WesWorld

I tend to agree with earlier post that suggest removal of the amidships wing main battery turrets along with the casement 5.9" guns.
You would gain a lot from this:
1. weight freed up for upgrades
2. increased room for an improved engineering plant
3. enhanced/enlarged superstructure
4. space for an improved secondary battery

The 11" guns should be reworked/replaced with the newest models from Germany if possible and the turrets modified to allow higher elevation for increased range.

You could in essence create a 3 turret version of the pocket battleship.

I think this is too much of a modification and neither reasonable nor realistic.

The wing barbets are an integral part of the hull and have much influence on strength members etc. Removing them and compensating for the loss of hull strength will have a large effect on the ships interior layout. In fact you will have to gut her out and build a completely new ship.

I also doubt modern 28cm guns (if provided by Germany) will fit into the old craddles. Those old mounts are not meant to take on the forces involved firing the more powerful guns and there probably isn´t even enough space to allow those guns to recoil or elevate. One also has to consider modern shells which will be necessary but have a different size (ammo hoists and shell handling equipement anybody?).

Just because you can shift guns fore and aft on a drawing doesn´t mean you can actually do it in reality.

- Keep the 280mm guns as they are at the moment.

- Buy 130mm triple turrets from me. Easy enough to mount 4 of them.

- Just fair the casemates over. Don't rework the hull.

Since I saw this thread, I've been trying to get my mind back around the subject matter. It's been a while since I considered Yavuz.

But, having thought about her for a while now, and looking at Wes' improvement LD, I have a proposal.

The superstructure doesn't really allow much end-on fire for either the forward-starboard or after-port turret, but they can still fire very close to those bearings. If cross deck fire is to be abandoned, why not make it impossible? I propose raising the secondaries a deck level, as was done with the historical Renown's rebuild. Place the secondary turrets where they can fire over the turrets or deck obstructions on either beam, raised nearly on centerline. Move the medium AA off the turrets onto the decks below. The AA crews will have to seek shelter in case of a surface engagement anyway.

Wes, I hope you don't mind my borrowing your improved drawing (2/3rds of it, anyway!) but I've used it to illustrate what my idea looks like:



Regards,

Big Rich

I don't mind at all, its relevant to the discussion. A picture is worth a thousand words.


The crane set up is something I thought about doing to improve their reach for the boats. With Rich's preposed superstructure modifications I could certainly mount better turrets in favorable possitions.

Something to ponder.

Interesting. I was going to suggest something like this for the Australian CDS cruiser. Actually I was going to suggest something like one of the early Tylor concepts with the centerline turrets superimposed over the wing turrets to allow for possibly more guns.

But for Turkey. That might work. Unless you really want to rearm the wing turrets as lighter triple cannons (the barbette would need to be sized up to fill the hole) and perhaps some singles or twins deck mounted if the same caliber. But that just makes her have more guns, but not necessarily more powerful.

Good idea, Big Rich.

I think I'd replace the twins with triples, but I generally like the layout.

Quoted

Originally posted by HoOmAn
In fact you will have to gut her out and build a completely new ship.

Even if I see the "a completely new ship" as an extreme, this may be true. However I'd give a thought at the idea of deleting wing turrets nonetheless. Under our rules, a "reconstruction" implies heavier modifications than a simple "Rebuild". Yet the "rebuild" allows for deleting barbettes. I think there should be an agreement on what can and cannot be done according to the rules...if they say something can be done, but then we find out it would cost much more than what the rules say, we've got a problem .

Anyway...if we are to follow history it's not entirely unrealistic to see ships not only radically changing from their initial design, but also deleting barbettes. (the italian rebuilt BBs come to my mind).


In Yavuz's case, I'd say that those wing turrets will have really serious issues after virtually any modification done. They take too much deck space, thus creating problems in putting secondary turrets., and once those are installed they will have some seriously restricted firing arcs. Their usefullness will be next to zero.

In the end it all comes to make a cost/effective work on the ship. Will it be cost/Effective to put the ship trhough much more extensive work, deleting those next to worthless turrets and allowing for a much higher top speed and better placed secondary battery?.

If the alternative is keeping those turrets and having a ship modified along the lines avobe discussed, I'd say "yes", is better to delete them. Deleting the turrets may force a higher inversion, but will result in a much better all-around ship than the ones displayed here.



I went through a similar problem when I thought about rebuilding the Ijselijks instead of replacing them with new ships (they have identical turret arrangements to those on the Yavuz).
In the end I am going to build completely new battlecruisers because the resulting ship was still well under what I needed, but if I was forced to keep them ,I'd do it deleting their wing turrets.


P.d. and we really need to agree about the rebuild rules here .

Some work may be needed on rebuild rules. There's a wisp of an idea drifting around in my head, perhaps I'll put fingers to keyboard and try to propose something.

There might be some merit in replacing Yavuz with a new vessel that incorporates four of the twin turrets; one could probably do it for the cost of the reconstruction + value of the scrap. However, I don't know if Turkey really wants to replace her or just upgrade her.

Actually, that would be 19,408.5 tons...so probably not quite enough to fully pay for a new ship.

They could, of course, always sell her...

^_^



Any mods to the rebuild/reconstruct rules should include a "tonnage saving" for the reuse of turrets...varying depending on whether you're reusing the whole shebang, or just the guns.