophes. Assuming that the ship has its powder stowage right next to ye olde coal bunker...

The propellants everyone uses whether bagged in silk or wool are not too stable and are heat sensitive. The US Navy was so aware of how dangerous it was, they demanded inventors create automatic magazine flooding fire alarm initiated safety systems for both the magazines and the coal bunkers. USS Maine was the result. After that the USN made daily manual inspection mandatory.

You cannot overreach the tech. AU or otherwise, expect big naval guns to take up to four minutes between shots, and smaller (6 inch bore down) quick fire guns to not exceed 6-10 shots per minute. Rapid fire guns may punch out up to 15 shells per minute, but ONLY for that first minute. They need cool-down times after of up to 15 minutes for some of the larger bore Nordenfelds. A Driggs Schroeder 6 pounder was good for 10 shots per minute for 3 minutes, but needed a similar cool-down. The Hotchkiss revolver cannon, notoriously inaccurate, was popular, because with six or ten barrels, it could sustain rapid fire for some time and was the closest thing at 15 to 21 shots a minute to an auto cannon.

From USS Arkansas on the US shipbuilders used recuperators exclusively.

But even before that happened:

http://navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_12-40_mk3.php
http://navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_10-40_mk3.php



Now what I find interesting is that as early as 1898, the British were installing recognizable modern hydraulic recuperators aboard the HMS Formidable and the HMS Implacable, then building. They had no end of trouble with the tech clear into WW I. The cylinders leaked, the fluids were fire hazards and so forth.



My guess is that the Americans were extremely conservative and stayed with mechanical rocker systems until at least the 1906 timeframe I suggested. The South Carolina may have been their first battleship class to use French style cradle mounts.
[In 1898, the bag charges were] laid inside the brass button at the time of mounting on the feed tray or rammed separately depending on the model of the gun. You see this safety practice clear into WW II. This allows for visual inspection of the bag and last minute rejection if the gun crew notices tears, mold, crystallization or any other visible to the eye defects in the charge.
For mechanical handling reasons the Germans did not think so. I've seen old films of US gun crews loading old Endicott 12 in coast defense mortars (Edison filmed a practice) and [one notices], that the practices used were extremely unsafe. The speed at which the army crews were able to fire (1 shot per 15 seconds) on dry land was simply incredible, and this was all done by hand and wheeled trolley. I have seen an old film of a British gun crew load an old dreadnought style gun in a gun house and they were far slower and much more careful. Both used bag charges and the de Bang system modified by either Rogers or Wellin interrupted screw breech blocks. I (Research since I first wrote this has shown me that the Germans were as concerned about propellant burn as the French, and their parallel experiments showed that past a certain size, the propellant bag sputtered and did not burn thoroughly... Tobias) cannot say why the Germans used fore and aft charges. I [thought I did] know why those who used the de Bang system used multiple bag charges in a powder train. Controlled overpressure burn in the breech chamber and the bags were at the limit of what one average man could move by size and weight without the risk of tear or damage to the bag or the spill of highly flammable propellant in an extremely dangerous fire prone and cramped work space.


... for obvious reasons I'm not a fan of manganese in any way shape or form around a breech block. Prefer creosote sponge or LEAD, as they sensibly used in those days.
A brass case exposed to overpressure in the breech tends to balloon around the mid-body or at weak point in the case wall. This happens because the breech heats up to around softening point of brass every time the propellant burns.
Yes, but why would [one] want to do that when weight is not an issue and lead is much safer, cheaper and more plentiful for either the case or the brass base button? The lead will remain and after factory reset is reusable.
This is what I assume the Americans do in my AU. The continuous step chain hoist is easier to design for a shell or bag charge on its side (US battleships in general), but for a unit round, stand it on its base. Unless the propellant is a preformed stick or molded candle (modern practice) might want to make sure the granules/pellets do not slosh and bunch up in clumps in handling. Uneven burn means two dangers: flame flash from unburnt propellant and bag silk or spot burn which torches the breech chamber walls and creates weak spots. That happens anyway, but juggling the bag charges as the stocks are rotated around to make sure the granules are evenly distributed reduces the occurrences and the dangers. With a unit round, there has to be an open the cartridge and rotate the bags inside inspection or somebody has to learn how to make a burn candle which is akin to a solid rocket mortar. In 1910, that is not going to happen. So that unit round will have to be separated, the bag charges inside rotated and those charges visually inspected.

Hopefully at least every three months.

Unit rounds can be insulated. and are easier to move by machines. The bag charges are somewhat safer inside brass from a spark hazard, but standing heat, moisture, and accidental tears in movement remain other hazards nonetheless. Nothing changes the dangers from nitrocellulose powders used in the period. Nothing. [One's] chief dangers remain moisture and crystallization. [One should] think about air conditioning your battleships' magazines.
The US used horizontal bag charge lifts and point up shell hoists to feed trays in some of their ships. With unit rounds the point up shell hoist with flipper tray would be [a preferred] choice.
Since the people who caused the accident died in the explosion; one can only guess. From what [one] can discern from similar debacles in British, French and American warships, the causes are most likely:

a. someone smoked in the powder room. With the IJN, do not laugh... it is possible.
b. something hydraulic caught fire.
c. Something chemical in nature was left standing to spontaneously combust. (Couple of American aircraft carriers became dockyard cases because someone did not police the rag bins.)
d. or the lighting system shorted out. Again with the IJN this is possible.
e. or a service panel shorted out and the trips did not work. See d.
[One] tends to think not enough. Safe practices are essential and far more important, no matter what the designed layout. Coal dust in air can act like a fuel air explosive bomb. One spark or one flame point and goodbye. The Maine blew up because her bunkers were not clean, were not kept clean and the coal was mishandled. p[My opinion. Tobias] [One] could have charged Sicard with dereliction; for not making ... sure that his stokers and deck apes did their jobs to wet wipe and dry wipe the bunkers before the last coaling and to properly handle the coal transfer from deck to bunkers. thereafter. That coal can be stacked wrong and that when stacked wrong as it shuffles around as the ship pitches and rolls it can rub and sandpaper itself to generate black fog is a known hazard.

That is coal can overheat in a steel box as the box becomes an oven is inevitable. That simple cross ventilation is not enough to keep the coal dust from accumulating as black fog is a known hazard. All in 1898. Sicard screwed up and lost his ship.

At least Hiram Rickover thought so.