WesWorld

Salamis, Greece BB laid down 1915

Laid down in 1915 to counter Turkey's new battleships, Salamis and Navarinon were unusual for their time by having a rather high speed. After trouble with the casemates in the Hellas class cruisers, it was decided to ship the secondary armament on the main deck in pedestal mounts. Like all Greek large ship contracts before them, these ships were built with American/French assistance however armament was to be supplied by Vickers. When war broke out in 1916, the British aquired the 14" and 5.5" armament for their own uses. The Americans quickly stepped in with an offer of producing new armament and turrets. The US 5"/51 was substituted for the 5.5" guns and the delay in production was put to good use through the installation of twin turrets of Greek design. All armament and turrets were delivered in 1919 and the ships were finished in 1920.



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If a 1915 Fast BB is unfair then there is an Option B below with less armour, speed but with 10 14" guns in a Nevada layout and secondaries in casemates.
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Option A

Displacement:
31,523 t light; 33,219 t standard; 34,104 t normal; 34,676 t full load
Loading submergence 1,424 tons/feet

Dimensions:
700.00 ft x 105.00 ft x 29.00 ft (normal load)
213.36 m x 32.00 m x 8.84 m

Armament:
8 - 14.00" / 356 mm guns (4 Main turrets x 2 guns, 2 superfiring turrets)
16 - 5.00" / 127 mm guns (8 2nd turrets x 2 guns)
6 - 4.00" / 102 mm AA guns
4 - 1.00" / 25 mm guns
Weight of broadside 12,170 lbs / 5,520 kg
4 - 21.0" / 533.4 mm above water torpedoes

Armour:
Belt 13.50" / 343 mm, ends unarmoured
Belts cover 100 % of normal area
Main turrets 13.00" / 330 mm, 2nd turrets 3.00" / 76 mm
Armour deck 5.00" / 127 mm, Conning tower 13.50" / 343 mm
Torpedo bulkhead 1.00" / 25 mm

Machinery:
Oil fired boilers, steam turbines,
Geared drive, 4 shafts, 100,099 shp / 74,673 Kw = 27.50 kts
Range 4,000nm at 12.00 kts

Complement:
1,254 - 1,631

Cost:
£4.236 million / $16.942 million

Distribution of weights at normal displacement:
Armament: 1,521 tons, 4.5 %
Armour: 12,559 tons, 36.8 %
Belts: 3,246 tons, 9.5 %, Armament: 3,907 tons, 11.5 %, Armour Deck: 4,610 tons, 13.5 %
Conning Tower: 307 tons, 0.9 %, Torpedo bulkhead: 488 tons, 1.4 %
Machinery: 3,792 tons, 11.1 %
Hull, fittings & equipment: 13,651 tons, 40.0 %
Fuel, ammunition & stores: 2,581 tons, 7.6 %
Miscellaneous weights: 0 tons, 0.0 %

Metacentric height 5.4

Remarks:
Hull space for machinery, storage & compartmentation is adequate
Room for accommodation & workspaces is excellent
Ship has slow, easy roll, a good, steady gun platform
Good seaboat, rides out heavy weather easily

Estimated overall survivability and seakeeping ability:
Relative margin of stability: 1.01
Shellfire needed to sink: 38,832 lbs / 17,614 Kg = 28.3 x 14.0 " / 356 mm shells
(Approx weight of penetrating shell hits needed to sink ship excluding critical hits)
Torpedoes needed to sink: 5.3
(Approx number of typical torpedo hits needed to sink ship)
Relative steadiness as gun platform: 72 %
(Average = 50 %)
Relative rocking effect from firing to beam: 0.57
Relative quality as seaboat: 1.22

Hull form characteristics:
Block coefficient: 0.560
Sharpness coefficient: 0.40
Hull speed coefficient 'M': 6.60
'Natural speed' for length: 26.46 kts
Power going to wave formation at top speed: 51 %
Trim: 59
(Maximise stabilty/flotation = 0, Maximise steadiness/seakeeping = 100)

Estimated hull characteristics & strength:
Underwater volume absorbed by magazines and engineering spaces: 87.9 %
Relative accommodation and working space: 174.9 %
(Average = 100%)
Displacement factor: 106 %
(Displacement relative to loading factors)
Relative cross-sectional hull strength: 0.96
(Structure weight / hull surface area: 192 lbs / square foot or 938 Kg / square metre)
Relative longitudinal hull strength: 1.44
(for 24.00 ft / 7.32 m average freeboard, freeboard adjustment 4.65 ft)
Relative composite hull strength: 1.00


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Design Option B 10-14" guns

Displacement:
31,460 t light; 33,389 t standard; 34,287 t normal; 34,868 t full load
Loading submergence 1,429 tons/feet

Dimensions:
700.00 ft x 105.00 ft x 29.00 ft (normal load)
213.36 m x 32.00 m x 8.84 m

Armament:
10 - 14.00" / 356 mm guns (4 Main turrets, 2 superfiring turrets)
16 - 5.00" / 127 mm guns
6 - 4.00" / 102 mm AA guns
4 - 1.00" / 25 mm guns
Weight of broadside 14,914 lbs / 6,765 kg
4 - 21.0" / 533.4 mm above water torpedoes

Armour:
Belt 12.50" / 318 mm, ends unarmoured
Belts cover 100 % of normal area
Main turrets 12.50" / 318 mm, 2nd gun shields 3.00" / 76 mm
Armour deck 3.50" / 89 mm, Conning tower 12.50" / 318 mm
Torpedo bulkhead 1.50" / 38 mm

Machinery:
Oil fired boilers, steam turbines,
Geared drive, 4 shafts, 86,953 shp / 64,867 Kw = 26.50 kts
Range 4,000nm at 12.00 kts

Complement:
1,259 - 1,637

Cost:
£4.550 million / $18.200 million

Distribution of weights at normal displacement:
Armament: 1,864 tons, 5.4 %
Armour: 11,559 tons, 33.7 %
Belts: 3,006 tons, 8.8 %, Armament: 4,297 tons, 12.5 %, Armour Deck: 3,239 tons, 9.4 %
Conning Tower: 285 tons, 0.8 %, Torpedo bulkhead: 732 tons, 2.1 %
Machinery: 3,294 tons, 9.6 %
Hull, fittings & equipment: 14,743 tons, 43.0 %
Fuel, ammunition & stores: 2,827 tons, 8.2 %
Miscellaneous weights: 0 tons, 0.0 %

Metacentric height 5.4

Remarks:
Hull space for machinery, storage & compartmentation is adequate
Room for accommodation & workspaces is excellent
Ship has slow, easy roll, a good, steady gun platform
Good seaboat, rides out heavy weather easily

Estimated overall survivability and seakeeping ability:
Relative margin of stability: 1.00
Shellfire needed to sink: 37,714 lbs / 17,107 Kg = 27.5 x 14.0 " / 356 mm shells
(Approx weight of penetrating shell hits needed to sink ship excluding critical hits)
Torpedoes needed to sink: 5.3
(Approx number of typical torpedo hits needed to sink ship)
Relative steadiness as gun platform: 70 %
(Average = 50 %)
Relative rocking effect from firing to beam: 0.69
Relative quality as seaboat: 1.27

Hull form characteristics:
Block coefficient: 0.563
Sharpness coefficient: 0.40
Hull speed coefficient 'M': 6.59
'Natural speed' for length: 26.46 kts
Power going to wave formation at top speed: 49 %
Trim: 55
(Maximise stabilty/flotation = 0, Maximise steadiness/seakeeping = 100)

Estimated hull characteristics & strength:
Underwater volume absorbed by magazines and engineering spaces: 91.0 %
Relative accommodation and working space: 174.8 %
(Average = 100%)
Displacement factor: 104 %
(Displacement relative to loading factors)
Relative cross-sectional hull strength: 0.96
(Structure weight / hull surface area: 207 lbs / square foot or 1,011 Kg / square metre)
Relative longitudinal hull strength: 1.47
(for 24.00 ft / 7.32 m average freeboard, freeboard adjustment 4.63 ft)
Relative composite hull strength: 1.00

Well, I'm not sure what Red Admiral will say , but I think even 26.5 kts is too much for a 1915 BB. What we have here is a king-size battlecruiser...

Personally, I think 14" of armour and ~24 kts speed would make it more realistic.

Great picture BTW!

I prefer Option B from a realism standpoint, but the drawing for Option A is great.

I'd be inclined to trade of your steadiness back for some stability - especially if you're looking at a torpedo-rich environment.

twin turrets as secondaries in 1915? doesn't sound right. And I'd try to limit the speed to 23 kn, 24 tops. She just is too modern for 1915. Lovely design for 1925 though! Cool drawing and a good design.

Many pre-dreadnaught BB's had some/all of their secondary armament in turrets so turrets wouldn't be that out of place.
It might be the type of thing a smaller navy would have since they would be less tradition bound than the larger, older fleets.
Didn't some of the Swedish cruisers of this time also have twin turrets?

The 1893 French BB Bouvet had its 5.5" guns in turret/casemate hybrids, and there are a number of ~1900 designs with turreted secondaries...

wow! that had never occured to me. thanks folks :-)

I'd have to say that those secondarys are Unique and not entirely impossible, personally not my thing. I would think the design would be somewhat of a departure from what we would assume Greek doctrine would require from a battleship.

Being in the adriatic a small BB with good armor similar to the Swedish ships would be most likely. That being said anything designed to contend with much larger oponents would tend to have some throwback quality's or some entirely new inovations in an attempt to give the design some sort of edge.

Having secondarys in turrets would improve protection against small caliber guns from torpedo boats, but would be very unusual for a 1915 design for sure, espeacially one above 20,000 tons.

I realize Roger, that your pictures use some basic "parts" but not knowing this if you looked at the shape of the boat deck, it would imply that the ship was originally designed to carry casemates.

Togeather with the former Atlantian BC's the Greek navy would have a fast well armed capital ship complement, in its fleet.

Hi Roger,

very nice drawing and very good designs.

However, I have to agree with the others. She´s ahead of her time by several years (Design A) and maybe too inovative and expensive for a relatively small navy like the greek one. Just compare her to the MACKENSEN which is of the same era....or to the QEs which were smaller, slower and less inovative even though heavier armed.

In general WesWorld designs are a little bit ahead of times. So having a greek design around that is much more capable than historical SALAMIS isn´t much of a problem to me. However, I prefer design B as well as she has her secondaries in casemats and is a little bit smaller. It´s not my intention to cut your fun but have you considered a BB smaller size? In 1915 I really don´t think the Greek would lay down a 33-35kts fast battleship (thus easily the largest capital warship around - the NEW MEXICOs of 1915 had a planned full load of 33000ts). Something around 28kts seems to be a maximum (looking at money and italian ships to be countered).

Regarding your drawing I envy your skills. However, there are a few things that need improvements. First of all her top view just doesn´t seem to fit her side view. It simply doesn´t have all the details and thus looks somewhat odd.

I also wonder if that crane aft will be long enough to lift boats from the water.

Why is her bow so "edgy" (top view)?

Those secondary turrets look like if they were ripped of an ARETHUSA-class line drawing, corrext? Or have you used NELSON?

That´s it right now.... :o) Keep it coming,

HoOmAn

Thanks for the comments,

It seems that from a realistic viewpoint - Option B is the way to go. In my defence, Harry envisaged them as 30,000tons ships and this jells with the four ship limit and 120,000 tons (the ex-Atlantian ships take up 50K tons). Personally, I'd expect three 20k tons ships be more inline with Greek needs but then that is five ships and a no-no by the CT. As far as design goes - the Italian Dante had pioneered secondaries in turrets and was also fast for a dreadnought so what I outlined about could be a legitimate reply - perhaps a little too fast ; ). She could also be a trigger for the Carricolo(?) design of the Italians.

Perhaps the above ship can be the improved Salamis that is in breach of the treaty and these two ships should be 10-14" 30k tons, 25-26kts and secondaries in casemates.Perhaps I can work with 5.5" and then swap them for 5" with a couple of extra ones on the boat deck in US fashion.

Hooman, I didn't put too much effort in the Plan view as I expected to be changing things. It was mainly to check if everything was going to fit - you know the problem ; ). The turrets are the same 5"twin in the 1921-CL. Wes, they are staggered the way they are so they can get 8 guns forward and aft (on paper anyway).

Cheers,

I think that a 33,000t ship is too big for the Greeks at this time. 27.5knts is as fast as most battlecruisers.

I think that a cut-down version would be best. Same armament of 8x14" but with 25knts speed and maybe a little less deck armour? She's still fast enough to escape the Italian ships and her 14" guns are bigger. Caracciolo would be a good reply to this; faster and more heavily armed.

Ok, A revision based on comments. The ships start out smaller but are bulged prior to completion.

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Final Salamis Design

Greece laid down two battleships in 1915 to counter the new Turkish ships. They were 10-14" against 10-13.5", and 25kt was needed to counter Italian ships. Guns now in casemates.

RHN Salamis, Greece Battleship laid down 1915

Displacement:
27,639 t light; 29,524 t standard; 30,730 t normal; 31,571 t full load
Loading submergence 1,299 tons/feet

Dimensions:
660.00 ft x 97.00 ft x 28.00 ft (normal load)
201.17 m x 29.57 m x 8.53 m

Armament:
10 - 14.00" / 356 mm guns (4 Main turrets, 2 superfiring turrets)
16 - 5.50" / 140 mm guns
6 - 4.00" / 102 mm AA guns
4 - 1.00" / 25 mm guns
Weight of broadside 15,245 lbs / 6,915 kg

Armour:
Belt 12.00" / 305 mm, ends unarmoured
Belts cover 97 % of normal area
Main turrets 12.00" / 305 mm, 2nd gun shields 2.00" / 51 mm
Armour deck 3.40" / 86 mm, Conning tower 12.00" / 305 mm
Torpedo bulkhead 1.50" / 38 mm

Machinery:
Coal and oil fired boilers, steam turbines,
Geared drive, 4 shafts, 66,778 shp / 49,816 Kw = 25.00 kts
Range 4,500nm at 12.00 kts

Complement:
1,160 - 1,508

Cost:
£4.288 million / $17.153 million

Distribution of weights at normal displacement:
Armament: 1,906 tons, 6.2 %
Armour: 10,137 tons, 33.0 %
Belts: 2,529 tons, 8.2 %, Armament: 3,826 tons, 12.5 %, Armour Deck: 2,860 tons, 9.3 %
Conning Tower: 255 tons, 0.8 %, Torpedo bulkhead: 667 tons, 2.2 %
Machinery: 2,715 tons, 8.8 %
Hull, fittings & equipment: 12,882 tons, 41.9 %
Fuel, ammunition & stores: 3,091 tons, 10.1 %
Miscellaneous weights: 0 tons, 0.0 %

Metacentric height 5.3

Remarks:
Hull space for machinery, storage & compartmentation is adequate
Room for accommodation & workspaces is excellent
Good seaboat, rides out heavy weather easily

Estimated overall survivability and seakeeping ability:
Relative margin of stability: 1.06
Shellfire needed to sink: 30,889 lbs / 14,011 Kg = 22.5 x 14.0 " / 356 mm shells
(Approx weight of penetrating shell hits needed to sink ship excluding critical hits)
Torpedoes needed to sink: 4.2
(Approx number of typical torpedo hits needed to sink ship)
Relative steadiness as gun platform: 54 %
(Average = 50 %)
Relative rocking effect from firing to beam: 0.69
Relative quality as seaboat: 1.20

Hull form characteristics:
Block coefficient: 0.600
Sharpness coefficient: 0.41
Hull speed coefficient 'M': 6.45
'Natural speed' for length: 25.69 kts
Power going to wave formation at top speed: 49 %
Trim: 45
(Maximise stabilty/flotation = 0, Maximise steadiness/seakeeping = 100)

Estimated hull characteristics & strength:
Underwater volume absorbed by magazines and engineering spaces: 96.9 %
Relative accommodation and working space: 158.3 %
(Average = 100%)
Displacement factor: 100 %
(Displacement relative to loading factors)
Relative cross-sectional hull strength: 0.97
(Structure weight / hull surface area: 201 lbs / square foot or 983 Kg / square metre)
Relative longitudinal hull strength: 1.35
(for 21.20 ft / 6.46 m average freeboard, freeboard adjustment 2.25 ft)
Relative composite hull strength: 1.00



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As completed - they were bulged to improve torpedo defence at the same time as the new armament was fitted in 1919. Displacement went up by 1000tons while speed went down by .2 of a kt. The original 5.5" guns were replaced with American 5"/51's.

RHN Salamis, Greece Battleship laid down 1915

Displacement:
28,653 t light; 30,531 t standard; 31,771 t normal; 32,635 t full load
Loading submergence 1,393 tons/feet

Dimensions:
660.00 ft x 104.00 ft x 27.00 ft (normal load)
201.17 m x 31.70 m x 8.23 m

Armament:
10 - 14.00" / 356 mm guns (4 Main turrets, 2 superfiring turrets)
16 - 5.00" / 127 mm guns
6 - 4.00" / 102 mm AA guns
4 - 1.00" / 25 mm guns
Weight of broadside 14,914 lbs / 6,765 kg

Armour:
Belt 12.00" / 305 mm, ends unarmoured
Belts cover 97 % of normal area
Main turrets 12.00" / 305 mm, 2nd gun shields 2.00" / 51 mm
Armour deck 3.40" / 86 mm, Conning tower 12.00" / 305 mm
Torpedo bulkhead 1.50" / 38 mm

Machinery:
Coal and oil fired boilers, steam turbines,
Geared drive, 4 shafts, 66,754 shp / 49,798 Kw = 24.78 kts
Range 4,500nm at 12.00 kts

Complement:
1,189 - 1,546

Cost:
£4.289 million / $17.156 million

Distribution of weights at normal displacement:
Armament: 1,864 tons, 5.9 %
Armour: 10,531 tons, 33.1 %
Belts: 2,645 tons, 8.3 %, Armament: 3,917 tons, 12.3 %, Armour Deck: 3,066 tons, 9.7 %
Conning Tower: 260 tons, 0.8 %, Torpedo bulkhead: 643 tons, 2.0 %
Machinery: 2,714 tons, 8.5 %
Hull, fittings & equipment: 13,544 tons, 42.6 %
Fuel, ammunition & stores: 3,118 tons, 9.8 %
Miscellaneous weights: 0 tons, 0.0 %

Metacentric height 6.4

Remarks:
Hull space for machinery, storage & compartmentation is adequate
Room for accommodation & workspaces is excellent
Good seaboat, rides out heavy weather easily

Estimated overall survivability and seakeeping ability:
Relative margin of stability: 1.10
Shellfire needed to sink: 36,114 lbs / 16,381 Kg = 26.3 x 14.0 " / 356 mm shells
(Approx weight of penetrating shell hits needed to sink ship excluding critical hits)
Torpedoes needed to sink: 5.1
(Approx number of typical torpedo hits needed to sink ship)
Relative steadiness as gun platform: 55 %
(Average = 50 %)
Relative rocking effect from firing to beam: 0.55
Relative quality as seaboat: 1.23

Hull form characteristics:
Block coefficient: 0.600
Sharpness coefficient: 0.42
Hull speed coefficient 'M': 6.38
'Natural speed' for length: 25.69 kts
Power going to wave formation at top speed: 49 %
Trim: 45
(Maximise stabilty/flotation = 0, Maximise steadiness/seakeeping = 100)

Estimated hull characteristics & strength:
Underwater volume absorbed by magazines and engineering spaces: 91.0 %
Relative accommodation and working space: 173.4 %
(Average = 100%)
Displacement factor: 103 %
(Displacement relative to loading factors)
Relative cross-sectional hull strength: 0.96
(Structure weight / hull surface area: 203 lbs / square foot or 991 Kg / square metre)
Relative longitudinal hull strength: 1.41
(for 22.20 ft / 6.77 m average freeboard, freeboard adjustment 3.12 ft)
Relative composite hull strength: 1.00

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Cheers,

Is that crane long enough to lift/lower boats from/to the water?

Nice design.

Beautiful LD, alt naval, as usual. Nice work with the bulge and the casments. She kind of reminds me of an LD of Barham's bulging in one of my books.

I still like the original better, especially the look of the turreted 5"/51s, but as your text indicates, she's still a great counter to the Turks and Italians.

Keep up the good work,

Big Rich

I might have considered sticking with the turrets, tho (or maybe a combo of turrets/casemates)?

There's been a lot of discussion about turrets appearing "too early", but a look at Jane's reveals...

6" single - 1888!
5.5" turret/casemate "hybrid" - 1893
6" twin - 1903
4.7" twin - 1909

Any names of ships to go with those turretted calibers, 'cause I ain't got Jane's around here.

Single 6" - Svea, Sweden
Single 5.5" "hybrid" - Bouvet, France
Twin 6" - Fylgia, Sweden
Twin 4.7" - Dante Alighieri, Italy

Many thanks for comments, this seems a more plausable design for the timeframe.

Rich, I'll keep the first design for the improved Salamis - that is being completed as a target ship.

Hoo, you're right about the crane (boom) too short.

Cheers,