WesWorld

A class of 5 Heavy cruisers for the RN to be laid down in 1924. Do people agree with this design or would they care to offer another one?

My design;
-500t under weight as Kent was historically underweight as well
-i've simply used a scaled-up version of the normal Kent springstyle
-triple turrets instead of duples
-same armour scheme with 1" main belt and 4" box protection to magazines
-shes fairly fast and heavily armed

HMS Kent, Royal Navy 8in Cruiser laid down 1924

Displacement:
11,957 t light; 12,520 t standard; 14,233 t normal; 15,547 t full load
Loading submergence 797 tons/feet

Dimensions:
680.00 ft x 71.50 ft x 23.50 ft (normal load)
207.26 m x 21.79 m x 7.16 m

Armament:
12 - 8.00" / 203 mm guns (4 Main turrets x 3 guns, 2 superfiring turrets)
8 - 4.00" / 102 mm guns
4 - 1.57" / 40 mm AA guns
4 - 0.78" / 20 mm guns
Weight of broadside 3,337 lbs / 1,513 kg
8 - 21.0" / 533.4 mm above water torpedoes

Armour:
Belt 4.00" / 102 mm, upper belt 1.00" / 25 mm, ends unarmoured
Belts cover 68 % of normal area
Main belt does not fully protect magazines and engineering spaces
Main turrets 3.00" / 76 mm
Armour deck 1.00" / 25 mm, Conning tower 1.00" / 25 mm
Torpedo bulkhead 1.00" / 25 mm

Machinery:
Oil fired boilers, steam turbines,
Geared drive, 4 shafts, 100,000 shp / 74,600 Kw = 32.23 kts
Range 10,000nm at 15.00 kts

Complement:
651 - 847

Cost:
£3.802 million / $15.207 million

Distribution of weights at normal displacement:
Armament: 417 tons, 2.9 %
Armour: 2,007 tons, 14.1 %
Belts: 602 tons, 4.2 %, Armament: 493 tons, 3.5 %, Armour Deck: 516 tons, 3.6 %
Conning Tower: 13 tons, 0.1 %, Torpedo bulkhead: 384 tons, 2.7 %
Machinery: 3,294 tons, 23.1 %
Hull, fittings & equipment: 6,189 tons, 43.5 %
Fuel, ammunition & stores: 2,276 tons, 16.0 %
Miscellaneous weights: 50 tons, 0.4 %

Metacentric height 4.0

Remarks:
Hull space for machinery, storage & compartmentation is cramped
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: 1.17
Shellfire needed to sink: 9,282 lbs / 4,210 Kg = 36.3 x 8.0 " / 203 mm shells
(Approx weight of penetrating shell hits needed to sink ship excluding critical hits)
Torpedoes needed to sink: 1.4
(Approx number of typical torpedo hits needed to sink ship)
Relative steadiness as gun platform: 71 %
(Average = 50 %)
Relative rocking effect from firing to beam: 0.53
Relative quality as seaboat: 1.32

Hull form characteristics:
Block coefficient: 0.436
Sharpness coefficient: 0.31
Hull speed coefficient 'M': 8.58
'Natural speed' for length: 26.08 kts
Power going to wave formation at top speed: 51 %
Trim: 54
(Maximise stabilty/flotation = 0, Maximise steadiness/seakeeping = 100)

Estimated hull characteristics & strength:
Underwater volume absorbed by magazines and engineering spaces: 136.6 %
Relative accommodation and working space: 162.7 %
(Average = 100%)
Displacement factor: 119 %
(Displacement relative to loading factors)
Relative cross-sectional hull strength: 0.96
(Structure weight / hull surface area: 130 lbs / square foot or 634 Kg / square metre)
Relative longitudinal hull strength: 1.38
(for 22.50 ft / 6.86 m average freeboard, freeboard adjustment 6.25 ft)
Relative composite hull strength: 1.00

Hi there...

I don´t see why teh RN in WesWorld should accept anything below maximum displacement? Every freaking navy in the world is building 13kts cruisers after all.

I also doubt the british would adopt triples so easily. They prefered twins for the very same reasons the Germans did. That´s why everything build pre-Town-class has them. The only reason why the RN finally accepted triples is that without them they would have lost too much ground compared to IJN and USN cruisers featuring 15x 6" guns. The Towns came out as splendid cruisers of course...

I foresee the RN to build CAs with five twins if tonnage allotment allows it. They might later build a somewhat smaller class to gain more hulls and thus creat an analogy to the COUNTY-class and YORCK-class (or like the LEANDERs and ARETHUSAs).

I also question their light armor. The British more than any other nation learned from WW1. Their CLs were the first to feature an armored belt (IIRC, the ARETHUSAs of WW1) and they did well with it, proving nearly imune to early german gunfire (10,5cm). All following classes were armored as much as possible. Why should the RN reverse course? The original COUNTYs just suffered from the 10kts limits of the WT and miscalculations letting them out underweight.

How about the TT bulkhead you installed? Doesn´t it consume too much weight on a cruiser? IIRC, most WesWorld CAs don´t have it. So why should that feature be used for RN cruisers?

Regards,

HoOmAn

My original thoughts were to have 10x8" guns in duple turrets but when I mentioned this some time ago others preferred the 4 triples option. My idea was for A-B-C-X-Y arrangement of turrets with 4 single 4" guns each side.

If I up the tonnage to around 12,900t ( i still think that they'd be slightly underweight) and reduce firepower to 10 guns we can get a good armour scheme. 4" main belt with 1" upper and 1.5" deck armour. I can also increase the turret armour to 4" as opposed to 1" thick.

Still having some extra hull strength to use I upped the power to 105,000shp to give 32.4knts.

I took the torpedo bulkhead out as well to give extra room. She still has some excess hull strength and a huge freeboard, but those were the Counties defining features I think.

HMS Kent, Royal Navy 8in Cruiser laid down 1924

Displacement:
12,385 t light; 12,916 t standard; 14,755 t normal; 16,168 t full load
Loading submergence 816 tons/feet

Dimensions:
680.00 ft x 71.50 ft x 23.50 ft (normal load)
207.26 m x 21.79 m x 7.16 m

Armament:
10 - 8.00" / 203 mm guns (5 Main turrets x 2 guns, 2 superfiring turrets)
8 - 4.00" / 102 mm guns (8 2nd turrets x 1 guns)
4 - 1.57" / 40 mm AA guns
4 - 0.78" / 20 mm guns
Weight of broadside 2,825 lbs / 1,281 kg
8 - 21.0" / 533.4 mm above water torpedoes

Armour:
Belt 4.00" / 102 mm, upper belt 1.00" / 25 mm, ends unarmoured
Belts cover 96 % of normal area
Main turrets 4.00" / 102 mm
Armour deck 1.50" / 38 mm, Conning tower 1.00" / 25 mm

Machinery:
Oil fired boilers, steam turbines,
Geared drive, 4 shafts, 105,000 shp / 78,330 Kw = 32.38 kts
Range 10,500nm at 15.00 kts

Complement:
669 - 870

Cost:
£3.753 million / $15.013 million

Distribution of weights at normal displacement:
Armament: 353 tons, 2.4 %
Armour: 2,299 tons, 15.6 %
Belts: 851 tons, 5.8 %, Armament: 643 tons, 4.4 %, Armour Deck: 793 tons, 5.4 %
Conning Tower: 13 tons, 0.1 %, Torpedo bulkhead: 0 tons, 0.0 %
Machinery: 3,458 tons, 23.4 %
Hull, fittings & equipment: 6,125 tons, 41.5 %
Fuel, ammunition & stores: 2,370 tons, 16.1 %
Miscellaneous weights: 150 tons, 1.0 %

Metacentric height 3.9

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: 1.15
Shellfire needed to sink: 18,509 lbs / 8,395 Kg = 72.3 x 8.0 " / 203 mm shells
(Approx weight of penetrating shell hits needed to sink ship excluding critical hits)
Torpedoes needed to sink: 2.0
(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: 0.45
Relative quality as seaboat: 1.30

Hull form characteristics:
Block coefficient: 0.452
Sharpness coefficient: 0.32
Hull speed coefficient 'M': 8.48
'Natural speed' for length: 26.08 kts
Power going to wave formation at top speed: 52 %
Trim: 54
(Maximise stabilty/flotation = 0, Maximise steadiness/seakeeping = 100)

Estimated hull characteristics & strength:
Underwater volume absorbed by magazines and engineering spaces: 96.0 %
Relative accommodation and working space: 162.2 %
(Average = 100%)
Displacement factor: 121 %
(Displacement relative to loading factors)
Relative cross-sectional hull strength: 0.99
(Structure weight / hull surface area: 127 lbs / square foot or 618 Kg / square metre)
Relative longitudinal hull strength: 1.39
(for 22.50 ft / 6.86 m average freeboard, freeboard adjustment 6.13 ft)
Relative composite hull strength: 1.02

She looks much better now, methinks. While still rather long and with a small bc she´s closer to what I expect the RN to come up with. Just compare her to historical MYOKOs (class laid doen 24/25) and you´ll see both designs sharing many similarities.

Personally I´d prefer her with a shallower draught and a higher bc but if the board accepts them as you´ve simmed them it´ll be fine with me.

Btw, having some hull strength left isn´t such a bad idea. Imagine them modified some 8-10 years later and that hull strength might be worth a lot.

Regards,

HoOmAn

Didn't the Kent class historically have an even lower BC, like around 0.43?

As long as His Majesty's Government doesn't send any of them to China Station.

Not too shabby, I still wonder if the UK would at least consider twins and triples, the Iberians and others are building ships with all triples so they may need to counter. I do agree that they would at least start out with a design with twins though and progress from there, rather than make the jump to triples and have teething problems.

The projected but never build SURREY-class heavy cruisers are a good thing to start with, I think. They would have been quite an improevment over the KENTs (heavy armor, better compartmentation, less funnels etc. but still 8x 8"). Now, with 3000 additional tons at hand one can foreseen similar vessels to be build in WesWorld.

Onr should also consider the British did not adopt triples on cruisers until very late - even though some foreign countries and possible enemies in a future war started with triples in first place.

Anyway, twins were what had been used throughout the 1920s most. WesWorld surely is different but the advantages of twins over triples are still existent.

Regards,

HoOmAn