Naval Pictures V: The Glorious Fifth

[DoctorMonkey]

I feel someone should say "that's no island..." when seeing it

[Nightlord01]

I feel someone should say "that's no island..." when seeing it

I think any Allied forces seeing that one would be more along the lines of a string of four letter words followed by "Reverse course, all ahead full!"

[Kidd]

I think any Allied forces seeing that one would be more along the lines of a string of four letter words followed by "Reverse course, all ahead full!"

"Chewie, I said switch auxiliary power to thrusters!"

"Why are we still heading towards it?!"

[Feenix74]

Not being a naval type I am trying to get my head around the size of this thing, so I did some googling and I found this chart that helped me understand just how big this giga-battleship is in comparison to some real ships that I can sort of get my head around:



For those not familiar the Knock Nevis, it was the longest ship ever built, an Ultra Large Crude Carrier that was scrapped in 2009.

[JadeHellbringer]

First thing that occurred upon looking at Worktroll's 'Yokozuna' ship there... Musashi's launch formed a small tidal wave upon hitting the water, flooding a not-insignificant portion of the residential neighborhoods across the bay. This is going to be several times larger.

So.

1) Where do you build it? Yamato and Musashi (and Shinano) needed special slipways constructed for them, because the ones used for the Nagatos and such weren't capable of something their size. So this thing...?

2) How to launch it? As I said above, Musashi caused some major problems with her launch. What do you do in a case like this? I mean pointing it out towards the ocean sounds obvious, but that means your slipway (once you find a place for it) HAS to point a specific direction, and sometimes that's not the best direction for it to point. (Think of places like Norfolk, Suisun Bay, etc.)

3) How to keep it secret? Japan was all about secrecy, both from foreign powers and from their own people (as a measure towards that first goal). This included some almost-comical measures to keep the Yamatos secrets for as long as possible, and they worked- when the war ended and the signing took place on the Missouri, the official American estimates still listed them with 16-inch guns and 35,000-ton displacements (though analysts were pretty sure that was off by a good portion, no one expected it to be over double!). There's no way to keep this secret though... right? The sooner the Americans, British, etc. find out you're building something stupid like this they'll scramble to build something to match it, so you want to stretch that out as long as possible, right?

Beyond the engineering issues with something like it, that all lines up to say that a ship like this isn't even a reasonable feasibility study like the German 'H' was. This is... well, as others said, a waste of trig textbook space.

[HobbesHurlbut]

Nevermind the materials you need to build it.

[hoosierhick]

That big you're probably well into having to build it in a drydock and float it out instead of on a set of inclined building ways. At almost 2000 feet long the bow would be almost 70 feet higher than the stern on a 2 degree slipway.

[truetanker]

I wonder if she's as large as the OOCL Hong Kong, currently the largest ship out there?

TT

[ANS Kamas P81]

I should point out that that's also enough steel to build a hundred fifty Akizukis, with their top-tier AA armament.  And if anything was going to be effective in defense for Japan, it was gonna be AA ships.

[JadeHellbringer]

I should point out that that's also enough steel to build a hundred fifty Akizukis, with their top-tier AA armament.  And if anything was going to be effective in defense for Japan, it was gonna be AA ships.

Not bad at anti-sub warfare either, which ended up being arguably even more important to them.

Buuuuuuut, batshit-stupid battleship FTW, right?

Something to consider as well- even a more 'reasonable' (and we're going off a sliding scale on that) ship like the 'H' was said to have needed enough steel alone to use up a full year's worth of Tiger production. No question which was the more important asset to the Germans even when the war began, let alone by later in it! For the Japanese, it's even more critical- the whole reason they made their move on southeastern Asia (and in turn hitting Pearl Harbor to secure that move) was due to the lack of resources in their islands. Using that much of a rare asset on something like that... it boggles the mind that it was even considered enough to produce stats.

[Kidd]

At least it wasn't suggested to be made out of Pycrete.

[Feenix74]

I wonder if she's as large as the OOCL Hong Kong, currently the largest ship out there?

TT

Wikipedia indicates OOCL Hong Kong is 400 m in length, so giga-battleship is 50% bigger.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Not bad at anti-sub warfare either, which ended up being arguably even more important to them.

Buuuuuuut, batshit-stupid battleship FTW, right?

Something to consider as well- even a more 'reasonable' (and we're going off a sliding scale on that) ship like the 'H' was said to have needed enough steel alone to use up a full year's worth of Tiger production. No question which was the more important asset to the Germans even when the war began, let alone by later in it! For the Japanese, it's even more critical- the whole reason they made their move on southeastern Asia (and in turn hitting Pearl Harbor to secure that move) was due to the lack of resources in their islands. Using that much of a rare asset on something like that... it boggles the mind that it was even considered enough to produce stats.

What was the fuel requirements for the Musashi and Yamato?  How much more fuel would it have taken to move that lumbering leviathan?

[Sabelkatten]

At least it wasn't suggested to be made out of Pycrete.

Considering said lack of steel that might actually have been a better option... ^-^

[marauder648]

Absurd sized battleships you say?

Behold the H-44





And yes, thats her in scale to a Bismarck class ship

131,000 t
345 m (1,131 ft 11 in) long

    8 × 50.8 cm (20.0 in) guns
    12 × 15 cm (5.9 in) guns
    16 × 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns
    28 × 3.7 cm (1.5 in)
    40 × 2 cm (0.8 in) guns
    6 × 53.3 cm (21.0 in) torpedo tubes

Dem Wunderwaffen!

[Wrangler]

As much as Nazi Germans were in very wrong.  I would have loved to have seen that big behemoth built just see how well it would have done.

[marauder648]

Probably very poorly, looking at her armament, main guns aside, she's little improved over a Bismarck class ship.  Same number of secondaries, same number of heavy AA guns, and a somewhat enlarged number of light AA (including the very bad 37mm gun which had each shell individually loaded and fired).  So she'd be pretty darn vulnerable to air attack.

[Wrangler]

Wasn't some of her main guns suppose have gotten "bigger", starting with H-39 going to 16inch guns and progressing into the 20inch range by H44?

[marauder648]

Yep that's right, H-39 was to have 16-inch guns, some of which were actually built and mounted in coastal defences in the Atlantic Wall.  But as the design number went up, so too did the size of their guns, with H-44 having 20-inch rifles.

I did read one AH story where she's built but her battle is only part of the wider narrative of the story. The story starts off with a different Market Garden, which instead of going for the Dutch bridges, goes to clear out the Scheldt Estury and free up Antwerp.  In that TL the Germans did build a few H-39 type ships as well as some O Class Battlecruisers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-class_battlecruiser  As well as some more Carriers, but by the time of the AU Market Garden, all they have left is the Gnisenau (Now with 15-inch guns), Lutzow, a handful of cruisers and destroyers, a CV and the H-44 Germania. and these ships are sent out to block the Estury and run into an Anglo-American force.

I found the story on my hard drive, if anyone wants, PM me and I can lob it to you via email.

[Wrangler]

On to pictures, since i'm starved of not seeing more ships  xp

Sad day for MCMs, USS Guardian dismantled in the Pacific.

[JadeHellbringer]

What was the fuel requirements for the Musashi and Yamato?  How much more fuel would it have taken to move that lumbering leviathan?

They weren't as bad as one might think, but they also weren't designed for standard turbines either- the ships were actually intended for high-speed diesels. The engines ended up being failures, and a hasty redesign resulted in the slightly slower version we know and gawk at.

I've always found this interesting, because diesels are a big gamble on a heavy warship. Note that the only other heavyweight warships of the era to use them were the Deutschland-class pocket battleships- they needed the extra range that diesels would provide. That's a good thing, of course, but the Germans were constantly worried about how to handle major engine problems- a faulty cylinder in a Volkswagen means you switch it out, but on a ship like this it means tearing out multiple armored decks to get to the problem and replace it- for obvious protection reasons, you can't have hatches leading to the engines. Those were around 12,000 tons roughly, with cruiser armor. Now take a ship several times bigger and armored thicker than any other ship in history (by thickness if not effectiveness). You'd be damned near scrapping part of the ship just to get to the bad components- a simple replacement on a smaller ship becomes MONTHS of related repairs.

Japan probably lucked out on the way things worked out- it cost them a couple of knots of speed, but in the end it probably was the right tradeoff to make.

[I am Belch II]

Got about 50 photos of the Norfolk Navy Yard, there were about 40 ships from Aircraft Carriers down in size. Just having problem downloading some of the photos.

[HobbesHurlbut]

Considering said lack of steel that might actually have been a better option... ^-^

Actually no, that is the reason the Great Britain dismissed Pycrete; for the proposed ice carrier they needed a LOT of steel for the refrigeration units which defeat the point of finding an alternative resource to steel.

[Istal_Devalis]

Not bad at anti-sub warfare either, which ended up being arguably even more important to them.

Yeah. The US Sub fleet did a MAJOR number on Japan's economics. It's something that doesn't tend to get much focus since everyone likes to look at the big fleet and carrier battles. It didnt help that a lot of US Sub captains actually specifically targeted Destroyers and that Japan didnt have the means to replace them all to easily, either.

[Weirdo]

Yeah, there's a reason why the modern JMSDF is almost obsessively focused on ASW capabilities.

[Kidd]

Yeah, there's a reason why the modern JMSDF is almost obsessively focused on ASW capabilities.

Its really almost the only remit for the Navy given their total defence stance for the latter half of the 20th century. Almost narrow-mindedly so.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Yeah, there's a reason why the modern JMSDF is almost obsessively focused on ASW capabilities.

It'd be easy to blockade the island, and honestly during the Bad Days of the cold war, what naval power projection did the Soviets legitimately have?  Get good at ASW or die.  I imagine they've just kept the specialty, playing against an area-denial form of warfare rather than full supremacy.  Keep the islands clear of subs, give the Americans a chance to get forces in theater, and they can weather the rest.

[Nightlord01]

Yeah, there's a reason why the modern JMSDF is almost obsessively focused on ASW capabilities.

The JMSDF isn't obsessively focused on ASW, they just don't put AAW on a pedestal like most other navies do.

And in honour of our friends, here's the worlds largest Destroyer, the Izumo Class DDH JS Izumo:

[Kidd]

Re: Izumo




Anyway, for the UK's Type 31e frigate programme, Babcock is proposing the "Arrowhead 140" which is based on the Danish Iver Huitfeldt hull



HDMS Peter Willemoes for comparison

[Feenix74]

Yep, just like how the USN had the old forerunner "Littorial Combat Ship" to provide Naval Gunfire Support  ^-^