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Post by retsof on Jun 2, 2020 21:48:38 GMT -6
I've noticed that one tends to get aft superfiring turrets first and then you have to wait quite a while before you get fore superfiring. It there a particular reason for this?
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Post by noshurviverse on Jun 2, 2020 22:47:06 GMT -6
One way to look at this would be to see when the first example of a battleship design mounting superfiring main batteries is for each nation historically:
British: HMS Nepture (1909) - Superfiring aft Colossus-class (1909) - Superfiring aft Orion-class (1909) - Superfiring fore and aft Germany: Kaiser-class (1909) - Superfiring aft Konig-class (1911) - Superfiring fore and aft Italy: Conte di Cavour-class (1910) - Superfiring fore and aft USA: South Carolina-class (1906) - Superfiring fore and aft Russia: Sovetsky Soyuz-class (1939) - Superfiring fore France: Courbet-class (1910) - Superfiring fore and aft Austria-Hungary: Tegetthoff-class (1910) - Superfiring fore and aft Japan: Fuso-class (1912) - Superfiring fore and aft
As we can see, with the exception of the American South Carolina-class, there appears to be a small and somewhat inconsistent gap of about a year's time from most designs being laid down with only aft superfiring guns and those with fore and after superfiring ones. From what I can see in the tech files, this roughly one-year gap is represented. The exception to this being the American bonus techs of X and B turrets to account for the South Carolinas.
I am not a naval designer, so this is me largely just speculating, but I would think that having the increased topweight being on the fore of a ship might have a larger impact on your hydrodynamics than having it on the aft.
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Post by director on Jun 3, 2020 0:25:16 GMT -6
One consideration is that the bow tends to be fairly narrow. This means that there is less width for barbettes and less flotation to carry the extra weight of a superfiring turret. There was also a general concern that superfiring turrets would generate overpressure that would interfere with the lower turrets and that forward superfiring turrets might interfere with bridge operations and gunnery control.
More efficient, higher pressure engines, research into better hull forms and simple necessity made the superfiring turrets possible.
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Post by smrfisher on Jun 4, 2020 2:18:35 GMT -6
@noshuviverse you are quite right about the issues with fore top weight weighing down the bow, and making for poor sailing characteristics. A classic example of this is the French Courbet-class who had problems for there entire service life.
The other to consider regarding superfiring turrets, and when countries utilised them, you must note the time when the designs were being drawn up. All of the Royal Navy's 12in dreadnoughts were all a derivative design from HMS Dreadnought, and the Invincible-class. In the case of both Japan and Germany, there continuing use of triple expansion rather than turbine engines created space constraints for centre line turrets, moreover a super-firing turret is also substantially heavier than deck level turrets, and particularly on 20,000t ships the advantage was much less apparent.
South Carolina is very much the exception of the early generation dreadnoughts, but still only had the same broadside as her British contemporaries. If you compare when most nations are introducing their first class of super-firing, the Orion-class outgunned any other battleship due to the evolution of the British and their industrial capacity.
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Post by polygon on Jun 4, 2020 12:06:41 GMT -6
@noshuviverse you are quite right about the issues with fore top weight weighing down the bow, and making for poor sailing characteristics. A classic example of this is the French Courbet-class who had problems for there entire service life. The other to consider regarding superfiring turrets, and when countries utilised them, you must note the time when the designs were being drawn up. All of the Royal Navy's 12in dreadnoughts were all a derivative design from HMS Dreadnought, and the Invincible-class. In the case of both Japan and Germany, there continuing use of triple expansion rather than turbine engines created space constraints for centre line turrets, moreover a super-firing turret is also substantially heavier than deck level turrets, and particularly on 20,000t ships the advantage was much less apparent. South Carolina is very much the exception of the early generation dreadnoughts, but still only had the same broadside as her British contemporaries. If you compare when most nations are introducing their first class of super-firing, the Orion-class outgunned any other battleship due to the evolution of the British and their industrial capacity. It would be interesting if Rule the Waves was to implement "machinery space" as a variable much like AA topside space is. Right now you can put as many centerline turrets on a ship as you like, assuming you have the tech, and give it any speed you please, assuming you have the displacement. I've noticed it's quite possible to design ships where there's hardly room for funnels, much less actual machine spaces.
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Post by seawolf on Jun 4, 2020 13:44:43 GMT -6
@noshuviverse you are quite right about the issues with fore top weight weighing down the bow, and making for poor sailing characteristics. A classic example of this is the French Courbet-class who had problems for there entire service life. The other to consider regarding superfiring turrets, and when countries utilised them, you must note the time when the designs were being drawn up. All of the Royal Navy's 12in dreadnoughts were all a derivative design from HMS Dreadnought, and the Invincible-class. In the case of both Japan and Germany, there continuing use of triple expansion rather than turbine engines created space constraints for centre line turrets, moreover a super-firing turret is also substantially heavier than deck level turrets, and particularly on 20,000t ships the advantage was much less apparent. South Carolina is very much the exception of the early generation dreadnoughts, but still only had the same broadside as her British contemporaries. If you compare when most nations are introducing their first class of super-firing, the Orion-class outgunned any other battleship due to the evolution of the British and their industrial capacity. It would be interesting if Rule the Waves was to implement "machinery space" as a variable much like AA topside space is. Right now you can put as many centerline turrets on a ship as you like, assuming you have the tech, and give it any speed you please, assuming you have the displacement. I've noticed it's quite possible to design ships where there's hardly room for funnels, much less actual machine spaces. Agincourt just had its machinery spaces all around its magazines
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Post by smrfisher on Jun 4, 2020 17:35:59 GMT -6
seawolf His Majesty's Gin Palace had everything wrapped around her magazines, thanks to being a hilarious turret farm of 12in boomsticks. This was due to the Brazilians not being able to afford what they want to so having to add extra extra turrets to compete with the Argentine Rivadavia-class and the Chilean Almirante Latorre-class.
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Post by skoggatt on Jun 5, 2020 14:44:59 GMT -6
@noshuviverse you are quite right about the issues with fore top weight weighing down the bow, and making for poor sailing characteristics. A classic example of this is the French Courbet-class who had problems for there entire service life. The other to consider regarding superfiring turrets, and when countries utilised them, you must note the time when the designs were being drawn up. All of the Royal Navy's 12in dreadnoughts were all a derivative design from HMS Dreadnought, and the Invincible-class. In the case of both Japan and Germany, there continuing use of triple expansion rather than turbine engines created space constraints for centre line turrets, moreover a super-firing turret is also substantially heavier than deck level turrets, and particularly on 20,000t ships the advantage was much less apparent. South Carolina is very much the exception of the early generation dreadnoughts, but still only had the same broadside as her British contemporaries. If you compare when most nations are introducing their first class of super-firing, the Orion-class outgunned any other battleship due to the evolution of the British and their industrial capacity. The South Carolinas, and most US Dreadnoughts for several classes afterwards were powered by triple expansion engines just like German ships. As for weight, super-firing turrets were introduced as a weight saving measure rather than avoided for increased weight. While the raised barrette does weigh more than one level with the deck, it also allows more weight to be saved by shortening the part of the ship protected by thickest section of belt armor since the turrets can be placed much closer together. This is the reason the British moved to super firing turrets with their super-dreadnoughts even though they could not fire the super-firing turrets within 30 degrees of the turret below until the Iron Duke class due to their use of open sighting ports.
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Post by rimbecano on Jun 5, 2020 15:04:58 GMT -6
As for weight, super-firing turrets were introduced as a weight saving measure rather than avoided for increased weight. While the raised barrette does weigh more than one level with the deck, it also allows more weight to be saved by shortening the part of the ship protected by thickest section of belt armor since the turrets can be placed much closer together. The question being raised was one of topweight and weight distribution, not overall displacement. I'm not sure I've heard of superfiring turrets in general having been found to be a huge topweight concern, but later on, the Atlanta class had a three-level superfiring arrangement which contributed to the class's stability issues.
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Post by wlbjork on Jun 6, 2020 11:38:47 GMT -6
As they did the British Dido class, with "C" turret being removed to alleviate the issue.
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Post by xt6wagon on Jun 6, 2020 17:55:20 GMT -6
Super-firing turrets aren't some amazing discovery, its a pretty obvious idea. Why didn't pre-dreadnoughts have it? Well look at the battleships of that era. 10,000 tons with 2 turrets and 4 guns. Why would you make a super-firing setup in this case? You have a ship that is already tall and narrow. It would move the ship to an all forward setup, something that wasn't a thing at the time. Its just not a sensible idea for ships of that size.
Now when you are talking about 20,000 tons, it suddenly makes sense. Moving to all big guns it makes sense.
I'd go as far to say the restrictions to super-firing turrets isn't remotely related to ship technology. Its down to having the money to afford large ships. Afford the large shipyards to build them. Afford the large docks to keep them. Afford the large harbors, canals, bridges, etc needed to allow these larger ships to operate.
To drive this point home, I'd like to point out that most of the destroyers that use super-firing turrets are both quite a bit larger than older ones, and have an almost universal problem with stability. Takes some big money to operate what would have once been a light cruiser in the numbers to be called a destroyer.
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 8, 2020 9:04:52 GMT -6
Metacentric height and stability are probably the reasons that aft superfiring turrets were adopted first for nations that didn't move to using both fore and aft turrets simultaneously. Most designs of that era had raised forecastles or cut down quarterdecks depending on how you look at it. So the aft turrets were usually physically one deck lower. In addition to blast effect concerns on the bridge director mentioned, the bridge and therefore most of the forward superstructure spaces also have to be built one deck higher if you have a foreward superfiring arrangement which adds even more top weight. Not something that's probably a big deal when the ships just tooling around in peace time but the designers had to make sure the ship would remain stable after battle damage and taking on water and top weight effects quickly become more serious.
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Post by director on Jun 8, 2020 18:13:26 GMT -6
xt6wagon - pre-dreadnoughts didn't have superfiring main gun turrets for the same reasons they didn't have more than 4 guns in the main battery - battle range and cost. (Please note the exceptions - some American pre-dreadnoughts did have superfiring guns, whether in separate turrets or in gunhouses built above the main guns. Also please note other exceptions, such as the British Victoria or Sans Pareil class which did have an all-forward armament.) Up to the eve of WW1, the Royal Navy was the ocean-going standard, and no other power seriously tried to challenge it until the Germans started in on the High Seas Fleet. That let the Royal Navy enjoy a 2-power standard (as many capital ships as the next two largest navies), but it also meant that battleship tonnage was only slowly rising from around 12k to 15k tons. There are serious limits to what you can do on that tonnage, but nobody really wanted to rock the boat. Even Kaiser Wilhelm kept his battleship displacements down to similar figures. This 'gentlemanly agreement' lapsed sometime before 1904, but the Russo-Japanese War killed it dead. Battle tactics of the pre-1904 period called for a very close-range action, perhaps as little as a few thousand yards, with slow-firing big guns able to penetrate the armor belt and faster-firing medium guns (6" to 10") to chew up superstructure, funnels and the unarmored ends. This drove the development of the semi-dreadnought having l large battery of medium guns... but practical experience at Tsushima proved the theories wrong. After the Battle of Tsushima, naval designers knew that battles would start - and hits would happen - at much longer ranges than previously thought. Large shells did most of the damage and medium shells relatively little, and it was hard to correct gunnery when medium and large shells all raised a similar-looking splash. Thirdly, a good portion of Togo's victory was credited to the Japanese ability to land hits at ranges where the Russians could not score hits in return. This fired the imagination of naval men - especially gunners - everywhere and kindled enthusiasm for accurate range-finding, fire control and directed battery fire. To accurately shoot you needed to fix the range to the target; for that a battery of approximately 8 identical guns firing 'ladders' short, on and over was considered a minimum standard. Cuniberti's ideas, and Fisher's 'Dreadnought' proposals, combined superior speed, decent armor and a large battery of at least eight heavy artillery pieces to produce a ship that could land shots on a pre-dreadnought while the pre-dreadnought could not (barring lucky hits) accurately reply. (Also, a dreadnought had the firepower of two pre-dreadnoughts for 2/3 the cost and crew size - important fiscal savings). The large displacement was required for the speed - to let you determine the battle range, opening or closing it as it suited you - and for the heavy guns, ammunition and crew to man them. The displacement rose because of the gun requirement - the battery did not increase because the displacement went up. Most British governments strove to keep ship sizes down, because that meant larger docks, greater crew size, more coal, etc and so forth - in addition to increased construction cost. It was only when Germany began building dreadnoughts that the displacements began their steep rise; more powerful ships are, of necessity, larger. Superfiring turrets were actually proposed by Fisher's team in one of the Dreadnought proposals, but were thought too expensive and risky - there were concerns about blast damage, top-weight, hull width and so forth, and the American pre-dreadnoughts with superfiring 12" and 8" turrets were discouraging examples of what could go wrong. But anyway - displacements rose as ships needed more and bigger guns, bigger engines, more armor over more area and so forth, but it was the promise of striking beyond the enemy's effective reply that demanded a large battery of big guns, and that is what drove the increase from 15k pre-dreadnoughts to Dreadnought's 20k or so. Examine South Carolina and you will see that despite their superfiring turrets they are smaller than Dreadnought, mostly because of their much slower speed.
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Post by Antediluvian Monster on Jun 9, 2020 5:52:41 GMT -6
Does anyone know why exactly did navies go for superfiring in the first place? This is not a quiz, but a honest question. The seemingly obvious answer would be greater end on firepower, but it seems like it can be ruled out: Friedman explicitly states it was not important for South Carolina, while in early British superfiring setups it was not practical to actually fire the upper turret over the lower one due to usage of open sight hoods.
Which begs questions.
Why was end on fire seemingly not considered important? One possibility that comes to mind is that cross-roll was poorly accounted for in the period fire control and end on fire was not expected to be very effective in the first place. Or did the British consider it important, but simply botch the turret design in haste to get hulls in water?
If end fire was not important, why were superfiring turrets adopted? Friedman speaks of saving in hull volume (presumably meaning the barbettes could be located closer together and this being more economical for internal arrangement) and I suppose it would save in deck space as well. That might be true for the small South Carolina, but was this the reasoning for the other navies as well?
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Post by bcoopactual on Jun 10, 2020 0:02:16 GMT -6
One of the first things designers do once they have the basic stats desired is to figure out the topside arrangement, finding room for everything, and critically, keeping them away from the blast effect radius of the guns. The desire to put guns on the centerline to not waste the weight and space for redundant wing turrets makes the centerline real estate especially valuable. Superfiring turrets condenses the space required for those two turrets and frees up more space topside clear of the blast effects.
Honestly though, I'm surprised to hear increasing end-on fire without the need for wing turrets wasn't a priority.
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