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Oddball Battleship designs

Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 1:37 am
by Saxondog
The first US Dreadnoughts were all center line main guns,this was smart and these were the first to have all centreline main guns. But we had our moment of really stupid warship designs.

http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/battleships/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; This site has list and photos of all U.S. Capital ships,past and present.
U.S.S.Kentucky pre-dreadnought with dual turret design 13"on bottom 8" on top, very stupid design.
U.S.S.Kentucky pre-dreadnought with dual turret design 13"on bottom 8" on top, very stupid design.
South Carolina first Dreadnought with center line main guns 8x12"
South Carolina first Dreadnought with center line main guns 8x12"

Re: Oddball Battleship designs

Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 2:04 pm
by dylan9391
South Carolina is a fabulous Dreadnought and what a model.

Re: Oddball Battleship designs

Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 2:58 pm
by Wolftone
Saxondog, LoL at your comment about "stupid warship designs". And the link. Very interesting indeed.

Re: Oddball Battleship designs

Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 7:33 pm
by Saxondog
The best site I have found is Hazegray. http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/battleships/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; They list the ships of the world, also the US navy site has a History link. The picture of South Carolina is the builders model. I wonder about these models being lost,but I found a article where many of them were in storage and were restored for display at Annapolis Naval Academy.

It is sad that so few of the first Generation Dreadnoughts are left,only one I know of is USS Texas. Most were scrapped by the Washington treaty in the late 20's early 1930"s. It is ironic that Britain and the United states observed the treaty while Japan,Germany and Italy built several ships claiming they were 35000 tons that were in fact much larger.

HMS Rodney and HMS Nelson being treaty battleships,and the US South Dakota and North Carolina classes were built to treaty standards or 35000 tons. Many of these ships are museum ships now.

Saxondog

Re: Oddball Battleship designs

Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2011 9:41 am
by dylan9391
Nelson is an interesting as ship as it looks as if they had built the front a graceful long battleship and then thought that if it is made to original length it will defy the treaty, so we'd better put a hull on it about half way long, so that we comply.

Re: Oddball Battleship designs

Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2011 6:08 pm
by Saxondog
They have been described as ugly many times,their hull was a very stable gun platform as they were wider than most ships. But very slow at 23knots top speed. You may know this but American battleships were built to transit the Panama canal which was a max.of 110ft so the ships were built to 108feet max.

Many British ships were built in this standard as well. Of course Bismarck,Tirpitz did not comply with the restriction. Or other ships like Yamato and Mushashi. British Battleships were built narrow by world standards,90.5ft for Queen Elizabeth class and 88.5 for the Royal Sovereign class. The later classes all observed the Panama canal restriction of 108 max.

Re: Oddball Battleship designs

Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2011 8:45 pm
by dylan9391
I like these interesting facts regarding warships, so many thanks for that Blake great. I have a plan to build one example of different warship types from the ages in my preferred 1/200 scale. I still like the Airfix 1/600 scale models and I am glad I have got them, but I just like the idea of having a nice selection of r/c models in my preferred scale.

First thing now is to build a selection of display cases, so that when they are completed I don't have to worry about dust. Dust is such a problem especially in my workshop. Anyway so far I have got HMS Fearless, a Leander Class Ikara Frigate, HMS Ark Royal V (hull and some fittings made), HMS Resolution (submarine) and HMS Birmingham Type 42 (fibreglass plug made). HMS Anson (on the go), plans for HMS Hood and plans for Inflexible. I am after Royal Sovereign (100 rate), or Victory and that would be quite a nice selection.