WesWorld

I just ran biggun myself, those guns will punch through 12inches of armour belt at over 26km out!

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For all of you interested in designing ships with total IZ against the SAE´s current 38cm gun:

I was assuming that it was similar to the German weapons (as with the Indian ones), so taking Bismarck's C47 guns and slightly changing the shell weights and mv in NAaB should give reasonable results.

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I just ran biggun myself, those guns will punch through 12inches of armour belt at over 26km out!

Not quite as good as the Italian 381/50 punching through 16" of US style armour at 30,000yds. The flat trajectory also means that it'll have a nice high hit rate. Theres a nice thread on ballistics over on navweaps boards at the moment.

Well, I´m neither using super-heavy shells nor high MV but a 38cm still is a 38cm gun - so what did you expect? :o)

I´m with RA on this, btw. There is no real need for bigger calibers, only a new model of that gun probably and a new shell, and the RSAN will be prepared for everything reasonable that might be build in WesWorld. It´s just not cost efficient to fully armor a BB against such weapon so why spend time and money for a bigger gun? It will only cost you number of barrels and ROF or force you to build really large and expensive hulls. Experience and lessons learned from the South American war do not show this is necessary even though there had not been a chance to test the RSAN BBs against a comparable enemy....

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I´m with RA on this, btw. There is no real need for bigger calibers, only a new model of that gun probably and a new shell, and the RSAN will be prepared for everything reasonable that might be build in WesWorld

Theres no point in larger weapons as they have far more problems involved in mounting them. With the Italian weapon, if you can the target, you can hit it, and when you hit it, it will most likely penetrate. What more is needed? More guns are more useful. I would build a 12x381 vessel but I've yet to get a satisfactory result.

Ultra thick armour just isn't possible to make adequately. For reasonable quality you're talking about 16" for the UK and 12"-13" for the rest of the world. Thicker armours tend to be homogenous as they're easier to make but offer poorer protection. The 12.75" faceplates on the KGV class give similar protection to the 18" homogenous on the USN fast BBs. There aren't many armour plants that can make huge amounts of thick armour plate.

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Originally posted by Brockpaine
Ah... recoil is .14 lower on the second version...

As I said, that was an issue in trim rather than an inherent flaw in the design. Lowering the trim had no telling effect on the ship performance-wise but significantly lowered felt recoil. That said, I'm always happy to shave decent weight off a design.

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Originally posted by thesmilingassassin
Personally I'd rather see a longer, thiner main belt than a short 19" belt. She's got over 400 feet of unprotected hull to drag her down not to mention only 465 feet to place all her vitals inside. Can you say cramped?

Yeah, I think you have a point there. Plus, given the performance specs that Hoo has given us, I think the point is rather moot.

MIBN Netuno, Empire of Brazil Battleship laid down 1942

Displacement:
57,117 t light; 60,102 t standard; 62,409 t normal; 64,255 t full load

Dimensions: Length overall / water x beam x draught
900.84 ft / 880.00 ft x 102.00 ft (Bulges 117.50 ft) x 32.50 ft (normal load)
274.58 m / 268.22 m x 31.09 m (Bulges 35.81 m) x 9.91 m

Armament:
9 - 16.34" / 415 mm guns (3x3 guns), 2,875.00lbs / 1,304.08kg shells, 1942 Model
Breech loading guns in turrets (on barbettes)
on centreline ends, majority forward
3 - 5.98" / 152 mm guns (1x3 guns), 141.00lbs / 63.96kg shells, 1942 Model
Quick firing guns in a turret (on a barbette)
on side amidships, all raised guns
12 - 5.98" / 152 mm guns (4x3 guns), 141.00lbs / 63.96kg shells, 1942 Model
Quick firing guns in turrets (on barbettes)
on side, all amidships
32 - 1.46" / 37.0 mm guns (8x4 guns), 1.55lbs / 0.70kg shells, 1942 Model
Anti-aircraft guns in deck mounts with hoists
on side, evenly spread, all raised mounts
24 - 0.54" / 13.7 mm guns in single mounts, 0.08lbs / 0.04kg shells, 1942 Model
Machine guns in deck mounts
on side, evenly spread, 12 raised mounts
Weight of broadside 28,042 lbs / 12,719 kg
Shells per gun, main battery: 110

Armour:
- Belts: Width (max) Length (avg) Height (avg)
Main: 15.5" / 394 mm 572.00 ft / 174.35 m 15.70 ft / 4.79 m
Ends: Unarmoured
Main Belt covers 100 % of normal length

- Torpedo Bulkhead and Bulges:
2.25" / 57 mm 570.00 ft / 173.74 m 32.80 ft / 10.00 m

- Gun armour: Face (max) Other gunhouse (avg) Barbette/hoist (max)
Main: 19.0" / 483 mm 11.3" / 286 mm 19.0" / 483 mm
2nd: 4.75" / 121 mm 2.75" / 70 mm 4.75" / 121 mm
3rd: 4.75" / 121 mm 2.75" / 70 mm 4.75" / 121 mm
4th: 2.00" / 51 mm 1.00" / 25 mm 1.00" / 25 mm
5th: 0.80" / 20 mm - -

- Armour deck: 8.00" / 203 mm, Conning tower: 19.00" / 483 mm

Machinery:
Oil fired boilers, steam turbines plus diesel motors,
Electric motors, 4 shafts, 130,871 shp / 97,630 Kw = 28.00 kts
Range 10,000nm at 12.00 kts
Bunker at max displacement = 4,153 tons

Complement:
1,973 - 2,566

Cost:
£29.990 million / $119.960 million

Distribution of weights at normal displacement:
Armament: 2,661 tons, 4.3 %
Armour: 25,070 tons, 40.2 %
- Belts: 5,912 tons, 9.5 %
- Torpedo bulkhead: 1,556 tons, 2.5 %
- Armament: 6,340 tons, 10.2 %
- Armour Deck: 10,617 tons, 17.0 %
- Conning Tower: 644 tons, 1.0 %
Machinery: 3,419 tons, 5.5 %
Hull, fittings & equipment: 25,468 tons, 40.8 %
Fuel, ammunition & stores: 5,293 tons, 8.5 %
Miscellaneous weights: 500 tons, 0.8 %

Overall survivability and seakeeping ability:
Survivability (Non-critical penetrating hits needed to sink ship):
131,915 lbs / 59,836 Kg = 60.5 x 16.3 " / 415 mm shells or 23.6 torpedoes
Stability (Unstable if below 1.00): 1.15
Metacentric height 6.7 ft / 2.0 m
Roll period: 19.1 seconds
Steadiness - As gun platform (Average = 50 %): 71 %
- Recoil effect (Restricted arc if above 1.00): 0.91
Seaboat quality (Average = 1.00): 1.77

Hull form characteristics:
Hull has a flush deck
and transom stern
Block coefficient: 0.650
Length to Beam Ratio: 7.49 : 1
'Natural speed' for length: 34.10 kts
Power going to wave formation at top speed: 47 %
Trim (Max stability = 0, Max steadiness = 100): 40
Bow angle (Positive = bow angles forward): 25.00 degrees
Stern overhang: 0.00 ft / 0.00 m
Freeboard (% = measuring location as a percentage of overall length):
- Stem: 44.70 ft / 13.62 m
- Forecastle (17 %): 32.50 ft / 9.91 m
- Mid (50 %): 32.50 ft / 9.91 m
- Quarterdeck (17 %): 32.50 ft / 9.91 m
- Stern: 32.50 ft / 9.91 m
- Average freeboard: 33.33 ft / 10.16 m

Ship space, strength and comments:
Space - Hull below water (magazines/engines, low = better): 65.2 %
- Above water (accommodation/working, high = better): 225.1 %
Waterplane Area: 71,738 Square feet or 6,665 Square metres
Displacement factor (Displacement / loading): 116 %
Structure weight / hull surface area: 232 lbs/sq ft or 1,131 Kg/sq metre
Hull strength (Relative):
- Cross-sectional: 0.95
- Longitudinal: 1.63
- Overall: 1.00
Hull space for machinery, storage, compartmentation is excellent
Room for accommodation and workspaces is excellent
Ship has slow, easy roll, a good, steady gun platform
Excellent seaboat, comfortable, can fire her guns in the heaviest weather

Ships (2):
Netuno
Urano

Armour Notes: Armour belt is 14" thick with 1.5" decapping plate, while gun face and 17" of armour with 2" decapping plate.

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while gun face and 17" of armour with 2" decapping plate.

Thats pretty much impossible to achieve from a practical point of view. It might be possible to weld stand off plates onto a tank turret, but a battleship turret is something rather different.

Speaking with my big-hammer engineering hat on I'd say its possible to weld or bolt an additional plate on, even maybe a 2inch plate, but the loss in strength through the bolts, or the severe lack of integrity owing to the practical impossibility in the era to successfully weld 2inch plate and impart any significant strength.

Here I speak from experience, I have spent some time attempting stick welding, and while it is relatively easy to weld 2 pieces of steel 1/4 to half inch thick together, 2inches is practically impossible without modern equiptment, and a huge amount of patience and welding rods.

Question Earl :

My impression was, and your comments seem to reinforce it, that armor plate, particularly face hardened, was difficult to cut and weld.

I was thinking of dealing with the problems of rivets vs. welding hardened plate by putting out tanks with relatively thin cast hulls, but with cast flanges protruding (or welded to the hull) so that the plate could be riveted to the flange, rather than welding to other plates.

If it's feasible, it should allow for hardened plates without the difficulties of welding, but the cast hull would serve as a backing should it spall or rivets come flying out.

Welding heat treated metal is difficult because adding extra heat gets rid of the affects of the previous heat treatment (actually a lot more complicated than this). Rivets can also be replaced when the armour is damaged whereas unwelding something is rather difficult.

For a decapping plate to work you need a gap between it and the armour. Thats where the problem comes in.

Hmm. Well, I'll stick to a slab of steel for the turret face, then. In fact, I think I'll scale back to 16" on the other two major armoured areas and increase rds/gun or shell weight.

Btw, here's some information on decapping plates:

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-045.htm

Cutting and welding 2inches of mild steel is pretty darn hard, I have seen 60ld/yard rail welded using a modern high-power 13amp welder, and that took all day, and a lot of down hand welding.

Having sketched the problem, a decapping plate for a ships turret face is possible, but it would be easier, and possibly cheaper to buy thicker armour, rather than try to add a de-capping plate.

With Cast Hulls, and metals it is naturally easier as there is more residual strength, and cast steels are easier to weld to compared to rolled steels, as the surface is easier to prepare.

Actually, it was possible (at least in Germany) to electrically weld armor steels with a special electrode, see here: http://www.kbismarck.com/articles.html, the article on the Armor of German Warships from Breyer. A description is given on the welding process being improved over time so the armor plate no longer suffered deterioration from the welding.