Put shit on the table edition
Talk about botes, bote based wargaming and RPGs, and maybe even a certain bote based vidya that tickles our autism in just the right way.
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At least as far as endurance goes, that was more of a design feature than a bug. Weren't meant to operate much beyond the Med, and so fuel bunkerage was sacrificed to maximize other factors like speed. See the early Condottieres for the most extreme example. Many French botes were built similarly.
I do think it's interesting that in much of the engagements I remember reading over, the RM had a higher percentage of hits per shots fired than the RN, it's just that the RN were willing to expend say, two thirds of the 6" ammo in theater to sink one destroyer. Makes you wonder how they would have fared with better quality control and some work to address those dispersion issues. British commanders noted repeatedly that the Italians found range reliably, but that the patterns just didn't produce hits.
Lack of search radar, combined with less training for night actions fucked them over repeatedly, especially early on when they actively tried to force them.
Lack of DC throwers early on hampered ASW efforts, but they got significantly better at it as the war progressed. See the Gabbiano corvettes as an example.
The Pugliese system was pretty awful on the refit botes, but I've seen it argued that it actually did work on the Littorios more or less as designed.
Doctrine and Facist fuckhead interference combined with the intention to engage in what was supposed to be a quick landgrab that turned out to be a protracted conflict really highlighted and in some ways heightened some of the design flaws of the botes that might have otherwise not been an issue.
Hell, I've tried to get people to talk about actual physical games. For some reason its hard to do so around here. I'll go back to basing and painting, and I guess I'll punch my copy of They Come Unseen when I get it.
I have this.
30s Haruna is cuter than any of the her current personifications I've seen desu.
>THE BOMBS
>THEY
>DO
>NOTHING
based
Damn, I'm gonna have to hunt down that Cat pinup now. Need it added to my desktop rotation.
Good luck with that.
It was pretty easy actually.
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How feasible would it have been to refit the common-hull US heavy cruisers? Quite a few lingered into the late 70s as command ships and missile cruisers, so there was still some life in the hull...
Main turret 3 could be replaced with a VLS, and the superstructure extended past the barbette to a hangar and helipad on the aft...CoG might come up a bit, but removing the turret and catapults should free up a good amount of mass.
Further modifications could replace all the tertiary Bofors/Oerlikon AA cluttering the deck with CIWS, which might make room/free up mass for more missiles and reduce crew requirements...
The problem is balance, removing a turret and barbette generally requires ballast added to prevent excessive stress on keel and structure.
Also, when you're doing a rebuild of that magnitude you might just as well build a new hull with a more modern propulsion plant.
>How feasible would it have been to refit the common-hull US heavy cruisers? Quite a few lingered into the late 70s as command ships and missile cruisers, so there was still some life in the hull...
It's far more involved than just how much hull "life' is left. There are so many concerns that it would be impossible to explain them all so I'll just use one example: the Iowas' engineering plants couldn't produce enough electricity to power all the modern "goodies" installed during their 1980s reactivation so containers with diesel generators parked on the weather deck.
TL;DR - Ships aren't Legos sets.
The USN still tried a few rebuilds of gun cruisers, replacing the rear turet, plane handling equipment and parts of the superstructure in case of teh Boston class.
And replacing pretty much everything apart from hull and machinery in teh Albany class.
But these rebuilds were probably more than a bit influenced by political concerns that made it acceptable to 'refit' a ship, but impossible to build a new one.
>Ships aren't Legos sets.
Somebody forgot that when they designed a certain type of overly expensive corvette.
>balance and stress
The barbette armor could be retained as shielding for the VLS, although it would be more efficient to just build up the superstructure for a hangar and any other facilities that tickled the planners' fancy until the mass distribution was roughly equal.
>also, the Nips managed to convert BBs to carrier hybrids by replacing the aft turrets with a flight deck, although they were desperate and outright nuts
>enough electricity to power all the modern "goodies"
Putting in a helipad+hangar and all the assorted facilities would require tearing apart a good portion of the stern and superstructure, exposing the turbines and generators which could then be replaced/augmented...you'd be amazed by how much more compact tech became over 20 years, especially since everything was no longer ultra-ruggedized.
Heck, the Albany and her converted sisters were razed to the main deck and probably gutted since the barbette is so crucial to the ship's structure, so getting to the machinery wouldn't be too awful as part of an in-depth conversion
>overly expensive corvette
To be fair, they were
>designed
to be modular from the get-go, albeit poorly
>The USN still tried a few rebuilds of gun cruisers
Yes, a FEW rebuilds and, as correctly points out, those ships were basically razed to the main deck. They were test beds more than anything else and existed for much the same reasons razees did in the early part of the 1800s.
Pointing to an exception and asking why it isn't the rule means you don't quite understand what the terms "exception" and "rule" truly mean.
>Boston class
Completely forgot about those-it's halfway to the full conversion I envisioned in Looking at the layout, I wonder if the optimal conversion would be to keep only the first main turret, replacing #2 with VLS, and put a hangar where turret #3 was instead of more VLS cells (the aft deck isn't as big as I thought it was)
>Basically a boiler-powered Ticonderoga with armor and 8" guns...
DO WANT
>no aft VLS due to hangar
I'm an idiot: the original seaplane hangar would be PERFECT for pop-up tomahawk boxes
wiki.gcdn.co
ibiblio.org
might look like pic related, with VLS instead of turret 2
>Ships aren't Legos sets.
Tell that to the Midway
Actually, pic related is probably better: the 5" single mounts just eat deck space and ammo storage that could go to Phalanx 20mm, and I've heard the aft on the flush-deck cruisers could get wet so an enclosed deck is also nice...
Come to think of it, the barbette for turret 2 would probably go too, leaving a flush deck up to the CIWS mount: the remaining 8" guns would be able to traverse even further aft, although that would probably cause overpressure problems throughout the superstructure (the Connies were designed in the late 70s, maybe the forward superstructure and bridge would be turned into the sealed slab they had so that firing doesn't blow out the windows)
>5" single mounts
am retarded, pls ignore
>Midway evolution
That's pretty drastic: I wonder what ship changed the most from commissioning to retirement...
>Tell that to the Midway
Nice try, faggot. Flight decks aren't weaponry, propulsion plants, or hull forms. And, no, removing guns isn't the same as replacing them with other systems.
>I wonder what ship changed the most from commissioning to retirement...
The Midway's is the most extreme I know of, she was rebuilt from the bottom of the hanger deck up not just once, but twice. By the end of it all she had the most modern flight deck design of any conventional carrier perched atop the oldest hull in the fleet. It kind of worked, most of the time, but the USN was really working too hard to put the flight deck of a 60,000 ton ship on top of a hull built for 45,000 tons.
Flight decks are weaponry idiot, not to mention all of the Essex and Midway classes had their guns removed and replaced. The SCB-27, 110, 125, and 101.66 upgrades are almost assuredly the largest and most expansive rebuilds that will ever be given to any naval warship, primarily because the Essexs and Midways were built with a strength deck below their hangers instead of at deck level like every other class afterwords. It's just about as extreme as you can go.
Were the 8" guns and armor worth keeping instead of building new hulls like the Leahys and Belknaps or keeping the smaller 6"-equipped Clevelands?
>"The 5"/54 could fire a 70-pound (32-kg) projectile approximately 15 miles (24 km) in comparison to a range of 17 miles (27 km) for 260 pound (118 kg) projectiles from the 8"/55 caliber guns of heavy cruisers." from Campbell, John Naval Weapons of World War Two Naval Institute Press (1985) ISBN 0-87021-459-4 pp.131&143
Each had almost 4x the throw weight of the 5" and at three guns per turret packed a nice broadside and at a decent RoF (Des Moines-class autoloaders were pretty sweet), but at the end of the day they were mounted on maintenance-intensive WWII-vintage hulls with limited replacement parts; they may have been useful in 'Nam, but that would probably be the last time...by the time VLS was a thing, bombardment was a dinosaur.
>Flight decks are weaponry idiot
No they're not, asshole. They're little but superstructure.
>>primarily because the Essexs and Midways were built with a strength deck below their hangers instead of at deck level like every other class afterwords.
So they were razed down to their main decks and had what was new superstructure installed. Just like the Albanys and hundreds of earlier ships.
>>It's just about as extreme as you can go.
No it isn't. It's called razing and it's been done since the early 19th Century at least.
>8" vs 6" vs 5" vs missiles
IT BEGINS
Just throw in the 12" from the Alaskas for maximum skub
>Were the 8" guns and armor worth keeping instead of building new hulls like the Leahys and Belknaps
Seeing as the USN built the Leahys and Belknaps, they believed the answer was no.
By themselves, maybe.
But as a package, built into obsolete cruiser hulls, they were probably not worth it.
The automatic triple turrets were awesome feats of technology, and one of those is just about the best possible gunfire suport tool you could ask for, and one such turet on a modern hull may have been the best solution.
But back then, many people thought that 'missiles only' was the way, and nuclear deterrent was what really got the dollaridoos flowing.
6" 4 lyfe
8" can stay
>USN
Between the Vets, Grognards, and hindsight, I think Veeky Forums is better qualified than the navy to make this call...it boils down to:
>do we want cheap short-range bombardment capability?
and
>if so, what offers the best combination of range, punch, cost, and engineering convenience?
>I think Veeky Forums is better qualified than the navy to make this call
I think you're high.
If flight decks are "little but superstructure" then turrets and main guns are as well. It's literally the same fucking processes, but they moved more steel for the SCB-101.66 upgrade than they did for any of the Albany class. And I don't see what the fuck 18th century shipbuilding practices have anything to do with this, the process of rebuilding the superstructure on a wooden frigate has practically nothing in common with doing the same on modern metal hulled vessel. If you're a such a genius like you seem to think you are, then explain how they are similar beyond "you replace the top part of the ship durr".
>automatic triple turret=sex on a stick, steam sucks ass
Each Des Moines had 3x3 for a total of 27 autoloading guns, and the Baltimores had the same guns and turret armor sans autoloader: reduce each turret to two guns, build a few more autoloaders to convert more autoloading turrets (assuming the armament for the cancelled Des Moines boats wasn't finished), and you've got what you need for 15-odd Super-Ticonderogas with 2 8" autoloading guns
Bring it down to 1 gun per ship like was tested on en.wikipedia.org
Historically, teh call was made by a bunch of politicians in Washington whose main goal was to get reelected, and to make sure the people who had paid their way into office got a good return on that invenstment.
So asking a bunch of random people on the internet might very well result in a more effective solution.
>If flight decks are "little but superstructure" then turrets and main guns are as well. It's literally the same fucking processes
No it isn't, you stupid fuck. As has been repeatedly explained in just this thread, turrets require barbettes, magazines, and other high volume, high weight, major structural components IN THE HULL. Superstructures are and were removed, rebuilt, and replaced with ease. Changes to hulls, apart from "bolt ons" like torpedo "bulges", are something else entirely.
>>And I don't see what the fuck 18th century shipbuilding practices have anything to do with this
That's because you're a fucking idiot. While you won't be able to understand the following example, I attached a photo of Belknap, CG-26, after her collision with the JFK in '75 to help the others in this thread who have IQs above room temperature in Celsius.
Nearly all of Belknap's aluminum superstructure was first damaged by the collision and then burned/melted away in the resulting fires. Amazingly, only 7 men died aboard the ship. Equally, amazing, her HULL and ENGINEERING PLANT were basically undamaged. Because of that, the USN decided to rebuild the ship. She was given an entirely new superstructure which incorporated many AEGIS radar and fire control systems making Belknap arguably the 1st AEGIS cruiser in the USN. The AEGIS upgrade in this case only necessitated changes to computers and sensors housed in the superstructure which would then direct Belknap's existing missile system.
Belknap was razed much like the few Albany hulls, just not in planned fashion, and then upgraded because, just like rebuilding everything above Midway's strength deck, those upgrades only required changes to the superstructure and not the hull.
I'll just leave this here.
>aluminum superstructure
You're just some special kind of stupid. Here's a damn pic of the Albany being refitted, and you can very clearly see with a few minor exceptions they didn't go down into the hull. Because you can't, cruisers have strength decks too. You cut into that, the ship can't hold itself together. And *that* is why 18th century wooden shipbuilding has zero bearing on this discussion, because those vessels don't have strength decks. You can almost tear them apart and put them back together again.
Compare that to the Midway (which unfortunately I can't find an in-progress picture of) where they rebuild everything above the bottom of the hanger. Both are "just" changes to the superstructure.
>You're just some special kind of stupid. Here's a damn pic of the Albany being refitted, and you can very clearly see with a few minor exceptions they didn't go down into the hull.
Where did i say they touched the hull, fuckwit? I said the upgrade was done because they didn't have to touch the hull, just with the Midway's various upgrades.
>>And *that* is why 18th century wooden shipbuilding has zero bearing on this discussion,
Wrong again, asshole. The razee process generally removed removed fore and stern "castles" along with an upper gun deck leaving nearly all of the all hull untouched.
Did they remove the barbettes?
Well, he is right in the sense that ships of teh line did not have a 'strength deck' in the USN shipbuilding sense.
>Well, he is right in the sense that ships of teh line did not have a 'strength deck' in the USN shipbuilding sense.
They had a hull with with what was called scantlings built above it. The fore, deck, and stern "castles" or "houses" were built on scantlings as was the upper gun deck. You could remove, replace, and rebuild the scantlings without touching what's best thought of as the "primary" hull.
Different names, same concepts, same constraints on modifications.
>Did they remove the barbettes?
No, they were converted into lift bays for the Talos systems. It's a bit difficult to make out so I'm going to post a pic series, Here's the Albany's stern pre-conversion
And here she is two years later. Note the rectangular structure where the turret used to be, covering over the barrette.
And finally, here's the stern after the launchers themselves have been installed. Note the two large openings remaining in the structure over the barbettes, which would later be covered by armored doors. The missiles would be lifted up from the magazines and then shifted outward (sternward) out those doors onto the launch rails.
Pay close attention to what was removed and where the new structures were added.
I am, and I'm not going to argue that it wasn't extensive. But with the exception of some mods to the magazines everything below the deck was completely unchanged. The only altered things above the deckline, because that's where the strength deck is.
Ironically, the Midway's refit involved far more work within the hull (which is probably why it took so long and cost so much). They installed a central AC system that could pipe out smoke, fumes, and other nasty things from the innermost areas of the ship. The Oriskany fire happened after the Midway was already under reconstruction, but it shows the value of the system.
>But with the exception of some mods to the magazines everything below the deck was completely unchanged.
Exactly.
>>The only altered things above the deckline, because that's where the strength deck is.
Again, exactly.
>Ironically, the Midway's refit involved far more work within the hull
Work within the hull and not work changing the basic structure of the hull or it's major components. Yes, they had to find room for the AC plants and, yes, they had to run ducting. They didn't remove boilers, swap out turbines, change magazine locations, shift bulkheads, move fuel tanks, and any of the other "Lego set" ideas routinely proposed in these threads.
>dat old school chiller
It's doesn't look like a centrifugal and it definitely isn't a screw. Is it reciprocating? Also never seen one with that huge bulge in the head over the condenser tubes. They all need to have some room, but most are just slight oblong domes.
>hey didn't remove boilers, swap out turbines, change magazine locations, shift bulkheads, move fuel tanks, and any of the other "Lego set" ideas routinely proposed in these threads.
For some rough idea about how difficult these thnigs are, read up on the modifications to the Italian and Japanese ships in the 20s and 30s.
Changing magazines positions is pretty much impossible in any case.
>"Lego set" ideas
The only proposed changes for this particular thread's autism have been above the strength deck or in areas already accessible without cutting into it: the superstructure can be completely removed, 5" turrets just sit on an ammo room and are readily replaceable with autocannons, the funnels can be trunked together and generators lowered in through the downtake/exhaust system in the process (check out the QE2's refit)...
Seeing as how the main armament barbettes are integral, and repurpose the barbette under the helipad for aviation fuel storage and possibly turn turret 2's socket into a VLS contained by the barbette wall, never altering the structure of the hull.
I have proximate knowledge of many things, but antique air conditioner engineering is not one of them.
Indeed, the only person who's even seems to think changing the inner hull structure is possible or reasonable is that dude himself. Seems to have been under the impression that the USN hollowed out the Albanys and replaced all their internals or something. Nope, just another superstructure refit just like carriers.
Several nations consistently re-engined and up-armored capital ships in comprehensive rebuilds that reached deep int the core systems, as mentioned about >modifications to the Italian and Japanese ships
Converting completed vessels with their main armament installed to carriers would require changing everything except the propulsion: that's not to say it wasn't hideously expensive, but it has been done.
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fuck, nice
Goodness gracious, Japan's more fucked in the head than what I expected.
It's really terrifying how deep the rabbit hole goes.
This explains everything.
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That's such a fucking awesome pic. I already like collecting groups of DD's moored together like that anyway, but that one is made extra cool by Scipione Africano and the tallship outside of the harbor.
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Any age of sail in here?
I'd love to do AoS, but I have no time to sit down with rules at the moment or cash for good looking boats. I've got scads of PotSM ships to use when I actually do have time for rules, but yeah. Might be one or two others around here too in a similar predicament. So there is interest, and there are rulesets available in the OP if you're in the market, but I don't know that anyone here can much discuss stuff with you, unless you're in a position to field questions. Personally, I'd really like an Anglo-Dutch wars collection. I already got interested in the Netherlands as a naval power from Java Sea a couple of years ago, and watching Admiral/De Ruyter on Netflix really set that itch in me.
I've been working away on adding water to my bases, and I got to looking at my splash markers. I decided they could use the same treatment. Comparison in the lower pic, original flavor on the right. How did I do?
Also forgive the edges, I still need to go back and get all the caulk boogers off once it has set up a little more and don't risk pulling chunks off the top of the base too.
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Who made these models and why do they look so puffy?
It's a hazard of being vinyl and originally for a cmg (Axis and Allies: War at Sea)
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Are there any medieval naval wargames? Like, based before the age of sail, before cannons, or just about the very early ones, ideally with more focus on boarding.
Is there anything like that?
Corvus, couple others. There's a company doing lasercut models that have a rule set too
I think Corvus at least might be in the OP, but I thought we had another somewhere in there too.
Some additional freebies you might check out also.
Thank you! Those figurines look cool, I'll check out some of the rules on the second link. I didn't tough there were that many, as I've never seen people play them.
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She was a treat to tour. The whole museum and the various vessels associated with it was one of the highlights of my trip back in '05
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Well I'm interested in the Napoleonic era. Which ruleset's are popular at the moment?
I’m looking for Imperial German pre-dreadnought/late ironclad liveries. Has anyone got any paintings or pictures or book suggestions?
I’ve tried googling but I’m not good at it.
They mostly used a light grey on the superstructure and hull, sometimes a slightly different grey on the turrets.
Only cruisers for overseas/colonial duties got a white hull and a tan superstructure.
See I thought it was the radiation exposure that made them like that but I guess that was just always a thing.
Thanks for that, much appreciated. Are there any good general resources for world navies of the era?
I prefer Trafalgar by Warhammer Historical myself.
Looks promising if a little bit complex. I'll give it a read and leave this here.
youtube.com
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>Tiger
Too pure for this world.
>Tiger
Why was her X turret so far forward instead of superfiring over Y like Hood-mass distribution, redundancy against fires?
Wouldn't it be better to make the heavily armored aft magazine as small as possible, and clearly separate the machinery areas from the armament so that the vulnerable steam lines from the boilers to the turbines are shorter?
dreadnoughtproject.org
vs
dreadnoughtproject.org
tapatalk.com
>Geared turbines: Splendid Cats & Kongō-class had direct drive turbines, Hood had geared turbines.
>Direct drive turbines are extremely long and narrow, geared turbines can be much shorter at the expense of beam: the result is the different placement of 'X' turret/turbine rooms.
Just found some old Pirates of the Spanish Main models from years ago. Was that game any good/worth getting into? Are there any better games with sailing, pirates, and treasure?
It was fun, cheap and quick playing, the models were pretty neat, and can do in a pinch for other Age of Sail rulesets. You could in theory run a pirate/privateer style campaign in Fire as She Bears, because it has rules for prize ships iirc. There is another rule set that has both a tabletop and role playing component, it's called Privateers and Gentlemen, or something along those lines that would be perfect.
I reread Moby Dick for the first time since HS (which y'all really should, the experience is completely different as an adult) and now I'm wondering if there are any wargames that let me fulfill my newfound 18th century whaling fetish?
Yes, there's a board game on Kickstarter and I think also a vidya. Let me check again when phone isn't dying, and I'll give you names.
Naval Officer here, I think he's right. Veeky Forums doesn't have Congressional politics and MIC budget politics clouding its judgment.
There's New Bedford, which is a boardgame.
boardgamegeek.com
Nantucket was the vidya I was thinking of.
>store.steampowered.com
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Thank you my friend. New Bedford doesn't look to interesting, the whaling seems almost incidental to the gameplay, but Nantucket might be worth a try.
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