Largest Possible and Feasible Battleship Armaments

[P3D]

Sim the ships with 14" barbette armor and there'd be some difference.

I think that goes back to your expected battle parameters. Certainly if you expect to be sailing in paralell lines it is not a big issue.  The negatives are a restricted arc of fire, a 3rd magizine area, and that you have to fit the barbettes in the middle of what is typically a machinery area. 

One criticism I read of a USN design included having steam pipes right next to the amidships magizine, raising temperatures. However this type of design flaw doesn't seem to be "Q" specific, as designers not paying attention to heat sources and magazine location pops up repeatedly when reading about such vessels.

That's usually the problem. Moreover, placing turrets in the middle of the ship requires too much deck real estate, but SS2 does not account for that.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Well, the 4-gun turret on KGV was 1,582 tons, the 2-gun turret 915.  So 4 guns in twins would be 1830- basically 248tons more than a quad.   8 guns would be 3164 for quads and 3660 for twins, a difference of 496t or 15%...without considering the barbettes.  On the 330mm/50 page it mentions that the French thought the dual quads were 27.6% lighter- quite substantial and presumably including barbettes- but that's armament weight, not ship weight.  If 496 = 15%, then 27.6% comes to 909. Or  about 3% of the overall ship weight. Which fits roughly with what SS2 is generating.

As for comp hull- if the entire point of a quad is to concentrate weight in a smaller area...that would make sense that it's harder to disperse that loading on the hull..?

[Logi]

The main advantage of quads and the sort is to not have to raise guns. If I put 4 guns in a twins with one superfiring that might cost 0.02 composite strength than a single quad. That adds up.

That is not counting that quads don't affect stability and seakeeping as much. Both of which may require more than 0.02 composite strength to correct.

[Kaiser Kirk]

The difference on my Wotan, which would still have a raised "b", is 0.08 - fairly large. It's just that it doesn't represent much tonnage.  Spacing the turrets "a", "q" "Y" gives 0.13, but you're back to mid-ships mounts.   Seakeeping does rise, but not to a level of obvious benefit on this design.
Overall, it does seem like SS2 does reward Quads as more efficient weight wise in many cases.

[Valles]

Maori practice is very strange, in regards to steam piping - any Maori ship larger than a destroyer essentially has two separate engineering plants, with their own boilers feeding steam to turbines right next to them driving generators right next to them. There are steam pipes running between the two engineering sections, but they're generally not used unless battle damage takes out a compartment or two.

The 'deck space' issue is more of a problem, frankly, and, while my next BB will be noticeably longer than Cross Mirage, I only consider her cramping issues to be more of a result of trying so very hard to keep the length down.

[Kaiser Kirk]

While the Bavarians are going with Turbo-electric drive, and a unit machinery arrangement, so you don't have superheated steam pipes running around between compartments- you have electrical conduits.  It also makes the ships more manueverable.

[Delta Force]

Since the CSA still uses direct drive and doesn't even use geared drive yet, would it be considered too rash if I were to make my next class of ships all turbo-electric? When the USN adopted it historically on the New Mexico, it was the only ship of its class to be equipped with the system since they wanted to test it against a more traditional powerplant on an identical ship.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Actually they tried it out in a collier first. In reality the plant weights more, but is more fuel efficient by far than direct drive- a big factor for the long range USN.  It has less of a fuel margin over geared, but the US at that time was having issues getting gears like that cut.

In Navalism, it's mainly a story point, though I'd expect you might see mod consideration in limited cases. From a storyline POV, if you're developing it yourself, I'd suggest a 'trial' ship or two.  If you're incorporating somebody else's tech, presumably they've worked out the bugs. Just my 2 cents.

[Valles]

The Maori have traded tech with the CSA in the past - to the point that they 'owe a favor or two' - and electric drive isn't the kind of particularly complicated thing that'd be kept massively hush-hush anyway.

[ctwaterman]

Heck the Italians have been puttering with it off and on for awhile.

Charles

[Delta Force]

Sorry for asking so many noobie questions, but I was wondering if most of the damage from a shell impact came from the physical impact of the shell itself or from the bursting charge. In armored warfare the high explosive shells are used to destroy lightly armored vehicles, while AP shells are used on vehicles with thicker armor. Since all naval shells have a little bit of both, it is a bit more complex. But I assume that the general rule of thumb is to use HE on everything lacking heavy armor and also for damaging the superstructure?

[Logi]

I believe the damage from a shell comes almost entirely from it's explosive filler. The only reason for the heavy metal in an AP round is to penetrate. Penetration alone does fairly little damage.

[Kaiser Kirk]

Logi is generally correct.
Early AP shells didn't have worthwhile fuses, and couldn't penetrate intact, so were there to punch holes in things.

There are several elements to naval shell damage.  Potentially, you have an object weighing a ton, moving at mach 1+, decellerating in the space of your armor belt.
Penetration or not, that is a great deal of kinetic energy that just got absorbed somewhere.  Belts may be displaced, frames bent, hull members dished out, turrets jammed, etc.  BUT if the armor worked, then that's the worst of it.

Then there are penetrations which are 'sorta'. - The nose of the shell pushes through the deck armor, but as the nose decellerates at one angle, the tail is still moving, and the shell breaks, dishing the armor and ejecting a spray of armor and broken metal on the far side, while keeping the shell out.  Or a shell hits the belt, but as the AP cap digs in, the shell lacks the KE or stiffness, and so penetrates partially before breaking up, ejecting a plug of armor on the far side moving at high speed.  Again, armor worked, but you may feel it.

But if the shell penetrates intact, not only is it now pushing shrapnel from the armor and any structural members, but it's fuse is active and in 20-30 feet it should detonate, in which case you have large shards of metal moving at high speeds in the critical area of your vessel. Should they rip through a magazine the flash could be bad, if they tear through a boiler you will have a form of explosion, etc.   

So once you get that bursting charge to it's destination, it's golden :) 

[Delta Force]

Could a boiler explosion in itself pose a danger to the ship, or was that mostly isolated to wood framed vessels that could easily catch fire? I don't recall hearing of any major vessels in either World War suffering boiler damage that destroyed the ship. Mostly torpedoes, mines, and aerial attack or magazine explosions destroyed ships. Never heard of a boiler explosion dooming a steel warship.

[Borys]

Ahoj!
Some lingo to go along with KK's post:
- the nose of the projectile digging into the armour, the shell bending/breaking and the tail end of the shell hitting the armour flat-on, that's "base slap"
- the shell fails to penetrate, but the impact makes the armour shed a rain of red hot pieces of metal to the inside, that's "spalling";


Spalling led to the development of HESH rounds, BTW.

And no, HEAT and HESH rounds are no good against battleships :) - interior volume is too large.
Borys