Shipbucket

I agree with all of JSBs points though I'll say this about gun armament...

Having a single smaller calibre AA mount would be nothing out of the ordinary especially looking at RN practice if your bigger mounts lack good elevation, I don't know what his elevation range is for the 5" guns so I can't say but I'd ship a single over a dual 3.9" on this anyhow.

My two cents is to build Hunts or at least analogues to them and role them as required, surface action, escort duties, ASW etcetera. Common hull different armament fits.

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Re Blackbuck comment,

I was assuming the 5' was the American 5"/38 (12.7 cm) in a Enclosed Base Ring Mount (not cheap or light but probably the best DP gun of the war) and the 100mm was something like the German 10.5 cm/65 (4.1") SK C/33 (good AA, probably acceptable v surface and cheaper and lighter so better for a DE (IMO).

Note I would make a list of guns in your fleet so you have a list at each 'level' (you can go for the USN approach having very few or the RN of having millions of different guns (and they will come in different mounts as well anyway) up to you what better (well ok the USN is almost certainly better but doesn’t look as realistically interesting )

I think the RN 4' twin was about the same as the single 4.7 (+had better elevation) so I would prefer 4 x 100mm (2x2) guns to 2 x 12.7mm (2x1) guns for a small DE.

JSB

Hi oberst,

Your commercial fishing boats go 25kn on twin screws? This does not sound like a very economical fishing boat. Plus, in a similar vein to others, this is a DE not a fleet combatant, no? Who are you shooting at with your 5" that will not be seriously damaged by the 100mm? I'd suggest dropping one or other.

Regards,
Adam

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- That's true enough, a homogeneous battery of 100-105s would be the ideal for lighter combatants.

- But that would simply things for us trying to help!

- Well, that's exactly what most of the Hunts ended up with!

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Zhalo class escort destroyer redone
This was the vessels that eased the burden of convoy escort from the destroyers. These escort destroyers, according to what the Rossiyan Navy refers to them or as everyone else calls, destroyer escorts were quick to be built from scratch. These ships are armed with two dual 100 mm cannons, 4 triple 40 mm anti-air cannons and six dual 25 mm anti-air cannons, one dual 610 mm torpedo tube launcher, one dual ASW torpedo tube launcher, two Hedgehog ASW Mortar, two Squid ASW Mortars, two depth charge launcher. This class of escort destroyers have a top speed of 25 knots thanks to it two steam turbines and two boilers. These ships need a crew of 198 to operate at full efficiency. There were to be 200 of ships planned to be launched but only 95 were completed before the war's end and of the 95, 6 were lost in action, 2 in the Black Sea, 1 in the North Sea, 1 in the Atlantic and two in the Pacific both at the Battle of Samar, (RFS Hornisse and RFS Mol'). These ships have no armour was so ever because they are too small and steel was need for the production of tanks, guns, trucks et. cetera and to repair, refit and rebuild those damaged warships because someone wasn't doing their jobs (I am looking at you, Jankyn)

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The redesign makes more sense.

One thing that might be worth considering is replacing the expensive turbines with VTE's, accepting a lower speed of 22-23 knots. If I understand the rationale behind these ships they don't need high speed but long-range is a necessity and you want to keep costs down...

OK If you don’t mind me carrying on.

I had a look at weight of you stuff,

- 100mm twin (using German 105 twin 27,055 kg, note you could go lighter and less complicated with other mounts, triaxial stabilization may not really work on such small ship so why bother, it will also add lots of cost and weight)
- 40mm triple (cant find any triple so using data from USN twin/quad to get a guess, not I would go with a twin instead due to loading of the Bofors gun needing side access)(USA Mountings Twin 5500kg Quad 10500kg so triple 8000kgish ?)
- 25mm twin (IJN twin 1,100 kg, not necessarily a good gun (only 15 round clips and to heavy for 1 man underpowered use) if you have access to allies stuff but if its already in supply chain pre war then you might keep it)
- twin 610mm torpedo tube ASufW (IJN LL is 2,700 kg just for the torpedo each)
- twin ASW torps (will this work with WW2 Torpedoes ? will it not home on you ? (German G7/T4 1,937 kg US Mark 24 308 kg what type of weapon is yours ?)
- 2 x Hedgehog (13,027 kg)
- 2 x Squid (2x 10000kg + ammo)
- 2x DC luncher (136 kg per DC + extra)

So 54110 + 32000 + 6600 + 10800 (assuming the mount must weight as much as the torpedo) + 4000ish (assuming 1/2 way between USN/KM) + 13,027 + 20000 + DCs = 140537kg or about 140 tons, IMO to much (remember this doesn’t include any ammo or crew or structural weight to hold them)

Crew for your guns
100m twin 6 crew + ammo passers say 10 ish ?
40mm triple 5 + loaders 9min
25mm twin 7 crew total
(2x16 + 4x14 + 6x7)= 130 crew just for the guns !!!! 198 - 130 = 68 for ASW kit, bridge/radar/sonar/radio crews, 2 x engine rooms, Damage control etc........ (I will add the IJN 25mm is bad for its crew size IMO, but maybe I’m just underestimating the numbers for the 40mm crew I have only added 3 men per barrel for loading this is very low minimum, one on mount 2 passing will not reach far from ready ammo and they will quickly run out and get tired)

So IMO
You need to cut weight of weapons drastically (empty space is not a bad thing and space for boats would be good)
- 2 x twin 100mm (simple design would be good you don’t have directors and you are a small ship so rate of fire rather than accuracy will do).
- single or twin 40mms (personally no more than 4-6 barrels and with the best arcs possible)
- 25mm as simple as possible (or go 20mm) light single hand-held 2-4 (maybe 6 if low on 40mm)
- use a common TT go for 21' and only have 1 set of tubes
- and I don’t think a) anybody used both Squid and hedgehog as well as ASW TTs and DCs, b) I don’t think Squid should be fired backwards ! (and its supper heavy so not right at stern)

JSB

Hi JSB, Oberst,

As I understand it, Squid is the successor to Hedgehog, so it'd be quite unusual to ship both of them at the same time, unless Oberst is referring to an upgrade at some point that takes Hedgehog away and installs Squid instead? It wouldn't be a like-for-like upgrade due to weights and function but might make sense for an ASW-primary ship, after all?

Regards,
Adam

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Well I agree but his pic has hedge on the bow (where it will be very wet) and Squid on stern (backwards and to far aft IMO)

IMO if you have squid you don’t need anything else in WW2 (well limbo would be nice )

JSB

Does fire control for Squid/Limbo exist yet?