WesWorld

In designing the Amazonas I'm looking to utterly defeat the 10" guns of the Iberian/Peruvian/Chilean/Mexican "heavy" cruisers. Obviously, to do that, I need to know what caliber these guns are. I've been assuming a worst case scenario where the guns are L55 and fire USN-style superheavy shells and even then I'm confident I the Amazonas would be invulnerable at moderate ranges, but I want to get an exact fix.

I'm just wondering, why match guns you probably will never meet in combat? Why not armor against the 11" SAE guns?

Because the 10" gunned ships are far more common. The Hertogs got bitch slapped, so that just leaves the Radiance and Brilliance. That and I'm not going to put a ship armed with 9" guns against a ship armed with 11" guns if I can help it.

The Hertogs dished out quite abit of hurt themselves, not bad for older ships vs. the newer Rio's.

I do agree that arming them to counter the Radiance class wouldn't make much sence, the SAE have far more 14.98" gunned ships than they do 11" gunned ships and matching Iberian/Atlantean ships is an excersize in futility given the calibers used there in addition to the N2 rule.

Since I'm buying the Mexican design and putting 10" guns on it, I ran the design through SS3: the design works with a 10"/45cal, but anything larger requires more tonnage. I'd be preferring a 10/50 or even a 10/55 for Komitadji, myself, and might decide to make that change, even if I have to pay more for it.

Rather amusingly to me, if I ever buy Yavuz from Turkey, I'll have three large ships with three different calibers: 10", 11", and 12"...

Might make sence to either adopt the 11 or 12" guns instead of introducing a new gun design to complicate logistics.

Atlantis has considered using 12" guns on its own armoured cruiser design, maybe Bulgaria can revive the 12" gun idea for Atlantis.

The Mexican gun was of Fillipino origin,

Big Gun Report:

Skoda 10"/45


Caliber = 10.0 inch (25.4 cm)
Shell weight = 525 lbs (238 kg)
Muzzle velocity = 2625 fps (800 m/s)

Relative ballistic performance: 0.95

Muzzle energy = 76.283 megajoules = 28110.3 foot-tons

Relative muzzle energy: 0.88

Typical barrel length: 45 calibers


Elevation Range Time Velocity Fall Angle

2.5 deg 5400 yards 6.9 sec 2111 fps 2.9 deg
5.0 deg 9500 yards 13.3 sec 1796 fps 6.5 deg
7.5 deg 12800 yards 19.3 sec 1590 fps 10.5 deg
10.0 deg 15600 yards 24.9 sec 1452 fps 14.7 deg
12.5 deg 18000 yards 30.4 sec 1355 fps 19.2 deg
15.0 deg 20100 yards 35.6 sec 1291 fps 23.7 deg
20.0 deg 23600 yards 45.4 sec 1226 fps 32.0 deg
25.0 deg 26400 yards 54.7 sec 1213 fps 39.5 deg
30.0 deg 28600 yards 63.6 sec 1228 fps 45.9 deg
35.0 deg 30300 yards 72.0 sec 1259 fps 51.3 deg
40.0 deg 31400 yards 80.0 sec 1298 fps 55.9 deg
45.0 deg 31900 yards 87.5 sec 1340 fps 59.8 deg
50.0 deg 31600 yards 94.5 sec 1381 fps 63.3 deg


Armor Penetration - Vertical Belt Armor

(Relative armor quality, 0.95)

Maximum penetration: 20.02 inches


Elevation Range Belt Deck

1.8 deg 4100 yards 16 in
3.2 deg 6600 yards 14 in
5.0 deg 9500 yards 12 in
5.4 deg 10000 yards ... 1 in
7.6 deg 12900 yards 10 in
11.7 deg 17200 yards 8 in
11.7 deg 17300 yards ... 2 in
19.0 deg 22900 yards 6 in
19.3 deg 23100 yards ... 3 in
25.6 deg 26700 yards ... 4 in
32.2 deg 29500 yards ... 5 in
35.4 deg 30400 yards 4 in
39.5 deg 31300 yards ... 6 in
47.4 deg 31900 yards ... 7 in


Maximum range = 31900 yards at 45.7 deg elevation

Quoted

Because the 10" gunned ships are far more common. The Hertogs got bitch slapped, so that just leaves the Radiance and Brilliance. That and I'm not going to put a ship armed with 9" guns against a ship armed with 11" guns if I can help it.

Yes, but the chances of meeting an 11" gunned ship are far more likely, and the SAE Twins are quite fast. Unless Amazonas is capable of 35knots, there's a good chance she can be caught by the Twins.

Thought a better idea is just to armor against 8" guns and stuff the ship with speed.

Bulgaria's considering buying Yavuz? Yikes!

Hello, Ital-Mart, are there still some older Battleships in stock? (Wonders how Yavuz would do against on of the old Italian BBs reconstructed as historical)

Seriously though, Romania may also be running into a three different caliber problem, with its Constanta and possibly Blucher style ships having 11in, the new CDBB having 15in, and either an old Italian Battleship bought from either Ital-Mart, or Poland eventualy or a new ship having 13.8in guns from Skoda.

Personally I think 9-10" is going to become the benchmark for heavy cruisers post-Cleito, which is why I'm shooting for that benchmark.

Quoted

Originally posted by TheCanadian
Bulgaria's considering buying Yavuz? Yikes!

Hello, Ital-Mart, are there still some older Battleships in stock? (Wonders how Yavuz would do against on of the old Italian BBs reconstructed as historical)

Before you go shopping, be aware that such purchases will be probably five years or more in the future, and will probably be accompanied by a very extensive refit to remove the wing turrets.

Also, need I note that this is why we negotiated a naval limitations treaty? Buying Yavuz just about brings me up to Bulgaria's capital-ship tonnage according to the treaty.

In any case, such purchases are FAR in the future, as I don't even have my desired destroyers laid down yet. The only things that are for certain at the moment are Komitadji and a set of destroyers.

((Additionally, I haven't ruled out possibly buying one of the Constantas from Romania, if the relationship is good...))

Quoted

Originally posted by Fyrwulf
Personally I think 9-10" is going to become the benchmark for heavy cruisers post-Cleito, which is why I'm shooting for that benchmark.

For smaller navy's most likely, but with the larger navy's I think the 8" gunned cruisers days are numbered and the new caliber void will be between 6.1" and 12". A 15x5.9"-6.1" cruiser can still cause greivous damage to another cruiser, is at the upper edge of usefullness as a raider and can still provide on the fly shore bombardment.

In the meantime 12" is decent for deterance against cruisers attacking a CV group and provides good shore bombardment capability's.

The exception I can see is smaller 6-7,000 ton crusiers armed with 8" guns to provide trade protection/ raider capability's.

Atlantis plans on building more Torto type escort crusiers for the trade protection role while most if not all future fleet cruisers will be armed with 6" guns.
Atlantis has also made several attempts to "reaquire" the Azaes/Makedonia class BC's so the desire for a 12" gunned fast BB is still there.

Yes, I know,

Perhaps I should just post my plans as well, that way u can all pick over them like you did to Fyrwulf's

Shopping for capital ships won't be done until the five years is done anyhow. I might wind up "selling" Warsawa (the Polish BB that Poland bought from Ital-Mart) to Romania. Polands going to need some extra tonnage for the capital ship its planning on building in either 1939 or 1940 (oops did I let that slip?)

Idealy, I'd like the Romanian Fleet to be composed by 1945 of 2 fleets, a slow fleet centered around the Regeles, and another ship, and a fast one around 2 fast capital ships, either the Polish Battlecruiser design, or something else, . though this of course is dependant upon events, and whether the treaty can be rewritten or not. If a major war is going on, the fast fleet may not come into being.

Considering that relations are most likely going to be good for a while, Romania would of course be interested in selling either the 2 Constantas or one to Bulgaria. If they want both, it will have to wait until 1941 when the Constantinople treaty is revised, and we of course would like enough heavy tonnage to be able to build 4 Blucher sized ships to replace them, and to implement our fleet plan.

Romania would like to stress that it is not building a comparatively large fleet for provokative purposes, but I just wanna build big ships

Here's the Amazonas' main gun, if anybody is interested.


Mk1 9/50


Caliber = 9.0 inch (22.9 cm)
Shell weight = 480 lbs (218 kg)
Muzzle velocity = 2501 fps (763 m/s)

Relative ballistic performance: 1.00

Muzzle energy = 63.336 megajoules = 23339.4 foot-tons

Relative muzzle energy: 1.00

Barrel length: 50 calibers


Elevation Range Time Velocity Fall Angle

2.5 deg 5000 yards 6.6 sec 2108 fps 2.8 deg
5.0 deg 9100 yards 12.9 sec 1840 fps 6.2 deg
7.5 deg 12500 yards 18.8 sec 1657 fps 9.9 deg
10.0 deg 15400 yards 24.4 sec 1527 fps 13.9 deg
12.5 deg 17900 yards 29.8 sec 1435 fps 18.0 deg
15.0 deg 20100 yards 35.0 sec 1371 fps 22.1 deg
20.0 deg 23900 yards 45.0 sec 1301 fps 30.2 deg
25.0 deg 26900 yards 54.3 sec 1282 fps 37.3 deg
30.0 deg 29300 yards 63.3 sec 1293 fps 43.7 deg
35.0 deg 31100 yards 71.7 sec 1321 fps 49.1 deg
40.0 deg 32300 yards 79.8 sec 1359 fps 53.8 deg
45.0 deg 32800 yards 87.3 sec 1399 fps 57.9 deg
50.0 deg 32500 yards 94.4 sec 1440 fps 61.7 deg


Armor Penetration - Vertical Belt Armor

(Relative armor quality, 1.00)

Maximum penetration: 18.35 inches


Elevation Range Belt Deck

1.4 deg 2900 yards 16 in
3.0 deg 5900 yards 14 in
5.1 deg 9300 yards 12 in
5.6 deg 10000 yards ... 1 in
8.2 deg 13300 yards 10 in
11.9 deg 17300 yards ... 2 in
13.1 deg 18400 yards 8 in
19.7 deg 23600 yards ... 3 in
21.9 deg 25100 yards 6 in
25.9 deg 27400 yards ... 4 in
32.4 deg 30300 yards ... 5 in
39.3 deg 32200 yards ... 6 in
40.5 deg 32400 yards 4 in
46.8 deg 32800 yards ... 7 in


Maximum range = 32800 yards at 45.7 deg elevation

For the marginal difference in performance you might as well just use a standard 8" gun instead and save the cost of developing an entirely new weapon.

Cruisers don't tend to have much armour anyway, the new pair of Italian cruisers with 16x6" guns can make a real mess of anything. The difference in outcome will be a blazing slowly sinking wreck as opposed to a sinking wreck if armed with 8" or 10" guns.

I don't have any 8" guns. And the performance, it might not be all that much better than the USN's 8"/55 guns firing superheavy shells, but I imagine there's probably a bigger difference between it and the 8" guns currently serving.

You could buy Australian 9.2" guns.

It depends on what you want from the performance. The superheavy shell will penetrate most cruiser armour, but so will a standard 8" shell. The design of the superheavy shell means that the terminal effectiveness is greatly reduced. The 8"/50 from the UK can still penetrate most cruiser armour but the SAP shell contains twice as much explosive which is far more useful when you hit the large unarmoured areas.

I've decided to go with the 9/55, from the sims I've done it seems to provide performance nearly on par with the 10"/45 listed.