SDN World 3 Ship Design Thread

[Norade]

I say I'm being limited by arbitrary rules on weapon sizes, an arbitrary system that says I have to have have my fleet commissioned by 1915, and a weight cap. It isn't hard to wiki a few ships that were in use in this time period and say good enough, or too ask for advice on a few things and have another player build you a competitive design in spring sharp, or buy an export ship. I say this because, face it, people with more time and more knowledge will do better than people who know nothing no matter how arbitrary we make the rules.

[Steve]

First off, Skimmer? Let me get this off my chest.

I saw that ship and I saw Japanistan all over again. I don't want Japanistan again, okay? I understand if time limits you from playing and interacting with everyone, but I'd like a Siam that is at least somewhat engaged in the world beyond saber-rattling.

That said, I am leaning toward the suggestion - was it your's or Norade's? - of thousand ton increments in max standard displacement capability. 1925 ships - which would be laid in our first game year - could not exceed 50,000T standard, 1926 ships couldn't exceed 51,000, etc. This might even serve to keep people from insane buildups out of the blue, since they could complete a massive, expensive fleet just to have better ships come off the slipways of the other states a year and two later. It encourages incremental expense.

As for limits besides tonnage.... let me reserve final judgement on if something is simply too far too fast, and I'll not have "hard number" limits like 3,000lbs shells or 18" guns. I will consider the arguments for and against something before rendering judgement.

As for SpringSharp and using it.... no, I don't expect people with limited time to be forced to use it or be badly handicapped in-game. However, I'd like them to ask other players who are SS-users to help them develop designs if needed for the roles they need them to play.

[Dark Hellion]

This limit isn't only on your personally, it is on all of us. Thus you are in no way more limited than I am by this. The thing is, this isn't supposed to be a cut throat competition. Its a friendly competition between a bunch of players playing silly alt-history states. Its cool that we have such detailed historically accurate ships, but clever politicking should be what propels the game, not the minutia of pre-WWII battleship design.

[K. A. Pital]

Nope the 12 gun variant of Project 23 Bis was explicitly rejected as too large.

Ah, my bad.

In any case the B-37 was an excellent gun all around, and being 20,000 ton overweight compared to the South Dakota or Iowa (1930s one, as the deficiencies of the 1920s cannot allow it to compete with fast battleship projects of the 1930s) is well explained by 10000 more ton of armor - 24000 versus 14000, greater gun weight (8500 versus 4350), and 8000 ton heavier hull (putting 10000 tons of extra armor tends to increase dimensions), and 1000 more fuel to propel the beast - all in all, a difference of 24,000 tons, 50% of which is extra armor and fuel.

Soviet designers simply demanded way too much incremental armor to be able to produce twelve gun designs of acceptable displacement.

Having well-armored large displacement ships is not too bad at all (see Yamato). Yeah, it would probably make a 4-turret configuration too huge.

You have got to be fucking kidding me if you think you can change a battleship hull in an advanced stage of construction to have a whole extra main battery turret. That is not physically possible. At best you could break up the hull on the building way which would take months on its own, and reuse some material in a entirely new vessel.

As far as I gather, none of the Sovietsky Soyuz were in "advanced stage of construction" in the year 1940 when those studies were made, and displacement jumped from 50000 to well over 60000 (3-4 turret configurations, different armor schemes). At the time 23NU study was done, for example, it was still not certain what the final ship would look like, except that it'd have 3 turrets. Of course, you're right that past 1941 changing them to 4 turret hulls would be completely impossible without scrapping them.

What about that 21in gunned ship Thanas fucking posted? No one said a fucking word about that one either and I sure didn't complain even though it outgunned me in turn by about 6,000lb of broadside.

Where's that? It's worse than Yamato I seeth.

Why the fuck is my ship banned when other peoples fucking Yamato clones in nations go unquestioned?

Yamato clones shouldn't exist in the 1920s. The best people should have is late 1920s pre-Treaty battleship designs (US studies on BB 1925 for example).

If I wanted to be an asshole then I'd just have a god emperor worship nation, build a fleet of carriers and field kamikazes in 1926 which no one would have a chance in hell of stopping with no radar and no VT fuses.

We all know you love Japanistan, most of the gameplay of which consisted of shooting various guns, exploding various ordnance, and creating various weapons. It's not just your ship par se.

Frankly, Yamato clones and the like shouldn't exist. I mean, a Yamato trailing at 20 knots, with 1920s guns, armor and plant? Sure. A clone of the 1940s Yamato in the 1920s? No way.

[Steve]

I believe Thanas made that explicitly as a counter to Skimmer's design and a couple other really radical ones, not as one he seriously intends to field.

[K. A. Pital]

Look, folks, I have nothing against extreme engineering.

Let's just not stray into HERE:


Hope that lighted up the mood of this thread.

[Steve]

Hahahahaha, that's awesomely funny.

[Norade]

I was toying with two 22"/50 guns in a single turret on a 60kt ship the other night, it also has twelve 12"/45 guns and a 16" armor belt. It does only move at 10kts and can only cruise 4,000nm at 5kts. It isn't going to be built, but there should be no reason why I can't build it even as a testbed.

[Norade]

Look, folks, I have nothing against extreme engineering.

Let's just not stray into HERE:


Hope that lighted up the mood of this thread.

I'm going to spring sharp that now. XD

[Sea Skimmer]

I believe Thanas made that explicitly as a counter to Skimmer's design and a couple other really radical ones, not as one he seriously intends to field.

No he had a ship with a 18in main battery and nearly Yamato specs, the only real deficit being two knots less speed (virtually irrelevant in this context since its still much faster then typical WW1 dreadnoughts) before I designed crap. I know because I helped him revise it before I even decided to step into this game. He came out with a ship with 21in guns afterward. Other people had 8 x 18in and 9 x 18in arrangements as well which I used as a guide to my suggestions. Of course I did not object to them because such batteries are perfectly realistic and logical, just like the 18.9in gun is. This is the reality of 60,000 tons, Japan didn't do that great a job of designing Yamato in the first place and 4,000 tons or more could have been shaved off the ship. I didn’t come up with that limit, I don’t know who did but somehow I think it was YOU Steve.

[Steve]

I didn't say you came up with the limit, i know it was me. 50,000t standard displacement starting out. But I know it was you or Norade who did the "raise the limit incrementally by game year" concept, and I liked it.

[Ma Deuce]

However, I'd like them to ask other players who are SS-users to help them develop designs if needed for the roles they need them to play.

I could volunteer to be available for that. Hey, if taking a bit of extra time to design ships for others who don't have the time or the technical knowledge to do it themselves allows me a bit more flexibility to design what I feel meets my country's strategic needs, then I can't complain. However, I think we need to make sure there are clear distinctions between ships our countries "export" in-game, and designs we make for people out of game to claim as their own. Furthermore, although I'm amenable to designing ships for other players, I'd feel better if I knew I weren't the only one doing it: Designing ships for one or two other players at the same time in addition to my own should be quite manageable, but if it grows to say, half a dozen then that could get a bit overwhelming.

[K. A. Pital]

Designing 18in guns should pose an engineering problem though, shouldn't it? I mean, that wasn't a prevalent type of armament... even on late WWI, or WWII dreadnaughts, even with great naval powers. What we are now seeing is the utter prevalence of such designs. Why?

[Beowulf]

Designing 18in guns should pose an engineering problem though, shouldn't it? I mean, that wasn't a prevalent type of armament... even on late WWI, or WWII dreadnaughts, even with great naval powers. What we are now seeing is the utter prevalence of such designs. Why?

WWI: they'd just started the move to 16" guns at that point. After that, treaty limitations came into play, not relaxing until WWII was practically started, at which point the fact the battleships are a peacetime construction comes heavily into play (no one could really afford to do the R&D for the bigger guns). And then of course, the battleships were replaced by the aircraft carrier. Without treaty restrictions, it's pretty much guaranteed that the UK would have come out with an 18" gunned battleship in the early-mid 20s, followed by the other top naval powers (US, Japan).

[Ma Deuce]

Designing 18in guns should pose an engineering problem though, shouldn't it? I mean, that wasn't a prevalent type of armament... even on late WWI, or WWII dreadnaughts, even with great naval powers. What we are now seeing is the utter prevalence of such designs. Why?

Yeah, that concerns me as well. Certainly the naval top dogs would have 18" guns by the mid-late 20s, but a plethora of smaller powers building them too does seem a bit much. Now I know people don't want to make things too complex, but I wonder if it would be possible to force players to allocate industrial points into designing new large-caliber guns as well, and that only players with a certain industry rating could have such guns at game start, and players below a certain industry rank (say, less than 3) can't build guns beyond a certain caliber at all. Furthermore, players that can't build such guns could import them from those that can, even if they build the rest of the ship themselves.

Alternatively, we could just set much harsher tonnage limits (both individually and total) on players with low Naval Focus ratings, which would effectively remove the possibility of building designs that can mount an effective number of 18" guns.

[Sea Skimmer]

Designing 18in guns should pose an engineering problem though, shouldn't it? I mean, that wasn't a prevalent type of armament... even on late WWI, or WWII dreadnaughts, even with great naval powers. What we are now seeing is the utter prevalence of such designs. Why?

Not really. People built relatively modern 16in guns all the way back in the 1890s and the British cranked out the 18/40 in the span of just three years during the middle of the First World War. If you can build heavy caliber naval guns at all you are not going to be seriously challenged by building an 18in gun design or even larger. The first one might blow up on the proving ground, but such is life and this happened even to the top notch naval powers anyway.

Just look at the Germans ability to build the 80cm Dora during WW2, even though they had not built a gun larger then 53cm previously and had suffered major disruption to the armaments industry (including bans on Krupp building any gun at all over 17cm) after WW1. That's a pretty absurd leap in firepower to make. Japan built that 18.9in gun I want to use in 1920, and yet Japan had only gained the ability to build 12in battleship caliber guns around 1905. She only built her first 8in gun around 1900 IIRC.

You might need to invest in certain new pieces of machinery in the naval gun factory to do the job, but that isn’t THAT big a deal. The details would depend on how you build naval guns, built up construction or wire wound and all that.

In actuality the larger challenge is going to be making high quality face hardened armored plates of a thickness proportional to the level of protection 18 inch guns demand. Problems with armor quality control are why Japan gave Yamato such absurdly thick 25in turret faceplates, and why many American dreadnoughts had 18in thick faceplates even when they only had 13.5in belt armor. Indeed the American South Dakota class (the 1920 one) had only a 13.5in belt specifically because it was felt quality would drop off too much for thicker armor to make sense at that time. This despite the fact that the ship was 10,000 tons larger then the Colorado class which had the exact same belt. Some improvements had been made by WW2 however raising the limit before quality loss to around 15 inches.

A potential solution to this problem is to use a belt system which uses two layers of armor, something Italy actually did by giving Vittorio Veneto a belt which was a 70mm and then a 280mm layer. A number of Russian ship designs, some predating WW1 also showed systems like this. The design of Bismarck incorporated elements of the thinking as well, though in a pretty retarded manner since they forgot about the deck armor. If guns escalate past 18in it’d be inevitable (in any realistic situation) that people would be forced to adapt solutions like this. In the world of Springsharp however you don’t get warnings like ‘belt armor will fucking suck and shatter’.

Turbines and building naval gun turrets themselves are also likely to be larger bottlenecks in design and especially in construction rates then naval guns are. They are all and all more specialist items then the guns, which might also be used in shore batteries and produced as spares for ships in the fleet (British standard was to have a 50% margin of spare guns for ships, other fleets used lesser standards)

[Sea Skimmer]

Alternatively, we could just set much harsher tonnage limits (both individually and total) on players with low Naval Focus ratings, which would effectively remove the possibility of building designs that can mount an effective number of 18" guns.

Why bother? Limiting total numbers accomplishes the same general purpose, without leaving weaker players in a totally hopeless situation even should they get a chance at a single ship on ship action. I kind of thought the point of this game was to avoid inherent overwhelming inequality like that since everyone got the same number of points.

[Norade]

So do we all agree that if I wanted to I could build something like the below now?

Why Not?!, Because I can! Gun Carrier laid down 1923

Displacement:
56,071 t light; 59,553 t standard; 60,338 t normal; 60,965 t full load

Dimensions: Length (overall / waterline) x beam x draught (normal/deep)
(869.42 ft / 820.21 ft) x 131.23 ft x (42.65 / 42.97 ft)
(265.00 m / 250.00 m) x 40.00 m x (13.00 / 13.10 m)

Armament:
2 - 22.00" / 559 mm 55.0 cal guns - 5,746.71lbs / 2,606.66kg shells, 100 per gun
Breech loading guns in turret on barbette mount, 1923 Model
1 x Twin mount on centreline, forward evenly spread
12 - 13.50" / 343 mm 40.0 cal guns - 1,179.03lbs / 534.80kg shells, 200 per gun
Breech loading guns in turret on barbette mounts, 1923 Model
4 x Triple mounts on sides, evenly spread
24 - 4.00" / 102 mm 45.0 cal guns - 32.27lbs / 14.64kg shells, 150 per gun
Quick firing guns in deck mounts, 1923 Model
6 x 2 row sextuple mounts on sides, evenly spread
Weight of broadside 26,416 lbs / 11,982 kg

Armour:
- Belts: Width (max) Length (avg) Height (avg)
Main: 14.0" / 356 mm 533.14 ft / 162.50 m 15.00 ft / 4.57 m
Ends: 4.00" / 102 mm 287.05 ft / 87.49 m 13.75 ft / 4.19 m
Upper: 3.00" / 76 mm 533.14 ft / 162.50 m 8.00 ft / 2.44 m
Main Belt covers 100 % of normal length

- Torpedo Bulkhead:
6.00" / 152 mm 533.14 ft / 162.50 m 39.15 ft / 11.93 m

- Gun armour: Face (max) Other gunhouse (avg) Barbette/hoist (max)
Main: 15.0" / 381 mm 12.0" / 305 mm 15.0" / 381 mm
2nd: 5.00" / 127 mm 4.00" / 102 mm 5.00" / 127 mm

- Armoured deck - multiple decks: 5.00" / 127 mm For and Aft decks
Forecastle: 4.00" / 102 mm Quarter deck: 4.00" / 102 mm

- Conning towers: Forward 14.00" / 356 mm, Aft 0.00" / 0 mm

Machinery:
Coal fired boilers, steam turbines,
Direct drive, 2 shafts, 15,474 shp / 11,543 Kw = 15.00 kts
Range 5,000nm at 6.50 kts
Bunker at max displacement = 1,412 tons (100% coal)

Complement:
1,924 - 2,502

Cost:
£13.268 million / $53.072 million

Distribution of weights at normal displacement:
Armament: 4,265 tons, 7.1 %
Armour: 21,860 tons, 36.2 %
- Belts: 5,981 tons, 9.9 %
- Torpedo bulkhead: 4,634 tons, 7.7 %
- Armament: 4,566 tons, 7.6 %
- Armour Deck: 6,215 tons, 10.3 %
- Conning Tower: 464 tons, 0.8 %
Machinery: 569 tons, 0.9 %
Hull, fittings & equipment: 29,377 tons, 48.7 %
Fuel, ammunition & stores: 4,266 tons, 7.1 %
Miscellaneous weights: 0 tons, 0.0 %

Overall survivability and seakeeping ability:
Survivability (Non-critical penetrating hits needed to sink ship):
193,920 lbs / 87,961 Kg = 36.4 x 22.0 " / 559 mm shells or 52.4 torpedoes
Stability (Unstable if below 1.00): 1.12
Metacentric height 9.4 ft / 2.9 m
Roll period: 18.0 seconds
Steadiness - As gun platform (Average = 50 %): 76 %
- Recoil effect (Restricted arc if above 1.00): 0.99
Seaboat quality (Average = 1.00): 2.00

Hull form characteristics:
Hull has a flush deck,
a ram bow and a cruiser stern
Block coefficient (normal/deep): 0.460 / 0.461
Length to Beam Ratio: 6.25 : 1
'Natural speed' for length: 28.64 kts
Power going to wave formation at top speed: 19 %
Trim (Max stability = 0, Max steadiness = 100): 38
Bow angle (Positive = bow angles forward): 5.00 degrees
Stern overhang: 16.40 ft / 5.00 m
Freeboard (% = length of deck as a percentage of waterline length):
Fore end, Aft end
- Forecastle: 20.00 %, 65.62 ft / 20.00 m, 49.21 ft / 15.00 m
- Forward deck: 30.00 %, 49.21 ft / 15.00 m, 49.21 ft / 15.00 m
- Aft deck: 35.00 %, 49.21 ft / 15.00 m, 49.21 ft / 15.00 m
- Quarter deck: 15.00 %, 49.21 ft / 15.00 m, 49.21 ft / 15.00 m
- Average freeboard: 50.52 ft / 15.40 m

Ship space, strength and comments:
Space - Hull below water (magazines/engines, low = better): 50.7 %
- Above water (accommodation/working, high = better): 337.3 %
Waterplane Area: 69,232 Square feet or 6,432 Square metres
Displacement factor (Displacement / loading): 128 %
Structure weight / hull surface area: 251 lbs/sq ft or 1,223 Kg/sq metre
Hull strength (Relative):
- Cross-sectional: 0.82
- Longitudinal: 5.79
- 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

[Steve]

Cut 10,000 tons off and yes if your NF is over 1 or 2 (and if your industry is at least 3).

[Steve]

I'd always intended for the Focus scores to reflect tech capability as well. I'm all for, say, assigning "opening years" for certain calibers at certain focus points and below would have to design the new guns at industrial expense (to reflect building and testing models).

Maybe NF 5 can have 18" on any ship laid after 1922 and 16" on any ship after, what, 1918-1920? NF 4 score would be 18" guns available for new ships to be laid in-game and 16"ers on ships laid 1920-1922. NF 3 and below would require research on 18" guns to be used and 1 would need research on 16" guns. 0 would nominally reflect having absolutely no naval forces or productive infrastructure whatsoever, but if you have a coast I imagine that you could use land artillery gun principles to try and design bigger weapons.

Though to me I always figured an NF of less than 3 indicated a country without a major local naval establishment, thus generally unable to build anything above 10-20,000 tons displacement if it has a yard capacity at all. At least 1 should restrict building to just cruisers or less. Otherwise you reduce the impact of the decision for a lower naval score.

[Norade]

This was going to be an example of something that could be built once we reach 60kt ships, not that it would be fielded then either. It was more an example of what can be made to show that 22" guns aren't doomsday weapons as some would think.

Also, what wouldn't a nation with lower naval focus be able to build large guns? Under industrialized Germany and Japan could make them so why wre we placing more useless limitations into the game after we just said we didn't want them.

[Steve]

Um? "Underindustrialized Germany"? WTF?

Japan you have a bit of a point on, but Japan spent years developing the ability. And frankly low Focus scores should have an impact beyond simply having a smaller force in that area, they were always meant to determine sophistication technological and otherwise as well as just size. If you decide to take points from Naval Focus to have a higher industry or economy and decide to shunt Industry Bonus to Air Power or Army power, then that means you have to live with that decision by having a sub-par navy. There has to be some limitation on what a low NF score country can build natively or even support if it gets foreign builders. I say this as a player who's Air Focus score is 1 and thus indicates a sucky, non-existant Air Force. I anticipate full well spending the rest of the 20s in-game just trying set the basis for getting some element of air power.

[Norade]

Um? "Underindustrialized Germany"? WTF?

Japan you have a bit of a point on, but Japan spent years developing the ability. And frankly low Focus scores should have an impact beyond simply having a smaller force in that area, they were always meant to determine sophistication technological and otherwise as well as just size. If you decide to take points from Naval Focus to have a higher industry or economy and decide to shunt Industry Bonus to Air Power or Army power, then that means you have to live with that decision by having a sub-par navy. There has to be some limitation on what a low NF score country can build natively or even support if it gets foreign builders. I say this as a player who's Air Focus score is 1 and thus indicates a sucky, non-existant Air Force. I anticipate full well spending the rest of the 20s in-game just trying set the basis for getting some element of air power.

I was more speaking of early 1930's Germany where they were strictly limited and rapidly progressed back to the top in a matter of years from nothing. They had limitations on them so they could plan things but not test them and they did just fine.

I have no less than a 3 in any military stat or industry, but only a 4 in naval focus. Explain why I'm limited to 16" guns until whatever arbitrary date is decided upon? There is no reason a navy couldn't embrace guns early and you know it. This is seems like protectionist rant for lesser powers that should, frankly, not stand a chance against focus 4 or 5 naval powers anyway.

[Sea Skimmer]

I was more speaking of early 1930's Germany where they were strictly limited and rapidly progressed back to the top in a matter of years from nothing. They had limitations on them so they could plan things but not test them and they did just fine.

Very true. Krupp was banned from building guns over 17cm until Hitler renounced the treaties in 1933, and yet just seven years later Krupp has completed the first 80cm Dora gun which was just preposterously absurdly larger then any other gun ever. Detail design work on Dora didn't actually begin until around 1936 either.

[Steve]

Um, I believe my proposal was that a 4-rated NF should have 18" guns available only for new ships under construction. To reflect they're quite new. As pointed, Japan had the world's #3 Navy in the 20s so their experiments with 18"ers aren't contradictory to this.

Now if that seems too harsh I'm more than willing to discuss shunting the restrictions further down the points scale. But the idea of anyone being able to build an 18" naval gun no matter how much they've actually invested in their Naval Focus score?