two different heavy calibres would be a little bit of an overkill in my opinion. My ideal Battleship, the one i listed above, i would have some serious revisions to do on. But i have come up with a battleship that i really like. It would be more of a fleey support/task force ships (to operate with cruisers, but have heavier guns) It would be much like a Scharnhorst class BC. It would have the same basic Hull, though lengthened somewhat from 753 feet, to 795ft to make it more streamlined. Instead of nine eleven inch guns, it would have 8 15in. guns. Forward would be one triple turret with 14in or 15in guns, a second dual raised above it, and one triple at the rear of the ship, retaining the turret placement taht scharnhorst has. Keep the secondary armaments turrets in the same place, and calibre at 5in (the US 5in DP guns), but add two more just forwrad (towards the bridge) of the aft turret of the main battery.Reduce aircraft stowage to a two aircraft (down from four) and keep parts for a third one below deck (eliminating need for a hangar to accomodate four). Increase the beam from 98ft 5in to around 108ft 2in to stablize the ship some. Replace the orginal powerplant with that of the Iowa class. (eight babcock wilcox boilers driving four-shaft GE turbines, developing 212,000 HP, up from scharnhorsts original 165,000hp.) add two more inches of armor to the turrets, on top of the 14in to 6in armor already on the original scharnhorts class, and increase the belt from 13.75in to 6.75in. to 14in to 9in. All around deck armor of 3 in. Between 45 and 90 20mm AA cannon, and 30 dual 40mm AA cannons. 14 port, 14 starboard and two on the stern. In additon to the firecontol that Iowa had, i would want Yamatos Opticals as a back up in a seperate location, just in case (remeber what happened to bismarcks radar! though it wasnt the same as iowas, still).estimated tonnage would be 42,000 ton standard and and 48,000 ton deep load, and a speed of around 32-35 knots. It was as wide as iowa, exactly as wide, shorter, weight 6000 tons less (so that high of speed is feasible). It would have an estiamted crew of around 1750 (scharnhorsts real was 1669).estimated draught would be around 29 feet.
Yes i know only having two aircraft would be a hinderance, but seeing as though it was meant to work with a task force, i dont see this as much of a problem at all. This ship would be very capable of working on its own, but would be at a huge advatage supporting lighter ships, like heavy cruisers. Example of how i see this ship working : hunting commerce raiders or protecting convoys or carrier groups with three Prinz eguen class CA. That would be a fast, hard hitting group, with 15in, 8in, 5in guns, strong AA and torpedo capability. A group to be feared. any thoughts on it?