What If - 18in armed CA—2D project

[trajan]

Can this warship design change its turret to 2 double-mounted 17-inch turret or 2 triple-mounted 16-inch turrent?

All pictures are from Navweaps and Spring style.

 

[that_person]

Isn’t this an Alaska preliminary study? Assuming it is, just remember there where proposals to fit the Iowa’s with 18” guns, but it could only fit 2 per barbette. Now you have a ship designed for an even smaller gun.

 

[trajan]

Isn’t this an Alaska preliminary study? Assuming it is, just remember there where proposals to fit the Iowa’s with 18” guns, but it could only fit 2 per barbette. Now you have a ship designed for an even smaller gun.

Ennnnnn....
I mean whether this design can replace the main weapon with four 18-inch main guns and install them in two twin turrets.

It does not mean that the weaponry has been replaced with four double-mounted 18-inch main guns.Just similar to the large cruiser FURIOUS in the British World War I.

 

[trajan]

Perhaps this design can replace the main weapon with three or four single-tube 18-inch turrets used by FURIOUS？
I always feel that using only 12-inch main guns on such a large warship is a bit "wasted tonnage"?(；一_一)

 

[Tzoli]

No. The best you can get is 4 single 18"
It is accepted truth that for each 2 inches of increase in calibre you sacrifice a barrel. Except if you accept bad dispersion of closely placing the cannons in a single turret or on even single cradles.
So:
3x12" -> 2x14" -> 1x16" / 1x18" / 1x20"
or with uneven numbers:
3x12" -> 3x13" -> 2x15" -> 1x17" / 1x19"
With closely placed barrels:
3x12" -> 3x14" -> 2x16" / 2x18" -> 1x20"

CA-2D and thus Alaska has cruiser heritage designed to fight the German Deutschlands and the Japanese Chichibus hence the 12" to fight 8" and 11" armed vessels. They were not designed to fight against other capital ships. Just like the original battlecruisers were not meant to fight alongside battleships in a typical line of battle.

 

[Dilandu]

I mean whether this design can replace the main weapon with four 18-inch main guns and install them in two twin turrets.

Even if it possible, it makes no sense. Just four guns would not get enough volume of fire to have statistically good probability of hitting the target.

 

[muttly]

This is true. The Alaska class was designed to destroy cruisers, any cruiser be it the proposed
Japanese super cruisers or commerce raiders or the enemy heavy cruisers in the pacific.
Larger guns than the special designed 12 in would not be needed.

 

[that_person]

Why would you want to up-gun the Alaska’s when you already had the fast battleships? Seems like a waste to me.

 

[Dilandu]

Perhaps this design can replace the main weapon with three or four single-tube 18-inch turrets used by FURIOUS？
I always feel that using only 12-inch main guns on such a large warship is a bit "wasted tonnage"?(；一_一)

Not really. Alaska's 12-inch guns fired very heavy, 517-kg AP shell. It have a very good deck penetration - basically, compared to 14-inch shells of older superdreadnoughts.

 

[Dilandu]

Why would you want to up-gun the Alaska’s when you already had the fast battleships? Seems like a waste to me.

Not to mention, that making additional heavy guns would badly affect the production of 16-inch guns for "proper" battleships. Armament industry is not limitless.

 

[trajan]

ennnnnT_T
In fact, my initial idea was to change to a FURIOUS single-mounted 18-inch turret, but I couldn’t find the design drawing for the turret, which made me unable to determine whether this concept is feasible.

No. The best you can get is 4 single 18"
It is accepted truth that for each 2 inches of increase in calibre you sacrifice a barrel. Except if you accept bad dispersion of closely placing the cannons in a single turret or on even single cradles.
So:
3x12" -> 2x14" -> 1x16" / 1x18" / 1x20"
or with uneven numbers:
3x12" -> 3x13" -> 2x15" -> 1x17" / 1x19"
With closely placed barrels:
3x12" -> 3x14" -> 2x16" / 2x18" -> 1x20"

CA-2D and thus Alaska has cruiser heritage designed to fight the German Deutschlands and the Japanese Chichibus hence the 12" to fight 8" and 11" armed vessels. They were not designed to fight against other capital ships. Just like the original battlecruisers were not meant to fight alongside battleships in a typical line of battle.

 

[trajan]

Perhaps this design can replace the main weapon with three or four single-tube 18-inch turrets used by FURIOUS？
I always feel that using only 12-inch main guns on such a large warship is a bit "wasted tonnage"?(；一_一)

Not really. Alaska's 12-inch guns fired very heavy, 517-kg AP shell. It have a very good deck penetration - basically, compared to 14-inch shells of older superdreadnoughts.

As for the idea of changing CA2D guns, it comes from this overhead history: the U.S. Navy has reached the Japanese mainland, and IJN has been destoryed at this time. The subsequent of CA3-CA6 began to focus on the design of the opposite bombardment, so they changed their equipment. The 18-inch main gun was used to bomb permanent fortifications on land

 

[CV12Hornet]

Perhaps this design can replace the main weapon with three or four single-tube 18-inch turrets used by FURIOUS？
I always feel that using only 12-inch main guns on such a large warship is a bit "wasted tonnage"?(；一_一)

Not really. Alaska's 12-inch guns fired very heavy, 517-kg AP shell. It have a very good deck penetration - basically, compared to 14-inch shells of older superdreadnoughts.

As for the idea of changing CA2D guns, it comes from this overhead history: the U.S. Navy has reached the Japanese mainland, and IJN has been destoryed at this time. The subsequent of CA3-CA6 began to focus on the design of the opposite bombardment, so they changed their equipment. The 18-inch main gun was used to bomb permanent fortifications on land

For shore bombardment purposes I'd rather have the volume of fire 12 12" brings rather than four 18".

 

[Dilandu]

As for the idea of changing CA2D guns, it comes from this overhead history: the U.S. Navy has reached the Japanese mainland, and IJN has been destoryed at this time. The subsequent of CA3-CA6 began to focus on the design of the opposite bombardment, so they changed their equipment. The 18-inch main gun was used to bomb permanent fortifications on land

It would require more than a year of works, to replace the armament. Not much point in doing this, considering that USN have plenty of fire support ships.

 

[muttly]

The old battle wagons with 14 and 16 in guns were pretty good at shore bombardment.
nothing else needed.

 

[_Sarcasticat_]

They were not designed to fight against other capital ships. Just like the original battlecruisers were not meant to fight alongside battleships in a typical line of battle.

Don't tell Imperial Germany this

 

[pathology_doc]

They were not designed to fight against other capital ships. Just like the original battlecruisers were not meant to fight alongside battleships in a typical line of battle.

Don't tell Imperial Germany this

True, but the original battlecruisers to which he's referring were British.

 

[pathology_doc]

It is accepted truth that for each 2 inches of increase in calibre you sacrifice a barrel.

I wonder how far it is legitimate to extrapolate this in the other direction. My inner 10 year old is already running the numbers. Quad 10 inch, quintuple 8 inch, sextuple 6 inch...

It would require more than a year of works, to replace the armament. Not much point in doing this, considering that USN have plenty of fire support ships.

Yeah. Eventually all dreams must yield to manufacturing and logistical realities. The US among all the WW2 combatants was probably most able to ignore or forestall these, seeing as its industrial base was both huge and immune to bombing or invasion, but even it had its limits.
In a hypothetical universe where you don't nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or where you do so but Japan fights on anyway and there aren't enough nukes to go around, there's very little you're going to hit with shore bombardment that a 16 inch gun won't crack. If there were, by that time RAF Tiger Force would have been in theatre with their Lancasters, and could drop Tallboy or Grand Slam with a reasonable chance of being unmolested by what's left of Japanese air power.

 

[muttly]

The united states was planning the Montana class, more of the Alaska class,
and ships to attack commerce raiders to fight what. the super cruisers or
the 20in Yamatos. Ships the Japanese could only dream of. All a waste of
time and resources.