Best World war two warships?

Henk · 04-08-2006, 12:47 PM

delcyros I see what you mean. Do you think I should increase the 16' guns to something higher? The 11" comes in that I were crazy in the beginning of my design process and made them 15", but that is to high. It is not so stupid to have 11" as wing turrets and they are not on the second deck that is above the 11" wing turrets and if you look from far you would not be able to see them. the ammo problem I must still solve. Why do you think the 11" ammo would blow up my ship?

Remember I am not a expert at this so do not think so I am still learning.

KraziKanuK I do not have those books and no I have not visited that site before. I will go into it more. Thanks.

Henk

Glider · 04-08-2006, 03:34 PM

Can I sugest one small addition to your design that would make a huge difference in combat. With 11in and 16in guns all firing at the same target you are going to get huge fire control problems. The French solved this by putting dye into their shells which coloured the water splash. As a result if your ship was firing Green and the next Blue, you knew which were your shots and could control the fall of shot.
In your case the 16in could fire yellow and the 11in blue.

This was copied by the British for their 15in guns but as far as I know wasn't actually used in combat. The French did use this approach and it worked well.

carpenoctem1689 · 04-08-2006, 06:18 PM

That would be a nice addition to that design. your theoretical battleship would be able to dominate mine, but i went for a design that was a tad more feasible an d easier to construct, though still probably considered a super battleship with weight near that of the Yamato and speed between 27knots and 30knots. Not exactly a task force ship. Would, if it ended up fighting in world war two, porobably end up being used mostly for bombardment (like most US battleships) or being sunk by swarms of enemy aircraft (like many japanese ships and german ships). still fun to play around with what ifs though. Ive been toying with trying to design the perfect *treaty compliant* BB. Not so easy to do. Its plain to see why, when doing this, ideas like the nelson and the Richeu came to fruition.

KraziKanuK · 04-08-2006, 08:18 PM

Henk, there is a person who uses the nick Tiornu on the net. I don't remember his real name but he has written many books that might be of help for you in your BB designing. A Google search turned up many posts by him.

I would try to get the RA Burt books for they go into why the ships were designed the way they were. Also there are tech specs and section drawings for the ships.

Henk · 04-08-2006, 09:30 PM

Thanks you guys you gave me something new.

KraziKanuK I will try to get hold of him or some of his books which is quite difficult where I am for book shops are f***ed up here and I do not have a credit card

The thing is I do this as a hobby and I really love to do this, but to do it as work would just spoil it for me.

Thanks again for everything I will do so.

You guys know so much about Battleships why don't you design your own Battleships? It is great fun to it.

Henk

Erich · 04-08-2006, 09:33 PM

Motor torpedo boat I would have to say with confidence the late war S-100 Schnellboote. Envy of all Allied navies

E

Henk · 04-08-2006, 09:38 PM

What about the US torpedo boats? Are the Schnellboote better?

Henk

Erich · 04-08-2006, 09:58 PM

S-booten were the largest and fastest, not necessairly the heaviest equipped for arms but quite a competent small craft in the hands of a capable shipmaster. Would have to check my KM files to see how many mines the S-boots could carry but they were a major sore in the Allied butts throughout the war........

E ~

Henk · 04-09-2006, 09:25 AM

I did not know that they were so good. I always thought that the US ones were better.

Henk

KraziKanuK · 04-09-2006, 10:14 AM

A book one should read on the origin of the American PT boats:

Fast Boats and Flying Boats
Adrian Rance
ISBN 1-85455-026-8

The 80' Elcos had their heritige in the 70' British Powerboat design.

The book is a bio of Hubert Scott-Paine.

Henk I don't know how having more data/info would make your 'hobby' more work?

Henk · 04-09-2006, 10:45 AM

, ag you see I do it just for fun so I am not so serious about it.

Thanks for all the book names you gave me and info.

Henk

delcyros · 04-09-2006, 05:32 PM

The problem with 11" ammo is the semi fixed ammunition. It needs steel braces AND powder bags (fore charge). These powder bags storages present a serious thread to the ships safety. Altough I believe german powder was not that sensible compared to british ones in terms of selfignition it remains a serious problem. Another problem in your design is that You have two different heavy calibres with a comparable rate of fire (2rpm 16" and 3rpm 11"), this makes firecontroll processes more difficult (two seperated sets are needed, one for ballistics of 16"ers and one for 11"ers) and the benefits are limited. 11"ers present a serious thread but the rate of fire is insufficiant to deal with destroyers at close range. In many ways it will be kind of an overkill. Plus you still haven´t factored the stability issues with them.
Try to define exterior parameters (what docking and construction abilities are avaiable, which harbour facilities will accomodate the ship, what´s the purpose of the ship

olitical, raider, patrol, bombardement, hunter) first and then ask for needs of range and speed. This will define at least the machinery and total displacement. Now you can play with variables such as armour, armement and general layout.

Glider · 04-09-2006, 07:08 PM

The dyes mentioned in the shells would help with this

carpenoctem1689 · 04-10-2006, 01:11 AM

two different heavy calibres would be a little bit of an overkill in my opinion. My ideal Battleship, the one i listed above, i would have some serious revisions to do on. But i have come up with a battleship that i really like. It would be more of a fleey support/task force ships (to operate with cruisers, but have heavier guns) It would be much like a Scharnhorst class BC. It would have the same basic Hull, though lengthened somewhat from 753 feet, to 795ft to make it more streamlined. Instead of nine eleven inch guns, it would have 8 15in. guns. Forward would be one triple turret with 14in or 15in guns, a second dual raised above it, and one triple at the rear of the ship, retaining the turret placement taht scharnhorst has. Keep the secondary armaments turrets in the same place, and calibre at 5in (the US 5in DP guns), but add two more just forwrad (towards the bridge) of the aft turret of the main battery.Reduce aircraft stowage to a two aircraft (down from four) and keep parts for a third one below deck (eliminating need for a hangar to accomodate four). Increase the beam from 98ft 5in to around 108ft 2in to stablize the ship some. Replace the orginal powerplant with that of the Iowa class. (eight babcock & wilcox boilers driving four-shaft GE turbines, developing 212,000 HP, up from scharnhorsts original 165,000hp.) add two more inches of armor to the turrets, on top of the 14in to 6in armor already on the original scharnhorts class, and increase the belt from 13.75in to 6.75in. to 14in to 9in. All around deck armor of 3 in. Between 45 and 90 20mm AA cannon, and 30 dual 40mm AA cannons. 14 port, 14 starboard and two on the stern. In additon to the firecontol that Iowa had, i would want Yamatos Opticals as a back up in a seperate location, just in case (remeber what happened to bismarcks radar! though it wasnt the same as iowas, still).estimated tonnage would be 42,000 ton standard and and 48,000 ton deep load, and a speed of around 32-35 knots. It was as wide as iowa, exactly as wide, shorter, weight 6000 tons less (so that high of speed is feasible). It would have an estiamted crew of around 1750 (scharnhorsts real was 1669).estimated draught would be around 29 feet.

Yes i know only having two aircraft would be a hinderance, but seeing as though it was meant to work with a task force, i dont see this as much of a problem at all. This ship would be very capable of working on its own, but would be at a huge advatage supporting lighter ships, like heavy cruisers. Example of how i see this ship working : hunting commerce raiders or protecting convoys or carrier groups with three Prinz eguen class CA. That would be a fast, hard hitting group, with 15in, 8in, 5in guns, strong AA and torpedo capability. A group to be feared. any thoughts on it?

delcyros · 04-10-2006, 08:46 AM

Back to the topic. The single best warship of ww2... If I had to name one it would be one of the US fast aircraft carriers. They provided offensive and defensive options, a decent range and speed, a great toughness and in company with a task force a factor of close to strategical importance. Just my mind.