WesWorld

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Originally posted by Hood
A joint programme with the USN for a new 12in gun is under consideration by both parties to equip a new anti-Super CA cruiser using as a basis a new Admiralty design with a heavier shell than the current American gun.

Quoted

Originally posted by Hood
There is now a destroyer holiday and no new destroyers are planned until the new fleet destroyer armed with the new 4.5in mount begins construction in 1944.

Quoted

Originally posted by Hood
The DNO drafted a new 2pdr specification during 1940 due to misgivings over the 0.661in HMG. Vickers has developed a new design with a 70-calibre barrel and a new 2pdr shell with improved shellform. The DNO confirmed that initial production has begun and the DGD outlined the single and twin mounts manual and powered mounts now in development. Vickers also illustrated a potential aircraft cannon variant and a new mount for MGB use.

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The Tools of the Future Warship: Armament
Today we are at the beginning of a revolution of naval armament. The gun will remain the most effective weapon afloat for sinking and damaging enemy ships and destroying aerial targets. No potential delivery system can surpass the gun for its hitting power and its accuracy and rate of fire. It is in this last field that the future revolution is concerned. Rapid fire guns have always had an impact on the battlefield, the Henry-Martini rifle, the revolver, the Gatling gun and the machine gun. In naval terms the future impact of automatic naval ordnance will be as profound as the switch from muzzle-loaded weapons to breach-loading quick-firing weapons no more than sixty years ago. Anti-Aircraft weapons have been, like their land-based counterparts, semi or fully automatic. Such a weapon does not scale very well but since the early 1930s efforts have been underway across the world to develop automatic loaders for turrets and mounts to increase, and more importantly sustain high rates of fire. Such advantages with dual-purpose and AA guns are obvious given the high-speed of the targets and the desire to place a barrage around the ship for protection. In naval conflict sheer ‘gun power’ is not necessarily the decisive factor. Having a bigger shell does not guarantee success if your adversary has the means to fire first or has longer-range. Italian designers have long preferred the method of rapid-fire medium calibre weapons to smother the superstructure with hits so as to destroy the vital sighting and aiming equipment and render the command spaces above the hull unusable. Ship’s hulls can only take so much punishment even when very well armoured. We can perhaps theorise with a future light cruiser of 1945, she might have three twin 6 inch turrets with each gun having a rate-of-fire of about 30 rounds per minute. A rate far in excess of that achievable by current loading equipment and methods. Such a ship could fire 150 rounds in sixty seconds, even assuming 75% of them are accurate enough to hit that results in 112 6in shells smashing into the ship. Few ships could sustain that kind of damage. Let us imagine a destroyer with similar mounts but with 4.5 inch guns. What cruiser could absorb 150 hits and still function effectively or remain afloat? Such firepower hitting a ship in one minute would kill or injure a large proportion of the ship’s crew and leave the survivors somewhat shell-shocked and disorientated.

The drawback is such expenditure of ammunition would render most magazines today empty in a matter of minutes. Thus, although these ships will have great endurance, their combat potential will be confined to perhaps ten minutes at most. Combat will be a series of short, sharp engagements. The ship that acquires its target and fires first has the advantage and of course any traditional ship with current turret technology will be unable to reply in kind. The lucky shot needed to knock-out a ship will be replaced by a shotgun approach of smothering the target. Just to destroy a fighting ship’s potential is enough; if you destroy the enemy’s guns and directors then the ship cannot fight even if the hull remains relatively intact and afloat. Against aerial targets the increase ROF will be decisive and the power of a 6in battery would enable such barrages to extend further from the ship to force attackers out of range.

The entire order of ship classes as we know today will be rendered obsolete. The current capital ships seem safe for the time being, such automated loading systems will probably not seriously increase battleship rifle rates of fire much higher, and in any case such expense and size is already approaching levels of unsustainability. The capital ship has the armour to survive great punishment but the superstructures are weak and its open to question how well gun and bomb blasts above the hull will cripple a capital ship by loss of command and control. A traditional heavy cruiser-type ship with automatic 8in turrets might perhaps get the better of a capital ship, the danger from its large guns and slow ROF are perhaps much less for an agile ship that could get within effective range and destroy the battleships upper works and unprotected hull ends. Such a heavy cruiser could easily overwhelm the current generation of Super Cruisers whose 10in and 12in weapons would be unable to reply in kind by lacking the ROF to get enough decisive hits on the enemy in time. In turn a traditional heavy cruiser could easily be destroyed by a smaller light cruiser and for the future destroyer even a cruiser could be knocked-out of the action or sunk. The revolution of increasing ROF increases lethality and for whatever weight penalty of automatic loading turrets incurred the increase in weight of fire does not necessarily mean bigger ships or more expensive ships. The advantage is a force multiplier, destroyers have the firepower of a light cruiser and light cruisers that of high-end heavy cruisers and Super Cruisers.

Where does that leave armour? The citadel will probably become stronger with thicker decks and vertical plates to protect the most vital areas. However, as more command spaces will be located within the hull and the bulkier electronic equipment gets in line with its sophistication there will be a physical limit to how much the armour can cover without massively increasing weight and cost and impinging on speed and range. Given few ships will be able to effectively function after being on the receiving end of such barrages it’s possible that future designers will forsake all armour to increase speed and agility and to provide maximum internal space. Speed and manoeuvrability might be better bets for survival. Within a hundred years of its development the old style of ironclad armoured ships may well be a thing of the past.

Accuracy will still be the vital factor. Already RDF equipment has made sizable improvements in gunnery accuracy in all weathers and at night. Good use of search RDF enables the target to be accurately plotted and the directors with RDF range-finding and splash-spotting abilities will be cued-in before the enemy comes within range and electronic firing solution computers will enable rapid and accurate barrages. Such future equipment must be able to cope with fast moving targets. Ships of the future are likely to carry a dizzying array of such devices, RDF sets for surface and aerial gunnery, search, splash-spotting, RDF jamming equipment to deny the enemy use of such guidance, passive RDF receivers to detect the enemy from longer-ranges whilst remaining electronically silent themselves. All these devices will require vaster amounts of electricity and generator power, internal superstructure space and good arcs of coverage resulting in tall masts and much added topweight.
Torpedoes will probably not become much more effective as an anti-ship weapon, while radio-guidance might become possible and new fuels might provide higher speed and range they will still only offer limited ability as ship speeds and stand-off ranges increase. Refined magnetic and acoustic warheads might offer some improvements in lethality.

So how will these future ships look? Hulls will probably become bigger, magazine space will be increased to perhaps 400-600 rounds per gun for the main turrets. More command spaces will be relocated within the hull for protection leaving lower superstructures above for the directors and tall masts for the RDF gear. Silhouettes will decrease. Those units that don’t need heavy firepower, specialised anti-submarine destroyers for example, will make do with less mounts as the overall loss in firepower will be minimal, perhaps still offering a net gain. Destroyers will probably mount two or three turrets and approach current destroyer leaders in size with speeds approaching 40 knots. Light and heavy cruisers will probably merge into one class of cruiser with 6-8in guns, probably in three or four turrets with a smaller calibre secondary battery of rapid-fire guns for AA defence, less armour and speeds of around 35 kts.

The Future Aerial Threat
The full potential of the reaction jet engine is not yet fully understood. It’s use in high-altitude and high-speed fighters seems assured. Its potential aboard carriers is not yet known. Such jet-propelled fighters will probably appear and will ensure rapid CAP over the fleet and much quicker response to incoming attacks. Jet-propelled dive-bombers seem unlikely given the high diving speeds and structural problems on the pull-out and given the high fuel consumption any jet-propelled naval bomber is likely to either have short range, two engines and much bigger airframe or have a hybrid piston-jet layout.

The main advantage of the jet is speed. It’s possible that aircraft will reach 350mph at sea level and higher speeds of 450-500mph at higher altitudes. Current AA weapons and directors and RDF systems will have difficulty coping with high-speed threats. Smaller machine-gun and light cannon calibres will probably be removed as they will prove almost useless against such fast and strongly-built aircraft. The 30-60mm range will be vital for a mix of ROF and hitting power from its projectiles. The 30-40mm shell is adequate for current AA use but the range of 55-57mm weapons now in service and being further refined will have the hitting power to bring down an enemy bomber in a few hits and the ROF to put up an effective curtain of fire. It is possible that the 3in gun will replace the current 3-5in range of dual-purpose weapons. These lack the speed of training and ROF to combat fast-approaching enemy jet-bombers. The automatic-loading turret overcomes some of these problems but their size will preclude their use as secondary batteries in all but the biggest ships. As primary AA armament they will prove decisive. The 3in might be the better choice as a secondary weapon as the future developments in variable-time fuses and radio-fuses will enable its smaller HE warhead to be detonated with much greater proximity and effectiveness.
The Aerial Weapons designer will probably hit back with more stand-off weapons. Toraplane is perhaps among the first generation of these weapons but is still fairly crude. Future rocket-propelled weapons will have AP or newer shaped-charge warheads and radio, television, infra-red or RDF homing and guidance and will probably consist of winged bombs and torpedoes. Such ranges will increase as effective gun ranges increase over time so that the two sides continually dance with each other, one trying to overcome the other. The 6in automatic gun will prove a big help in this battle. Of course it’s possible one day that radio-fuses will be accurate enough to destroy the incoming weapon, perhaps the shell being replaced by a rocket-propelled projectile of its own. Such rocket projectiles might then be used to further increase effective gun range far beyond current guns against surface targets, aerial targets, bombs and torpedoes. By 1970 the warship we know today is likely to be a completely different animal, perhaps a ship with no superstructure at all apart from a few aerial masts and directors and a few rocket-gun turrets. One thing is for certain, the ships of the next ten years will be the first of that new generation.

Quoted

Originally posted by Hood
Three extra sloops using armament removed from the old cruisers HMS Caledon, Calypso and Caradoc. These are based on the River Class but have subtle differences in equipment and layout.
These ships will be based abroad.

Orpheus Class , Great Britain Sloop laid down 1943