WesWorld

Russia's still got 3 old armored cruisers, laid down in 1905. What to do with 'em?!

I know! Command/fire support ships for amphib ops!

They'll have a broadside of 2x 210mm, 4x 152mm, and 8x 76.2mm, and the communications gear to control their fire in support of amphibious operations.

Obviously, you'll want something more for Operation Overlord, but for an operation by a naval infantry battalion or a brigade, it oughta bring plenty of punch.

Changes: Old 203mm guns replaced by 210mm (from the Sviatoslav class), smaller guns replaced by new guns with longer caliber and greater shell weight, deletion of 4 76mm casemate guns, adding 8 semiautomatic 100mm AA guns in twin mounts and 16 37mm AA guns in quad mounts, new bow, bulges, increased deck armor, addition of command facilities and radars, new engines/boilers, with twin stacks replacing the 4 old ones, and service life extension. It all adds up to a 50% partial reconstruction.

Askold class, Russian Amphib Command Ship laid down 1905 (Engine 1937)

Displacement:
6,854 t light; 7,248 t standard; 8,542 t normal; 9,577 t full load

Dimensions: Length overall / water x beam x draught
458.52 ft / 449.80 ft x 57.09 ft (Bulges 62.34 ft) x 21.33 ft (normal load)
139.76 m / 137.10 m x 17.40 m (Bulges 19.00 m) x 6.50 m

Armament:
2 - 8.27" / 210 mm guns in single mounts, 297.62lbs / 135.00kg shells, 1937 Model
Breech loading guns in turrets (on barbettes)
on centreline ends, evenly spread
8 - 5.98" / 152 mm guns in single mounts, 123.46lbs / 56.00kg shells, 1937 Model
Breech loading guns in casemate mounts
on side, evenly spread
8 guns in hull casemates - Limited use in all but light seas
16 - 3.00" / 76.2 mm guns in single mounts, 15.43lbs / 7.00kg shells, 1937 Model
Quick firing guns in casemate mounts
on side, all amidships
8 guns in hull casemates - Limited use in all but light seas
12 - 3.94" / 100 mm guns (4x3 guns), 37.48lbs / 17.00kg shells, 1937 Model
Anti-aircraft guns in deck mounts with hoists
on side, evenly spread
16 - 1.46" / 37.0 mm guns (4x4 guns), 1.55lbs / 0.70kg shells, 1937 Model
Anti-aircraft guns in deck mounts with hoists
on side, evenly spread
Weight of broadside 2,304 lbs / 1,045 kg
Shells per gun, main battery: 150

Armour:
- Belts: Width (max) Length (avg) Height (avg)
Main: 7.09" / 180 mm 328.08 ft / 100.00 m 9.84 ft / 3.00 m
Ends: 2.76" / 70 mm 121.39 ft / 37.00 m 9.84 ft / 3.00 m
Upper: 2.76" / 70 mm 328.08 ft / 100.00 m 8.20 ft / 2.50 m
Main Belt covers 112 % of normal length

- Torpedo Bulkhead and Bulges:
1.57" / 40 mm 328.08 ft / 100.00 m 20.67 ft / 6.30 m

- Gun armour: Face (max) Other gunhouse (avg) Barbette/hoist (max)
Main: 7.09" / 180 mm 4.72" / 120 mm 7.09" / 180 mm
2nd: 5.91" / 150 mm - -
3rd: 3.94" / 100 mm - -
4th: 0.98" / 25 mm 0.20" / 5 mm -
5th: 0.98" / 25 mm 0.20" / 5 mm -

- Armour deck: 2.76" / 70 mm, Conning tower: 7.09" / 180 mm

Machinery:
Oil fired boilers, steam turbines,
Geared drive, 2 shafts, 23,732 shp / 17,704 Kw = 23.00 kts
Range 12,000nm at 15.00 kts
Bunker at max displacement = 2,329 tons

Complement:
443 - 577

Cost:
£0.545 million / $2.180 million

Distribution of weights at normal displacement:
Armament: 254 tons, 3.0 %
Armour: 3,156 tons, 37.0 %
- Belts: 1,383 tons, 16.2 %
- Torpedo bulkhead: 395 tons, 4.6 %
- Armament: 442 tons, 5.2 %
- Armour Deck: 872 tons, 10.2 %
- Conning Tower: 64 tons, 0.7 %
Machinery: 658 tons, 7.7 %
Hull, fittings & equipment: 2,496 tons, 29.2 %
Fuel, ammunition & stores: 1,688 tons, 19.8 %
Miscellaneous weights: 290 tons, 3.4 %

Overall survivability and seakeeping ability:
Survivability (Non-critical penetrating hits needed to sink ship):
15,941 lbs / 7,231 Kg = 56.4 x 8.3 " / 210 mm shells or 4.0 torpedoes
Stability (Unstable if below 1.00): 1.30
Metacentric height 3.4 ft / 1.0 m
Roll period: 14.1 seconds
Steadiness - As gun platform (Average = 50 %): 70 %
- Recoil effect (Restricted arc if above 1.00): 0.22
Seaboat quality (Average = 1.00): 1.29

Hull form characteristics:
Hull has a flush deck
Block coefficient: 0.500
Length to Beam Ratio: 7.22 : 1
'Natural speed' for length: 21.21 kts
Power going to wave formation at top speed: 50 %
Trim (Max stability = 0, Max steadiness = 100): 54
Bow angle (Positive = bow angles forward): 20.00 degrees
Stern overhang: 0.00 ft / 0.00 m
Freeboard (% = measuring location as a percentage of overall length):
- Stem: 23.95 ft / 7.30 m
- Forecastle (20 %): 13.45 ft / 4.10 m
- Mid (50 %): 13.12 ft / 4.00 m
- Quarterdeck (15 %): 13.12 ft / 4.00 m
- Stern: 13.12 ft / 4.00 m
- Average freeboard: 14.08 ft / 4.29 m

Ship space, strength and comments:
Space - Hull below water (magazines/engines, low = better): 82.1 %
- Above water (accommodation/working, high = better): 97.1 %
Waterplane Area: 17,108 Square feet or 1,589 Square metres
Displacement factor (Displacement / loading): 126 %
Structure weight / hull surface area: 93 lbs/sq ft or 454 Kg/sq metre
Hull strength (Relative):
- Cross-sectional: 0.96
- Longitudinal: 1.42
- Overall: 1.00
Hull space for machinery, storage, compartmentation is excellent
Room for accommodation and workspaces is adequate
Ship has slow, easy roll, a good, steady gun platform
Good seaboat, rides out heavy weather easily

Four 100mm semiautomatic AA mounts simmed as triples

Misc weight:
Amphib ops bridge, commo gear - 200 tons
Air search radar - 20 tons
Surface search radar - 20 tons
Misc weight - 50 tons

It's worth noting that you'll have half your main battery (Hard to count 2 guns as a 'main' battery) pointing away from a target at any point, and even those will be iffy in moderate seas.

Any thoughts of putting twin 152mm gunhouses fore & aft for a uniform battery? 152/5mm is usually the upper limit for land artillery, and should be sufficient for anything you won't need to call in a battleship for anyway.

Also, will the casemate guns be capable of enough elevation to really be useful for NGFS beyond the immediate beachhead?

that the 152mm and 76mm casemate mounts could elevate to 25 degrees, making them good for a range of 17,000 and 9000 yards respectively. Unmodified, they can range inland. Perhaps I could increase it to 30 deg during reconstruction.

When providing NGFS, they'll be at anchor or going slow, which will be appreciated by damp casemate gun crews. And the seas can't be too heavy, or the whole operation will get delayed.

And yes, half the 152mm and 76mm guns will be unused at any given time. OTOH, if the guns get too hot, they can reverse course and let them cool.

One advantage of the casemate mounts is that they leave room on the deck for AA guns and the command/commo/radar facilities once you cut down the number of smokestacks.

The advantage of the ships overall is that they've got the armor to deal with all but capital-ship-caliber coast defenses, and have little reason to fear field artillery.

Really the ships are far too old for this and should just be scrapped, its amazing they haven't been already. Typical use for other period armoured cruisers was a floating hulk for storage or mounting a few AA guns for port defense.

until the Admiral Makarovs were finished.

And scrapping/hulking remain options.

This way they're a cheap (3,400 tons each) source of fire support.

I'm not sure they really need armour. Theres usually only large coastal guns around ports. It'd be more common to land on an undefended strip of beach. Maybe a couple of 155mm field guns with very limited accuracy at range. Probably better off with some smaller ships that are basically just pontoons with guns. You can most likely fit a 210mm gun onto around 500tons.

Yes, for fire support alone I can do better on less. The Danube class river monitor puts a 10" gun on 600 tons.

http://admkuznetsov.tripod.com/id116.html

However, the C3 facilities on the larger ship would be really useful.