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Post by aeson on Mar 15, 2019 18:22:22 GMT -6
Would you be willing to build ships overseas? Thinking about opening a subsidiary in France? Yeah, that would be nice! edit: Italy would have some benefits too. A little. France has 12"/Q0 guns and can do three centerline turrets, which would be decent, though it'd need to be a dreadnought/semidreadnought hybrid to meet the weight-of-broadside requirement. I don't think I'd go for Italy; while the Italians, like the French, have better guns, they don't have a third centerline turret or cross-deck fire, which limits them to Nassau-type dreadnought or predreadnought/semidreadnought configurations.
There's also that I have a suspicion that if all of the proposals are to built in British yards, there isn't going to be that much variation between them since the specification is somewhat demanding for 20,000 tons.
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Post by yemo on Mar 15, 2019 18:57:53 GMT -6
Thinking about opening a subsidiary in France? Yeah, that would be nice! edit: Italy would have some benefits too. A little. France has 12"/Q0 guns and can do three centerline turrets, which would be decent, though it'd need to be a dreadnought/semidreadnought hybrid to meet the weight-of-broadside requirement. I don't think I'd go for Italy; while the Italians, like the French, have better guns, they don't have a third centerline turret or cross-deck fire, which limits them to Nassau-type dreadnought or predreadnought/semidreadnought configurations.
There's also that I have a suspicion that if all of the proposals are to built in British yards, there isn't going to be that much variation between them since the specification is somewhat demanding for 20,000 tons.
Agreed. Weissenburg has a broadside of 4*11''^3 + 7*9''^3 = 5324 + 5103 = 10427 6x12''^3 is 10368, so that would give us rough parity according to the formula If we set that as given, a 30% increase over Weissenburg would require (10427*1.3) - 10368 = 3187.1, so about 3200 more broadside firepower. For a 6 inch secondary battery we would need 3187/(6''^3) = 14.75, so about 15*6'' secondaries, which is not possible as we are limited to 24 total/12 guns per side for secondaries. Increasing the main battery with wing turrets, we would need 3187/(12''^3) = 1.85 additional guns per side, which means a double turret on each side in a wing mount. Or a secondary battery between 7 and 11 inches. Which requires heavy armour against flash fires.
For armour, Weissenburg has 10'' on the belt, and 2'' on the deck
And then 21knots speed, at least 16*4'' secondaries/tertiaries against DDs, and a 20k tonnage limit.
That does not leave much wiggle room. edit: Even a 22k ton design in France would require significant armour compromises, since France can not use the wing turrets (and Italy can not use a 3rd centerline turret).
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Post by MateDow on Mar 15, 2019 19:20:05 GMT -6
Would you be willing to build ships overseas? Thinking about opening a subsidiary in France? Yeah, that would be nice! edit: Italy would have some benefits too, though France would be really great.
Was really worried about your design, cheaper is always a threat with that procurement office ;-) !
I thought that cheaper would win out. Just goes to show you can't predict how they'll choose.
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Post by MateDow on Mar 15, 2019 19:37:35 GMT -6
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Post by aeson on Mar 15, 2019 20:00:05 GMT -6
MateDow, you might want to look at the armor requirement again.
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Post by yemo on Mar 15, 2019 20:36:18 GMT -6
Ok, lets try.
First variant should scrape by the requirements with a 7*12'' broadside plus secondaries.
Second variant changes out the 6'' secondaries and their 1'' battery armour (and 5 main gun shells) for an unarmoured 5'' secondary battery and a bit more turret armour.
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Post by yemo on Mar 15, 2019 21:09:49 GMT -6
An option could be to build a cross deck fire ready ship and then refit it with cross deck capability later (eg by removing some secondaries and excess ammo, which can be planned for). That would have even more broadside by condensing the two single turrets into one. Imho the refit time and costs could be worth it.
edit: With 1905 and 1906 techs around the corner, any ship will nearly certainly be outdated before being launched anyway. And anticipating cross deck fire would even make sense in 1905, since that is probably what ship design is working on at the moment.
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Post by dorn on Mar 15, 2019 23:54:31 GMT -6
Would you be willing to build ships overseas? No. I will add to house rules. I think it is too gamey. In reality all nations used home shipyards as soon as it was possible. On opposite RTW gives technology advantages for using foreign shipyards but almost no disadvantages.
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Post by dorn on Mar 16, 2019 0:05:50 GMT -6
I do not expect much variations between designs, but it could be interesting in different ways. I would expect mainly different views on protection as there is not much variations in firepower. But there is still a lot of possibilities how to protect ship. I do not want decrease possible submissions to allow some ideas I did not thought about.
Note: I think in this game battleship design will be most bored till tripple turrets and 5 centerline turrets are available as variations of firepower will be limited. Much more interesting would be battlecruiser and light cruiser designs.
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Post by dorn on Mar 16, 2019 0:09:08 GMT -6
MateDowaeson is right, firepower in your designs is not in line with requsted specification. Just note, UK can build 3 centerline turrets.
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Post by aeson on Mar 16, 2019 0:15:19 GMT -6
Balsa Construction is pleased to present for the Admiralty's consideration a pair of first class battleships designed to meet the Dreadnought specification: 1905/5/BB.1: Dreadnought (16,900 tons)
Our attempt to fit the heaviest practical main battery into the smallest feasible displacement while maintaining adequate range for operations on the other side of the Atlantic, our 16,900-ton Dreadnought proposal meets the Admiralty's minimum requirements with a main battery of ten 12" guns - six in three twin turrets on the centerline and another four in a pair of amidships wing turrets, for a total of eight 12" guns on each broadside - and a secondary battery of ten 5" guns in unarmored casemates, with a 10" armor belt and 10" turret faces. At an estimated total construction cost of just under 62 million per ship, this powerful battleship nevertheless remains quite economical.
1905/5/BB.2: Dreadnought (20,000 tons) Noting that there is no explicit requirement for economy, we would also like to present our 'maximum' battleship, the largest and most powerfully-armed battleship that we can build domestically. As with our 16,900-ton Dreadnought proposal, our 20,000-ton Dreadnought proposal carries a main battery of ten 12" guns in three centerline and two wing twin turrets, but improves on the 16,900-ton Dreadnought proposal's secondary armament with an additional four 5" guns in unarmored casemates (for fourteen total) and a further ten 4" guns in swivel mounts on the weather deck. Additionally, our 20,000-ton proposal increases the maximum thickness of the main armor belt to 11" and the thickness of the turret face armor to 12", improving the armor protection above the Admiralty's minimum requirement and, we hope, safeguarding the ship against increasingly-powerful heavy guns for years to come. The larger hull of the 20,000-ton Dreadnought proposal also allowed the wing turrets to be placed en echelon rather than abreast without interfering with the machinery spaces or the shafts, permitting a reduction in beam and an improvement in the quality of the accommodations provided for the crew without sacrificing the speed of 21 knots.*
(I was considering offering a 20,000t 11" design instead of the 20,000t 12" design, but, rather unsurprisingly, I don't think it's as good as the 20,000t 12" design. The extra pair of wing twin turrets would have cost it an inch of main belt, an inch of turret face, and half an inch of turret top armor, as well as either the tertiary battery and some of the secondary battery or reduced accommodations quality, and in the latter case it would still have been more expensive while in the former case it was only marginally less expensive.)
*No, there is no in-game mechanical benefit to doing this, unless you count the possibility of refitting the ship for cross-deck fire. Considering how I drew the superstructure, I think it should be fairly obvious that I'm not planning for the ship to be refitted for cross-deck fire; I just wanted it to look a bit different.
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Post by dorn on Mar 16, 2019 0:18:41 GMT -6
yemoMinimal request of protection is only for vertical protection, not horizontal. And there is mentioned expected firing distance.
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Post by aeson on Mar 16, 2019 0:48:23 GMT -6
MateDow aeson is right, firepower in your designs is not in line with requsted specification. Just note, UK can build 3 centerline turrets. I was looking at the 8.5" belt, not at the armament - which I personally think should be fine; MateDow's Dreadnought B's 7x12" + 6x6" broadside has about 1.28 times the throw weight of Weissenburg's 4x11" + 7x9" broadside (98.8% of the requirement in the specification) if counting the 6" guns, and even his Dreadnought's 7x12" + 6x5" has more than 1.23 times the throw weight (~94.8% of the requirement in the specification). The extra pair of 6" guns on Dreadnought B or even the dozen extra 5" guns on Dreadnought needed to bring them up to the full throw weight requirement probably won't make much of a difference when shooting at enemy capital ships anyways.
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Post by yemo on Mar 16, 2019 1:07:56 GMT -6
yemoMinimal request of protection is only for vertical protection, not horizontal. And there is mentioned expected firing distance. Oh, I was too focused on my calculations for armament mixes. That changes things quite a bit. And at that range, even a barrage of secondaries is useful. Though vertical armour becomes even more important. aeson has great designs, i doubt that i could come close without copying his 10x12 inch main armament. Might just do an alternative for the fun of it, with the 5000 yards and minimal deck armour in mind.
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Post by dorn on Mar 16, 2019 3:14:51 GMT -6
yemoI do not think (I can be wrong) that 8x12" broadside could be beaten as 11" guns does not provide better quality and 13" has inferior quality. As you can see aeson point it out quite correctly and this a reason I told this will be a little boring competition. However it open up quite interesting competition on tonnage/costs and protection. I will put here a little thinking about future. Except Germany and mainly USA no nation could regularly build capital ships. Royal Navy could do it propably too. It means that Royal Navy will possesses regularly better ships so older ships are expected to fight older designs. However to do it like this optimum between costs and power need to be find. It neither means cheap is better neither powerful is better. So most probably it would depends on expecting fighting capabilities vs. foreign designs or proposed designs with consideration of costs. I am not closing competition yet, you can change your designs if you think it is better.
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