NationStates Jolt Archive

At the naval yard in Kiel, work goes on around the clock on the largest capital ship to enter German service. The Kaiser Wilhelm II, a next-generation warship that will one day displace over 60,000 tons and mount 12 19.5" rifles, incorporates many cutting edge advancements in capital ship design, most of which will enter service for the first time when the super-dreadnought is comissioned.
Considerable care has been made to keep Allied agents away from the slip where the hull of the ship sits. Air patrols fly constant missions to intercept any force intending to damage the ship before it is finished. The construction of the Kriegsmarine's future flagship has placed a considerable drain on the construction abilities of the Naval Armaments Board; construction on the few replacement vessels for the surface fleet has slowed to a crawl, although U-boat construction has been constantly stepped up since the opening of the war. However, once the Kaiser Wilhelm is finished, replacements for the Admiral Scheer and Admiral Graf Spee will be laid down. In the future, the Kriegsmarine will concentrate almost totally on U-boats and the Deutschland class raiders that have proven so effective thus far.

Kaiser Wilhelm II (http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/zplan/battleships/schlachtschiffh/index.html)

(Okay, that's alright.. just because it weighs three times more than the entire run thus far of our previous two classes of warship combined doesn't mean it's scary at all. That it weighs almost 50% more than our largest ever warship, however...)

Iansisle's answer to the Kaiser Wilhelm II (of which the official Admiralty report was "it's really big.) and looks pretty darn scary. We really don't know much besides that.", the 70,500 ton monster HIMS Diomedes, remained sadly far from completion. One delay after another, some the fault of Jorgenson and Sons (such as foremen building for three days before realizing they were looking off the blue prints of HIMS Behemoth) and others the Admiralty (such as not realizing that J&S didn't have anything large enough to construct the massive ship) has so far plagued the project.

The ship's statistics look impressive enough - twelve 16"/50 guns, triple mounted on four turrets, up to 16.5" of belt armor, a large enough anti-air battery to defend Port Laughlin - but her construction has forced the continued delay of construction on HIMS Goliath, the fourth ship of the Behemoth class.

On the good side of shipbuilding news, HIMS King Ian V, the fourth of the Queen Jessica class battleships, reached completion at Wright Nautical Engineering and entered sea trials after a long delay. King Ian V underwent a massive refitting right before launch, replacing her #1 and #3 12"/50 turrets with the 14"/45 guns of the superfiring #2 turret. The practicality of the move - the Iansislean 12" gun being a distinguished one, after all! - was hotly debated across the Admiralty (with ugly accusations of Calarcan influence slipping into the debate), but it was decided that the smaller ammunition load, improvised shell loading system, and the time (and money!) taken by the refit were worthwhile.

In her initial sea trials, however, King Ian V set a new speed record for the Queen Jessica, making 34.7 knots in light seas. The Jessica's speed - which was supposed to be consistantly in the 35 knot range - has proven an embarassment to the Admiralty, as Jessica and her sister ship King James II usually top out at 32-33 knots. Nautical engineers have studied Ian's engines, hull dynamics, and displacement numbers, but of yet have no explination.

HIMS Colossus continued to test her 16"/45 guns in Troobodia Bay. The Admiralty has said problems with her #3 turret will be hammered out in a week or two, when she (along with her also newly-completed sister ship HIMS Gargantuan and the MAFD HIMS Augsburg) will be deployed under the command of Vice Admiral Lord Pennsbridge to join Admiral Sir George Rice's South China Sea Fleet.

can I buy it?

"We'll..erm.. leave it to the Ians!"

So went the rather questionable Walmingtonian decision. The resources elsewhere pumped into sixty and seventy thousand ton battleships would in Walmington account for God knows how many twenty, forty, fifty ton tanks. Walmington would get them to North Africa, cripple the Italians and Erco, smash the Afrika Corps, then push on east, securing for the allies everything from Casablanca to Chiang Mai.

One or two voices questioned the wisdom of pretending that Pacific Iansisle had as much to fear from the Kreigsmarine as did Walmington but that didn't fit with the plan, so it was best not to get side-tracked. The Admiralty still maintained that cruisers were the future.

And how exactly do they sink 60,000 ton battleships?

Erm..

..unveiling the next step in armoured warfare! The Field Supremacy Tank MkI "Armadillo" -maintaining the Walmingtonian tradition of countering "threats" (Hainanese super tanks) that don't even apply to the empire, while ignoring actual problems (as observed in this thread)!

(Coming soon to the WoS armaments thread)

(Well, in theory it could sink a warship..)

According to construction plans smuggled out of the Reich by intrepid Walmingtonian agents (Go Walmington!), only one H class super-dreadnought will be joining the fleet. After its completion, the main focus of the naval construction plan will be U-boats and surface raiders. Considerable resources will be diverted to naval radar research and U-boat development.

tag

SOW pulling their weight at last! This information only served to cement Admiralty opinion on the cruisers-cruisers-cruisers stance. Of course that included battlecruisers. Walmington loved her battlecruisers. They would go out leading cruiser squadrons and hunt down every last raider that Jerry cared to launch.

Oh, and probably the ASW aircraft we already have will be enough to deal with a few piffling coward U-boats. How many could there be, anyway?

Plans continued towards any number of new cruisers of all sizes, while the aviation sector continued to concentrate on fighters and Dexterous Aircraft (id est- Musca) at the expense of ASW aircraft. Or bombers. Or whatever the heck else any other nation might be distracting itself with.

The more conservative members of the Walmingtonian navy agree that the number of submarines Germany has launched since the beginning of the war is less than 60. However, some younger and more modern thinking officers estimate that the U-boatwaffe may have as many as 160 U-boats operating in the Atlantic alone. These estimates are simply dismissed.

can I buy it?

OOC:
Just a little tidbit. A 60,000 ton vessel would be hard pressed to maintain 6 19.5" guns, and eve then would have to make significant sacrifices in ammunition stowage and protection, as well as several other areas. 12 of them would be impossible.

OOC:
Just a little tidbit. A 60,000 ton vessel would be hard pressed to maintain 6 19.5" guns, and eve then would have to make significant sacrifices in ammunition stowage and protection, as well as several other areas. 12 of them would be impossible.

thank you for your in put

(Well, I believe that's metric tons, rather than the short tons I use for displacement. It may not seem too big of a deal, but that means that KWII would actually displace about 68,000 short tons, not 60,000.

Still, that website you cite, D.K., only lists her at 8 main guns. Is that an intentional typo to confuse us allied agents too lazy to visit the site, or are you changing armarment?

At any rate, I don't believe this battleship is intended to operate at range for extended periods of time, so ammunition stowage would be a truely secondary concern (unlike for me. Damn you, Pacific Ocean! *shakes fist*)

I guess I've got a couple questions to answer here.
1) No, Lima Beans, you can't buy one. I can't afford the diversion of materials and manpower to build a second one right now. However, I might be convinced to sell you the designs so you can build one yourself.
2) To Smoke Jaguar; I said it was "over 60,000 tons". At this point, the Allies have no way of knowing exactly how large this ship will be when it's completed; it's not like I just hung the designs on the bulletin board for all to see.
3) To Iansisle; the armament is, at this point in her construction, accurate. It was determined to mount the Kaiser Wilhelm II with four triple turrets, rather than the twin turrets typical of German capital ships. There will be an accompanying increase in size, of course.
4)This ship will actually have a significant ammunition store, fitting the Kriegsmarine's concept of commerce war and lone ships operating in distant theaters. Kaiser Wilhelm II is, of course, too valuable to operate completely independantly, but will require much less support than a like ship from other nations.

I guess I've got a couple questions to answer here.
1) No, Lima Beans, you can't buy one. I can't afford the diversion of materials and manpower to build a second one right now. However, I might be convinced to sell you the designs so you can build one yourself.
2) To Smoke Jaguar; I said it was "over 60,000 tons". At this point, the Allies have no way of knowing exactly how large this ship will be when it's completed; it's not like I just hung the designs on the bulletin board for all to see.
3) To Iansisle; the armament is, at this point in her construction, accurate. It was determined to mount the Kaiser Wilhelm II with four triple turrets, rather than the twin turrets typical of German capital ships. There will be an accompanying increase in size, of course.
4)This ship will actually have a significant ammunition store, fitting the Kriegsmarine's concept of commerce war and lone ships operating in distant theaters. Kaiser Wilhelm II is, of course, too valuable to operate completely independantly, but will require much less support than a like ship from other nations.
Well, here's a bit of info:
US studies in the interwar period found that and increase of 2" in the bore diameter of the main guns (from 16" to 18") would decrease the number that could be carried by 22-33% (usually nearer to 33). This was discovered again by the Japanese with Yamato and Super Yamato projects, where an increase from 18.1" to 20" reduced the number of guns from 9 to 6. For your ship to mounnt 12 19.5" guns, it would have to be in the range of 150,000 tons or more, and the discrepancy between that and the "over 60,000 tons" is too great to be explained away. Estimates wouldn't be that far off.

Well, here's a bit of info:
US studies in the interwar period found that and increase of 2" in the bore diameter of the main guns (from 16" to 18") would decrease the number that could be carried by 22-33% (usually nearer to 33). This was discovered again by the Japanese with Yamato and Super Yamato projects, where an increase from 18.1" to 20" reduced the number of guns from 9 to 6. For your ship to mounnt 12 19.5" guns, it would have to be in the range of 150,000 tons or more, and the discrepancy between that and the "over 60,000 tons" is too great to be explained away. Estimates wouldn't be that far off.

Ok, here goes again.
1) Construction has not even finished yet on the ship's hull. Her fitting out (and the changes to her layout that will invariably accompany it) won't take place for another year. The Armaments Board will worry about that then, like moving to a twin-double and twin-triple turret configuration.
2) It's a war. That means misdirection. If reports come out to the effect that she displaces some odd-60,000 tons, and she comes out significantly over that, we then have something known as the element of suprise. Which is a good thing. Look at all the counter-intelligence that went into Overlord and you'll see what I mean. Right now the British would be saying "Ok, chaps; which is it? Is she significantly heavier than we expected, or is she carrying a different armament layout?" Keeps them guessing.
(On an OOC note, I admit that I didn't expect you to come into this post and land on my poor idea with both feet stomping. Thanks for the info, but I fail to see how you can justify that kind of response on a site where everything is made up. :wink: )