Quote:
Originally Posted by SteaminDemon
Maximus, you changed your cruiser design from 12 to 8" guns. Why not keep the 12" guns and add one 8" aft of the forward turret, and one 8" aft of the after turret (both raised 8's raised above the 12's or even make em 14's) as well as one port and stbd along with some 155's. If you don't mind re drawing, I think that would add more versatility to the platform.
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I'll take this a bit deeper...
Why keep the 12-inch guns? What do they give you that some other solution doesn't and at what cost? What requirement do they meet?
Why 8-inch AND 155mm guns? Again the same questions apply - what requirement is being met by the 8-inch that can not be met by the 155mm?
I am to be sure no expert but I have studied NGFS - particularly from Korea and Vietnam - in some detail. One factoid that I came across interested me greatly. 6-inch and 8-inch gunfire tended to be used almost exclusively at ranges the 5-inch guns could not reach. 16-inch in turn tended to be used almost exclusively at targets outside the range of 8-inch gunfire. Additionally, 5-inch guns accounted for roughly 90% of all rounds fired in NGFS missions.
What this tells us I think is a couple of things. Except in isolated (yet frequently recited) cases the greater individual-round lethality of the larger calibers was not really a factor. Being able to reach the target was. Increase the range of the smaller caliber guns and the big ones become less important. Also, volume seems to be of overiding importance, far more so than individual round lethality and volume of fire is most readily provided in smaller calibers.
Bringing us up to today, 155mm seems to provide an optimal mix of lethality, range and cost effectiveness for the vast majority of target sets. Hence the replacement of both 105mm and 203mm guns in the US Army and Marines by 155mm systems. For the gun component of any future surface combattant tasked with NSFS 155mm seems to me to be the optimal caliber to stick with. The few targets that require larger per-round effect can best be dealt with by other systems, be they ship-launched missiles or air-delivered ordnance.
Just MHO valued at precisely $0.02