Battleship Design

[JA Boomer]

I've gotten hooked on the Battleship New Jersey YouTube channel, especially the videos on what the US Navy didn't like about the Iowa-class, and what the Montana-class could have looked like. I came up with my own heavy battleship design: a Montana-class equivalent with a Vanguard-class-like bow and a large transom stern. Note that I didn’t constrain myself to any naval treaties, the Panama Canal, or real-world weapons.

Length: 900 ft
Beam: 120 ft
Speed: 28 knots
Armor: 16” citadel

Main Cannon: 4 x 16” triple turrets (12 barrels)
Secondary Cannon: 12 x 5” double turrets (24 barrels)
Main Anti-Aircraft: 30 x 2” double turrets (60 barrels)
Secondary Anti-Aircraft: 20 x 1” quad turrets (80 barrels)

Radars: air search, air/surface search, surface search, surface/navigation search
Guns Directors: 16” (4), 5” (4), 2” (16)
Boats: 4
Float Planes: 2

The hull can be equipped with quad 14” or double 18” turrets (in place of triple 16”), as they have identical barbette sizes.



If anyone has any comments, I would be happy to discuss.

 

[jlvfr]

I've gotten hooked on the Battleship New Jersey YouTube channel, especially the videos on what the US Navy didn't like about the Iowa-class, and what the Montana-class could have looked like. I came up with my own heavy battleship design: a Montana-class equivalent with a Vanguard-class-like bow and a large transom stern. Note that I didn’t constrain myself to any naval treaties, the Panama Canal, or real-world weapons.

Assuming this is a late war design, you should replace all the light caliber (and some of the 5") mounts. By late war, the efectiveness of the lights (20mm or similar) had been put in question due to the speed and toughtness of (then) modern aircraft. Kamikaze would routinely ram past these as they had neither the range or hitting power to stop them; twin-or quad 40mm (or the UK's pompom mounts) were seen as the bare minimum, and the 3" was rapidly being deployed. And conventinal bombers were flying in much faster, either dropping torpedoes from futher away or bringing in the first family of guided bombs. So I would suggest replacing 4 of the twin 5" with twin 3" (higher ROF and shell velocity), an extra 2-3 mounts per side replacing most of the lights, and spreading twin and quad 40mm (or equivalent) everywhere else. They'll take up more space, so you can't put in as many, but they'll be far more efective.

 

[Monash]

Always wondered why navies never tried (as far as I am aware) going with a three/two arrangement in four turrets for a total of 10 main guns - three in A two in B turret then repeat in the X & Y stern turrets. Always seems to have been 4 x 2 or 3 x 3.

 

[jlvfr]

Always wondered why navies never tried (as far as I am aware) going with a three/two arrangement in four turrets for a total of 10 main guns - three in A two in B turret then repeat in the stern in battleship designs. Always seems to have been 4 x 2 or 3 x 3.

Good question...

 

[jlvfr]

Thought a bit more on this, and I think the main "culprit", early on, was the Washington Naval Treaty. When navies wanted to replace their older BBs, they had to stay under tonage X; a ship with decent armour and speed, with 10s guns of the time, would break the limit. The Royal Navy did it with the KGV, but only by using 14" guns (rather than current 15 or 16") and decided to maximize forward salvos, hence 6 guns forward, and all in order to get high speed. The Nelsons had 16", but only by sacrificing speed.

Latter on, technically you could, but ship tonnage simply grew too much. Even the "let's make it hugeesssss!" Yamato stuck with 9 guns, like the Iowa. And, in both cases, their navies decided to concentrate massimum firepower forward.

 

[Monash]

I to have always suspected the Treaty might have something to do with it given a slight weight saving towards the bow needs to be balanced against a similar weight gain towards the stern alongside all the other engineering hurdles the Treaty imposed but by the same token once the treaty went out the window? There still doesn't seem to be any evidence that such a design was ever seriously considered by any of the relevant naval powers. Leastwise I've never seen any.

 

[jlvfr]

The treaty went "out the window" in the late 30s. By then nations started to rearm asap, and everyone (almost...) pretty much either upgraded existing designs as much as possible, while reusing older equipment, or went with projects that had been in development. I think, with everyone trying to maximixe forward firepower (to shoot while approaching the enemy), 6 guns were seen as optimum forward. The KGV, South Dakota, Iowa, Yamato, the planned french Alsace, Littorio... all went for 6 guns up front. The exception was the Bismarck, but that was a ship crippled by design flaws and inexperience in post WWI design, the shortages of the german industry, and Krupps insistence on sliding block breaches that required larger turrets...

Edit: spelling... damn my eyes...

 

[Monash]

If your statement above that 'everyone trying to maximize forward firepower (to shoot while approaching the enemy)" is true? It sort of implies that the leaders of the world's major naval powers at the time were all fixated on being the 'aggressor ' i.e. they would all seem to have thought they would be the ones choosing when, where and under what conditions battle would be joined. Or to put it another way general all round fire power & defense would seem to have been a secondary consideration. I'm not saying that was the case BTW just that such a mind set (to my mind at least) would seem to be overly 'optimistic' if that's the correct term given radar for example wasn't even a consideration when naval engagements of the prewar WW2 era were being planned for.

 

[jlvfr]

The problem was the horrible hit rates of the time, at longer ranges. Anything about 17-20000 yards, you'd get (depending on ship and fire control) a hit rate not much better than 5-10% if that. The USS Washington, considered to be an excelent shooter, scored between 11% and 25% of main batery hits on the Kirishima, at less than 9000...

So the main tactic was to approach as fast as possible, to maximize hits. By putting as many guns forward as possible, the ship could keep shooting as it approached.

 

[Gun Grape]

If your statement above that 'everyone trying to maximize forward firepower (to shoot while approaching the enemy)" is true?

From the days of sail all the way through the surface battles of WW2, the way to get advantage was to "Cross the Tee"

To simplify firing solutions and prevent friendly fire, the ships would form a Line Astern formation (One behind another)
By crossing the T all of your ships could use all their main guns while the enemy formation had limited weapons to aim at you.

So you wanted to have more guns forward to use against the enemy in case they were the ones that got the advantage

Crossing the T - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Monash]

From the days of sail all the way through the surface battles of WW2, the way to get advantage was to "Cross the Tee"

To simplify firing solutions and prevent friendly fire, the ships would form a Line Astern formation (One behind another)
By crossing the T all of your ships could use all their main guns while the enemy formation had limited weapons to aim at you.

So you wanted to have more guns forward to use against the enemy in case they were the ones that got the advantage

Crossing the T - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Yet reality/history should have told designers and admirals engagements where you crossed the T were rare nor for that were your ships always going to be the ones who held the initiative and could choose to engage or not. So by that argument it was a time when everyone expected to be the one who did all the 'crossing' but who never got 'crossed' in return. Sort of naive IMO since we both know the naval battles that were to come were almost all messy affairs where neither side got to execute a perfect crossing of the T. To me? To a balanced 'all round' gun layout would seem to be preferable. But then I'm a layman so what the hell do I know.

 

[Monash]

From the days of sail all the way through the surface battles of WW2, the way to get advantage was to "Cross the Tee"

To simplify firing solutions and prevent friendly fire, the ships would form a Line Astern formation (One behind another)
By crossing the T all of your ships could use all their main guns while the enemy formation had limited weapons to aim at you.

So you wanted to have more guns forward to use against the enemy in case they were the ones that got the advantage

Crossing the T - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Makes sense I guess but the 4 x 2 arrangement didn't really do that and it remained common. Hence my curiosity about why a 3 + 2 forward and aft arrangement was never at least experimented with.

 

[JA Boomer]

First off, my apologies, my emails notification stopped working at some point, so I just so that this thread got traction today!

Assuming this is a late war design, you should replace all the light caliber (and some of the 5") mounts. By late war, the efectiveness of the lights (20mm or similar) had been put in question due to the speed and toughtness of (then) modern aircraft. Kamikaze would routinely ram past these as they had neither the range or hitting power to stop them; twin-or quad 40mm (or the UK's pompom mounts) were seen as the bare minimum, and the 3" was rapidly being deployed. And conventinal bombers were flying in much faster, either dropping torpedoes from futher away or bringing in the first family of guided bombs. So I would suggest replacing 4 of the twin 5" with twin 3" (higher ROF and shell velocity), an extra 2-3 mounts per side replacing most of the lights, and spreading twin and quad 40mm (or equivalent) everywhere else. They'll take up more space, so you can't put in as many, but they'll be far more efective.

Agree. Note though, that I decided to go without existing cannon designs, so my anti-aircraft guns are quad 1" (25mm) and twin 2" (51mm), which will have more bite than the respective oerlikon and bofors.

Always wondered why navies never tried (as far as I am aware) going with a three/two arrangement in four turrets for a total of 10 main guns - three in A two in B turret then repeat in the X & Y stern turrets. Always seems to have been 4 x 2 or 3 x 3.

Yes, interesting. I have always assumed using one barbette size and one turret design for a given class helped standardization of manufacturing, supply, and repair. The Iowa's may have benefitted from a forward two-barrel turret, as I believe the armor was compromised between the forward barbette and the tapering bow.

The problem was the horrible hit rates of the time, at longer ranges. Anything about 17-20000 yards, you'd get (depending on ship and fire control) a hit rate not much better than 5-10% if that. The USS Washington, considered to be an excelent shooter, scored between 11% and 25% of main batery hits on the Kirishima, at less than 9000...

So the main tactic was to approach as fast as possible, to maximize hits. By putting as many guns forward as possible, the ship could keep shooting as it approached.

I can't recall, but Battleship New Jersey had a clip that explained there was only three hits in history of greater than 10,000 yards or something like that.

Side note: I'm a big fan of the HMS Vanguard design .. in spite of her smaller guns.

 

[jlvfr]

Agree. Note though, that I decided to go without existing cannon designs, so my anti-aircraft guns are quad 1" (25mm) and twin 2" (51mm), which will have more bite than the respective oerlikon and bofors.

I get that, but you're still stuck with the shorter range of the 20-25mm weapons. And even a quad is no assurance; remember the germans had quad 20s, and they were trying to replace them asap.

Side note: I'm a big fan of the HMS Vanguard design .. in spite of her smaller guns.

Size isn't everything.

 

[Gun Grape]

Makes sense I guess but the 4 x 2 arrangement didn't really do that and it remained common. Hence my curiosity about why a 3 + 2 forward and aft arrangement was never at least experimented with.

Space.
Looking at the Booklet of General Plans for Iowa, North Carolina , Alabama, Yamato, The area aft was taken up by a lot of crew berthing.

 

[Monash]

Space.
Looking at the Booklet of General Plans for Iowa, North Carolina , Alabama, Yamato, The area aft was taken up by a lot of crew berthing.

Yes but that was a US design choice not a physical limit. 4 x 2 turret battleship designs still managed to include the needed berthing space just as well as 3 x 3 designs did.