Shipbucket

Lots of discussion in various threads have thrown up many versions of quad gunned ships. I decided to have a look at what an Alternate County would look like with quad 7.5".

I have also added the pic to page 1 of this thread so that direct comparisons can be made.

Not sure I like just having just 2 turrets, they cant be well armoured and if you have to fight a German PB then 1 hit could lose you 1/2 your firepower ? What about just putting all 3 triples forward ?

I would be tempted to drop the 4inch guns (3 rear ones) at the stern down (swap with pom pom ?) to lower the weight down ?

JSB

You're looking at it wrong.
First of all, have you actually looked at the armour scheme of a County? You could poke a hole through most of it with a sharp stick. You're not going to be able to repel 7.5" or 8" fire no matter what you do on 10,000t.
Concentrating your firepower forwards means a shorter belt which results in less overall weight plus because of the lack of a third turret (the increase for two quads not being that of the addition of another turret) you save weight there.
The turrets themselves are widely separated compared to a lot of other designs of the time meaning they can be kept flash and watertight in the event of a hit on either of them. (Personally I'd probably go with a Dunkerque style turret of 2*2 rather than 4*).

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Another interesting concept.

I agree with Blackbuck's comments. The concentrated magazine spaces would allow for more armour, perhaps a box with 5-5.5in sides and 3in tops. I don't think you would necessarily need a belt over the forward magazines if the magazine box protection is thick enough. That would allow perhaps 4-5in belt and 2-3in deck over the machinery spaces and 2-1in elsewhere and a decent armoured box over the rudder machinery.

I do think a 2x2 turret would be better for internal layout of the turret and to reduce muzzle blast interference.
There are a too many pom-poms for my liking for a 1920s design, but its an interesting design.

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Having read Blackbuck and Hood's comments in regards to 2x2 turrets rather than one single space. I have enlarged the turrets to take a 2x2 layout, not only breadth but length needed to be increased to keep the balance of the turret.

I agree Hood that I probably have one too many pom pom mountings, and I would like to replace the one above the aft most 4" with a pair of the 0.5" mg's but I have the completion date a year or two early for the 0.5" mg's to come in. The other thing I could do is replace the same mounting with a pair of single 2pd guns.

If it were me I'd go for an 8x 4" arrangement replacing the aft most pom-pom with another single 4" and add a couple of single 2pdrs elsewhere.

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

Thanks for that Blackbuck,

The other thought I had was to replace the 4" with 6x4.7" as fitted in NelRod, 4 at the back and two by the funnel. Leave the AA as 2x4 and 2x1 2pd guns.

I figured the 4.7" would have a much better range than the 4" and a bit better stopping power. Only going to twin 4" and more 2pd in a later 30's refit.

Edit: reading Navweaps the 4.7" fired 16,160, the 4" 16,300, 4.7" 50lb shell part, 4" 31lb shell.

I have updated the drawing with both a 4" and 4.7" version

Hi Krakatoa,

Not sure how valid a point this is, but are you sure you've got a big enough "step" at the front of the turret for those quads? From what I recall of seeing KGV turrets there's quite a lot of space at the front of the barbette left empty to allow the barrels to elevate...

Ad

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NSWE: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5695

Howdy Ad, thanks for your query,

I have added a turret view with barbette ring and expected gun depth into turret. As far as I can tell it should be enough.