Driftless
Donor
Ruminate what if, the defense had been Wildcats and Lightnings?
That is as nifty a visual explanation of the timeline of Midway as I've ever seen.
Ruminate what if, the defense had been Wildcats and Lightnings?
Terrible at what? For anti surface its an 80lb shell v a 55lb shell, before radar it will simply destroy the lighter gun at range or if it needs to penetrate protection.
9,500 yards (8,690 m) 3" (76 mm) SAP - 3.25 lbs. (1.47 kg) TNT
v
7,400 yards (6,770 m) 3.0" (76 mm) Special Common Mark 38 - 2.04 lbs. (0.9 kg) Explosive D
Max range (not that they will hit at this but range they can hit will likely be a % reduction of this in daylight before radar, especially as shell splash size will determine salvo spotting range)
45 degrees 23,400 yards (21,397 m)
v
45 degrees 17,575 yards (16,070 m)
All of the above are as you say a balance as is the cost between two 3000t ships (super DDs) and a 6000t ship (CL) what did you want and where and who will you fight will decide what’s best.
Do you have more details (or links?) doctrine and fleet plans will be drive more by your nations sats and objectives than ship designs (that should come after)....?
Terrible at what? For anti surface its an 80lb shell v a 55lb shell, before radar it will simply destroy the lighter gun at range or if it needs to penetrate protection.
9,500 yards (8,690 m) 3" (76 mm) SAP - 3.25 lbs. (1.47 kg) TNT
v
7,400 yards (6,770 m) 3.0" (76 mm) Special Common Mark 38 - 2.04 lbs. (0.9 kg) Explosive D
Max range (not that they will hit at this but range they can hit will likely be a % reduction of this in daylight before radar, especially as shell splash size will determine salvo spotting range)
45 degrees 23,400 yards (21,397 m)
v
45 degrees 17,575 yards (16,070 m)
I agree with this and overall agree that the 5.25 is let down by its mount especially against the 5/38.The characteristics of a gun system (and I apologize, because I should have been clear about this) is that the serving ergonomics is as much a part of the gun as the ballistics.
But I don't think its that clear in all situations as all DP gun are a massive compromise, some very much at different ends of the spectrum of AA v Surface. At long range pre radar shells will have to be fired by salvo's to try and range and the 5/38 will be at a massive disadvantage due to worse arcs and overall range combined with far smaller shell splashes due to the weight. (probably almost as much difference % as 6" v 8"?)For an extended gun action, I think the US 5/38 makes up in volume fire over time what it lacks in individual shell burst charge and SMASH.
....
Of course the kicker is that the US torpedoes would have to work to make up for the lack of gunpower. The Dido's torpedoes are RTL their main saving grace when their 5.25s fail due to ergonomics in anti-ship actions. AAA, the Didos could use a stronger secondary battery.
If building in 39 (not this is to late for anybody apart from USN/IJN) I would go with something lighter,I think that a super-Fletcher 1939 (a kind of light cruiser with five dual 5/38 turrets, of 6,000 m. tons displacement, with a central AAA arrangement worked around the funnels of 4 quad 1.1 inch in a quad lozenge arrangement and the usual US 3 x 4 torpedo mounts, (with working torpedoes) would have been a marked improvement over the Atlantas. I suppose the final defense of quad 50s should be the pedestal weapons of last AAA resort.
I agree with this and overall agree that the 5.25 is let down by its mount especially against the 5/38.
But I don't think its that clear in all situations as all DP gun are a massive compromise, some very much at different ends of the spectrum of AA v Surface. At long range pre radar shells will have to be fired by salvo's to try and range and the 5/38 will be at a massive disadvantage due to worse arcs and overall range combined with far smaller shell splashes due to the weight. (probably almost as much difference % as 6" v 8"?)
I also don't think most CL or DD fights (or really most surface fights in general) where decided by slow adding up damage even a few shells will start to do something bad to ships that really are not sufficiently protected from them once you add that the 5.25 will probably hit significantly earlier to its far better penetration and its likely to hit something important (engine/guns/magazines) well before the fight is decided by shell numbers from the 5/38".
The 5.25" is basically a mostly surface/anti-DD gun forced into the AA role and that will tell in any especially early war surface fight.
If building in 39 (not this is to late for anybody apart from USN/IJN) I would go with something lighter,
4000t
8x (4 twin A,B,Y,X) 5/38"
8x (4 twin Bofors 40 mm)
10 × 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes (2 × 5 each side)Mark 15torpedoes (swapped late war on some for more 40mm)
and a few 20mm where they will fit.
I just think that this should beat any DD and cost less than your 6000t that will still lose to most cruisers in a surface fight and therefore can be built in larger numbers so less is lost when its lost. It cant anyway be protected well against a large bomb or torpedo so don't both trying to hard ie I would only protect the magazines (to try and save crew casualties) and simply have unit machinery (for getting home slowly after the larger USN wins the battle anyway).
Exactly but once you go down to that level of detail then many different situations will have different best answers, even just for USN what would be best in 42 in the islands of SWP is very different from of Okinawa in 45......I have to fight in the Pacific.....for AAA against Rikkos and the extra float bubble when it is torpedoed or bombed, and the larger hull seagoing qualities for Halsey when he typhoons the fleet.....so then my carrier losses are cut in half because my escorts will be escorting, and not off fueling somewhere.
Appendix A.
Section 1a
The history of Calendor begins roughly four to five thousand years ago with the arrival of the Sindar from the European mainland. These are essentially my version of Tolkien's Sindar elves transported into the world of Manticore. My version of the elven migration begins in the northern reaches of the Ural Mountains among the predecessors of what are now the Finno-Ugric peoples of Finland and Hungary. The Sindar migrated through what are now Russia, Germany, and the Low Countries before taking to the sea and travelling first to Britain and then Ireland before crossing open Atlantic to the island they named Calendor.
For almost two thousand years, the Sindar tribes ruled Calendor by themselves. Although their written language was limited to runes and their agriculture remained relatively undeveloped, the relatively peaceful coexistence of the Sindar tribes meant that they were able to expend huge amounts of wealth and resources on massive building projects that still dominate some of Calendor's most prominent geographic landmarks. The fairly sudden climatic cooling in the centuries before the Medieval Warm Period weakened the warm-weather agricultural package the Sindar used in the southern regions of Calendor and allowed the incremental colonization of the southeast coast by Goidelic Celts from Ireland beginning in the 7th and 8th centuries. Further outside colonization of Calendor occurred in the 9th and 10th centuries by Anglo-Saxon raiders landing on the southeast coast (the concave part) and Norse Vikings landing on the northwest coast in the 10th and 11th centuries. Over these centuries, the Sindar were pushed further and further north until the island reached a new equilibrium point as shown in the map above.
Section 1b
Kingdom of Manticore
Credit Not James Stockdale (His timeline, not mine.)
Here, I will be talking about the four regions of Calendor. These would be broadly comparable to the four nations of the United Kingdom, but with significantly more cultural differentiation. I'm well-aware of the similarities these place names have to Game of Thrones. This post will be using the same map of Calendor, which I have placed here:
The Green Hills:
This is the green region in the southeast of Calendor. It is the homeland of the Gaels, Calendor's Goidelic Celts. Its capital is the island city of Knockinnis, the site of an ancient and formidable Sindar-built fortress that has been substantially added on to by the Gaels. Though the city has since expanded onto the mainland, the island fortress remains well preserved after development was completed (i.e. all the land was full) during the fourteenth century. To the north of Knockinnis is the Gaelic trading city of Fincraig, located on a large coastal fjord. The name of the city, translated as "white rock," refers to the city's position at the northern extent of the broad, relatively flat chalk hill formation that dominates the southern third of the Green Hills and provides a home for the majority of the region's population. North of Fincraig, the land starts to resemble first the Burren, the large karst province on the Irish west coast, and then the granite mountains of the Connemara. The western border of the Green Hills is marked by the mountain range known as the Eastmarch, which separates it from the other regions of the country. The Green Hills region has an area of approximately 38,000 square miles, though only the coastal half of the southern third is as open and usable as the densely populated land of the English South East. The population of roughly 13 million is similarly concentrated in the southeast.
The Gray Mountains:
This is the gray region on Calendor's northwest coast. It is the homeland of the Manticoran Norse, an ethnic group as different from Norwegians as the Norwegians are from the Swedes. The geography and development of the region is centered around the pair of mountain ranges that dominate the region. Along the eastern border of the region is the long and narrow mountain range known as the Westmarch, comparable in scale and form to the Blue Ridge in the United States. They are, however, significantly younger and therefore more rocky than their American cousins. Along the coast is a much larger and broader range, the Gray Mountains, more similar to the Front Range than to the Norwegian mountains. Like the Gaels, the Norse have found themselves quite concentrated the in the arable land in mountain valleys and in the larger valley between the Gray Mountains and the Westmarch. The capital of the region is Eriksfjord in the north, with two more cities of note, Ottastrand and Hamarsgate, farther south along the coast. South of Hamarsgate is the Blackmount, the huge shield volcano that dominates the southwest peninsula of Calendor. The city of Grunnheim is the largest settlement in the large valley west of the Westmarch. The region has an area of almost 40,000 square miles, the vast majority of it almost unusable, and a population of slightly less than 13 million concentrated on the coast and around Grunnheim.
The Vale of Manticore:
This is the blue region in central Calendor. It is the homeland of the English, the Anglo-Normans, and the Anglo-Saxons, though those definitions have blurred considerably over the centuries. The Vale is a large area of relatively flat land dominated by the Anduin River, which runs from Stonesbury in the north to the sea at King's Landing. North of Stonesbury are the Rivers Langwell, flowing from the northern Green Hills, and Greylin, flowing from the northern Gray Mountains. The ethnic distinctions in the Vale are centered around the era during which each group arrived. Stonesbury, the center of Anglo-Saxon settlement, is in the far north of the Vale, a result of various groups being pushed farther and farther north by new settlement over the centuries. The city of Harlaw rests in the northern region of the Anglo-Norman settlement, populated by people whose ancestors arrived in the 12th and 13th centuries. The Southfort, the oldest city on the southern coast of the Vale, is dominated by Englishmen who arrived in the 14th and 15th centuries. The Southfort itself, however, is much older, having stood guard on the River Dun, which drains much of the southern Green Hills, since the time of the Sindar. King's Landing is a relatively new city, established only in the decades after the arrival of the current Yorkist dynasty at the beginning of the 16th century. The Vale is the most populated and most wealthy region of Calendor, though it is smaller than both the Green Hills and Gray Mountains. It has an area of roughly 38,000 square miles, most of it arable, and a population of more than 20 million, making it the most densely populated of the four regions.
The Iron Hills:
This is the red region in the north of Calendor. Since the collapse of Sindar control over all of Calendor, the Sindar have been able to hold onto power in the rugged, ore-laden hills of Calendor's northern reaches. Unlike the other regions, Sindar society is highly decentralized, with a very large proportion of their population still living in small, ancient villages high in the hills or in small coastal valleys. In effect, the Sindar skipped the industrialization of the 20th century but invested heavily in computer technology in the 1970s and 1980s, paid for by their huge and valuable mining and oil industries. As a result, their civil services developed very differently from almost anywhere else on earth, with such features as fully electronic government agencies and paperless libraries holding village supercomputers. The geography of the region is relatively boring, with a fairly constant range of hills from Minas Harathrad, the Southern Tower, in the south and the city of Fornost, the Northern Fortress, in the north. The region is the smallest of Calendor's four, at less than 24,000 square miles, and the least populated, with roughly 8 million inhabitants.
Section 2 North Atlantic dependencies
Tarrantry:
This is the island to the southeast of Calendor off the Irish coast. Unlike the Irish population of Goidelic Celts, Tarrantry is populated by Brythonic Celts and named after the historically dominant Terentri. The modern population, however, is descended mostly from Britons who fled Britain in the face of the Anglo-Saxon invasion. Historically, the island has been dominated politically by Normans and Manticoran Gaelic warlords. The island is quite hilly, with most modern settlement concentrated in fjords on the western coast of the island but most historical settlement on the more habitable eastern shore. The main cities are the capital of Caerglyn in the west and Penrhyn Mawr in the east. The island has an area of about 20,000 square miles and a population of slightly less than 5 million.
Fossoway:
This is the island off the eastern coast of Canada, located on the Flemish Cap. Its geography is characterized by the sharp and consistent coastal escarpment and its deep, narrow river valleys, although the upper level of the island is mostly flat and open. In terms of weather, however, it is subjected to the worst the North Atlantic has to offer. Since its discovery during the Viking Age, the island has been dominated politically and economically by the Manticoran Norse. The island has an area of slightly less than 21,000 square miles and a population of about 2.5 million.
Other territories:
Newfoundland, with an English translation of its Portuguese name rather than any of the number of Norse names it received, is another historical possession of the Manticoran Norse. The extended position of the Manticoran Norse in the North Atlantic (the Gray Mountains and eventually Fossoway) would allow for increased support to the young settlements in Greenland and Newfoundland, improving growth over their OTL counterparts. Also included with Newfoundland are the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, renamed St. Peter and Mikelon. Both of these have substantial Basque populations. Newfoundland has a population of roughly 900,000 while St. Peter and Mikelon are at less than 6,000.
Greenland, Iceland, and Svalbard (OTL Jan Mayen) are former Danish possessions that were taken by the Manticorans during the Low Saxon War. They are, overall, slightly more developed than their OTL counterparts. Svalbard has a population of roughly 12,000, mostly supporting the large military base there. Iceland has a population of almost 500,000, similarly concentrated around Reykjavik and on the Keflavik peninsula. Greenland has a population of about 90,000, weighted slightly more to the south than OTL.
Caribbean holdings.
This is the Manticoran Caribbean Dependency. It includes all of the islands visible here except the Virgin Islands and Anegada. Most of these are islands that the Knights of Malta essentially rented from the French during the 1650s and 1660s. In 1664, when the Hospitallers were looking to return the islands, the French sold them to Manticore as a bribe to keep them out of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, which started the next year. The islands of Holy Cross (OTL St. Croix) and St. Martin are the home of the big tourist resorts for international travellers, while the rest of the islands are significantly less developed and are visited only rarely by foreigners.
South America holdings.
This is the territory known as Manticoran Guiana. It was invaded by the Manticorans after the fall of the Dutch Republic to Napoleon's forces and never returned during the Congress of Vienna. It is currently used as a giant plantation owned by the Crown for tropical produce like fruit, sugar, and rice. Other features include large gold mines and the King Erik IV Space Flight Center, Manticore's main space launch center.
River Platte Region
This is the Silver River Colony. It was originally just the area of OTL Uruguay, taken during the Anglo-Manticoran invasion of the Rio de La Plata during the Napoleonic War. The Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul was invaded and annexed after a series of border incidents during the state's many civil wars with the rest of Brazil sometime between the Paraguayan War and the 1893 revolt (I haven't made a firm decision and I probably won't until something requires it). The Argentine Mesopotamian provinces were annexed after a war in 1978 when the Argentines attacked the Chileans over the line of control in the Tierra del Fuego. Operation Soberania went ahead because the Chilean military had been weakened by a war with communist Peru in 1975. The territory has an area of about 250,000 square miles, almost twice the size of Calendor, and a population of roughly 25 million. It has a fully developed service economy with a GDP somewhere between that of Taiwan and that of Australia and an export sector centered primarily on the production of Manticoran products for sale in the South American market.
Exactly but once you go down to that level of detail then many different situations will have different best answers, even just for USN what would be best in 42 in the islands of SWP is very different from of Okinawa in 45......
I question that a bit,BUT... that is what I need to fight in the SWP, JSB. The US destroyers are too small and the cruisers are TOO big. It is a very intensive air threat environment, and a submarine nightmare. I need frigates that can dance and shoot. Guess what happens off Okinawa and amongst the Rykukus? Same blasted thing. Steel is cheap up to a size of mission. Too small and can't do the mission. Too big and can't do the mission. Dido was just about right. The Med and the Solomons are a lot more alike than different. 6000 tonnes is the "sweet spot".
I question that a bit,
off Okinawa you basically need AA and more AA and a stable large platform to use it and lots of range 6000 makes sense IMO.
In SWP the threat is much higher with higher losses and I don't think you can avoid losing ships to torpedo hits (subs or surface LL) as USN is simply far weaker v the IJN threat than later in war. This means that I would want to spread my loses (or even just ships that have to go back to US for repair) over more units and thus cut down ship size.
Based on the guncharacteristics of the 5.25"/50 (13.4 cm) QF, Mark I was a good gun itself, though the mountings of both the Mark I (King George V & Vanguard Class) and Mark II (Dido and Spartan Classes) were troublesome. See quote from Navweaps:
---------
---------
- The mountings used on the King George V and Dido classes were very cramped and difficult to maintain. They were also difficult to train in the non-powered mode using the hand mechanisms. Their rather slow training speeds meant that they could not track fast-moving aircraft. These last two problems were highlighted during the Japanese attacks on HMS Prince of Wales. When she took up a 10-11 degree list as a result of damage received, it was found that some of the mounts could not be trained to engage the succeeding attacks.
Not sure that's totally true as (a split loaded) 4.5" would also be very useful on lighter ships (or even a working earlier DP 4.7") and it would also be available earlier ie from the QE rebuilds, so simply a more rushed RN rearmament with tighter control of priorities stopping multiple new designs to save the very limited designers might also work.That a better 4.5 was probably the answer only makes sense with hindsight.
Ok for RN ship I would cut the Dido "C" mount and fit 40mm light AA (ok and Vanguard sized mounts) remove its engine room wing spaces and I would be happy.......
@McPherson
Since you like discussing USN ship (OK you might not the only person )....
My question would be what would be the most likley/best USN 2WNT pre escalator battleship assuming it was rushed like the KVGs so,
laid down - 1 JAN 37
Commissioned - 1 October 1940
35,000t - a bit tighter than OTL NCs
14" guns - ordered pre escalator and to far to change
What would they look like (presumably not far off NCs) and what would be the effect of two of them or even 5-6 to match RN or as USN liked 6 ship classes?
Even if its garbage I still think that USN would have been far better off with more (5-6) of them ready on Dec 6 41 than the OTL?I think it would have had the same garbage armor scheme as RTL only with a more inclined belt armor a greater length, of hull and very likely would have suffered the same MA dispersion problems as the Nevada and the Richelieu despite the 1943 fixes.
Not sure that's totally true as (a split loaded) 4.5" would also be very useful on lighter ships (or even a working earlier DP 4.7") and it would also be available earlier ie from the QE rebuilds, so simply a more rushed RN rearmament with tighter control of priorities stopping multiple new designs to save the very limited designers might also work.
80lb shell on a DD by hand........ ask the KM what's that like .Has anyone ever suggested skipping the 4.7"/50 (12 cm) QF Mark XI and arming new destroyers with (4) single 5.25" mounts?