Shipbucket

It was. At least one coast artillery crew found it out the hard way. Swab wet. Swab dry. Then load. You would think the American Civil War would have taught them.
The British thought so, when they made the dramatic decision to switch over to a fuel source for which they had at the time no domestic source. They accepted foreign dependence to avoid the risk of coal dust explosions. In hindsight I would have researched coal tar liquification and produced a diesel powered fleet as the AU Americans are going to do when they realize the fuel economy advantages they need for such a long ranged domestic fuel source fleet.

Let me explain how I see an AU works with a Mr. McKinley's Navy example that came to mind when you asked me about the risk of coal fuelled ships. I found it most curious that historians do not realize how militarily knowledgeable President McKinley was or how closely he listened to his navy staff when they said they needed a specific action taken or any attack on the Spanish Philippines would fail because Japan would thwart it.

The case example is HAWAII.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Fuji

In 1897 the Japanese received the first of these monsters. In 1898 she received the second. In the Real Time Line, the Indianas were completely outclassed as to speed, range and armament. The only American battleship that was a near match was the Iowa. But she lacked the ability to speed run to the scene one way for a rescue. She lacked the unrefueled range.

The Japanese from 1888 on were sending their navy to Pearl with such monotonous regularity that it seemed like Hawaii was a defacto colonial stopover for them. Class for class, in 1898 in the Pacific the American Pacific fleet was combat overmatched about 4 to 1 by the Japanese using gun torpedo power squared ratios. This was compounded by the inferior speed, and fleet cruising radius that the essentially coast defense American navy had at the time.

It looked to Washington, that Tokyo was making a play for Hawaii to keep the US out of China.

And to the American naval planners, Crowninshield and Mahan in 1898, if the power projection into the western Pacific was going to come off, then two things had to happen, Hawaii and a series of islands had to be seized by force to provide a line of coaling stations so the current short ranged American fleet could cross the vast Pacific, and the Japanese had to be distracted by a threat close to home, so that they could not interfere with American plans for the Philippines.

Why do you think Washington encouraged Cramp and Sons to build battleships and armored cruisers for RUSSIA?

Post Mr. McKinley's Navy in the AU, as in the real time line, the United States Navy which sweated bullets that some foreign power would come to Spain's rescue, will concentrate on installing the Pacific submarine cable telegraph and telephone network that will prove so deadly to Japanese warplans. They will build coaling stations and they will construct the vital naval bases at San Diego, Puget, and Pearl. And the US will make Manila in 1910 the most heavily fortified port on Earth.

From a fuel standpoint, the USN was reluctant to give up coal before WW I was because steam engined warships were a known factor, the Americans could now build them long ranged and American ships could coal in the Pacific from their bases and in peacetime worldwide from secure anchorages. Once shifting over to heavy fuel oil, the fuel sources would be US mainland restricted. Tankers or a fleet of long ranged ships or both would be required.

Diesel electric power trains are very efficient. The only reason the RTL Americans went ahead with turbine/electric was because the British went geared turbine and the Americans played catchup[. I think that was a technological mistake. It might take two decades for the AU bunch but marine diesels for Mr. Harding's Navy are in the cards. Same for his railroads. Range drives want and if the want is great enough, then diesels it is. That was what RTL happened to American submarines. The surface fleet should follow, il ne devrait pas?


I don't know. One would want it where the inevitable explosion would not involve the main propellants storage. Hopefully you load up the unit round off the ship altogether, but if we are stuck with Mr. McKinley's Navy it will be in a special handling compartment sealed off by fire doors midway between the magazines and the gunhouse.
Before 1925? I don't think so. I would think, that even if the Germans thought naval action would occur at less than 15,000 meters range, they would know that it takes a minute to recompute a gun-lay or director solution by hand. The Dreyer System could not do it any faster and I think that was the world standard until the Americans came out with their own fire control directors around 1920-1925. Despite these real history tidbits, I note with sarcasm that the Germans with pen and graph paper consistently outshot the British in both world wars. It did not matter if it was Argo or Dreyer. And it took the Germans time, about a minute to two minutes between salvoes between computations.

Sometimes a human hunch and experience beats the analog computer.
On the obturator in the interrupted screw de Bang style system. Around the rim of the brass button or cartridge case in the Driggs system (up to 152 cm in the RTL If we go AU, then all the way up to 30 cm.). On the inset face of the Krupp wedge block system.

A RICH navy uses the Driggs system. The USN was rich. Germans and their clients used Krupp.
Manganese and seawater do not mix well. KABOOM.
Since John Ericson invented something very like it for the USS Princeton (which blew up by the way), how about 1848?

PS. I am not an expert on armor protection schemes at all. Might want to try Hood, Heuhen, Garlicdesign, Gallivainen, or even Krakatoa about that subject.

Much better, the belt armor helps. I still think the deck armor is a bit on the thick side and both designs could use a torpedo bulkhead. Main Battery should be cut back to 100 rpg for both designs. But this is a major improvement...

I haven't played around with SpringSharp v.3b2 that much since its a beta version and at Wesworld we elected to stick with v.2.
Having double-checked the box settings for the deck armour, it does indeed seem that it includes additional weight for the sides.

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

So far how does it look, only the spot lights, secondaries, and the funnel were not drawn by me,

I regret deleting all the segmentation that formed essentially a deck plan, but it was to many additions ago for the undo button to retrieve.

It seems fine. Some one might suggest that the back end looks kind of crowded with the casemate guns, but it will not be me. Not after what I see the French did with the Jean Bart.