Quote:
Originally Posted by dilawar
Sir, one simple reason i can think of is operational doctrine put into design. This is irrespective of power developed by individual or ssociater turbine capacity to utilize it. The US doctrine could be using these ships much further away from base or dockyards for longer periods of times. The Brit thinking in dfesigning the ships that way could be a more modest doctrine in terms of usage and operational time. So for the Americans it made sense to have more boilers that could power the turbines and also be standby for maintenance. Just thinking out aloud though. Will appreciate any correction to it.
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As a retired Naval Architect, I can say that you are just about smack dab on the money. US warships have always been designed with almost extreme redundancy to increase chances of survival when damaged.
However, lately some modern boiler fired ships are not considered to be front line fighting ships (such as LHA's and LHD's) and can get by with one large boiler per shaft.
Modern Destroyers and Cruisers are now gas turbine powered. They use two gas turbines per shaft simply to get as much horsepower as possible out of them rather than for survival redundancy.