Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battleships? - SCB 19 and the Incomplete Iowa class
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- Опубликовано: 24 дек 2024
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Today we take a look at some of the considered options for completing USS Kentucky and USS Illinois after the end of WW2, with some reference to the iteration of the Illinois found in the game World of Warships.
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Pinned post for Q&A :)
If you could, which ship that was scrapped would you preserve?
@C because the autoloading 8 inch was given far more elevation for main battery AA purposes though yes quad/quad 12 inch autoloaders with AA mountings is what i would in fact spec for because apparently the 12/50 gun was quite the piece of work on the alaska's.
Would an anti aircraft ship such as this no longer be a battleship, and so not be designated BB-65?
Which would be more dangerous to cruisers, the original Iowa with its 9 16 inch guns or the g or h version of this design? I'm wondering if heading into Korea and then the early Cold War if the g or h would have been more effective surface ships then the Iowas.
the overheating boiler on HMS Sheffield is well known, but I recall hearing somewhere that Belfast also had the same problem, is this true? and if so did the entire Town class suffer from overheating boilers?
I'm pretty sure I drew ships like these back when I was 8 years old. Little did I know that was actually an unappreciated naval engineer.
I mean lets be honest, that's all naval/aviation engineering really is.
I know I did. I would have been if not competent then at least a very entertaining naval engineer/architect 😆😆
My designs would have definitely made it on a list with the title "things that sounded really good on paper but weren't really thought trough all the way"
SCB-19, object class: keter. SCB-19 appears as an Iowa-class battleship with an inordinate amount of AA guns pointing in all directions. Special Containment Procesures: appears to be invulnerable to regular means of aerial attack, however is uniquely accepting of mk. 14 torpedos. This will not reduce aggression, however it will allow the intended victim sufficient time to escape.
Observation 19-6: The submersible [REDACTED] while conducting routine hydrographic surveys of SCB-19 noted a "school" (SCB-19-A) of torpedos (SCB-19-B) following SCB-19. Signature analysis of SCB-19-B instances indicate engine and blade noises comparable to USN Mark-14 torpedoes and [REDACTED]. It is recommended that the Institute refrain from the further use of Mark-14 torpedoes until the hazards of SCB-19-A and SCB-19-B can be adequately assessed.
or a few SS-20 shipwreck missiles could also do the trick.
Additional : A "D" class Histriographer has been assigned to review this anomaly and on completion should be given Type 4 Amnesics.
Observation 19-8: During an attack by SCB-19 upon the flotilla of Institute patrol boats assigned to monitor the object, the Institute submarine _Shipbreaker_ launched two P-700 _Granit_ (SS-N-19 _Shipwreck)_ anti-shipping missiles at SCB-19 in an attempt to hold off SCB-19 without creating further instances of SCB-19-B. Upon the missiles approaching within 6,500 meters of SCB-19, [DATA EXPUNGED] from the superstructure guns, immediately followed by a blinding flash of light emanating from SCB-19, at which point SCB-19-A [DATA EXPUNGED]. No trace of the involved patrol boats or their crew has been recovered to date. Remote sensing indicates that SCB-19-A has split into two schools keeping station to port and starboard of SCB-19 and that a number of SCB-19-B instances are now scattered around SCB-19 outside these two instances of SCB-19-A, as well as the presence of two objects with characteristics similar to P-700 missiles (designated SCB-19-C) orbiting SCB-19 at a distance of 3,500 meters.
In short, yet one more thing Dr. Bright is not allowed to do.
WWII era US Army: Our tanks need a lot machine guns.
WWII era US Navy: We need a ship with a lot of big machine guns.
"We don't need to be a good shot, we just need to shoot more bullets! I mean shells."
Also WWII era USAAF policy.
"Say Bill, how many guns did you say this B-17 thing was supposed to have?"
"How ever many 'all of them' is Ted"
This feels like an exercise in "How many AA systems do you want?" with the answer of "Yes."
What type of AA do we want? ALL OF THEM!
"I don't think you understood what I was asking for. What I meant was, 'Go find all of the guns, and put all of them on my ship', is that clear?"
*excited nodding with a huge grin*
feels like soemthing the soviets wiht their love of multi-layer AA Komplexes would approve off LOL:.
@@IronWarhorsesFun Imagine if that happened during the Cold War and the Soviets got to put SAMs on it. They would be ecstatic.
So the officer from the Enterprise who recommended putting 20mm everywhere finally got his way ..?
Elias B Mott. High priest of the cult of Oerlikon.
@@ph89787 more dakka
@@ph89787 hehehehehehe
That space on the wings of the fighters? 2 guys with 20mms on a harness, like a wing walker
@@ph89787 Amen to that ..!
"Pre Dreadnaught design"
My brain tried to imagine a tumble home Iowa and then had to reboot.
yep
Add enough torpedo bulge and any hull can become tumblehome.
Oh no...
@@someopinion "torpedoboat flashbacks"
Stop, STOP now you've gone and short circuited my brain too goddammit
Being a resident of the state of Illinois (no, I’m nowhere near Chicago lol), I’m still a little disappointed BB-65 was never completed, even if she was completed as a modified design.
However, I’m happy to relay some part of Illinois still lives on. Her bell, still stamped BB-65, is currently kept in the University of Illinois Champaign’s (American) football stadium. Whenever the Fighting Illini score a touchdown, the voice of BB-65 rings out over the field.
I like hearing stories like this.
That is great, I love that her bell is alive. I just ordered her for my 1/2400 fleet about a week ago, she and Kentucky as well, it's cool that this video comes along not long afterwards.
at least you are not from Montana
I would deny being near Chicago, too.
To avoid diplomatic incidents, we should not allow foreign diplomats to drive on freeways near Chicago.
That's dope
By my math, by mass one could emplace more than twenty 5-inch/54-caliber Mark 16 guns for every 16-inch/50 Mark 7 gun. I'm not sure how one could find the space for 180 5-inch gun mounts, but if anyone could manage that many barrels, it was the WW2 USN.
"I'm not sure how one could find the space for 180 5-inch gun mounts"
Years ago, in the popular tabletop wargame Warhammer 40.000 they came up with "Vehicle Design Rules". A set of rules that allowed players to come up with designs for their own vehicles.
Someone pointed out that the most cost efficient design possible, was a tank with noting more than one hundred boltguns on it (an boltgun is the equivalent of a modern day grenade launcher) since those were very cheep, and would be horribly unbalanced in game.
The designer responded with "if they can actually make a model that can fit 100 bolters on it and fire them at the target, they deserve to win."
Once again, what may seem possible in theory, is not always possible in practice!
@@Grubnar I am fairly certain I could fit at least 10 hurricane bolters on a Land Raider chassis so I am 60% of the way there.
Well, if you smoosh some guns together to make a 4-to-8 barrel design, that theoretically turns it into 90 mounts, 60 mounts, and 45 mounts respectively. That last one is definitely more likely to fit, but would be some pretty fucking tall turrets with two rows of four guns...
Its not just the mass of the turret/barrels you have to consider but the support systems also. Each additional turret requires access to a magazine of ammo, a crew and electronic systems.
Not to mention that 5" guns will probably get through a larger volume of ammo in a given engagement than their equivilent weight in 16" guns requiring you to increase the size of the magazine, and therefore also the armour scheme for the citadel surrounding it.
You take the remote control gun control gear from a B-29 and modify it to suit?
A humble request for future videos: for those of us who have a hard time picking out small details (especially on phones) of faded schematics, would it be possible to include some digital indicators (arrows, highlights, circles, etc...)?
A note of appreciation for your U.S. buddy who researched and then directly asked the National Archives to scan the extant blue-prints (remember those?) to enable this episode. Kudos to both, especially the good'uns who so carefully performed the physical task itself. 75 year old paper once chemically saturated was surely a challenge.
Well if I heard well, and this is quite an assumption, Drach is talking about the Prince Philip who was the husband of Queen Elizabeth. But being French and old, I may have misheard... But Drach is worldwide famous so 😉
I once had some early-1800s US Army fort plans copied at the National Archives. Many of these were laminated for preservation and ease in copying.
Y'all probably know this, but the main engines for the USS Sacramento and USS Camden came from the USS Kentucky...They built four Sacramento-class AOEs with the last decomm'd in 2005.
I'm an archivist at one of the Ivies and scan requests is like 30% of my job. You should never feel like you're imposing by asking for scans. Some places will act annoyed, or nickel and dime you, or slow walk it but many, many more places recognize this as one of the essential services and are therefore equipped to handle requests.
USS Atlanta: I clear the sky for you!
USS Illinois: Hold my beer!
🤺😉
Darn. Beat me to it. (My comment above)
Not enough room for plane in sky if you replace sky with explosion.
U.S.S. Gridley CG-21 boiler technician here. 'Skuttlebutt' was our captain was upset when they removed our twin 50 caliber guns and installed the Phalanx CIWS. The other BT's told me he used to shoot an M-16 off the bridge to pass time I suppose(?). They also told me they'd light the boilers off the back wall. I was a 6YO BT and I said that ain't gonna happen, as well as my 'initiation', which they mixed up greases, coffee grounds, cigarette butts, blue dye, etc. and hung you upside down to apply it. It happened, yet I dunked my hand in it and got them good. Only problem was the captain unexpectedly came down for inspection. I hid under the escape trunk until the coast was clear. I miss you Bug, Boo-boo Bair, and French Frie, even though you used to call me Sgt. Joe Friday behind my back("Just the facts!!!")
Can you imagine this mighty anti-air BB in today's world fitted with 22 CIWS systems instead of the 22 5-inch guns and some 192 cell mk41 VLS in place of the main turrets.
Few of the 5" turrets.
I would have wanted to retain some guns...more for shore bombardment than anything else...keep two of the 203mm turrets, and a few of the 5" turrets(say 4). For a total of 8 8" and 8 5" guns. With a somewhat reduced VLS system...somewhere around 60 cells?
Pointless
I'd prefer the 5 inch turrets for the reach they provide. CIWS is pretty much a self defense weapon.
@@MFitz12 👏😑 aggreed
Absolutely fascinating. The videos of plans for intended ships are some of my favourites on the channel. Great work from all concerned for getting these plans from the US National Archives.
There is actually and interesting story with the picture of Kentucky you start showing at 6:47 . In 1956 Kentucky's sister ship USS Wisconsin was doing exercises off the coast of Virginia when she collided with a destroyer which caused a a lot of damage to her bow. The navy wanted to get her fixed asap so they decided to cut off 68ft of Kentucky's bow, then welded it onto Wisconsin
The WisKy rests comfortably in Nawfuck. 👍🏻
Imagine a rolling broadside from that lot - especially if it was aimed at some aircraft with the timerity to stray too close
Especially since those Mark16 8"/55's could fire up to ten rounds a minute from each individual gun. If the 'H' model fired all of its 8"ers one after the other in sequence, that would be one hundred and sixty 335-pound rounds of aggressive negotiation flying down-range every 60 seconds or, put another way, one round every 0.375 seconds. That's just over 24 metric tons of yeetus-deletus landing on some poor buggers head and giving them a really bad day. Again, in just 'ONE' minute. The term "rolling thunder" with a dash of ACDC "Thunderstruck" comes to mind. =^x^=
The image of this thing deleting a floatplane who wandered too close while scouting is hilarious, but this thing was probably meant to sit right up close to the carriers to defend. The various circles of pickets would already be lighting up a stray plane by then.
If it didn't get scrapped it would have been another bloody useful shore bombardment platform too.
@@tsamoka6496 and the Marines on the nearby LST would be loving every min of that
My 1st US Navy ship USS CAMDEN AOE-2 (Fast Combat Support Ship) was powered by 2 of the Kentucky's main engine sets, 4 ea. 600 lb. Babcock/Wilcox Boilers, 2 GE Turbine sets, 2 GE Reduction Gears. AOE1 Sacramento had 2 sets also. I was a Machinist Mate working in Main Engine/Fireroom 2.The AOE's were fast and big, serving with Carrier Battle Groups. Years later the Navy wanted to recall me from the reserves to serve aboard the New Jersey, but I would have spent 2-3 years in Long Beach Naval Shipyard while it was being modernized by Reagan. I did something else. I switched to an aviation rate and served abourd the USS CORAL SEA CV-43, the oldest ship I served aboard of 4. It was also the best of the 4 I served on. I finished my 20 aboard the USS KANSAS CITY AOR-3, another "Combat Oiler" which I did my last westpac deployment during Operations Desert Shield and Storm.
*BEHOLD*
*THE SUPER ATLANTA-CLASS* _USS No Flyzone_
Hyper Atlanta anti-air screening first form.
Fing al fan peasant pedo
Super Atlanta-God.
Georgia was like that.
Swap 6 of its main guns with twice as many 8 inch auto loaders and you will get this: 13:08
USS Fuck You
Dedicated to dissuading humanity of the notion that we are equal to the birds up in heavens.
I must say, this is a fantastically quick “dredging” of historical documents directly into the broader public sphere. Absolutely fascinating.
This is good timing after WoWs announced their 3x4 203mm Illinois. It looks like fun, hoping to learn more on the design.
EDIT: Wrote this during the ad, It's cool to see the WoWs Illinois directly addressed. WoWs likes to tweak designs, likely for game balance specifically. It's abit funny you mention that one of the designs would be better for AA purposes, the game has been rife lately with ineffectual AA< even from dedicated and properly upgraded and skilled AA cruisers and destroyers, the devs have said before they try to balance AA around getting at least one strike in for the attacking flight, normally two aircraft out of the 8 or so you've launched. Then of course, they release soviet CVs that all launch in one strike, rather than having multiple strikes like all the other carriers. SMH, anyway, I'm not holding my breath for phenomenal AA even though the devblog says it has "powerful air defense". Powerful AA in WoWs means yo get 3 planes shot down instead of just 1 or 2, out of the 12 coming at you.
Jingles will absolutely love these ships.
They still won't stop an attack
The USS Mo Dakka!!! Would love to have seen what those 8in shells could do saturating a target with doom, hi ex, and freedom...
USS Come'n Gitme! For surface fighting I'd like to provide her with 8" white phosphorus/magnesium shells. Enemy BBs would quickly have no sensors or personnel topsides. Bring back Greek Fire 🔥!
16 of the autoloading 8 inch guns firing in a shore bombardment mission just as fast as they can would be a sight to see (provided that your not on the reciving end of it)
@@jessicacolegrove4152 yeah shore bombardment was what I though of too. That would be brutal.
One thing about WGs Illinois' is absolutely for sure - they will make her AA historically accurate. And what I mean by that is that it'll be just a fantasy, not something you'd actually have
*As a Blue Jacket of old, I cringe/wince to think of the "All Hands muster for unrep" reprovisioning/pass the ammunition evolution. What a beast that would have been to feed!*
They should make unrep part of wow
Someone had a lot of fun designing these.
One of my favorite topics, and I dont even understand why. Its just always was fascinating to me, why not have a huge floating anti-aircraft fortress
To what end? The main Cold War threat is long range Soviet strategic bombers and submarines. What is the point of trying to put short range guns on a single ship?
submarines ...
Oddly enough currently in navies around the world there is talk about creating floating/unmanned anti-missile craft to beef up air-defense of larger manned vessels. Beacuse its becoming fairly obvious to pretty much all navies just how much danger modern anti-ship missiles pose - much like WW2 was a severe wake up call to all navies that aircraft were absolutely deadly to ships/subs.
check out the Kiev-Class irl its ot exactly a AA fortress but it has A SHIT TON of AA sustems covering all range bands.
@@carlpolen7437 Yeah I can just imagine this thing sailing full speed towards a heavy carrier with every AA gun it has blazing. Yeah, go ahead, try to use torpedo bombers... you might even get a torpedo launched. sure, those main guns are smaller than what you'd want to penetrate battleship armor.. but how many carriers have that thickness of armor?
WoWs devs after this:
*"WRITE THAT DOWN! WRITE THAT DOWN!"*
Cant wait to see next devblog new usa tech aa bbs line
They’re introducing a variation of the three turret version of Illinois in the next patch…
I love it! The absurdity of a Heavy cruiser with an Iowa hull is almost as good as HMS Incomparable.
The thing that I wondered about with all these designs is the ammunition capacity of the magazines...especially the capacity for the 8 inch main gun shells. Did any of the schemes talk about that ammunition stowage capacity? You would need to be able to carry a LOT of 8 inch, 5 inch, and 3 inch ammo to keep all those guns firing those amazing proximity fused rounds. ✌💯😁
A Des Moines carried 150 rounds per gun for the 8inch while an Iowa carried 130 rounds per 16inch.
For 5 inch guns it's 450 rounds per gun on battleships.
That's 18,000 5inch rounds on the 20 5inch duel turret design
For 3inch it's 1500 rounds per gun.
Remember you rearm after every battle.
@@Ushio01 So I wonder what that means for the size of the magazines on a heavy AA battleship design. The 5"/54 turret had a higher rate of fire, so were they planning on increasing that capacity per gun on the heavy AA BB? Also, on the Des Moines class, I know that the 8" turrets had AA capability in theory, but were they actually planning to fully use the 8" guns in AA mode? Did they have them hooked up to the AA fire directors? Did the magazine capacity of 150 per gun include full time AA firing? These are the types of questions that occur to me, and I just wonder if the Navy did any analysis on this as they were coming up with these heavy AA BB designs.✌
@@iKvetch558 The standard size would be fine even in a multi engagement battle the individual anti air engagements didn't last long individually.
These ships would also not be travelling alone so the ammunition capacity using the historical levels would have been fine.
Especially 3 inch -- those guns burn through ammo like crazy (45-50 rpm for the 3"/50, twice that for the 3"/70). I think it was Friedman's 'British Cruisers Two World Wars and After' that covered how the British late/post war designs that called for the 3 inch kept running afoul of their requirements for sufficient ammo for X minutes of sustained fire. They were ending up with design sketches where the 3 inch AA magazines were significantly larger than the main magazines; just to try to cram in as many minutes of fire as they wanted.
Luckily the magazines for the 8" were originally designed for 16"...
Large cruiser guns on a fast battleship hull is currently my go-to build for Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts. 12" super heavy APC is more than sufficient for nearly all tasks so I invest the excess tonnage into better protection and more ammo.
I've always wished someone would build a 'super Atlanta'
Could have had a laugh and completed a super-Atlanta as USS Georgia!
Super Scylla ... he is English.
I think an updated Habakkuk would be cool.
.
pun intended
Wasn't the "Super Atlanta" just the Worcester-class though? Or the never built CL-154-class
The model making company, Alnavco, has a 1-1200 scale model of this very ship. It uses the King-Nimitz superstructure, single funnel and no armored conning tower. It has the quad turrets with the 8 inch auto loading guns. 😊
3:30 - Thanks for the clear layout of the boilers!
Its great that you compare WOWS with historical schemes, it shows how historicaly accurate wows is
Extremely cool that you were able to get a scan of the blueprints of an obscure, unbuilt ship that quickly.
for anyone interested, Christoph, AKA Bismarck, of Military Aviation History Channel, has now uploaded his" Inside The Cockpit" video of the Short Sunderland at The RAF Museum, Hendon. You cannot do it yourself, he was granted exclusive access to the upper deck of that Lovely Lady!
An Iowa finished w/ 12 autoloaders seems like it would be really useful for all the work the Iowas did in Korea and Vietnam.
Thank you so much to both of you for this! These sorts of examples of recovering and making publicly available "lost" information and history is always a wonderful thing.
Remember...
More Dakka, More Better
Drach, those of us who volunteer on USS Midway hope that you're planning on a full-day to visit the ship here in San Diego.
I'm an avid WoWs player from the great state of Illinois and I'm absolutely looking forward to this ship coming to the game. Fingers crossed and knocking on wood that she survives the testing process.
If they made these they should have renamed the Illinois "USS Eff you if you fly"
Ship's Motto: "We can't fly, so we won't let anyone else."
USS I’ll Annoy?
@@5peciesunkn0wn no, USS Kill Everything that Flies.
USS No-Fly-Zone
Nice to see someone with the knowledge required dwelt into this subject that I also been wondering about. Weird thing is I saw an argument over this concept, an anti-aircraft battleship (a fast-firing battleship to be specific called "battle destroyer") and whether the design will be practical or good. When I first saw it, I just thought "yeah, this isn't going to happen." but I gave the AA side of thing a benefit of doubt.
His proposal goes like "battleship size, armor but CL/CA gun (5-6in) with high speed". Remember, this proposal of his focused on the aspect of "duelling with smaller ships while retaining survivability".
Obviously, he already mentioned some parts wrong and strikes me as someone who put little thought in making this kind of concept. Still, I decided to give it a go and come up with something like this design mentioned by Drachnifel (SCB-19) for real, except the mistake of adding the quadrapble torpedoes mounts. Still, it is what I considered to be closest to being practical in terms of World War 2, having extensive heavy AA battery while at least having good speed, armour and firepower to rival cruisers thus serving as convoy or fleet escorts. Naturally, at this point, it just being too close to the concept of a large cruiser (CB).
That was before the person who made the proposal came up with his own idea and I swear I'm not joking;
An Iowa-class size battleship at 45000 ton estimation (I don't know how) with a speed of 33 knots and nothing but 6-inch twin guns mounts all over the ship. No 5-inch, no 3-inch, no 8-inch, just 6-inch guns. I wish I can show you the acursed pictures but the placement of the 6-inch is all over the place. It also doesn't seems like it has a lot of fire directors nor radars too, just 6-inch everywhere. There's like 11 6-inch turrets mounted in the centreline, with some on the same level and the rest slowly elevated up by not a lot. There is also wing turrets mounted relatively close to the centerline turrets, some of them obviously can't be traversed properly based on the design. Also, he added no less than 4 "hidden" quadrapble 533mm torpedoes mounts somewhere on the ship (God forbid I know where they are). The armour layout seems to be based on Iowa-class battleship indeed but have lighter deck armour (come into issue when you think about what this fellow wanted to do with this design), turret being 152mm, barbette being 203mm and somehow conning with 380mm. The goal for this design? To become "main surface support/small flotilla escort" and "coastal auxiliary/AA flak ship". Remember, he based this design around the concept of "fast firing to kill small ships". Oh yeah, he added a few 40mm twin AA guns and 20mm AA guns in rows for some reason. Good luck manning those when they are very near to the 6-inch.
I will let you be the judge since I already asked a whole slew of questions that a sane man who at least can think about what he studied and he didn't answer me. Felt like he didn't want to address these issues and called those who objected and stated that he's being unrealistic as "lack of creativeness".
USS Illinois also known as the USS ' Toothless Terror '
a real BB gunship on steroids.Thank you for covering this.
I think that Drach enjoyed this. So many armament permutations in one video.
Thanks for presenting a detailed look at these proposals. It's great to know that scans can be ordered from the National Archives. Researching the postwar era, I've run into "sketch designs" in Friedman's works, apparently a number of books of these appeared. These included missile conversion proposals for Illinois and Kentucky. My impression was that most of these designs got little further than the sketchbook; I see that SCB 19 was more developed. Regarding the proposed weapons, as far as I know no twin 5"/54 mount was fitted on a USN ship. The 3"/70 enclosed twin mount was adopted in the late 40s I think, but only a few ships were built with or converted to use it. It proved to have too many problems and was withdrawn from service within a few years.
I gotta say, I think the F variant makes more sense - if its job is going to be AAA plus some "real guns" in case you get into a scrape, 8 of the 8" should be plenty, and 40 barrels of 5" (though with more capability for them to act independently, given the number of air targets) is a good thing. Plus, the broadside count of those 5" guns shouldn't make a difference - I have a hard time imagining a world where 20 5" barrels would be useful but 16 wouldn't be enough. I guess if you take on an entire destroyer convoy?
Depends on how one views the AA effectiveness of the 8" automatic gun. That the other schemes add 8" guns at the expense of dedicated surface-fire only directors for them leads me to believe the 8" was regarded as having high AA value. Yes, ROF is slow but bursting charge is high and range is significantly greater than 5"/54.
@@MFitz12 I hate to play Grinch, I'm not sure any of this makes any sense in a Cold War Naval environment?
The 8" guns were projected to use the "guided" XSAM-8 Zeus shell. This was a 4" sabot in an 8" shell that could make an in flight course correction, which raised the hit probability at 5000 yards from 1 in 400 (for a 5"38) to 1 in about 3. The Zeus-2 would have been even more sophisticated, but the Navy decided against continuing development of guided shells to focus only on missiles. Personally I think that was a mistake. Guided shells are just now becoming a thing, imagine what they could be like with another 60 years of development.
@@apparition13Guided munitions have proven mighty handy in Ukraine. 🙂 Nice to have when you really need precision targeting but don’t want to expend a million dollar on a target.
@@WALTERBROADDUS - It doesn't. By at least 1950 this is all a non-starter with the Bumblebee program going.
Thank you, Drachinifel.
World exclusive scoop! Congratulations!
I was just on the bow of Kentucky yesterday. Did a tour of the Wisconsin and saw where they took the bow from Kentucky after Wisconsin crushed
AA FOR EVERYONE!
the F design would make a very interesting "what if" model in 1/700 scale... I love the extra long base superstructure
I thought so too. Wonder if they were thinking "command ship".
Nothing saying fun like controversy in a video game. The Dakka Battleship rules the seas and skies!
Edit: Ahem: *SUPER-ATLANTA* 👐
For what its worth. in my experience a GUNAR system is one where the FC radar is placed between the barrels of the 3 in mount, so that the turret acts as the director. This was commonly used with the US 3 in 50 caliber system.
Super interesting. Somewhat related but the French navy apparently submitted plan to the US to finish the Jean Bart as an "anti-aircraft BB". I think it involved something like 34-36 5-inches guns. I presume they would have wanted to keep the already installed 1 quad 15-inches turret tho. Didn't go anywhere at the time but after the war, the Jean Bart was completed with a very large AA battery.
Fellow SKK, we've found our first PR6 ship!! 😆 This sort of ship is truly ridiculous, but it's a fun kind of ridiculous, like a room full of serious ship designers given a "MOAR DAKKA!" specification.
Assuming the 8 inch guns retained the same rate of fire as the Des Moines, the 16 gun Iowa variant would have a rate of fire of 128 rounds a minute, just out of the 8 inch guns.
My head tells me that the additional expense of maintaining more battleships would not be worth it. My heart wishes these had been built and we have video of the truly obscene volume of fire during shore bombardment.
Just remember, when aircraft carriers take over, just make more dakka
Goods to krump the flybois!
Never enouf dakka
One day you’re recommending an aircraft carrier strip belt armour so it can fit more 20mm mounts, next your designing a new BB with 40 5” DP guns
Keep grinding, you can make it❤❤
I've never gotten into gaming, too much else going on, but that model is gorgeous!
The twin 3 inch gun you mentioned on the Illinois were to replace the 40 mms. They were actually 76mm 3 inch fifty cal mark 22. That was the smallest caliber that could fit a proximity fuse for anti aircraft work and hit hard,
Damn nice intro tie into squarespace ad =), sadly I have never needed a website, but have hosted my own FTP on and off in the past, quite nice to have access to all data for free now and then.
Thank you for your work.
The in-game version has the merit of expediency. It leaves most of the original Iowa design intact, but replaces the triple 16" turrets with the quad 8" turrets. Given that the USN seemed to have started swapping quad Bofors 40mm mountings with twin autoloading 3" mounts, on a one for one basis (compare Baltimore with Des Moines), the Illinois should have a lot more of them.
Not surprised he found an archivist willing to do the scans, it allowed them to get at least SOME form of digitization of those plans into thier system. I know many archivists that would jump at that opportunity.
Timely and interesting. Thank you!
Not to snuff to much at WarGamings Art-Department here (they are doing a great job nearly all around), but the reason why Illinois looks like it does has less to do with game balance and more with saving work hours by not needing to construct a new ship model from ground up. This way they can just take the already existing Iwoa model, take the 16" gun turrets off, model a quat 8" turret and slap that one on the ship. Change some minor details and *BAM* you have a new ship that can be sold.
Once again, this isn't to insult the Art Department, but you can see it all over the game, which makes these "what if refit" ships feel a bit cheap everytime they get announced.
Yeah, they did not bother trying to add extra 5"/38 turrets either.
WG have basically abandoned WoWs, everything they release now is absolutely minimal effort, including their art dept. which has carried the clownfest that is WoWs.
The pair would have been bad ass ships!! Anti-aircraft battleships with 8” automatic firing canons and all those secondary weapons would have been nice to have had in WW2🖖
Love your content just would like to say ( and I know it's not your fault as you stated ) it was a little hard to follow along with the diagram section, was still cool to know about them anyway
Unfortunately without completely redrawing the plans its hard to get any further clarity from them :(
@@Drachinifel hmmm did you upload the data files you have to your discord?
I looked with some interest at the drawing, especially when you mentioned, 5"/54 dual mounts. While I am sure one could be designed an manufactured, one of the major selling points of the MK 42 gun mount (the mount associated with the 5"/54) was that it was lighter, only had a single gun, yet could provide the same rate of fire, or better, than the 5"/38 dual mount. The weight reduction was enhanced by using fiberglass rather than steel for the mount housing. As designed the gun could provide 40 rounds per minute sustained fire. This was later reduced to a more manageable 20 rounds a minute. But there was never, to my knowledge, a dual 5"/54 mount. The MK45 5" gun mount used on Spruance, Ticonderoga, and Arleigh Burke class warships was a further development of this gun mount. The MK45 mount was even lighter as it required no personnel in the mount (and the additional hardware necessary to support local gun control if the gunfire control system were disabled) and it was controlled totally from below decks.
True, though there was a DESIGN for the dual mount for the Montana class ships, so I'd guess BuOrd probably had a mock-up somewhere (WNY?). The same gun was used singly on the Midways, but the mount was heavier.
@@gregorywright4918 That's the Mark 16 gun. The other guy was talking about the Mark 42 gun.
@@yournamehere9928 You are confusing gun Marks with mounting Marks, but you are right in general. The OP started talking about the 5"/54 dual mounts, and then goes on about how the Mark 42 single mount (here the mount; the gun is the Mark 18) has an equivalent rate of fire to the old dual-mount 5"/38s (Mark 12s, on a Mark 28 or 32 mount). (NavWeaps has a side-note on the change-over from gun Marks to mount Marks.) My point was that in the '40s the design for the dual mount from the Montanas was what would probably have been installed in BBAAs; the Mark 42 single-gun mount was a mid-50s design.
Remember when Drachinifel’s channel was just a dozen 5-minute, TTS videos made by an amateur RUclips historian? Things have certainly come a very long way
It should be noted that many years later similar studies were made to convert the Iowas to missile boats. The missiles at that time were quite large and were stored without stabilizing fins, so a compartment under the launchers had to be used to attach them before launching. It was proposed that the aft turret and barbette be removed for the conversion. Interestingly the idea was rejected on the grounds it would unbalance the ship and cause unnatural bending forces occurring in rough seas. The 5in 54 was an auto loader that was based on the same auto loader used on the Worcester class cruisers. It never worked well for either gun, especially at high elevation.
Imagine these beauties with gps guided shells, pretty devastating against whatever shape the enemy comes in
Well... Golly! That was entertaining!
Another interesting idea is if they kept the hulls around for a few decades and then fitted them up as BBG's loaded to the gills with VLS tubes and Tomahawk launchers. Harden them against missiles attacks while you're at it. There was also the "arsenal ship" concept that comes back around from time to time.
Given how lightly built the Navy's current surface ships are, a hull that could survive a hit and stay in the fight would be a nice change
Kentucky actually was somewhat close to becoming a BBG, as she got a redesignation from BB-66 to BBG-1. They explored a lot of options for her, ranging from replacing the aft turret with two RIM-2 launchers, to a behemoth of an "arsenal ship" with 4 RIM-8 launchers and 12 RIM-24 launchers with a capacity of 320 and 504 missiles respectively. They also explored fitting a launcher for 8 Regulus II/Triton missiles, or 2 launchers for 16 Polaris missiles.
Norman Friedman’s U.S. Naval Weapons, 1883 to Present makes brief mention of the XSAM-N-8 Zeus on page 72, a guided anti-aircraft shell first tested in 1947, meant to be fired out of a smoothbore version of the 8”/55. In the book he brings this up in relation to the SCB-19 proposals.
I don’t know if you’d know anything about that, but it seemed like something fairly relevant.
SCB-19 was to be armed with the Zeus Anti Aircraft rocket. That was what the 8" Turrets would fire, not a VT rounds scaled up from the 5"ers This Guided projectile utilized black powder rockets in a form of "Bang Bang" guidance, actually quite similar in the aspect of control and accuracy to the original Paveway I Laser Guided Bombs (the controls were either full on or full off with no in-between) Zeus was, in essence, the predecessor and then concurrent development to Bumblebee which resulted of course in the Terrier, Talos, Tartar, and the canceled Triton.
Very interesting. I scanned some old drawings from a cargo ship and they looked similar. Battleship Texas Foundation has since May 2022 been auctioning off US Navy vintage warship plans on ebay. Purchases undoubtedly would go towards dry dock cost of the Texas.
with the new hypersonic weapons and fast anti ship missiles being deployed a dedicated platform this size makes a lot of sense to defend the carriers
A bit like Battlestar Galactic's barrage broadside
Also very hard to sink even if hit
" this is Galactica actual...start the clock... the board is green...".
The greatest space epic ever.
@@johnw5584 stand by for Jump
I feel like this is almost Too much about real ships for a Fun Friday
:P
Thanks, leona
What a point defense beast!
I also noticed in the F scheme and this could be a mistake on the drafters part, but it looked like they thought about moving the forward most barbette and turret more forward.
Essentially the idea of a battleship sized vessel dedicated to the anti-aircraft role would be realized in the Kirov cruisers of the U.S.S.R..
My big gripe about the Wargaming version is they made almost no effort to give the superstructure the updates that the real Illinois and Kentucky almost certainly would have gotten over the completed Iowas. It looks like they just threw an extra radar tower on, and called it a day.
When no one was looking the Illinois equipped itself with 40 5 inch guns. That’s as many as 4 tens and that’s terrible
Drach - two questions about the plans (assuming you have higher-res originals):
1. Bottom edge of the Scheme F, toward the right side - is that a date? 24 Jun 46? 48?
2. Each scheme seems to have a vertical dashed line on the side-hull projection, about where I would expect the fore and aft citadel bulkheads to be. Can you read the labeling that points to those dashed lines? The odd thing about Scheme F is that both turrets seem to be outside of what I think is the citadel (and note same placement of turret Y or 8-4 on Scheme H as on Scheme F). Turret A or 8-1 on Scheme F seems further forward relative to the hull curve than any of the others.
The date is 24th Jan 46
I think the dashed lines are labelled "Present armour belt".
@@Drachinifel Thanks. Earlier than I thought. The designer did not stick with just the existing barbettes.
8:30 …you accidentally knocked over a pot of Nuln Oil all over the plans, didn’t you.
So we need 4 of these to escort each Habakkuk class carrier :)
Scheme F would be a potential hoot to play in game. Give it a couple more knots top speed, and maybe extra range on the secondary battery.
I don’t know where he gets this s*** - I mean, it’s absolutely endless amounts of awesome sauce with Drach but, in any event, God bless ya bro.
GUNAR ("Gun Radar") was mounted not with, but ON the guns. IIRC it was the Mark 63 system
Forget AA: imagine what a Sverdlov captain would've felt with a -H or 2 prowling around the Atlantic!
Fascinating!!!!
How was its underwater protection? I imagine as an AA platform, planes and (and subs, as always) would be its primary adversary, facing torpedoes more than plunging shell fire. Did they account for this? You could save a crap ton of weight ditching heavy belt armor for more torpedo protection, not to mention speed and total distance between fueling
Great video and thanks!
...and as a lifelong Chicagoan - Thanks for never pronouncing the state name as "Ill...in...noise".
Interesting. By some accounts, the 8"/55s of the Des Moines-class had a rate of fire equal-to or higher-than the (auto loaded) 6"/47s of the Worcester-class CLAAs. Although the Des Moines' 8-inchers couldn't elevate as high as the Worcester's guns, the Des Moines' auto-loading system still functioned at max elevation, and gave the 8-inchers a limited AA capability with the Mark 56.
Where Illinois and Kentucky are concerned, the "guided-missile battleship" proposals (Tartar and Talos) are very intriguing.