Shipbucket

Congrats to our 1st place winner Garlicdesign!

Here is the placing:



Full breakdown of scoring per entry, with all commentary submitted is available on the second tab here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Hearty thanks and congratulations to everyone who entered. This was one of the best challenges yet! Stay tuned for the next one being posted very soon

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The next challenge is here. This time it's the "ultimate postwar gun cruiser".

Specific requirements as follows:

Requirements (all dates below are guidelines, not rigid requirements):

- Cruiser
- Designed: 1943-1950
- Commissioned: 1945-1960
- Guns as main armament; missiles allowed, but must not the primary designed focus of the ship
- Any navy (AU, real, or otherwise)

Like the Cold War DD challenge, this one is fairly open-ended. There is no limitation on the "type" of cruiser (can be CA, CB, CL, etc) just that the design must broadly qualify as a "cruiser". The design you submit should be the last all-gun cruiser commissioned by the navy or country; its main armaments must be guns, but it can include missiles as a secondary armament. There is no limitation on the size of the guns. The date range this time limits us to ships designed 1943-1948 ("wartime"), with ships commissioned between 1945 and 1960. There is no limit on "in service" dates; feel free to show a ship in 1990 after multiple refits provided it remains a gun-focused ship. Submit your drawing with or without a text block accompanying it.

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Length of challenge & judging categories:

This challenge will run until 23:59:59 UTC March 4. Entries submitted after 23:59:59 UTC on March 4 will be disqualified.

Drawings will be scored via Google Forms poll, based on the usual 3 categories to decide a winner. The poll will close 23:59:59 UTC on March 8. Categories are as follows, with 10 points available in each:

- Adherence to SB style - does your drawing follow the SB style rules as defined in the Style Guide?
- Drawing quality - how well-executed is your drawing?
- Design realism/feasibility - is your design realistic? Does it make sense given the parameters we have defined?

Text fields for each drawing will allow all poll takers to leave commentary on every design.

Please go and vote for the winner here: https://goo.gl/forms/U7SSztaJccnb6nLw1

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Challenge rules:

- One entry per person.
- Multiple versions of your entry are allowed, provided they show the same ship's evolution over time.
- Multiple views of your drawing are encouraged but not required.
- Text blocks with stats, history, etc are allowed but not required.
- Springsharp stat blocks are allowed but not required.
- Discussion of Springsharp is not allowed in this thread.
- Posts that are off topic in this thread will be deleted.

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Inspiration:

All available cruiser drawings, with date depicted between 1946 and 1960

Real examples of suitable ships would include the French Colbert class, American Des Moines and Worcester classes, British Tiger class, and Dutch Eendracht class (there are many others but these are the obvious ones).

Good luck everyone and happy drawing!

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USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)

I've been waiting a long, long time to make an Americanized/CLAA-ized Colbert

Like CL-154?

Sort of, but with the 5"/70 mounted in Worcester-like gunhouses, and a more carefully-considered 3"/50 (or 3"/70) layout. Maybe a small hangar aft for a HO3S or something. Definitely better radar arrangements than would have featured on CL-154 - at least SPS-6 and SPS-8.

I need to start dropping bits on the page and see what starts feeling right!

I think I might enter an IJN cruiser from my AU.

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

Come one come all

Updated the OP with some links for inspiration.

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USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)

This is right up my street and I would love to enter one but I don't think I'll manage it even if its a full month to compete.

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

I guess I'll go first. Hope I fare better than I did in the Ocean Liner challenge.

Fuji-class Heavy Cruiser



By the end of World War II, the Japanese heavy cruiser force had been annihilated. None of the pre-war-built cruisers had survived, and only one (Komaki) remained of the four built during the war. With the U.S. Navy currently building one Baltimore-class, eight Oregon City-class, and twelve Des Moines-class heavy cruisers of their own, the Naval General Staff wanted some ships to compensate. The resulting design was the Fuji-class heavy cruisers. The ships took several design features from preceding ships, such as the bridge structure, which was modeled after those of the wartime-built battle cruisers.

The stack was modeled after the preceding Ibuki-class, but was reworked so as to look like a single stack instead of two trunked together. The main armament was twelve 8-inch guns (four triple turrets) in a Japanese version of the U.S. Navy's Mark XVI guns carried by the upcoming Des Moines-class ships. The secondary armament was sixteen 3.9-inch quick-firing guns (eight twin turrets) like those mounted on the Akizuki-class DDs. The guns were a Mark II version of the wartime builds; they were now free of their short-life barrel problems, and proved to be excellent for antiaircraft defense.

The fire-control system was derived from the one fitted by the wartime cruisers and battleships, especially the Settsu-class battleships then just entering service. Three Sikorsky "Dragonfly" helicopters were carried, and they had their own hangar below the quarterdeck. The first ship, Fuji, was laid down at Kawasaki's Kobe Shipyard in mid-September 1949, and was launched in mid-October of the following year, entering service on 18 October 1951.

The fifth ship of the class, Mogami, was commissioned in March 1955 and featured updated radars, a different foremast, and a new aircraft complement: two Sikorsky H-34s, which replaced the three Dragonflies carried by her sister ships.



In 1961, Mogami received her first refit after six years in service, landing her 40-mm. guns and updating her radar suite and the fire control system for her main guns.



In the mid-1970s, Mogami received another refit, again updating her radar suite and also replacing her H-34 helicopters with Sikorsky SH-3s.



Mogami and her sister ship Chikuma were the only two ships of their class to retain their 'all-gun' arrangement for their entire careers. In the late 1980s, they received their last refit, giving them one last lease on life. The two ships received the Phalanx CWIS system and missiles, and two of their 3.9-inch secondary turrets were landed in order to install four quadruple-mount Harpoon and two quadruple-mount Tomahawk launchers.

The Fuji-class ships served their country well, but not even refits could halt the passage of time. It was soon apparent that the cruisers were nearing the end of their active service lives, and one by one, they started leaving the fleet. Mogami was the first to go, being decommissioned in May 1990. She was maintained in Reserve Status for the next twenty-five years, remaining there even after most of her sister ships had been towed away to the scrapyard. Being one of only two remaining all-gun Japanese heavy cruisers (the other, the wartime-built Komaki, had become a museum in Yokosuka in 1983), she had strong support among her former crew members for her preservation once she was finally struck from the Navy List, which occurred in May 2015. Scrapyards made considerable bids for her, but a last-minute offer from the city of Mutsu in Aomori - where she had lain in Reserve for so long - saved her. After refurbishment accomplished by both former crew members and civilian volunteers, the cruiser opened to the public in September 2016.

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

Oh, yes! I want to participate in this interesting challenge!

how could I forget that I did that Colbert drawing, must be among the best drawing I have done, on that style back then.

I could always pull out an gun-cruiser variant of this AU drawing:https://i.imgur.com/MSMu1Jz.png I did, back when you "boy's" was doing the Typhoon challenge. But I want to do something unique or weird... so what about a: Float plane carrier gun cruiser... or gun cruiser variant of an small aircraft carrier with it's "big" guns in a interesting position... I do have a blueprint Study, done By Swedish Shipyard, of an "interesting" aircraft carrier, I'll post the blueprint i found after the challenge.