NationStates Jolt Archive

http://members.lycos.co.uk/nspanooly/sol5.jpg

Serpentine Class Stealthship

The latest breakthrough of the HP Shipbuilding Company. Remember those old 18th century warbarges? Pirates and rum? Well this ship is an homage to the old days with the same design but underwent a major change to fit in the modern times we live in.

Because those old ships had whole cannon batteries we thought why don't we do the same thing. Six 455 mm howitzer guns have been placed on one side of the hull. They are mounted on a rail so quick shooting on both sides of possible. 6 Vulcan miniguns operated by computers have been added onto the top of the ship to wear off boarding parties and for close combat. Two 255mm have been placed on the bow of the ship. They all had to be adjusted to lower the recoil and minimize injuries to the operator. Not only they fire much faster than a normal gun on a battleship, this ship works amazingly well as a support ship during a landing on enemy shores. Not designed to encounter other battleships on the high seas, this ship is made for coastal offensive operations. A special launching system for seamines has been added and a small launching unit for medium ranged cruise missiles.

The stealth technology has also been installed as well as the latest naval radar systems. It may sound weird, but this ship is incredibly stabil even when all guns are being fired at the same time.

http://members.lycos.co.uk/nspanooly/ship1.jpg
Cruise missile and seamine launching pads added.

http://members.lycos.co.uk/nspanooly/ship2.jpg

http://members.lycos.co.uk/nspanooly/ship3.jpg
3D impression.

Specifications
Maximum crew capacity: 185
Maximum bullet capacity: 1 million rounds per Vulcan gatling
Maximum shell capacuty (455mm): 10.000 shells (255mm) 5000 shells
Lenght: 330 foot (100 meter)

More will be added soon, stay tuned.

OOC: Not even a provision for missiles, it probably wont sell because of that.

I was thinking of that already, changing it...

I was thinking of that already, changing it...

[OOC: It looks like an attempt to modernize the CSS Virginia (aka the Merrimac ironclad.

Also, a couple of comments: One, I think shipbuilders got away from having broadside guns once the turret became in vogue because that takes away half your ordnance if the port side or starboard side guns aren't engaging the enemy. Also, I notice you have what amounts to two bow chasers, but no armaments visible in the stern. If a ship were able to sail behind you and maintain that position, it could have a field day.

I'm not sure about the speed of the ship, but from the looks of the design, it probably would be very unwieldy, much like the aforementioned ironclads. I think if you're able to get the ship into position owing to its stealthy intents, you could do some damage before people figure out what's going on, but if it's spotted, it's a sitting duck.

Those are my thoughts, anyway.]

I'm not really a tech guy but I designed to give support to landing troops on enemy shores, shallow water patrols and blasting away coastal gunners. It doesn't really matter about the speed, the stealth makes up for that. The ship isn't nearly as fast as a corvette but it's able to reach 14 nautical miles per hour = 25km/hour = 15 miles/hour. The ship has cruise missiles and sea mines. Those are only there to fight ships when there's no other option. The stealth technology is implemented only to sneak past enemies during the night. The pitch-black anti radar paint doesn't have much use during the day.

And yes, I used the Merrimac in this design.

one improvement i would push for is to reloate the gun deck to as close to the waterline as possible which would give much much better stability.

incidentially if this is purely for shore bombardments why bother with guns on both sides as half of them are going to be purely wasted weight at any one time.

to be honest with it's lack of speed and manouverability the draw backs of the broadside system becoem much more pronounced.

For a stealthy ship like this i would say that vertical guns woudl make more sense but they would be insansely difficult to to produce and mount in the sizes youa re talking about (ie a 5" VGS takes up about as much room as a trident D5 SLBM tube...) and big guns like yours would be far far longer although retractable abrrels could be used, after all you lose all your stealth as soon are you fire anyway...

Thanks very much for the suggestions Crook. I'm working on it...

Updated & improved.

ill want 454 of these

I'm not selling them at the moment. I need to work out the statistics and copyright the project. This is far from done.

tagatha christy