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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 11, 2019 16:13:55 GMT -6
Armstrong developed a 14 inch gun for foreign sales that they unsuccessfully tried to sell to the Royal Navy as well. They did serve on HMS Canada when it was taken over by the British for WW1. They also had the 16 inch guns on G3/ Nelson and the 14 inch guns on King George V but the latter was due to treaty limits. Add in the 18 inch guns developed for Furious and another 18 inch design planned for N3 and the British hit every caliber except 17 inches. (Well, practical calibers anyway. Not the nutty 19 or 20 inch concepts considered for the German and Japanese future designs) I agree it's probably better to just roll with it.
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Post by captbeefheart on Jun 11, 2019 19:51:38 GMT -6
Some sort of gun research direction would be nice. Maybe have a menu on which you could click gun calibers you'd like research to focus on. It could be on the doctrine page. I like the U.S. even-numbered system myself.
Cheers, CB
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Post by axe99 on Jun 12, 2019 15:13:22 GMT -6
The USN went from 12" to 14" to 16" and were very happy with their guns and shells so they stopped there. They did briefly draw up some plans for 17" and 18" guns for a possible Iowa conversion to deal with IJN battleships and also the possibility of shore bombardment against Japeanese home islands and cave complexes but never got very far with the ideas. And with the advent of air power and their happiness with the 16"/50 MK7 The US test-fired an 18" gun in 1942, and designed one in 1919 that it built but converted into a 16in gun - so they got a little way. At least according to Campbell ( Naval Weapons of World War II) the 1942 gun wasn't continued with for economic and political reasons (which sounds far to me ). The shell weight for the gun tested in 1942 was 1,745kg!
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Post by lukasdietrich on Jun 12, 2019 15:32:13 GMT -6
Does it follow that gun calibers are developed sequentially? In the lead up to the Yamato, did the Japanese develop a 17" weapon in order to get to a working 18" version? Personally I've always been frustrated that the game is random in this regard, leaving open gun calibers I've no intention of ever using. I'd love to be able to prioritize my research to say "we're standardizing on 5" for DD and Light Cruisers, 8" for heavy cruisers, and 16" for battleships and battle cruisers. Any improvements to the quality / range / rate of fire / accuracy of those weapons will be rewarded. Anyone brings me a new improved 2" or 7" weapon will be buried with it." Whether those are good choices or not is another matter. "IF I GET ANOTHER ******* 11" GUN IMPROVEMENT, DON'T BOTHER DEVELOPING A PROJECTILE BECAUSE YOU'LL BE THE PROTOTYPE!" *Wimpers "Yes sir" "NOW GET OUT OF MY SIGHT AND DON'T COME BACK WITHOUT A NEW 16" GUN DESIGN!" *Sound of a foot hitting a well-padded backside *Door slams But sir! We have developed an 11" gun that is magnetically fired at rail gun like speeds and the shells are GPS guided. You: Send this man to clean the be a bilge scrapper on a corvette!
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Post by rob06waves2018 on Jun 12, 2019 15:38:22 GMT -6
"IF I GET ANOTHER ******* 11" GUN IMPROVEMENT, DON'T BOTHER DEVELOPING A PROJECTILE BECAUSE YOU'LL BE THE PROTOTYPE!" *Wimpers "Yes sir" "NOW GET OUT OF MY SIGHT AND DON'T COME BACK WITHOUT A NEW 16" GUN DESIGN!" *Sound of a foot hitting a well-padded backside *Door slams But sir! We have developed an 11" gun that is magnetically fired at rail gun like speeds and the shells are GPS guided. You: Send this man to clean the be a bilge scrapper on a corvette! Actually, I'd demote him to the army! And they build a 16" version of his design!
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 12, 2019 18:53:16 GMT -6
Most of the period leading up to the game's time frame and until the Washington Naval Arms Limitation treaty the British were at the forefront of naval artillery design. Here's an interesting article on Navweaps that talks about why they had some unusual, non-integer calibers (e.g. 7.5 and 9.2 inches). It came down to shell weight. When they designed a bigger gun they wanted it to throw a shell roughly twice as large as the previous gun. Up until the 20th century at least when the difference was closer to 1.5 times the previous gun's shell weight. The 16 inch guns on Nelson were an exception because they were specifically designed for "lower" weight, higher velocity. To follow on to the data provided in the article, the 18 inch/40 Mark 1 (HMS Furious) fired an AP shell that was 3,320 lbs, a little over 1.7 times the weight of the AP shell fired by the 15 inch/42 Mark 1 ( Queen Elizabeth through Hood-classes, Vanguard). I don't know if other nations had a similar philosophy or not but I suspect that they were mostly reacting to or trying to one-up the British which is why you usually see a roughly 2 inch caliber increase in generations of capital ship artillery. I'm aware this is just a general rule and that there are a number of individual exceptions.
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