WesWorld

A new cruiser class to replace the various class's now being retired from service.

The Acestus class features improved armor and secondarys. They also benifit from more efficient machinery which has lead to a 7,000 shp reduction in power for the same 31.5 knot speed range when compaired to the Ceresus class CL's.

A new superstructure layout, higher freeboard and transom stern make them markably different in appearance compaired to the previous CL's of the Ares and Ceresus class.

Four ships are planned.



Acestus, Atlantis Light Cruiser laid down 1933

Displacement:
7,963 t light; 8,301 t standard; 9,368 t normal; 10,222 t full load

Dimensions: Length overall / water x beam x draught
595.01 ft / 578.00 ft x 60.20 ft x 19.55 ft (normal load)
181.36 m / 176.17 m x 18.35 m x 5.96 m

Armament:
12 - 6.00" / 152 mm guns (4x3 guns), 108.00lbs / 48.99kg shells, 1933 Model
Breech loading guns in turrets (on barbettes)
on centreline ends, evenly spread, 2 raised mounts - superfiring
12 - 3.95" / 100 mm guns (6x2 guns), 30.81lbs / 13.98kg shells, 1933 Model
Dual purpose guns in deck mounts with hoists
on side, evenly spread, all raised mounts
8 - 1.58" / 40.0 mm guns (4x2 guns), 1.95lbs / 0.89kg shells, 1933 Model
Anti-aircraft guns in deck mounts
on side, evenly spread, all raised mounts
28 - 0.79" / 20.0 mm guns (12 mounts), 0.24lbs / 0.11kg shells, 1933 Model
Anti-aircraft guns in deck mounts
on side, evenly spread, all raised mounts
8 - 0.50" / 12.7 mm guns (4x2 guns), 0.06lbs / 0.03kg shells, 1933 Model
Machine guns in deck mounts
on side, evenly spread, all raised mounts
Weight of broadside 1,689 lbs / 766 kg
Shells per gun, main battery: 150
10 - 21.0" / 533.4 mm above water torpedoes

Armour:
- Belts: Width (max) Length (avg) Height (avg)
Main: 4.15" / 105 mm 350.00 ft / 106.68 m 9.02 ft / 2.75 m
Ends: Unarmoured
Main Belt covers 93 % of normal length

- Gun armour: Face (max) Other gunhouse (avg) Barbette/hoist (max)
Main: 4.15" / 105 mm 2.95" / 75 mm 3.15" / 80 mm
2nd: 1.57" / 40 mm 0.79" / 20 mm 0.79" / 20 mm

- Armour deck: 1.57" / 40 mm, Conning tower: 3.15" / 80 mm

Machinery:
Oil fired boilers, steam turbines,
Geared drive, 4 shafts, 68,000 shp / 50,728 Kw = 31.70 kts
Range 15,000nm at 12.00 kts
Bunker at max displacement = 1,922 tons

Complement:
475 - 618

Cost:
£3.467 million / $13.868 million

Distribution of weights at normal displacement:
Armament: 211 tons, 2.3 %
Armour: 1,652 tons, 17.6 %
- Belts: 553 tons, 5.9 %
- Torpedo bulkhead: 0 tons, 0.0 %
- Armament: 380 tons, 4.1 %
- Armour Deck: 689 tons, 7.4 %
- Conning Tower: 30 tons, 0.3 %
Machinery: 1,981 tons, 21.2 %
Hull, fittings & equipment: 4,019 tons, 42.9 %
Fuel, ammunition & stores: 1,405 tons, 15.0 %
Miscellaneous weights: 100 tons, 1.1 %

Overall survivability and seakeeping ability:
Survivability (Non-critical penetrating hits needed to sink ship):
13,905 lbs / 6,307 Kg = 128.7 x 6.0 " / 152 mm shells or 1.8 torpedoes
Stability (Unstable if below 1.00): 1.08
Metacentric height 2.7 ft / 0.8 m
Roll period: 15.4 seconds
Steadiness - As gun platform (Average = 50 %): 70 %
- Recoil effect (Restricted arc if above 1.00): 0.61
Seaboat quality (Average = 1.00): 1.25

Hull form characteristics:
Hull has a flush deck
and transom stern
Block coefficient: 0.482
Length to Beam Ratio: 9.60 : 1
'Natural speed' for length: 27.58 kts
Power going to wave formation at top speed: 56 %
Trim (Max stability = 0, Max steadiness = 100): 56
Bow angle (Positive = bow angles forward): 30.00 degrees
Stern overhang: 2.00 ft / 0.61 m
Freeboard (% = measuring location as a percentage of overall length):
- Stem: 26.00 ft / 7.92 m
- Forecastle (18 %): 21.00 ft / 6.40 m
- Mid (50 %): 21.00 ft / 6.40 m
- Quarterdeck (18 %): 21.00 ft / 6.40 m
- Stern: 21.00 ft / 6.40 m
- Average freeboard: 21.35 ft / 6.51 m
Ship tends to be wet forward

Ship space, strength and comments:
Space - Hull below water (magazines/engines, low = better): 87.8 %
- Above water (accommodation/working, high = better): 160.1 %
Waterplane Area: 23,712 Square feet or 2,203 Square metres
Displacement factor (Displacement / loading): 127 %
Structure weight / hull surface area: 105 lbs/sq ft or 511 Kg/sq metre
Hull strength (Relative):
- Cross-sectional: 0.94
- Longitudinal: 1.70
- Overall: 1.00
Hull space for machinery, storage, compartmentation is adequate
Room for accommodation and workspaces is excellent
Ship has slow, easy roll, a good, steady gun platform
Good seaboat, rides out heavy weather easily

Overall, nice design, continuing the spread of 12-gun CLs throughout the world. Good in-water characteristics, good speed and armor, good firepower.

28 20mm's in 12 mounts? 2 quads and 10 twins? Or is this a typo of some sort?

Nice design and drawing, Wes.

Some nitpicking:

1.) Her funnels seem a bit low so smoke might be a problem.

2.) Those 40mm guns for and aft are badly exposed to secondary battery gun blasts.

3.) Her aft superstructure is quite massive which looks kinda odd somehow.

4.) Her floatplane facilities are exposed to weather and sea without any protection. They also limit the ships firing arcs aft. So I ask - do those units really need floatplanes at all? Don´t you have enough floatplane carrying vessels? The RSAN skipped floatplanes on their 12gun-CLs... Just an idea.

5.) She probably should have some sort of "wave breaker" (or whatever the correct term would be) forward of A turret.

Wes,

She's a looker alright but, I can't help but think there's something wrong with the sim. Acestus is about the same size, dimensionally, as HMS Southampton and, with a flush-decked hull and a fuller after-run that would negate any savings in weight that might have been provided by her narrower beam. Add to this the similar armour thicknesses and the extra pair of secondary mountings, I think Acestus comes out closer to 9,500 tons standard with a corresponding reduction in maximum speed.

HoOmAn,

The correct term for your "wave breaker" in British terminology is bow knuckle. It first appeared in the Carlisle class light cruisers of 1917 when the bows were raised to improve seakeeping. The resulting edge formed by the original deck-line was called a knuckle.

The transome stern helps a lot with a design like that. Hence we originally set limits for the use of this feature. Without the designs speed would be much lower or something else would be less good (armor for example) resulting in a ship more comparable to OTL cruisers. See my PIETERMARITZBURG II class - she´s similar to Wes´ unit just without a transom stern.

Thanks for clarifying the terminology and origin of the bow knuckle.

IIRC, a true transom is completely flat as in the British Colony class CLs and Vanguard. Wes's cruiser has a Baltimore type stern which was developed as much as to provide hangar space as anything else. The real speed benefits of transom sterns are obtained only at high speeds, where slight increases in speeds are achieved. At lower speeds, transoms will improve fuel economy but, when compared to the sharper cruiser stern, will have the opposite effect at high speed.

A very nice design. A good blend of firepower and armour with a decent speed.

Good picture as ever and I think it's a handsome design even if the bridge is a little high.

I agree with HoOmAn though about the floatplane. Seems a little like an afterthought tacked on the stern. I doubt the cruiser will need it when in company with other cruisers.

A few reply's to some points raised.

Quoted

Overall, nice design, continuing the spread of 12-gun CLs throughout the world.

Considering the emergence of 15 gun CL's, Atlantean designers have decided that reducing the number of guns on max tonnage CL's would be unwise.

Quoted

28 20mm's in 12 mounts? 2 quads and 10 twins? Or is this a typo of some sort?

Acctually it is a typo, it should read 8x2, 2x4, just like depicted in the picture.

Quoted

Her funnels seem a bit low so smoke might be a problem.

Might be, I orriginally trimed them down abit for esthetics, perhaps a wee bit too much.

Quoted

Those 40mm guns for and aft are badly exposed to secondary battery gun blasts.

Acctually those are the 20mm mounts. I might either remove them and replace the remaining twins with Quads or sprinkle more single mounts around.

Quoted

Her aft superstructure is quite massive which looks kinda odd somehow.

Unfortunately to fit everything needed the superstructure needs to stack it all upwards. Its acctually fairly narrow which may pose its own problems.

Quoted

Her floatplane facilities are exposed to weather and sea without any protection. They also limit the ships firing arcs aft. So I ask - do those units really need floatplanes at all? Don´t you have enough floatplane carrying vessels? The RSAN skipped floatplanes on their 12gun-CLs... Just an idea.

I agree with HoOmAn though about the floatplane. Seems a little like an afterthought tacked on the stern. I doubt the cruiser will need it when in company with other cruisers.

I was orriginally going to do as the Cleveland class did and use a stern hangar with two cat's but her stern is more narrow than Cleveland class hence the single cat and crane. As Hoo says I already have plenty of CL's and CA's with floatplanes so ditching the scouts might be a good thing both functionally and esthetically.

Quoted

She probably should have some sort of "wave breaker" (or whatever the correct term would be) forward of A turret.

Good idea, I often miss the Bow Knuckles in my top veiws.

Quoted

She's a looker alright but, I can't help but think there's something wrong with the sim. Acestus is about the same size, dimensionally, as HMS Southampton and, with a flush-decked hull and a fuller after-run that would negate any savings in weight that might have been provided by her narrower beam. Add to this the similar armour thicknesses and the extra pair of secondary mountings, I think Acestus comes out closer to 9,500 tons standard with a corresponding reduction in maximum speed.

Take a look at Gavins Pisa class and you can see just how much stuff you can pile on an 8,000 ton hull in springsharp. I do agree it may be closer to 9,500 tons in reality.

Don´t forget most cruisers in WesWorld are smaller by 1-2kn than their historical counterparts. And speed costs a lot...

The Acestus is 1.5 knots slower than the second batch of Southamptons, 2 feet narrower in the beam and 1.2 feet less draft.

Range is also considerably better but the bunkerage itself seems equal to the Southamptons.

Range
Acestus: 15,000nm@12kts
Southampton: 7,850/7,350nm@13kts

Speed
Acestus: 31.7
Southampton: 32/32.3

Bunkerage
Acestus:1,922
Southampton: 2,100/2,060

SHP
Acestus:68,000
Southampton: 82,500/75,000

Well, the Pisa Class might have 16x152/45 guns, but they haven't got much machinery, secondary armament or superstructure.

I think the superstructure needs to be lowered a deck. It does seem a bit high, especially with the flush deck.

Still they make a good compairison main armament and age aside...

Range
Acestus: 15,000nm@12kts
Pisa: 5,000nm @ 20kts

Speed
Acestus: 31.7
Pisa: 30.92

Bunkerage
Acestus:1,922
Pisa: 2,352

SHP
Acestus:68,000
Pisa: 75,000

Freeboard in the picture also seems to be off abit, looks like it should be higher given the draft.

Hi all, I am new member, but well known (I hope ) from Warship Projects DB.
It is my version of the Acestus class cruisers:


Regards

Thanks Seawolf, you've captured her look quite nicely!

To comapre



She isn't perfect ;/

Ich auch will !!!!!

Other than the fact shes missing that quad 20mm mount on 'B' Turret she's darn close. I like the bridge structure on your rendition.

I was going to request her in American MS-32 camo but the standard grey looks good for the period she was built.

Being a flushdecker she looks a bit "heavy" aft. The "optical weight" of her aft superstructure adds in here - much like on my CA26-class....

I have been an admirer of Seawolf's drawings for some time and I think Wes has a solid cruiser design with his Acestus. I do, however, prefer the stepped quarterdeck for a more cruiser-ish and a sleeker appearance. I thought the main turrets looked a tad too high so, I lowered them by one pixel. The searchligh platform on the mainmast has also been lowered to reduce the effect of smoke interference.

I think the originally turrets were just fine but the step down aft surely helps her overall appearance. But of course she´s have better sea boat capabilities with the higher freeboard aft....