Shipbucket

Hey JSB,

I don't like it much either, that long open forecastle deck looks unnatural, it would do better with 3x3x15" all forward a'la Nelson, the ships would be slower, less room for propulsion system.

I would shorten the ship by the amount between those two grey lines forward of A turret and accept the slower hull speed. Probably still make 27-28 knots. Which would take it back to the upscaled QE drawings I was doing for the Fisherless RN.

I do like the F type bridge structure more than the altered Nelson job I have been using.

Yeah the forecastle is too, too long.

If you're going all out AU, a suggestion would be to use the experimental 5.1in as the basis for the DP. I'm not keen on the idea of a turreted DP mount in this era though (I can't think of any before 1935-ish on capital ships).

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Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

I'm in agreement with Hood on both counts, the 5.1" would be a nice starting point for a true DP gun.

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AU Projects: | Banbha et al. | New England: The Divided States
Blood and Fire

Yes the 5.1" is a decent enough long term DP weapon to replace the later 4.5/5.25 from the real time line. In real life the 5.1" was another fixed ammunition weapon, doomed to fail.

I actually like JSB's idea of fitting the 4.7" into the 6" turret to create a weapon to use for both AA and surface fire. The problem with doing it for 1925-27 is that you need two of each director, AA and Gunnery, until the arrival of HACS. The original 4.7"AA is a big heavy weapon with the fixed ammo. Stripping off a lot of that weight for fitting into a turret and changing the ammo from fixed, to bag and shell, makes a lot of sense.

Once you start having to work on Treaty limited ships, then you do start looking for shortcuts to save weight for better use elsewhere. The real life Nel/Rods were a blend of the G & N series BB's, those designs both featured twin 6" and single 4.7" so Nel/Rod were going to as well. The RN were already starting to look at DP weapons with the high elevation on the 6".

The 6" guns were anti-destroyer weapons? Supposedly with enough range to turn away a destroyer torpedo attack before the destroyers came within range of their torpedoes. I have seen plenty of commentary in this forum where a 6 gun broadside is not optimum. Yet we accept it as a given on a lot of BB's broadside secondary batteries. From memory most torpedoes for WW1 and WW2 had ranges of 10,000-15,000 yards as the most common firing ranges. Closer was better. I think I might prefer to have 10 guns of controlled fire, firing at a destroyer attack than six.

My thought is that if the OTL 4.7"/45 BL MKI is just in service and that simply using I would save money and should be acceptable ?

So a 4.7"/45BL in a twin turret to give better control and rate of fire (with more protection for crew and higher elevation)

That or design the QF version (MK IX) (with split shell/change) earlier (should be cheaper than the all new MK VIII) and then it would replace the MK I on most 20s built DDs (maybe some with HA mounts later )

IMO (maybe with a bit of hindsight) 10x4.7" (on each side) should be quite acceptable v 6x6" OTL, I think the extra RoF (more guns, each faster to reload using a smaller shell) would cancel out the bigger shell effect ?

And yes with hindsight I am solving the RNs mid cal weapon 'problems' in 1923 for the 1920s-45+ (maybe till 60s and then buy in a 5"OTO/USN gun)