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Post by generalvikus on Oct 12, 2018 19:19:49 GMT -6
While we've long had a 'best ship designs' thread, I haven't seen a place for discussion of people's favourite historical ship designs. What vessels, built and un-built, can players take lessons from? Which designs were ahead of their time, devising effective and efficient solutions to the particular challenges they faced? Which nation, if any, enjoyed a preponderance of such designs?
When making these judgements, I think that it is best to consider cost-effectiveness. With hindsight, for example, we can judge that while the Yamato was an excellent battleship by all accounts, the investment did not pay off nearly as much as an equivalent investment in aircraft carriers would have. Certainly, one might make the case that the same could be said for all capital ships built in the same era, but, relatively speaking, about which historical designs can we say the opposite was true? The most striking example, I suppose, must be HMS Dreadnought herself. For the less obvious answers, I shall yield the floor.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 12, 2018 19:58:32 GMT -6
The best design that I feel were ahead of their time were the Baltimore's although they were mid-war designs. They were a response to the Cleveland's but were far better. The only better class would be the post-war Dem Moines. For a balanced design, the Baltimore class cruiser was, to me, the best design and the more adaptable to many different combat situations.
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Post by generalvikus on Oct 12, 2018 21:02:31 GMT -6
The best design that I feel were ahead of their time were the Baltimore's although they were mid-war designs. They were a response to the Cleveland's but were far better. The only better class would be the post-war Dem Moines. For a balanced design, the Baltimore class cruiser was, to me, the best design and the more adaptable to many different combat situations. I remember reading that thinking in the late inter-war period had shifted towards light cruisers, because it was thought that a greater number of 6 inch guns would be more use than 8 inch guns. However, I note that this was before the Allies had got a proper taste of the Long Lance. Do you then favour the 8 inch guns of this ship because of the greater range? |
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 12, 2018 21:25:31 GMT -6
The best design that I feel were ahead of their time were the Baltimore's although they were mid-war designs. They were a response to the Cleveland's but were far better. The only better class would be the post-war Dem Moines. For a balanced design, the Baltimore class cruiser was, to me, the best design and the more adaptable to many different combat situations. I remember reading that thinking in the late inter-war period had shifted towards light cruisers, because it was thought that a greater number of 6 inch guns would be more use than 8 inch guns. However, I note that this was before the Allies had got a proper taste of the Long Lance. Do you then favour the 8 inch guns of this ship because of the greater range? It wasn't just the 8-in/55 Marks 12/15 guns which were lighter and had better shell handling equipment. In the enclosed and narrow seas around the Solomon's and when supporting island invasions, the heavy cruiser with good speed and excellent weapons were more capable of surviving and dealing a blow to the enemy that the other ships. The light cruisers were create destroyer leaders but were outgunned by the Japanese ships. I feel that the heavy cruiser was a better match to the carrier task forces. A warship is more than just armor and big guns, it is a system. It is the whole system that counts and can it perform its set of missions and be flexible. Personally, it is my belief that we focus to much on how big the gun is and how much armor it has. We have to view the ship in its totality, as a system designed to execute its missions and accomplish its operational goals. |
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Post by rimbecano on Oct 13, 2018 10:11:15 GMT -6
Actually, I've generally heard the analysis that it was the heavy cruisers that found themselves outmatched in night actions in constricted waters, due to the lower rate of fire if their 8-inch guns. Certainly more CAs were lost in surface combat during the war than CLs. The CAs were more suited to daytime action in the open sea, but that kind of combat didn't really happen.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 13, 2018 10:24:24 GMT -6
Actually, I've generally heard the analysis that it was the heavy cruisers that found themselves outmatched in night actions in constricted waters, due to the lower rate of fire if their 8-inch guns. Certainly more CAs were lost in surface combat during the war than CLs. The CAs were more suited to daytime action in the open sea, but that kind of combat didn't really happen. Those heavy cruisers: Astoria, Chicago, Houston, Indianapolis, Northampton, Quincy and Vincennes were all naval treaty class cruisers with slower firing guns. Chicago and Indianapolis were all lost due to torpedoes, all the rest it was a combination of gunfire and torpedoes. The guns on the majority were 8"/55 Marks 9,10,13,14. They had poor dispersion patterns and many other issues. The guns were heavier and were slower to load. The heavy cruisers were all that was available for Operation Watchtower and our night fighting was not very good. We had not really learned to use our air search sets for surface search and integrate that information into the combat information centers which were not really designed into these ships. There are many more factors than how many guns and how fast they fire, in naval warfare. |
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Post by Airy W on Oct 13, 2018 11:43:24 GMT -6
I love the Clevelands because they have a really purposeful design and IMHO were the right ship for the time.
The Gotland is impossible not to love because it's such a special mutt.
The Kongos are really cool for being such a successful radical overhaul.
The Flower Class (the sloop one), Buckley Class and Bogue Class are all neat for using lower performance engines effectively.
The Konig class is neat for the cross-deck fire and is IMHO the only interesting German ship class.
The Dantons are cool for the opposite reason as the Clevelands. People tend to diss the impure designs but I find the compromise interesting. Plus I really like building semi-dreadnoughts in RTW.
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Post by generalvikus on Oct 13, 2018 12:22:53 GMT -6
I love the Clevelands because they have a really purposeful design and IMHO were the right ship for the time. The Gotland is impossible not to love because it's such a special mutt. The Kongos are really cool for being such a successful radical overhaul. The Flower Class (the sloop one), Buckley Class and Bogue Class are all neat for using lower performance engines effectively. The Konig class is neat for the cross-deck fire and is IMHO the only interesting German ship class. The Dantons are cool for the opposite reason as the Clevelands. People tend to diss the impure designs but I find the compromise interesting. Plus I really like building semi-dreadnoughts in RTW. An interesting list indeed! I just looked up the Danton; I'd very much like to hear more of your thoughts about it, because to me it seems that it very much was 'the right ship for the wrong time' as I think you implied. For heaven's sake, she was laid down after Dreadnought was commissioned, so what on earth is their excuse? I'd like to hear your thoughts on why you like semi-dreadnoughts in RTW, because I've been doing some thinking about them lately. In the past I've tried to apply a 'dreadnought mentality' to the pre-dreadnought era - i.e. only the big guns matter - but lately I've been wondering whether the pre-Tsushima mentality may have been more appropriate for the age than I gave it credit for; that is, since it's so difficult to punch through a ship's main belt in the early period, it's better to try and disable it by using smaller guns to punch through the BE and wreck the superstructure. I really haven't been able to test this yet though, so since you're an advocate, once again I'd love to hear what you have to say. |
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Post by cv10 on Oct 13, 2018 12:40:39 GMT -6
I love the Clevelands because they have a really purposeful design and IMHO were the right ship for the time. The Gotland is impossible not to love because it's such a special mutt. The Kongos are really cool for being such a successful radical overhaul. The Flower Class (the sloop one), Buckley Class and Bogue Class are all neat for using lower performance engines effectively. The Konig class is neat for the cross-deck fire and is IMHO the only interesting German ship class. The Dantons are cool for the opposite reason as the Clevelands. People tend to diss the impure designs but I find the compromise interesting. Plus I really like building semi-dreadnoughts in RTW. +1 to your list! Semi-dreadnoughts make for interesting designs (and interesting battles in-game), and its fascinating to see how naval architects go about choosing what to sacrifice in a ship design. |
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Post by generalvikus on Oct 13, 2018 13:04:31 GMT -6
Semi-dreadnoughts make for interesting designs (and interesting battles in-game), and its fascinating to see how naval architects go about choosing what to sacrifice in a ship design. When you say that they make for 'interesting battles' do you mean that they are combat effective or efficient, or just that they make a nice change of pace? |
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Post by aeson on Oct 13, 2018 13:44:51 GMT -6
As long as we're sticking to big-gun ships, I like the look of the Queen Elizabeths and Tiger.
I kind of like how Furious and Vindictive looked before Furious became a flush-deck carrier and Vindictive went back to being a cruiser, with a flying-off deck forward and landing deck aft of an otherwise fairly normal superstructure.
Don't remember which one it was for, but one of the early carriers was initially designed with an island on either side of a full-length flight deck and had a bridge connecting the two islands across the flight deck, which amuses me. Might've been Hermes.
The Konig class had fore-and-aft superfiring pairs and a midships centerline turret like the British Orion-, King George V-, and Iron Duke-class battleships. Did you perhaps mean the Kaiser-class battleships, which had an aft superfiring pair, a pair of wing turrets en echelon, and a forward turret on the centerline like the British Neptune and Colossus classes? |
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Post by cv10 on Oct 13, 2018 14:10:02 GMT -6
Semi-dreadnoughts make for interesting designs (and interesting battles in-game), and its fascinating to see how naval architects go about choosing what to sacrifice in a ship design. When you say that they make for 'interesting battles' do you mean that they are combat effective or efficient, or just that they make a nice change of pace? A nice change of pace |
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Post by Airy W on Oct 13, 2018 15:31:33 GMT -6
For heaven's sake, she was laid down after Dreadnought was commissioned, so what on earth is their excuse? I'd like to hear your thoughts on why you like semi-dreadnoughts in RTW, because I've been doing some thinking about them lately. So in 1906 Dreadnoughts just aren't very good. Accuracy is poor and fire is slow so the short range means it's hard to keep a gun duel going with enemy evasive maneuvers and the need to not present an easy target for torpedoes.) The whole ladder volley is great in theory but the conditions to put it into practice are incredibly fleeting. Battles are really inconclusive. Yes Tsushima was decisive but the Japanese had a lot of advantages, the range was really short and the Russians had to be rather obligingly willing to give battle for that situation to happen. 10 years later at Jutland we dont see an attempt to put the grand battle into action and it is not a repeat of Tsushima. We can debate Jutland until the cows come home but I think we can all agree that neither side lost it's fleet that day. A large secondary battery is effective in these indecisive conditions. Throwing more shells at the enemy increases your chance of slowing them with flooding or knocking out their steering. These things won't give you a decisive victory but might let you pick up a capital ship or two. On the flip side they'll also protect you from attrition. Suppose you have a battleship that is slowed to 15 knots and has a turret out of action. If all it has is another 2 or 4 12 inch guns for protection it's extremely vulnerable to attack by cruisers. If it's got a battery of 9 or 10 inch guns I would be delighted to see those cruisers get close. If it's got 9 or 10 inch guns the enemy battleships are going to be under fire which will throw off their aim. And if you start losing the secondaries you can maybe turn your other side to the enemy. Just keep fighting and you could get friendly reinforcements or a storm or nightfall or their ammo runs out or repairs get completed. Die by inches and kill by inches. Now over time these conditions will start to change. Accuracy will improve. Shells will start penetrating at more then point blank range. These things will help the first generation dreadnought a lot more then the semi-dreadnought. But at the same time that the first generation dreadnought is getting better, it's also getting obsolete. It's always going to be slow. It's armor is always going to be inferior. It's turret layout is always going to be wrong. These are true of the semi-dreadnought as well but at least that had some good years where it was the bane of cruisers. And you can even think about giving up some secondaries and giving it more engines. Then it's the terror of cruisers all over again. I wouldn't plan to do that but occasionally the stars align and I would rather wait to start on the next capital ship but the semi-dread is the right age. The Konig class had fore-and-aft superfiring pairs and a midships centerline turret like the British Orion-, King George V-, and Iron Duke-class battleships. Did you perhaps mean the Kaiser-class battleships, which had an aft superfiring pair, a pair of wing turrets en echelon, and a forward turret on the centerline like the British Neptune and Colossus classes? Yeah I probably mixed those up. |
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Post by cuirasspolisher on Oct 13, 2018 18:39:32 GMT -6
The Agincourt is my favorite of the early British dreadnoughts. The 14 x 12 layout was a magazine explosion waiting to happen, but there's something charming about the turret farm, like a baby Tillman design. The secondary battery was very good, too.
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Post by director on Oct 13, 2018 19:36:27 GMT -6
generalvikus - French shipyards had very long building times, and the French naval design bureau staff, while apparently technically accomplished, were somewhat divorced from any feeling of urgency. And the persistent 'wobble' of French naval policy between jeune ecole and capital-ship theories as the governments changed over and over pretty much wrecked any chance of achieving either. I suspect the plans and ideas for the 'Danton' class were already in the works and the French Navy decided to go ahead and build obsolete ships rather than re-open the design process and possibly have to go back to the government for funding. Remember it took the Germans a considerable time to develop the plans for their first all-big-gun ships. My favorite capital ship would have to be the un-built 'South Dakota' class... for ships actually constructed, I think the 'Queen Elizabeth' class had a beautiful balance of power, speed and protection. For cruisers? The French 'Algerie' was pretty much the best of the 'Treaty'-era heavies, and their 9x6" light cruisers were - I think - magnificent ships. Everyone else was busy trying to cram 15 or 12-6" guns onto too little displacement, but I think the French got the balance just about right. For a destroyer... that's a tough one. I'd say the 'Tribal' class except for their lack of AA, or one of the Japanese 6x5" ships. After the Guadalcanal battles, the US Navy did decide that 6"-gunned cruisers were a superior choice for night actions. Had there been any daytime actions I think the 8"-gunned cruisers would have been a better choice. Oldpop is exactly correct in saying the heavies that took the brunt of damage in the South Pacific were not 'Baltimore' class but older, less-capable ships and not equipped with radar. For whatever reason the 'Brooklyn' light cruisers seem to have gotten radar before the heavies, and I know the 'Cleveland' class got radar from the start. I haven't looked at the commissioning dates but I seem to recall the 'Cleveland' light cruisers entered service before the 'Baltimore' class. That might be why the 'Cleveland' class were preferred for night engagements... but as I recall, the Navy's argument centered on the higher rate of fire for the 6", the adequate penetration at short range and no need for the 8"-gun's superior range and hitting power. The 'Cleveland's were notoriously top-heavy and overweight, especially once radar and additional AA were fitted (rather like the British 'Town' and 'Colony' classes). The sensible thing to do would have been to remove the X turret (ala the 'Colony' class) but there was no time to do that.
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