Looking for an alternative to BC.

Can a purpose built CL perform scouting functions that historically were done by BC?


  • Total voters
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The destroyer you linked on page one has an engine that produces 170% of the power of HMS dreadnought.

We increased that by 40% to be able to support a bigger electric plant to allow non los radio and to prevent overclocking. So we have a ship with engines competitive with the Queen Elizabeth class.

I'm not sure they would fit but I assume they must ad the destroyer engine fits.

Speed is hard to get at this time.
Ok, I just went back and looked at the German torpedo boats (very sketchy info on wiki), and the best I could come up with information was a 970 some odd ton ship, with 24,000 shp engines, getting ~34 kts, and then the jump to the B97 class, with it's increase in displacement of 50% to 1,370 some odd tons, with 40,000 shp engines, for 36 kts. I know these were 9 years later than the Dreadnought, so I guess the Germans must have figured out how to increase their engines output somewhere in that time frame.

EDIT: Just found this with a little extra digging. 2,400 ton, 1916 IGN destroyer, doesn't give shp, but did 36.9 kts.
 
I just cant see the RN stopping building them, yes it would change from OTL but the RN would still want CL killers and it will not go back to ACRs. I think you get the original 6 Is after that I think the "Lions, QM and Tiger" just end up as super Is with all the guns on centre line 8x 12" and progressively more speed to match improvements in CLs? Unless Kongo makes Tiger go for big guns?

Without big guns to fight back it doesn't matter if the "lion" has 12" or 13.5" it will still kill you if its faster.
The invincible and indefactible classes imo might be the end of it. At least till Japan goes for Kongo.

6 battlecruisers while the entire German fleet has 7 armoured cruisers and no battlecruisers is probably sufficient. They can serve either as a scouting group for the fleet (Probably 2 groips of three hunting the German fleet) or as a flotilla leader at the head of a squadron of light cruisers.

If Germany dont counter Britain then Britain's 6 battlecruisers can be considered sufficient to deal with the German cruiser threat.

The only reason I expect 3 indefactible is that it's still the cheapest capital ship produced by Britain so it's easier to sell the idea of Aus and New Zealand paying for it.
 

Md139115

Banned
Having just looked up what this "springsharp" software is that everyone is talking about, I suddenly feel like my life is completely devoid of all meaning without it. The only sad thing is my computer is broken until Thursday at least, so I need that long before I can finally create designs to my hearts content.
 
I just cant see the RN stopping building them, yes it would change from OTL but the RN would still want CL killers and it will not go back to ACRs. I think you get the original 6 Is after that I think the "Lions, QM and Tiger" just end up as super Is with all the guns on centre line 8x 12" and progressively more speed to match improvements in CLs? Unless Kongo makes Tiger go for big guns?

Without big guns to fight back it doesn't matter if the "lion" has 12" or 13.5" it will still kill you if its faster.

The invincible and indefactible classes imo might be the end of it. At least till Japan goes for Kongo.

6 battlecruisers while the entire German fleet has 7 armoured cruisers and no battlecruisers is probably sufficient. They can serve either as a scouting group for the fleet (Probably 2 groips of three hunting the German fleet) or as a flotilla leader at the head of a squadron of light cruisers.

If Germany don't counter Britain then Britain's 6 battlecruisers can be considered sufficient to deal with the German cruiser threat.

The only reason I expect 3 indefactible is that it's still the cheapest capital ship produced by Britain so it's easier to sell the idea of Aus and New Zealand paying for it.
I will be making a new thread in a few days, that will focus on some details of exactly what Germany is doing different (and just as importantly, not doing) from OTL, but restricted to just the year 1907. I want to make a thread to explore what the other worlds navies are doing in a year by year format, so that I can come up with a good set of questions and answers, so that I can get help keeping things somewhat reasonable.

I will also write a short story, that will be a variation on this theme, so I can make a point and get a fact check, as well as a critique on my writing style (or rather, lack of style, as the case may be), so I can improve my writing/storytelling abilities.
 
Having just looked up what this "springsharp" software is that everyone is talking about, I suddenly feel like my life is completely devoid of all meaning without it. The only sad thing is my computer is broken until Thursday at least, so I need that long before I can finally create designs to my hearts content.

Then may i possibly make it worse, have you heard of the game rule the waves? You may want to look that up.
 
I'm looking for information on the instruments used by IGN lookouts between 1906-1916. Anyone have any sites they could provide a link to?

Moving forward, the best information I have gotten in this thread does lead me to conclude that a light ship, with a few small guns, and no real armor, can be built to have a speed of 36+ kts. How long this speed can be maintained, and in what seas, remains unclear. Historic German ships with these numbers are the B97 and the S113 ships. While both these ships can hit the desired speed, the B97 is just a 1,370 ton ship, and the S113 2,400 tons.

One problem is the cost of these ships, which I cannot find so far, and although we know the B97 produced 40,000 shp, for a speed of 36 kts on 1,370 tons, we don't know what the S113 produced in shp, for a speed of 36.9 kts on 2,400 tons.

Up thread, we have been trying to bat these probable engines costs back and forth, but we are fumbling around in the dark, with little in the way of facts. Some members, who have clearly a better understanding of naval construction and design issues and facts in general have attempted to help me figure this out, but the best that we so far came up with was that such ships were possible, but prohibitively expensive, indeed having a large portion of the cost of HMS Dreadnought herself!

HMS Dreadnought was 1.7 million pounds, while the first German Dreadnought class cost 35.0 million marks. Going by this, I would roughly guess that the mark rate to pound was at that time about 20:1 and if this is so, then the B97 & S113 should cost at least 40%-50% of HMS Dreadnought's 1.7 million pound, or about 34.0 million marks, so 17.0 million marks or .85 million pounds. If this turns out to be true, I will owe an apology to a fellow board member who's help I appreciate, but doubted.

I need some help here getting my mind around the costs of these ships.
 
I'm looking for information on the instruments used by IGN lookouts between 1906-1916. Anyone have any sites they could provide a link to?

Moving forward, the best information I have gotten in this thread does lead me to conclude that a light ship, with a few small guns, and no real armor, can be built to have a speed of 36+ kts. How long this speed can be maintained, and in what seas, remains unclear. Historic German ships with these numbers are the B97 and the S113 ships. While both these ships can hit the desired speed, the B97 is just a 1,370 ton ship, and the S113 2,400 tons.

One problem is the cost of these ships, which I cannot find so far, and although we know the B97 produced 40,000 shp, for a speed of 36 kts on 1,370 tons, we don't know what the S113 produced in shp, for a speed of 36.9 kts on 2,400 tons.

Up thread, we have been trying to bat these probable engines costs back and forth, but we are fumbling around in the dark, with little in the way of facts. Some members, who have clearly a better understanding of naval construction and design issues and facts in general have attempted to help me figure this out, but the best that we so far came up with was that such ships were possible, but prohibitively expensive, indeed having a large portion of the cost of HMS Dreadnought herself!

HMS Dreadnought was 1.7 million pounds, while the first German Dreadnought class cost 35.0 million marks. Going by this, I would roughly guess that the mark rate to pound was at that time about 20:1 and if this is so, then the B97 & S113 should cost at least 40%-50% of HMS Dreadnought's 1.7 million pound, or about 34.0 million marks, so 17.0 million marks or .85 million pounds. If this turns out to be true, I will owe an apology to a fellow board member who's help I appreciate, but doubted.

I need some help here getting my mind around the costs of these ships.

You are pretty close. 20.55 GM=£1

I much prefer dealing with British ships. At least there I can read the sources. Plus I know where to look for the costs, i can sometimes get component costs too.

You will not find costs for the B97 and the S113. I know it's a cop out but a lot of parts were confiscated from export orders. The engines for example were Russian orders (unfortunately I can't find the cost).

We said 40% more horsepower than b97 so I got you a quote for the engines that went into a QE class which had 40% more horse power than a b97.

B97 has almost twice the horsepower as the dreadnought. The engines were a Russian order because they didn't have the technical ability to build 40,000hp engines that wasn't employed doing engines for the borodinos or ganguts.

Anyway look outs in this era mainly used binoculars not much fancy equipment.
 
You are pretty close. 20.55 GM=£1.
Sweet. I was hoping to not be to far off in my USWAG figures, so glad to hear it was at least in the ball park. I have used the same USWAG method of trying to get a price tag for my ATL battle line, going by the premise that:
Say the 21,000 ton German BB costs 35 million marks, this gives me a (very shaky) basis upon which to postulate a cost of 1 & 2/3 million marks / 1,000 tons of ship. Using that, I extrapolated that the Bayern class should cost roughly 32 X 1 & 2/3 million marks, or about 54 million marks each. Not sure yet if this actually holds up, but having spring sharp on my system for some time and never having been able to figure the dang thing out, this was the best I could come up with. I made no attempt to price the BC's, but I suspect that this method would need revision to be used on them, because my understanding (such as it is) is that the BC's were costing more than the BB's, ton for ton.

Anyway look outs in this era mainly used binoculars not much fancy equipment.
Crap. There goes my supposition that a 'well equipped' scout ship, with a heated, double becker Observation Tower, complete with head, coffee pot, snack counter and lounge chairs, all the way up on top of the mast, would allow for a much better set of "Eyes of the fleet" to be deployed on these light ships, and the idea that with large (meaning bigger than hand-held) binocular telescopes mounted high up, I could get away with detecting an enemy while remaining hull down (below the horizon) from them, to make counter detecting harder, and giving my fast scouts better identification capabilities at a distance and giving them a head start in avoiding coming into gun range.

I much prefer dealing with British ships. At least there I can read the sources. Plus I know where to look for the costs, i can sometimes get component costs too.
Yes. I cannot even get easy info, and when I do track down a ship, then the related wiki is very spare on facts. :(

You will not find costs for the B97 and the S113. I know it's a cop out but a lot of parts were confiscated from export orders. The engines for example were Russian orders (unfortunately I can't find the cost). B97 has almost twice the horsepower as the dreadnought. The engines were a Russian order because they didn't have the technical ability to build 40,000hp engines that wasn't employed doing engines for the borodinos or ganguts.
I'm starting to reach the same conclusion. Finding information, at least for me, is daunting and frustrating, and largely unsuccessful with regard to the German small craft. I too looked up the russian ships, but their wiki's were hardly better than the ones for the B97's themselves. The S113 was the worst yet, and leaves me with a bad taste for continuing research.

I did find one German CL, the Bremen class, with a comparable time frame and speed to HMS Dreadnought, and I'm trying to get my mind to make sense of the figures there. The CL was 3,800 tons, with engines providing 9,863 Ihp (how that compares to shp, I didn't look up), for 22 kts, while the Dreadnought was 18,000+ tons, with engines providing 23,000 shp, for a speed of 21 kts. What I'm having trouble with is, speed seems to be far more of a factor in increasing hp demands than raw tonnage, as these ships are roughly a 1:5 ratio, for just about the same speed, so I would have thought that the Bremen would have needed just 4,600 or so shp, but she instead needed more than twice this power?! Looking at this from the other way, if the Bremen needed 9,800 ihp, then the Dreadnought would have needed 49,000 shp, but instead needed less than half that. I guess my problem is that I don't yet have a firm grasp of even the basics, so trying to grasp extrapolations building on this is, frankly, beyond me at present. :(

We said 40% more horsepower than B97 so I got you a quote for the engines that went into a QE class which had 40% more horse power than a b97.
Not understanding the basics, I don't know where you go from there, so I cannot say whether or not these German/Russian DD's indeed cost 15-20 million marks each, or for that matter, if I even have that figure correct. Getting tired again, and things aren't making as much sense as they were this morning. Nap time for me, I'm afraid.
 
Sweet. I was hoping to not be to far off in my USWAG figures, so glad to hear it was at least in the ball park. I have used the same USWAG method of trying to get a price tag for my ATL battle line, going by the premise that:
Say the 21,000 ton German BB costs 35 million marks, this gives me a (very shaky) basis upon which to postulate a cost of 1 & 2/3 million marks / 1,000 tons of ship. Using that, I extrapolated that the Bayern class should cost roughly 32 X 1 & 2/3 million marks, or about 54 million marks each. Not sure yet if this actually holds up, but having spring sharp on my system for some time and never having been able to figure the dang thing out, this was the best I could come up with. I made no attempt to price the BC's, but I suspect that this method would need revision to be used on them, because my understanding (such as it is) is that the BC's were costing more than the BB's, ton for ton.

Wiki gives 50,000,000 marks as an average cost for the Bayer class.

My method is find a ship that's similar. Find the component costs for machinery armour and weapons. Then swap the component costs for other ships

I did find one German CL, the Bremen class, with a comparable time frame and speed to HMS Dreadnought, and I'm trying to get my mind to make sense of the figures there. The CL was 3,800 tons, with engines providing 9,863 Ihp (how that compares to shp, I didn't look up), for 22 kts, while the Dreadnought was 18,000+ tons, with engines providing 23,000 shp, for a speed of 21 kts. What I'm having trouble with is, speed seems to be far more of a factor in increasing hp demands than raw tonnage, as these ships are roughly a 1:5 ratio, for just about the same speed, so I would have thought that the Bremen would have needed just 4,600 or so shp, but she instead needed more than twice this power?! Looking at this from the other way, if the Bremen needed 9,800 ihp, then the Dreadnought would have needed 49,000 shp, but instead needed less than half that. I guess my problem is that I don't yet have a firm grasp of even the basics, so trying to grasp extrapolations building on this is, frankly, beyond me at present. :(

There's a formula that gives a rough idea. It involves the tonnage being divided by something added to the speed being cubed and something about the ships natural hull speed and length at the waterline. I unfortunately don't remember it. I would have to assume that the sms bremen has a worse hull speed than the Dreadnought class. There's a few other things in the formula too that I don't remember. There might an exponential curve in their too.

To double speed all things being equal you need 8 times the horsepower.

Found a rough rule on another website. For same hull form you can treble the size and double the horsepower and keep the same speed. But hull form can mess up your calculations big time.

One of the Bremen class was fitted with different engines rated at around 11,343 shp and has a top speed of 22.5 knots.
 
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we don't know what the S113 produced in shp, for a speed of 36.9 kts on 2,400 tons
I don't think you can realistically use a laid down in 1916 ship for pre war ideas a decade earlier..... its like suggesting to the RN why not build HMS Hood instead of all the BCs.

Crap. There goes my supposition that a 'well equipped' scout ship, with a heated, double becker Observation Tower, complete with head, coffee pot, snack counter and lounge chairs, all the way up on top of the mast, would allow for a much better set of "Eyes of the fleet" to be deployed on these light ships, and the idea that with large (meaning bigger than hand-held) binocular telescopes mounted high up, I could get away with detecting an enemy while remaining hull down (below the horizon) from them, to make counter detecting harder, and giving my fast scouts better identification capabilities at a distance and giving them a head start in avoiding coming into gun range.
I think if they get a windbreak that actually deflects the wind they will be lucky....
I would add that visibility in north sea is going to be short much of the time and when its sufficiently good for hull down observation its a matter of looking for the giant plume of coal smoke not the ship! High speed means big engines that means you will need to keep lots of boilers on line and heated so lots of smoke.
 
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One problem is the cost of these ships, which I cannot find so far, and although we know the B97 produced 40,000 shp, for a speed of 36 kts on 1,370 tons, we don't know what the S113 produced in shp, for a speed of 36.9 kts on 2,400 tons.
Navypedia says 45,000

http://www.navypedia.org/ships/germany/ger_dd_s113.htm

I think if they get a windbreck that actually deflects the wind they will be lucky....
I would add that visibility in north sea is going to be short much of the time and when its sufficiently good for hull down observation its a matter of looking for the giant plume of coal smock not the ship! High speed means big engines that means you will need to keep lots of boilers on line and heated so lots of smoke.
Looking at Jutland here's a few incidents that reveal that illustrate how bad visibility can be.

1. SMS Elbing spots Danish steamer sends destroyers to investigate
2. HMS Chester spots gun flashes in the distance, 4 light cruisers appear within gun range and quickly disable her
3. Main battle lines from fleets are within gun range, Germans turn away and disappear within 4 minutes
4. At 7:10 the German fleet is silhouetted by the sun, they are clearly visible to the British fleet and in range. The German fleet cannot see the British fleet.
5. HMS Black Prince operating on her own appears within range of the German fleet, according to survivors the first anyone knows of the presence of the fleet is the muzzle flashes from over a hundred guns shooting at less than 3000 yards
 
Flottenkreuzer (Entwurf 1916)

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t_kreuzer1916.gif

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Ship Info History Technical Data 1:1250 Model
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Dimensions
Size (Max): 4850 t
Length (Total): 136 m
Length (Waterline): 131 m
Beam: 12,4 m
Draft: 4,6 m
Crew: 356
Weapons
15 cm: 5
8,8 cm: 2
60 cm Torpedo tubes: 4
Mines: 100
Armor
Deck: 15-30 mm (max)
Engines
Shafts: 2
Engines: 2
Type: Geared turbines
Performance
Total Performance: 52000 shp
Speed: 33 kn
Range:

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[Groe1]
kreuzer1916.gif
 
I don't think you can realistically use a laid down in 1916 ship for pre war ideas a decade earlier..... its like suggesting to the RN why not build HMS Hood instead of all the BCs.
Except that I was not suggesting that.....rather pointing out a historically built ship, with as close to the tonnage as I could find, that either met or exceeded the speed required/desired. The S113 simply proves that yes, the IGN could do 36+ kts. And if you read the page, remember why the S113 wasn't designed earlier, not because 1916 was the very soonest that Germany could build them, but rather their need to build them didn't become clear till after Jutland. The B97 was a 36 kts ship laid down in 1914, but these were not an intentional design, but rather a scavenger class built to use the engines intended for export to the Russians, so we really don't know that the IGN couldn't have built these kind of ships earlier, only that they didn't want to build them at all, in OTL.

I think if they get a windbreak that actually deflects the wind they will be lucky....
I would add that visibility in north sea is going to be short much of the time and when its sufficiently good for hull down observation its a matter of looking for the giant plume of coal smoke not the ship! High speed means big engines that means you will need to keep lots of boilers on line and heated so lots of smoke.
Question.

Oil fired boilers produce as much smoke as coal fired boilers? Yes, I remember reading about smoke being the first thing one would see, but you need to determine what is making that smoke, not just that there is someone over the horizon. I realise that visibility is going to be an issue, but not more of an issue for these ships than for any other ships trying to perform the same function.

I know that I am suggesting building something that never was built, but that is the fun of ATL historical musings, the what if's this or that had been done differently. I remember standing guard duty, and that was as just a poor fool standing guard on dry land, the lookouts aboard ship, especially standing atop the heights of the superstructure/mast, really need a place out of the cold, wind, rain and such. Even then, I'm thinking that some of the guys assigned topside are going to be outdoors, because you don't want to miss anything because of rain or spray streaked windows. If the lookouts have to climb a mast rather than being inside/atop the ships superstructure, it sure would be nice to have a place right there to warm up, use the head, and get a cup of coffee, without having to climb down the mast or go below.

Does anyone know offhand what kind of magnification a 1906-1916 pair of hand held binoculars give? How much size and weight would be needed to improve upon this, to make mounting a pair of binocular telescopes as a lookout station? I'm thinking like 36" glasses, as opposed to maybe 6" glasses of the handheld type. I'm picturing multiple large mounts, almost the size of very light AA guns, although not anywhere near as heavy.

Anyway, it looks like the IGN could indeed build ships capable of 36 kts, and probably sooner than 1914, if they had wanted to, but in OTL they didn't want ships like this at all. In an ATL, where they don't build the BC's, they still need fast scouting, and thus will need ships like the 3,000 to 5,000 ton scouts proposed here. I'm just trying to visualize what these ships must look like, and how serving upon one would be made most effective building with scouting as the prime motivator in their design and construction.
 
My thought
Except that I was not suggesting that.....rather pointing out a historically built ship, with as close to the tonnage as I could find, that either met or exceeded the speed required/desired. The S113 simply proves that yes, the IGN could do 36+ kts. And if you read the page, remember why the S113 wasn't designed earlier, not because 1916 was the very soonest that Germany could build them, but rather their need to build them didn't become clear till after Jutland. The B97 was a 36 kts ship laid down in 1914, but these were not an intentional design, but rather a scavenger class built to use the engines intended for export to the Russians, so we really don't know that the IGN couldn't have built these kind of ships earlier, only that they didn't want to build them at all, in OTL. I don't think you can as its using 1916 engines, with 1906 technology they would be far bigger and since engines are almost the majority of a DDs hull volume having engines much bigger will not fit....

Oil fired boilers produce as much smoke as coal fired boilers? No I think oil will give better combustion especially with poor quality German coal at low power and coal boilers will take longer to power up so a ship that may need speed soon will need to have more burning generating more smoke.

Yes, I remember reading about smoke being the first thing one would see, but you need to determine what is making that smoke, not just that there is someone over the horizon. Not really if its large and smoking a lot in north sea its probably RN or HSF what it is exactly is far less important.
I realise that visibility is going to be an issue, but not more of an issue for these ships than for any other ships trying to perform the same function. More powerful ships can survive if they end up inside range unlike these ships that rely on running away fast before getting hit.

I know that I am suggesting building something that never was built, but that is the fun of ATL historical musings, the what if's this or that had been done differently. I remember standing guard duty, and that was as just a poor fool standing guard on dry land, the lookouts aboard ship, especially standing atop the heights of the superstructure/mast, really need a place out of the cold, wind, rain and such. Even then, I'm thinking that some of the guys assigned topside are going to be outdoors, because you don't want to miss anything because of rain or spray streaked windows. If the lookouts have to climb a mast rather than being inside/atop the ships superstructure, it sure would be nice to have a place right there to warm up, use the head, and get a cup of coffee, without having to climb down the mast or go below. It would be nice, but that's with hindsight of all the advances in ergonomics and human engineering of a century to help us.... they may need a place but historically they didn't get it and performance suffered as a result.

Does anyone know offhand what kind of magnification a 1906-1916 pair of hand held binoculars give? How much size and weight would be needed to improve upon this, to make mounting a pair of binocular telescopes as a lookout station? I'm thinking like 36" glasses, as opposed to maybe 6" glasses of the handheld type. I'm picturing multiple large mounts, almost the size of very light AA guns, although not anywhere near as heavy. Just how much will that size and quality of glass cost in 1906? Historically I don't think most battleships had even main gunnery directors of that quality?
....
 
Shadow Master said:
Except that I was not suggesting that.....rather pointing out a historically built ship, with as close to the tonnage as I could find, that either met or exceeded the speed required/desired. The S113 simply proves that yes, the IGN could do 36+ kts. And if you read the page, remember why the S113 wasn't designed earlier, not because 1916 was the very soonest that Germany could build them, but rather their need to build them didn't become clear till after Jutland. The B97 was a 36 kts ship laid down in 1914, but these were not an intentional design, but rather a scavenger class built to use the engines intended for export to the Russians, so we really don't know that the IGN couldn't have built these kind of ships earlier, only that they didn't want to build them at all, in OTL. I don't think you can as its using 1916 engines, with 1906 technology they would be far bigger and since engines are almost the majority of a DDs hull volume having engines much bigger will not fit....
The B97 was using a 1914 design, that was not even intended for the HSF. Had the HSF intended to have Destroyers/small Cruisers, do we actually have any facts that prove they couldn't have built these engines before 1914? From my work at trying to figure this stuff out, it doesn't appear that the Germans ever intended to build these ships at all, rather than, they built them as soon as they were able.


Oil fired boilers produce as much smoke as coal fired boilers? No I think oil will give better combustion especially with poor quality German coal at low power and coal boilers will take longer to power up so a ship that may need speed soon will need to have more burning generating more smoke.Cool.

Yes, I remember reading about smoke being the first thing one would see, but you need to determine what is making that smoke, not just that there is someone over the horizon.Not really if its large and smoking a lot in north sea its probably RN or HSF what it is exactly is far less important. Up thread, folks were making the argument that one needed to identify what it was that was making the smoke, and I have to agree to the extent of knowing whether it is a single merchantman, a single warship, or several.
I realise that visibility is going to be an issue, but not more of an issue for these ships than for any other ships trying to perform the same function. More powerful ships can survive if they end up inside range unlike these ships that rely on running away fast before getting hit. That, or ducking back into the fog that hid them or making their own smoke screen to mask their withdrawal.

I know that I am suggesting building something that never was built, but that is the fun of ATL historical musings, the what if's this or that had been done differently. I remember standing guard duty, and that was as just a poor fool standing guard on dry land, the lookouts aboard ship, especially standing atop the heights of the superstructure/mast, really need a place out of the cold, wind, rain and such. Even then, I'm thinking that some of the guys assigned topside are going to be outdoors, because you don't want to miss anything because of rain or spray streaked windows. If the lookouts have to climb a mast rather than being inside/atop the ships superstructure, it sure would be nice to have a place right there to warm up, use the head, and get a cup of coffee, without having to climb down the mast or go below. It would be nice, but that's with hindsight of all the advances in ergonomics and human engineering of a century to help us.... they may need a place but historically they didn't get it and performance suffered as a result. I have to agree that they historically didn't get the best working conditions that could have been provided with the technology and design capabilities of the day, but then again, in an ATL where the ships themselves are going to be built, it only makes sense that they also go to the extent possible.

Does anyone know offhand what kind of magnification a 1906-1916 pair of hand held binoculars give? How much size and weight would be needed to improve upon this, to make mounting a pair of binocular telescopes as a lookout station? I'm thinking like 36" glasses, as opposed to maybe 6" glasses of the handheld type. I'm picturing multiple large mounts, almost the size of very light AA guns, although not anywhere near as heavy. Just how much will that size and quality of glass cost in 1906? Historically I don't think most battleships had even main gunnery directors of that quality? I may have made a mistake here in describing what I am envisioning. I am talking about something with a length of 36", rather than a diameter of 36". :)
....
 
Interestingly Germany had a competitive advantage over other nations in the manufacture of quality glass, the fact that Britain had to buy german binoculers during ww1 is a clear sign of this.

I believe lookout often used the mark 1 human eyeball to find ships switching to binoculars to attempt to identify the ship at distance. The movement of a ship makes high magnification telescopes worthless. Ship moves one degree, 100x magnification telescope also moves 1 degree your sight will be no where near where it was.

The first practical gyroscopes were patented in 1904 but it wasn't till ww2 that it became practical to use them in anti air craft weapons. I would assume that stabilising a telescope on a ship is similar to stabilising an antiaircfraft gun on a ship. The again maybe it's a question of need and they never realised that you needed to gyroscopically stabilise aa guns til ww2.


As to determining what you see historically Britain operated with bcf and gf as separate forces. Bcf as an advanced scouts. The German goal was always to catch but and to destroy it before the rest of the Grand Fleet could reinforce. If you don't know what you are facing you are abandoning that tactic tonlure in the bcf and destroy it before the entire battleline (including 1sg) faced the grandfleet. Also if you only spot a screen the main body may well be 10 miles away. You think small cloud a few warships on its own. You get the entire Grand fleet steaming after you.
 
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