New Experimental Light Cruiser

[Jefgte]

Good concept for coastal work or BB protection vs TBs.

But what she can do with only 2x8" ?

IMO, remove 2x8" & increase the speed

;)

[TexanCowboy]

Threadjacker. :). This is about a rocket cruiser.

[ctwaterman]

I feel that this is not thread Jacking meerly a case of reality.

You want to pack the deck of you ship with well lots and lots of Volatile Rockets with Hight Explosive warheads.  The max range of said rockets is around 7000 Meters.  What is going to happen to said ship when it receives a single 5" or 6" High Exlosive deck hit from outside of that 7000 m ??????

The Term is Sypmethetic Detonation of all  your rockets and warheads it will the 4th of July on the deck of your ship.

Have you considered what the Exhaust of a massive volley of such rockets would do to the deck of the ship behind them ????

[Korpen]

Threadjacker. :). This is about a rocket cruiser.

I do not think that suggesting an alternative suggestion to a problem thredjacking.

I feel that this is not thread Jacking meerly a case of reality.

You want to pack the deck of you ship with well lots and lots of Volatile Rockets with Hight Explosive warheads.  The max range of said rockets is around 7000 Meters.  What is going to happen to said ship when it receives a single 5" or 6" High Exlosive deck hit from outside of that 7000 m ??????

The Term is Sypmethetic Detonation of all  your rockets and warheads it will the 4th of July on the deck of your ship.

Have you considered what the Exhaust of a massive volley of such rockets would do to the deck of the ship behind them ????

All very true!

Something else about rockets; they basically give you a light launcher weight for a very high over all projectile weight. The larger the number of projectiles, the less favourable rockets become, for the weight invested in rockets you could mount a 20cm gun and quite a bit of ammunition instead. A rocket with a 70hm max range will be an area weapon, and not really suited to attacking a moving point object such as a ship at any range above point blank. I grant that things depend a bit on the flight profile of the rocket, if it is winged like an aircraft it is most likely more accurate at medium-short ranges as it got a longer danger zone, but less so then a ballistic rocket at longer ranges as it is much more affected by wind (like all fin-stabilized projectiles), less predictable decent and much lower speed and acceleration.

If using rockets I think that going more massed is a waste, they would cost more then shells, be very much a once-use weapon and present a huge fire hazard, as Charles point out.
If using them better have one or two, as a short range-extra punch.

Another problem with the entire cruiser concept, cruisers are speed, and hence engine, critical.  Romania only got obsolete engine tech and a modern 1916 engine weight about 20% less then the 1909 ones, so I think to build a "fast" ship is somewhat wasteful until you have caught up a bit in engine tech.

Yes I know I from pure routine used 1916 engines in my suggestion.

[hooper82]

Couldn't the Rocket Tech be useful for Shore Bombardment where accuracy is a little less important?

Similar to the way the USN used it on their landing ships in WW2.

[Logi]

Yes but apparently Texan thinks otherwise.

[TexanCowboy]

I didn't say it couldn't. That was one of the goals of the regular rocket, a modified land attack without the sea skimming feature.

[ctwaterman]

Yes once you get spin stabalized and all sort of other features you can get the pure massive volley like the US used durring the Normandy Invasion.  Pack a dozen or more Rocket launchers into a small disposable ship and use them to saturate the shore.  They mostly cleared minefields.   But have you considered what happens when a single enemy HE shells hits that ship.  I think it happened and it looked like one massive mushroom cloud of explosions.

Also the range of the rockets used by the US was significantly less then 7000km

http://books.google.com/books?id=TpJTNm6eKEMC&pg=PA170&lpg=PA170&dq=Shore+Bombardment+Rockets&source=bl&ots=k4vM11Rsiu&sig=Pu6noH2tIE8t_zohF8rQg53VWw0&hl=en&ei=svOdSv2dI4uGNPqlgY4C&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=Shore%20Bombardment%20Rockets&f=false

http://www.microworks.net/pacific/armament/rockets.htm

http://www.pt-boat.com/rocket/rocket.html

The problem is even in 1944/45 many of these systems didnt have the ranges people are looking for here in 1916 :)

Charles