I actually have the house of Giray travel to Alyska and play a role in the nations future, so their are descendants of Ghengis khan living in the country.
I dont think the ROF helps much and if you care that much you could speed up the larger guns as once you go over 6-8" you are mechanically limited not hand working?
Also, range in 1908 is not really important due to not being able to hit anything.... (And why you dont need ROF due to wanting to do salvo and correct?) and the larger shell will slow down less anyway, so it will range better anyway even if it's slower at muzzle.....?
The ten inch is a gun that has the worst of both worlds. the 200mm is about the largest gun that can be hand worked reasonably. Yeah something as large as 235-240mm can be hand worked, but by the time you reach ten inch you can really only work it like a capital grade gun. And that means it has battleship gun loading times. So you might as well go with a gun with greater punch.
I've heard that the German/A-H 150mm (5.91-inch) and 6-inch guns were the largest that could reasonably be hand-worked, above that you really needed hoists and rammers.
Part of Erwhon's problem is lack of money, the US is building ships for non ABC nations for below cost but they still require substantial payment. So the 10-inch was chosen for cost purposes, not usefulness. Not the first time an exchequer has done so and certainly won't be the last...
No one believes the rate of fire of the 10 inch mark vi gun of the Royal Navy or the American 10"/40 mks.
They are stuck all over the Web and appear as alternate history fodder regularly.
That said Chile bought a ship with the Elswick 10 inch mks 6 gun due to rate of fire advantages over 12 inch guns (even if the Royal Navy purchased it on completion) so someone can buy the idea tht rate of fire is a good thing.
Did 7.5" RN gun on Hawkins not get designed for "hand" loading, well 2 people and a cradle (ie 2 people one each side of shell) like that used on some coastal defence guns (And in service it was not really liked)?
Agreed it's a good suboptimal design, and they do happen, but I dont think it actually saves you any money over a 12" guns as ship's size will be very close to actual cost and using in service 12" BB guns would be just as cheap?
Those are about the largest that can be hand worked and still called quick firing. You can still hand work an 200mm gun, and it will have a higher rate of fire than a gun in the 250-300mm range, but wont keep pace with a 150mm. And again you can hand work guns a bit larger than that, even a 250mm. And it may have a higher rate of fire than a proper capital ship gun, but it starts to matter less and less. Some nations like the Germans and Chileans (and even my Alyskans) did have guns in the 9-10 inch range. But they banked on facing mostly cruisers where the size of the guns would let them quickly take out these ships, and maybe the odd battleship where the higher rate of fire would give you a certain advantage as you ran away.
Its not a perfect line of reasoning, but enough nations did it that its believable, and makes a degree of sense.
Coulsdon Eagle
Monthly Donor
IIRC the early classes of German CL's were armed with 105mm as it was believed these were the largest shells that could be handled by one man. They switched to 150mm just before WW1 but can't recall what the diving force behind that decision was (unless just realised out-gunned by RH CL's).
Only the Pillau and Wiesbaden (4 ships total) were built with 15cm guns and in commission at this time, most of the survivors were fitted with 15cm but it was later in the war, most of the HSF CL's should still have 10.5cm.
I believe it was the fact that DD's were getting larger and the smaller guns were becoming less and less effective. IIRC it was thought that the ubiquitous 4.7-inch and US 5-inch guns were the smallest guns capable of stopping such ships.
Actually the 6 inch gun and its ammunition were around the largest to be manually operated and handled in normal conditions, Larger was simply too much and too heavy to be handled by manual power for any duration, seriously reducing its capabilities in a very short time due to fatigue of the gun crews. Japan even considered the 6 inch too heavy for that manual loading and choose the smaller 5.5 inch instead.
That was put there by the RAF to show that land-based aircraft were as useful as carrier aircraft.
Though that might have more to do with having guns crews who grew up on rice rather than beef and bread.
British adopted the 5.5" gun built for the Greek cruisers on a number of ships as well though for similar reasons though not on cruisers.
They threatened to but Queen Elizabeth's price of the former British Empire proved too high even for them.
Yeah but they responded to that by buying the Copyright to the Royal Family. And staging a hostile takeover of the UK. Or as we should properly call it "Disney Land North Atlantic". Of course forcing all Britons to work in building the new rides and attractions and then maintaining them and wearing various costumes to entertain children was hard.
I think they're currently working on buying the rights to the English language.
For some reason this made me think of the Brit's ending up deciding to part way through construction convert the HMS Hood as a Carrier. Or perhaps have them actually start building two or three G3 Battlecruisers and then have to finish them as carriers.
But ya gotta admit that HMS Hood as a Fleet carrier (sort of like the USS Lexington/Saratoga) would be pretty awesome. If the Brits adopted some of the more American design traits I wonder what sort of air complement they could work.
In my TL I am toying with having the British lay down Incomparable, though she never progresses beyond some basic keelblocks and orders for some machinery. The RN goes on to complete two Admirals during the immediate post war. The British then get the ship included in the same clause that lets them build Furious, Glorious, and Courageous. Providing the RN with six carriers (Argus, F, G, C, Incomparable, Hermes. Eagle goes to Chile) right at the start of the treaty era.
Incomparable completes as a basically new build ship and is MASSIVE, easily the largest carrier in the world for the next twenty years.