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Post by aeson on Oct 20, 2018 20:27:59 GMT -6
You besmirch the honor of the semi-dreadnoughts calling something with only six big guns by that name. The Dantons and Satsumas had a 6 gun secondary battery on each side in addition to the main four guns and the Radetzkys had four. And the Edward VIIs and Katoris had just two guns of the intermediate battery on each broadside.
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Post by Airy W on Oct 23, 2018 5:44:40 GMT -6
I wonder what kept those from being double turrets for the intermediates.
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Post by aeson on Oct 23, 2018 19:12:11 GMT -6
I wonder what kept those from being double turrets for the intermediates. If I had to guess, probably redundancy; if the intermediate battery only has two guns on each broadside, then putting the guns into a single turret leaves the intermediate battery somewhat more vulnerable to being knocked out by enemy fire or mechanical failure than putting the guns into two single turrets, even though putting both guns into one turret is probably more weight-efficient and might allow for somewhat-heavier armor protection.
Plus, the whole "put all the big guns on the centerline" thing was still a bit uncommon at that point and the (early) ships that put turrets between parts of the superstructure or were designed to allow turrets to fire across the deck tended to have issues with blast damage. There's also that a 9.2"/46.7 has a barrel the better part of 36 feet long; since the British didn't adopt superfiring turrets until Neptune, I'd expect that a hypothetical King Edward VII with the four 9.2" guns mounted on the centerline in twin turrets rather than on the wings in single turrets would've used a linear arrangement and so might've needed to be at least ~80-90 feet longer; similarly for Katori, though arguably somewhat worse since a 10"/45 has a barrel the better part of 38 feet long.
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Post by Airy W on Oct 23, 2018 19:19:06 GMT -6
Sorry that was ambiguously worded on my part. I mean I wonder why they didn't upscale those turrets to doubles and go to four intermediate guns per side.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 23, 2018 20:56:50 GMT -6
Sorry that was ambiguously worded on my part. I mean I wonder why they didn't upscale those turrets to doubles and go to four intermediate guns per side. I wonder if the answer lies in the fact that this class of warships were being built and completed within a couple of years of the HMS Dreadnought-1906. King Edward was launched in July 1903, which means HMS Dreadnought had to be either on the drawing board or in the initial stages of building. Why waste the guns and everything that goes with its installation, when you have decided to build all big gun ships. I don't think that is the issue. I believe that it has more to do with the number of guns on the forward and stern quarters. That is a lot of ammunition sitting on the edge of the ship and that could be a problem for stability and the danger of explosion. I am putting together a Springsharp design for the King Edward to see if I can figure this out. www.militaryfactory.com/ships/detail.asp?ship_id=HMS-King-Edward-VII
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Post by director on Oct 23, 2018 22:42:32 GMT -6
I suspect it had to do with the Admiralty's desire to see displacements (and budgets) held down. There is a slow growth in capital ship displacement over the Victorian and Edwardian eras, but it is slow... the 29 British pre-dreadnoughts are all pretty similar with only slight increases in displacement from class to class. The explosion in tonnages really happens from the 'King Edward VII' class through the 'Queen Elizabeth' class, from 16,400 tons to 28,000 tons in just 10 years. Prior British battleships were being heavily criticized for not carrying as much armament as foreign ships (as Britain traditionally favors sea-keeping, speed and not having the ships too crowded; see the inter-war 'County' class heavy cruisers as an example of sea-keeping over armament). The 'KE7' class, or 'Wobbly Eight' ships were intended as an answer to that.
They did pull the 12" turrets from the 'Lord Nelson' and 'Agamemnon' to use in 'Dreadnought', which delayed the semi-dreadnoughts by about a year (I think) and artificially sped-up the completion of 'Dreadnought'.
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Post by dorn on Oct 23, 2018 23:56:47 GMT -6
I think point is tonnage and length.
If you compare Dreadnought with 160.6 m vs. King Edward VII with 138.23 it is quite a difference. And question could be if it is even possible to put everything in centerline.
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Post by aeson on Oct 24, 2018 1:05:34 GMT -6
It's probably not a displacement issue, at least not in the sense of it just not being possible to fit a larger 9.2" battery on that displacement; the subsequent Lord Nelson class is slightly smaller but carries a ten-gun 9.2" battery (4x2+2x1, all in the wings). If more of the 6" battery carried by the preceding classes of battleships had been removed on the King Edward VIIs, then the King Edward VIIs could likely have carried a larger 9.2" battery. Wikipedia's article indicates that more of the 6" battery wasn't replaced by the 9.2" battery was due to a design time issue, though I don't know how accurate that is; if correct, that indicates that the King Edward VIIs were created by modifying an earlier design to support the 9.2" guns so as to avoid the longer design time required for a more fully revised design.
Katori, like a number of other battleships British shipyards built for other powers, was in many ways a clone of the most recent class of British battleships, which at the time was the King Edward VII.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 24, 2018 8:33:53 GMT -6
I researched the issue of twin 9.2 in. guns instead of singles in the King Edwards. My source was Warrior to Dreadnought by D.K. Brown. Originally the ship design had twin 7.5 inch. guns in place, but the head of design came back from an illness and replaced those twins with single 9.2 inch guns but the firing arc was limited to prevent blast effects on the 12 inch. guns. This was why twin 9.2 inch. guns were not used. These ships were designed in answer to the US New Jersey which was just being built.
Another consideration is that these ships had a low freeboard for their size. Generally, freeboard is calculated as the square root of the length times 1.1. In my calculation the freeboard is about 23.40 feet and that is low. The lower casemate guns were underwater at 14 degrees of roll and I suspect that a full broadside of 12 and 9.2 inch guns might push the ship to that region of roll. This type of data is vital to the operation of the ship.
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Post by Airy W on Oct 24, 2018 9:52:48 GMT -6
At what point was it clear that Fisher's view had won out within British circles and there would be no more intermediate batteries? Was it clear there wouldn't be any more non-dreadnoughts by the time they delayed Edward for Dreadnought? I think point is tonnage and length. If you compare Dreadnought with 160.6 m vs. King Edward VII with 138.23 it is quite a difference. And question could be if it is even possible to put everything in centerline. Dreadnought did only have three centerline turrets though. My eye isn't trained in this but it looks to me like there would be enough room for a third centerline turret in front of the funnels for the Edwards. It would definitely require giving up the front 9 inch guns. It would maybe require giving up the back two as well so that all the 6 inch guns could be shifted backwards. And the British did seem to like to keep their small caliber guns spread out. And that's another question. Why not put the small caliber guns in tight clusters where they could be heavily armored? Why spread them out? With 3 inchers it makes sense because you dont want "blind spots" but 6 inchers are shooting at pretty distant targets anyway. There weren't ever any dreadnoughts with only six main guns, right? The Brandenburgs with a midship secondary just slightly smaller then the main pair are the closest I can find. If Germany was capable of building those in 1890 when they had never built a battleship before, it suggests that naval engineers should have been able to build three centerline turrets long before dreadnought.
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Post by aeson on Oct 24, 2018 10:23:53 GMT -6
There weren't ever any dreadnoughts with only six main guns, right? Depends. Do you count battlecruisers - the 'dreadnought armored cruisers' - to be dreadnoughts? Because the Renown-class battlecruisers had a 3x2 main battery. If you're willing to include hypothetical ships, the plans to rearm the Scharnhorst-class battleships with 15" guns would have left them with a 3x2 main battery, as well.
I can't think of any other such ships off the top of my head, though.
Edit: Actually, I think one of the proposed super-Yamatos might also have had a six-gun main battery.
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Post by Airy W on Oct 24, 2018 13:12:33 GMT -6
Because the Renown-class battlecruisers had a 3x2 main battery. Yes like that but with armor instead of speed.
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Post by director on Oct 24, 2018 14:54:14 GMT -6
Battleship theory was in a state of flux from 'Devastation' to 'Dreadnought', moving back and forth between 'massive heavy guns needed' and 'large batteries of quick-firing guns needed'. So prudent designers settled on both - a few slow-loading big guns for punch (if they could hit) and a larger number of intermediate or light guns to chew away at the lightly-or-unarmored sections and for defense against cruisers and torpedo boats.
The German example of 6x11" guns (with two of a different caliber) was likely not followed up because, at the range that ships were expected to fight, two more slow-loading big guns weren't a good trade-off. You need a large battery of big guns in order to get hits at longer ranges and to punch through the thicker armor at the center of mass (highest probability to hit). Post-Tsushima, the expected range for battle basically doubled - relieving fears of getting torpedoed at very close range and also pushing the growth in caliber of the secondary armament from 6" to 8" and 10" because the lighter, faster-firing guns either couldn't reach or couldn't do much damage at longer ranges. In my opinion, it was the opening range of battle that birthed the semi-dreadnought and then regularized it into the dreadnought.
Just an opinion, but I think battleship secondaries were spread out to improve the angles of fire (as you say) and to limit the damage you'd take from a single hit.
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Post by oaktree on Oct 27, 2018 19:49:14 GMT -6
Another factor for secondaries being spread out is space needed for other functions of the ship. Ventilators, uptakes, cranes, boat storage, torpedo tubes, magazines for same and the secondary and anti-torpedo boat guns. I think one reason the "V" mount yielded to the "X" mount despite needing more weight is that the space between V and Y couldn't be used due to field of fire and blast damage issues. Move the "V" turret to "X" and there is that much more valuable deck space to put things on.
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Post by mobeer on Oct 28, 2018 12:55:02 GMT -6
The Queen Elizabeth class are the best battleships, purely because of their value for money. State of the art early in WW1, still competent battleships at the end of WW2. No other battleships gave such useful service in both wars.
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