NationStates Jolt Archive

BuShips (Bureau of Ships) has begun the refitting all ship classes save the Lunar class CVNs with ETC cannons. Smaller combatants will recieve a same caliber upgrade that will dramatically increase the power of the smaller ships. The MacKensen class BBGs, on the other hand, will have their standard 16in. 50 caliber guns replaced with 19in. ETC cannons as well as having their smaller 6.1in. replaced with same caliber guns. This will allow the already powerful battleships to carry larger, more powerful shells without sacrificing capacity.

A senior BuShips officer has been quoted as saying, "This upgrade has been a long time coming. The guns were scheduled to be replaced at the same time as the Doujinshi Corp. ships were starting to be sold with ETC cannons, but near continuous combat operations with one fleet or another have delayed that. Even with two battlegroups of the First Assault Fleet deployed, we feel we can no longer delay this refit."

When asked if battleships would continue to have some of its magazine capacity dedicated to tactical nuclear shells the same official commented that, "It is still official Imperial policy to equip capital ships with the ability to retaliate with nuclear weapons in theatre, the new 19in. shells will result in a increase yield of three to five kilotons."

Eh you do realise that in comparision to a conventional gun of the same calibre and ETC gun will be significantly bigger (at least a 20% increase is size and mass) this isn't much of a porblem in terms of medium calibre guns (20-40mm) and still not too major in terms of tank guns but in terms of naval priamry weapons?

Probabaly taking into account the size difference between 16" and 19" guns and the ETC issue then youa re looking at only being able to mount 1/3 or less of the number of main guns...

We find that guns are not as important as they used to, indeed, be. You should also, at the same time, refit you ships with better Cruise Missiles, VLS cells and AS Missile Systems. Also, new radars may be needed.

Our goverment humbly suggests that our two Great Nations combine our efforts in creating a new Cruiser, or Aircraft Carrier. These are two things we greatly need, and would love it if we joined forces with such a large nation as yourself.

Crookfur: While you are no doubt right about the reduction of main guns for normal ships, mine are trimarans and because of that they have 40% more deckspace than a standard Iowa. I have room to work with.

Kazakhstania: Our ships are superior to nearly anything fielded and they have improvements on every facet you mentioned. Although, we'd be delighted to hear how you would improve a stealth carrier with a trimaran hull design (or our cruisers). We suggest that if you need an improvement in your navy, the nation of Doujin has a company called Doujinshi Corp that manufactures excellent ships.

Well it still applies unless you specifically made sure that the extra room was available at the time of intial design (like i did with my Lady Victoria class) the thing is that even with the extra room availble youa re still soemwhat constrained by the basic turret mountings, ammo supply systems etc etc (unless you plan on an almost total rebiuld...)

its not just size it is also mass, the guns will be a LOT heavier as will the ammunition, the loading system (to deal with the ammo) plus with an ETC the gun itself gets heaveier to deal with the increased heat generated in a ETC system and you also have to factor in the size/mass of the power supply and the capaciters required.

OOC: Look, I don't want to argue with you about the symantics of hull design. However, you should do some homework on battleships, you'd be surprised just how big guns got during WWII. I'd also like to not that the Kiev battlecruiser, notice the designation, has several 19" guns. Not as many as my battleship, but then again it's a smaller design all around.

OOC:
The alrgest naval gun ever actually biult was the japanese 18.1" gun of the Yatamoto class.

I am not debating that such guns are possible but the fact that it would be very very difficult to fit the same number of these monsters into a ship designed for smaller weapons (even the japanese knew this they had to design an entire new vessel for thier 20" guns...).

You should try having a read through CSJ's thread about warship design on the NS board it would be very helpful.

Actually the Kiev is an heavy aircraft carrying criuser that in its heaviest cofiguaration carries 2 100mm guns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_battlecruiser_Kirov


The Kirov battlecruiser.
A very fun ship to play with.
2x 100mm guns. Not big guns. Just lots of missiles



The "KIEV" is of course, a carrier.

Crookfur, I did the (very rough) math for a comparison between my MacKensen class and the US Montana class (the one never built)

MacKensen
Length: 263.3m
Beam: 46m

Montana
Length: 280.80m
Beam: 36.93


The superior beam gives the MacKensen roughly, very roughly, two thousand square meters deck space while mounting an armament nearly identacle to the Iowa. I'm not lacking in space for this conversion, especially when you consider the trimarans have great hull space than mono-hulls anyway.

EDIT: I was under the impression that before their fleets were destroyed the Germans or Italians were building a battleship that mounted massive 25" guns.

You know you could have just ahve said the upgrade was actually planned for during the intital design of the vessel (not actually that uncommon).

The issue was never just deck space but also mass (you also ahve a lot of extra systems that the iowa had to loss a fair number of turrets to get).

At best judgement for tirmirans the old 2" upgrade= 33% drop in number of tubes might be refined to at best 2"= 25% and the thing is you are not only adding a 3" upgrade but also ETC systems which make the gun far far bigger and heavier(ETC has become popular as it helps break the bigger and bigger race).

Also thinking outloud wouldn't the guns have to be mounting in the centre hull where the extra space doesn't help terribly much? so perhaps the tirmaran thing doesn't actually matter...

The germans were planning 19" gunned and 25" gunned vessels but they only ever managed to make a start on the hulls, the guns were never actually biult, they were also very very big vessels IIRC 100,000ton plus and much further way from completion than the super Yatamoto 20" guns oha dn size isn't everything, the american 16" gun was actually capable of out perfroming the japanese 18" in certain areas.

Perhaps, but it's not like I'm saying I'm upgrading to 25" guns or anything like that. I can shift things in the main hull to the outer hulls to make room for the coolant system. I may or may not drop something to conveniently keep a turret, but I'm sure that since the greater deckspace, the inherently superior storage design of trimarans, on top of a smaller crew than an Iowa will allow me to make it fit.

EDIT: I took a second look at the design and it has a four gun and a five gun turret, so all I have to do is widen and heighten the turrets enough to accept the new guns.