Shipbucket

Changed the 5" secondaries to 4"s. Also changed the AA guns, the bow, the propellers and the bilge.

_________________

Those are 5 inch surface guns, not AA guns. What you are looking for is the 76mm guns. You can find some on this drawing: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/939 ... do1924.png
You appear to have 20mm Oerlikons, which did not yet exist. Put 4x76 mm guns, 2 per side. That should be enough for a cruiser.
I would tone down the shading on the bow, I can clearly see that it is based on my Pensacola. Right now it looks excessive for such a small hull.

I think the spotlight position is probably untenable. I would probably move the aft pair down one deck level, and the forward pair atop the pilothouse underneath the tripod foremast.

Which gun on the ship is the 76mm?

Also I know they aren't AA guns. I never said they were

_________________

The smaller ones above the casemate gun deck.

Why would you want 5 inch guns that are not AA guns when you have 8 6 inch guns?

Hi Tristan,

Just to explain (don't know if you know this or not) - most ships of this era wouldn't have that sort of gun fit for a couple of reasons:

• Difficulty aiming the guns - this pre-dates radar ranging, so seeing fall of shot is still an optical process. If you're close enough to be using your 5" surface guns you're probably shooting at it with the 6" guns too, which is going to make it very difficult on whoever's trying to work out which shells are hitting the target and which guns need to adjust their aim
  
  Ammunition storage - any ship can only carry a finite amount of ammunition - yours will have to devote some space it could have used for 6" shells - which are generally more effective at damaging a given ship - for 5" shells. This could cause problems, if, for instance, your 6" shells run out and you're left with a bunch of 5" shells only.
  
  AA - ships of this period would generally have a couple of AA guns, so it's a sensible substitution.

Lastly, I did notice one more thing - generally, warships are fighting a constant battle against topweight - weight that's carried high up, compromising the ship's stability - some inter-War Japanese ships ended up capsizing because the IJN were a little overzealous in their equipment fit and both the US Atlanta-class and the British Dido-class ended up having to change their equipment and armament fits during the war (generally as more radars - more topweight - were added) to address stability issues.

One way to prevent this problem developing on your Philadelphia would be to switch your heavier 5" guns and your lighter 20mm Oerlikons around, getting the most weight that you can down low.

Regards,
Adam

_________________
Public Service Announcement: This is the preferred SB / FD font.

NSWE: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5695

It's really too early for light AA of that sort. In this timeframe you're looking at a few 3" class high angle guns and maybe the odd rifle caliber machine gun. And a lot of the time the high angle guns were classified as star shell guns rather than AA. That how low the aerial threat was seen to be and to be fair at the time they were probably right.

As far as I can tell the USN abandoned 5" guns on their cruisers after the Chester class and didn't use them again until the Pensacola class was fitted with 5"/25s which was a dedicated AA gun.

_________________
“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

Worklist

Source Materiel is always welcome.

_________________

Not bad. I'd consider doing a basic topview though, so you're sure everything fits where it should. Something tells me you might have an issue with your bridge and foremast. Oh and what's with that step in the superstructure by the aft super firing mount?
And lastly, torpedoes or rather the lack thereof.

_________________
“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

Worklist

Source Materiel is always welcome.

I drew an accurate version of the 5/25. It should be in the parts section, if I'm not wrong. Otherwise you can cannibalize it from my Northampton-class Augusta. You should really use that one. Your propellers are also way too large for a ship the size of yours. You can find smaller ones easily by looking at other light cruisers of the period. The double storage davits for the boats would've been a no-no for the USN. Export cruisers, maybe. You also need to add appropriate motorboats/ -barcasses etc. Your bridge looks reasonable, but I would check the windows; your window pillars are way too thick, for the period. The bridge wings are bland, have no angles and thus appear to just "shoot" straight aft, which in real life they wouldn't. Look at the Augusta again, which picture will give you ideas about such USN standard features as wind deflectors (features absent on Karle94:s drawings). Also they are way too long. US cruisers of this period featured an integrated conning tower (CT) which you don't seem to have. That's a must!
Take a look, again, at the Augusta, and feel inspired to improve your forward mast. On the hull, I'd continue the portholes forward and aft; your arrangement currently is mildly odd.
You're definitely getting there, so this is a commendable effort at a smaller light cruiser.

_________________
My Avatar:Петр Алексеевич Безобразов (Petr Alekseevich Bezobrazov), Вице-адмирал , царская ВМФ России(1845-1906) - I sign my drawings as Ari Saarinen