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Post by rodentnavy on May 24, 2019 14:45:04 GMT -6
Actually the Nelson could fire to the aft with its forward two turrets. The third turret might also have been able to but the blast effects would have been...interesting Hum I dug up some notes on the design of what appears to be the N3s HereDESIGN 'A'
The whole of the main armament is arranged to fire directly [continued on next page]
Forward, thus giving a forward fire of 9 - 18" guns. The arrangement is such as to permit, when the guns are firing forwards, of the three guns in the forward barbette firing from a depression of 5( to the maximum elevation, the second barbette from an elevation of about 3( to the maximum elevation, and the third barbette from the horizontal to the maximum elevation, whereas when firing slightly off the centre line, all the guns can be depressed to 5( and elevated to the maximum.
The arrangement of this armament appears to be unique in the respect that:-
1. At point blank range ahead we have six 18" guns firing forward.
2. At 5,000 yards range, the whole of the nine guns would be able to bear on the target, whereas from about 5,000 yards upwards the whole nine guns could be brought into action for forward fire.
3. If the necessity arises for aft firing, the guns of the forward turret may be usefully employed for this purpose, having a range of 80( abaft the beam when elevated 5(. In this design, whereas the guns of the forward barbette are practically at the same height above the water as those of the "HOOD", the fact that the barbette itself is about 100 feet further aft than the corresponding guns in the "HOOD" renders the guns of this barbette less liable to be interfered with by water breaking over the decks.
DESIGN 'B'.
This provides for the same number of 18" guns, but arranged so that only 6 of these can fire forward and 3 aft, the two barbettes forward being of the same height above the water as the second and third barbettes in design 'A'. All these guns when firing along the centre line on the vessel can be used from the maximum depression to the maximum elevation.
DESIGN 'C'.
This again provides for the same number of 18" guns arranged, however, in this case to have all 9 guns firing forward and 2 guns in each of the aft barbettes ( a total of 4 guns in all) firing direct aft. All these guns can be used from at least the horizontal position to maximum elevation, except through the angles shewn in the plan. The forward barbettes in this design are at practically the same heights as the second and third barbettes in Design'A'.
With respect to the auxiliary armament in Designs 'A' and 'B', ti will be noted that these guns are twin mounted in gun shields, those in design 'A' having their bases efficiently protected throughout by the Citadel armour.
From the Proposed Design of a Modern Battleship Combining the Latest Features of Offence and defence found roughly mid page at the link provided.
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Post by ramjb on May 24, 2019 16:39:59 GMT -6
As always engineering reports have to be taken with a grain of salt. Neither the G3 or N3 were built so we don't have practical proof ot it. Yet both had relatively worse firing arcs (At least for what regards to their midships turret vs Nelson's Q turret) than Nelson. And the Nelson had huge blast issues. When Rodney came to port withstanders thought she had taken hits from Bismarck's 380mm guns because of the scorching and blast effects of her own guns - it was bad enough that the rumor about Rodney having been repeatedly hit during Bismarck's last stand lasted for years. Yet we know Rodney wasn't hit at all. If your own guns leave marks on your ship bad enough that it seems an enemy battleship has shot you up...yeah, it's not exactly amazing. If we take in account that the G3 and N3s seem to be (At least on drawings) more cluttered than Nelson was (again specially around the area of their midships turrets), and that the N3 was firing a 18'' caliber main battery on top of that... well all I'm trying to say is that I wouldn't expect them to be "better" in that regard...whatever that report might say .
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Post by noshurviverse on May 24, 2019 20:49:08 GMT -6
Commissioned in 1925, this battle took place in early 1942. So roughly 17 years.
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Post by dorn on May 25, 2019 0:39:35 GMT -6
As always engineering reports have to be taken with a grain of salt. Neither the G3 or N3 were built so we don't have practical proof ot it. Yet both had relatively worse firing arcs (At least for what regards to their midships turret vs Nelson's Q turret) than Nelson. And the Nelson had huge blast issues. When Rodney came to port withstanders thought she had taken hits from Bismarck's 380mm guns because of the scorching and blast effects of her own guns - it was bad enough that the rumor about Rodney having been repeatedly hit during Bismarck's last stand lasted for years. Yet we know Rodney wasn't hit at all. If your own guns leave marks on your ship bad enough that it seems an enemy battleship has shot you up...yeah, it's not exactly amazing. If we take in account that the G3 and N3s seem to be (At least on drawings) more cluttered than Nelson was (again specially around the area of their midships turrets), and that the N3 was firing a 18'' caliber main battery on top of that... well all I'm trying to say is that I wouldn't expect them to be "better" in that regard...whatever that report might say . I would be not so critic at them.
Important is 2 questions. 1. Does it decreased her fighting ability signaficantly? 2. How often did she need fire at anger?
It is always better to have blast effect that to be sunk.
Another thing is that these ships were 15 years older than pre-war designs and still their protection and firepower was about equal terms with modern battleships.
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Post by ramjb on May 25, 2019 1:12:31 GMT -6
Oh, I'm not critic. I'm an engineer myself (though in a completely different field) . But the tendence is to read those reports as the ultimate truth, all I'm doing is reminding that those were estimations done on a design that were only drawings on a paper. Not of an actual, tangible, existing warship. Estimations during the design process tend to be overly optimistic and usually need a serious re-estimation (downwards) once the idea becomes tangible, and the design ends up being built, specifically with regards to things as muzzle blast in battleships, which usually were quite underestimated by engineers of the time. You only have to look at the light AAA spots on the Yamatos's bow...firing her guns even at 45ยบ blasted those overboard, yet they had been put there because someone designed them to be there. It's the nature of the beast on engineering challenges. Not a criticism, more of a reminder . As for your question: 1- Arguably yes. Not only you're causing damage to your own ship by firing your own gun (blast damage wasn't cosmetic, it was actual damage), you can impair your own ship's fighting abilities in the process in many ways. In practical terms it adds yet another consideration to the already complex problem of tactical battleplanning. It's no longer "where's the enemy and where am I", is also "which maneouvers should I take so I don't end up damaging myself when I shoot"?. 2- A battleship should never, ever, be designed with the idea of "how often did she need fire in anger". Because once she NEEDS to do so, then it's late to regret bad decisions. "It's better to have blast effect that to be sunk" - the one can be a direct cause of the other. It did not in Rodney's case, but having your ability to fight impaired because your own guns are causing havoc in your own ship is not what one would call "enhancing your chances to win". More like the opposite. "these ships were 15'' older than pre-war designs and still their protection and firepower was about equal terms with modern battleships" I strongly contest this assertion. the Nelson class was the first british foray into AoN distributions and it shows - it had many shortcomings and even critical flaws. Just to name three: -deck armor while much stronger than preceding ships only met WW2 standards over magazine areas only. Over the rest of the ship it was barely avobe WW1 levels. -Machinery areas had poor sub-division and covered by as much armor as a Scharhnorst (a battleship with notably poor deck protection) had over hers. -Belt armor was very strong and thick, but was way too narrow to save weight. Sailors and NCOs of the Royal Navy joked about it saying that the only thing harder than penetrating that belt...was to hit it in the first instance. As for weapons go the british 16'' gun was a notable failure. It fired a lighter shell than normal for guns that size, the triple mounts were troublesome, quirky and took years to fix and remained temperamental even after that; and even after fixing them the RN noted that the gun itself had worse penetration capabilities than the 15'' gun of the Hood, QE and Revenge Class, was less accurate, weighed a lot more, and only offered a very marginal improvement in hitting power. Part of it was because, honestly, the british 15'' and associated dual mount were some of the best guns ever taken to sea. But it also was because the british 16'' was a dismal failure. The Nelsons were a compromise and as most compromises she fell short of the expectations. Slow, difficult to maneouver, with unsatisfactory main weapons, and protection that was far stronger on paper than on real terms. While certainly she was more powerful than WW1 warships that preceded her, I can hardly see how she was "equal with more modern counterparts" except of Scharnhorst (which was an awful battleship) and Dunkerke (which was too small), both of which could just turn tail and flee at the sight of a Nelson. And her two contemporaries that allowed the UK to build them in the first place (Nagato and Colorado) both were far better designs overall.
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Post by Adseria on May 25, 2019 3:15:26 GMT -6
"17 02:36 34 Shuzu from CVL Kashima glide bomb enemy BB"
Very impressive, considering the Shuzu is a fighter with no bomb capacity whatsoever.
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Post by konstantinua00 on May 25, 2019 8:58:16 GMT -6
No comments necessary
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Post by hmssophia on May 25, 2019 9:29:06 GMT -6
Gonna be honest - I absolute need some context for how
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Post by noshurviverse on May 25, 2019 11:58:00 GMT -6
Gonna be honest - I absolute need some context for howA night engagement against DDs with absolutely no screens is practically the worst possible scenario for a capital fleet.
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Post by khorne8 on May 25, 2019 14:43:14 GMT -6
I'm only partway through my first RtW2 campaign, so I have no idea how ridiculous this actually is, but it definitely made me laugh. I assume the game is conflating the torpedo hits by the two squadrons on each of the two carriers, but still, 27 hits. I didn't even try to run up the numbers or anything. This was an ostensibly fair match between one of my 8BB/4BC fleets and the 9BB/4BC Russian fleet, except that they were supported by a single CVL and I had two 60-plane CVs in 1932. The Russians actually mounted halfway decent AA (full light and medium AA, large numbers of 2x4" DP in turrets) but the 80 TBs I could put up made 2+ sorties each through a long gun action.
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Post by aeson on May 25, 2019 21:34:02 GMT -6
Britain made an ... interesting choice in stack placement on its first-generation dreadnought this game: Not sure if that's the best place to put a stack, but, sure, go ahead and put a flue for hot exhaust gases up the middle of Q barbette, complete with a nice hole in the top of Q turret to let the smoke out. I'm sure nothing could go wrong; it's not like there's anything volatile, heat-sensitive, and highly explosive in the vicinity.
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Post by Adseria on May 26, 2019 3:32:44 GMT -6
Britain made an ... interesting choice in stack placement on its first-generation dreadnought this game:
Not sure if that's the best place to put a stack, but, sure, go ahead and put a flue for hot exhaust gases up the middle of Q barbette, complete with a nice hole in the top of Q turret to let the smoke out. I'm sure nothing could go wrong; it's not like there's anything volatile, heat-sensitive, and highly explosive in the vicinity.
Seems quite logical to me. Just put a few inches of armour up the sides of the funnel, and cover the top with a nice thick armour plate...
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Post by akosjaccik on May 26, 2019 4:35:58 GMT -6
Britain made an ... interesting choice in stack placement on its first-generation dreadnought this game:
Not sure if that's the best place to put a stack, but, sure, go ahead and put a flue for hot exhaust gases up the middle of Q barbette, complete with a nice hole in the top of Q turret to let the smoke out. I'm sure nothing could go wrong; it's not like there's anything volatile, heat-sensitive, and highly explosive in the vicinity.
The thing that made me actually laugh out loud is the name. "Magnificent". Just... perfect.
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Post by tordenskjold on May 26, 2019 4:57:26 GMT -6
No comments necessary Looks like a surprise battle...
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Post by akosjaccik on May 26, 2019 6:10:32 GMT -6
"France and Great Britain signed a treaty to contain German aggression" - ho boy, here we go again.
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