Shipbucket

The ship would only ever operate with a carrier battle group far away from the actual action. It would rarely enter the ranges of easy attack by FACs and if larger ships would attempt to combat it there would not only be the escorts, but also the carrier's airwing to deal with. Maybe on voyages of "showing the flag" the ship would travel without much escort or a carrier, but in times of actual war the ship would almost always be far away from the immediate danger. This also ties in to why I want such a large heavy gun on the ship. Range. I'm not sure what the range of the Mk. 71 is, but I have doubts on whether or not it could compete with a 15in or 18in in delivering normal (non guided or ER) rounds at the ranges I'm thinking of. And if I detract from using the 15/18 in, I may take up your idea of putting two single 155 on the space usually reserved for 76mm and redo the size of the space accordingly. And its not quite the cheapness of the gun I'm looking for, its the cheapness of the shells it fires.

Problem is that without guidance and some sort of range extender (Flip out wings, rocket booster, etc.) you're simply not going to get that kind of range out of a conventional gun. And it's not for lack of trying. The USN managed to achieve a range of 41nm by using a an 11" sub calibre shell and firing it from a gun made by welding two 16"/45 barrels together end to end. The resulting gun was a whooping 36.5m long and had to be externally braced. The best range achieved from a practical gun was 35nm with the 4" Arrow Long Range Bombardment projectile from an 8"/55 gun.
In comparison the SS-N-2 Styx anti ship missile, probably the most common missile out there, has a range of 43nm and is compact enough to be fired from a FAC or a truck.

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“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

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Source Materiel is always welcome.

You make some good points. Do you think the RN would build an 8in gun? Per say, the US accepted it and it became used, do you think the RN would use it on a ship large enough to accept it?

Perhaps? If they're in a position to build and operate a ship like this and the other heavy fleet units you're hinting at then they should have the resources to develop the gun and ammunition. Whether it's actually useful is something else entirely and that depends a lot on what kind of foreign policy your UK is leading.

_________________
“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

Worklist

Source Materiel is always welcome.

In this timeframe, the ship is to be completed around 2020 ish and is to support what is seen as the overall arms race between the west and the east. In this AU, Britain rode out the recession rather well and is not only economically more powerful than the US, but also has a higher political stance and many companies moved to britain due to the recession in the US. Britain does not quite have a more interventionist type mindset, but does play a more important role in world affairs. There is an arms race going on between the western countries (nato and friends) and the eastern countries (Russia, whom also is better off, china, who's kinda the same, and smaller other countries). Tensions around china and japan and the ongoing war in ukraine are causing saber rattling between both sides. Isis was squashed, but the middle east is still pretty wack. India and pakistan are tense again. And isreal and palestine are still fighting. Any conflicts I missed?

So, I did some redesigning and I can either choose between two designs, one with two single 155mm guns on raised pedestals on the outermost part of the deck with six 64 cell vls (either four groups of aster and scalp with two groups of quadpacked RAM, or five groups of aster and scalp with one group of RAM). The second design is with an 8in gun mounted centerline with two groups of vls behind, both aster and scalp, and two groups front, one with RAM, the other with aster and scalp. The first design has 384 cells available, and the second has 256 cells available. Which design would be better?