- Thread starter
- #121
Nope - I've produced the positives earlier in this thread.
Hybrid aircraft carriers (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter tomo pauk
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Thumpalumpacus
Major
Mmmkay.
Howard Gibson
Senior Airman
If we are discussing hybrid carriers, we need to compare them with specialized gunboats and aircraft carriers.
Does a hybrid HMS Glorious defeat or at least survive the attentions of the specialized battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisnau? Does it have the firepower to sink them or drive them off. Does it have sufficient aircraft to torpedo the battleships at a safe distance had they flown combat air patrols?
How do the hybrid Scharnhorst and Gneisnau do against the full aircraft carrier Glorious? A hybrid battleship/carrier really needs to carry Fairey Swordfish and other short take-off aircraft. The Royal Navy made all sorts of bad decisions leading into WWII, including the Blackburn Roc and the Fairey Fulmar. Give them Wildcats or even Brewster Buffaloes. Can navalized He51s stop the torpedo attacks?
I am arguing in another thread for smaller carriers. This not change the fact that a long flight desk is desirable. Anything other than the full length of the ship is a bad idea.
- Thread starter
- #124
That would be the Bf 109T, not the He 51. The attack part are the dive bombers, since the Swordfish-like stuff will be swatted like the flies even by the Sea Gladiators.
Glorious will need to hit, and hit good the two threats, while the twins need to hit just one, and can muster more aircraft.
Was there any Wildcat or Buffalo for the RN to have in Spring of 1940?
No, the bad idea is not to have a workable way to have a reasonable shipborne air group in the day.
don4331
Senior Airman
Italy, France. Netherlands, Belgium all have remote colonies. All of which are treaty and/or otherwise constrained.
The title of the thread doesn't restrict me to wheeled aircraft and/or surface ships (although no one has touched the Japanese aircraft carrying submarines.)
Netherlands operated floatplanes off destroyers and USN built Pringle and Stevens.
My point with the Tones was more about the technology change between the concept and the entering battle.
With 20/20 hindsight, building a deck with allows landing of higher performance wheeled aircraft in the pipeline would have been the way to go - ala the '30s USN proposal.
And the reasons were similar: Moffett wanted to maximize the number of aircraft available to the USN. Using cruiser tonnage was his solution to treaty restrictions on carriers.
It's not a cost issue, its a range problem: The peace time range numbers produced by only running 1 boiler and cruising turbines in fair seas, falls off the cliff when you need to keep all boiler lit and run on main turbine while operating in a seaway. So, you need the foresight to see the problem and have developed solutions. (high speed tankers, replenishment underway, etc)
Well, CV Graf Zeppelin did have 16 x 15cm guns (would that make her a hybrid?). But how easily can na AMC mission kill your aircraft carrier?? KM doesn't want the opposite of HMS Sydney vs KM Komoran.
don4331
Senior Airman
I'll take a rain check on the hybrid HMS Glorious - more around, it wouldn't be in that situation - the reduced deck would be too small to even try landing the Hurricanes on.
German have the Fi.167, which has at least equal take-off and landing performance to the Swordfish. How well it does as a torpedo bomber wasn't tested, but one did shoot down a Mustang;
tomo pauk
as commented about Bf.109Ts.Anything other than the full length of the ship is
Thinking about it the other way - Germany has 35% of RN tonnage for carriers, if Raeder does want to build "military gasoline tankers aka aircraft carriers"; does building cruisers with a flight deck get 2 more hulls in the water?
don4331
Senior Airman
You say the Krupp sliding-block breeches widened the space requirement, yet RN 6"/50 twins had guns spaced 213cm apart; triples 198cm while KM 15cm/55 had twins spaced 175cm and 15cm/60 triples spaced 155cm apart.
Installing quad (really dual-twins if you're mimicking French) turrets means you're moving them further from the bow for balance (buoyancy), at which point the hull is wider anyways.
Anton turret might still be vulnerable, but detail design can minimize that.
yulzari
Tech Sergeant
Two thoughts come to mind.
1. Are modern destroyers/frigates with helicopters in a hanger and a landing pad not hybrids?
2. The CAM ship model has been mentioned. For the Italians in the eastern Mediterranean this may have been useful as the launched fighters would often be within range of a friendly landing ground. Of course this limits their loiter time over the fleet whilst a pure CAM aeroplane remains there until the fuel runs out.
1. Are modern destroyers/frigates with helicopters in a hanger and a landing pad not hybrids?
2. The CAM ship model has been mentioned. For the Italians in the eastern Mediterranean this may have been useful as the launched fighters would often be within range of a friendly landing ground. Of course this limits their loiter time over the fleet whilst a pure CAM aeroplane remains there until the fuel runs out.
Shortround6
Major General
A Scharnhorst with a 66% flight deck is within 20ft of the effective flight deck of the Glorious. Make of that what you will. The British carriers with their rounded deck ends had shorter effective decks that what it appears in photos/drawings.
Now with C turret (and barbette) and with the twelve 15cm guns/turrets/mounts/support structure missing there is certainly freed up tonnage for aircraft. But tonnage down low is not the same as tonnage high up. The Twins devoted more tonnage to armor/protection than any other capital ship of their generation. Way more than enough to save the vitals from 8in shellfire. But the British had given up on anything smaller that 14in guns long ago. So what level of armor in the Hybrids. Historic or lighter?
If you want more than the historic triple 11in turrets they have to be paid for somehow.
Triple 11in turrets, about 750tons (metric)
twin 15in German about 1050tons (metric)
French quad 13in about 1473 tons (type of ton?)
French quad 15in about 2274 tons (type of ton?)
This is just for turrets and guns, turrets may include rotating structure on lower levels, it does not include barbette armor or structure.
Ise and Hyuga twin 14in about 699 metric tons.
As I tried to show with the aviation fuel capacities of the British carriers, just looking at the numbers of aircraft you can spot on the deck and/or in hangers doesn't tell you the true capabilities of a carrier as a warship. Without enough fuel you can't put up enough aircraft for all daylight hours cap/asw /search patrols for very long (more than a fey days)
Without decent magazine storage for bombs/torpedoes ability for repeat strikes is lacking.
Carrier......................Essex 1942......................CVL 1942 ........................Sagamon Aug 1942
100lb bomb................540....................................162.........................................150
250..................................---......................................---...........................................---
500GP............................296....................................72............................................85
SAP.................................---......................................---............................................---
1000GP.........................146....................................36.............................................40
SAP.................................129....................................36.............................................40
AP....................................110....................................36.............................................--
1600AP..........................19.......................................---...........................................24
2000GP..........................19.......................................---..........................................---
325lbDC........................296.....................................36...........................................110
100inc............................296......................................180.......................................175
torpedoes......................36........................................24..........................................46
USN didn't use 250lb bombs under later. Same for 500 SAP bombs.
1600lb AP and 2000lb GP bombs tended to go up and down depending on intended use of the carriers.
However note the amount of "stuff" the Essex's air group could drop on the opposition compared to even 4-5 of the smaller hulled carriers.
Also note that the planned capacity for the Saipan CVL in 1943 was for 4 times the number of depth charges. Late war saw a lot (an awful lot) of rockets replace a lot of the bombs.
All of this ordnance had to in cooled magazines with fast flooding capabilities (and venting), secured. Protected at least somewhat from bombs/shells/torpedoes and with access (hoists) to move the ordnance up to the hanger and/or flight deck. You want to reload your strike group of 15 plane with 500lb bombs? you need to get 15 bombs out of the magazine/s and up to the hanger/flight deck in how many minutes? Moving bombs up to hanger deck before the planes land may leave you open to the the problems the Japanese had at Midway. Your safety procedures may vary.
Anybody who wants to use a couple of carriers as long distance 'raiders' had better be planning on a lot of supply ships and a lot of hours transferring "stuff" (even food) to the raiders.
Now with C turret (and barbette) and with the twelve 15cm guns/turrets/mounts/support structure missing there is certainly freed up tonnage for aircraft. But tonnage down low is not the same as tonnage high up. The Twins devoted more tonnage to armor/protection than any other capital ship of their generation. Way more than enough to save the vitals from 8in shellfire. But the British had given up on anything smaller that 14in guns long ago. So what level of armor in the Hybrids. Historic or lighter?
If you want more than the historic triple 11in turrets they have to be paid for somehow.
Triple 11in turrets, about 750tons (metric)
twin 15in German about 1050tons (metric)
French quad 13in about 1473 tons (type of ton?)
French quad 15in about 2274 tons (type of ton?)
This is just for turrets and guns, turrets may include rotating structure on lower levels, it does not include barbette armor or structure.
Ise and Hyuga twin 14in about 699 metric tons.
As I tried to show with the aviation fuel capacities of the British carriers, just looking at the numbers of aircraft you can spot on the deck and/or in hangers doesn't tell you the true capabilities of a carrier as a warship. Without enough fuel you can't put up enough aircraft for all daylight hours cap/asw /search patrols for very long (more than a fey days)
Without decent magazine storage for bombs/torpedoes ability for repeat strikes is lacking.
Carrier......................Essex 1942......................CVL 1942 ........................Sagamon Aug 1942
100lb bomb................540....................................162.........................................150
250..................................---......................................---...........................................---
500GP............................296....................................72............................................85
SAP.................................---......................................---............................................---
1000GP.........................146....................................36.............................................40
SAP.................................129....................................36.............................................40
AP....................................110....................................36.............................................--
1600AP..........................19.......................................---...........................................24
2000GP..........................19.......................................---..........................................---
325lbDC........................296.....................................36...........................................110
100inc............................296......................................180.......................................175
torpedoes......................36........................................24..........................................46
USN didn't use 250lb bombs under later. Same for 500 SAP bombs.
1600lb AP and 2000lb GP bombs tended to go up and down depending on intended use of the carriers.
However note the amount of "stuff" the Essex's air group could drop on the opposition compared to even 4-5 of the smaller hulled carriers.
Also note that the planned capacity for the Saipan CVL in 1943 was for 4 times the number of depth charges. Late war saw a lot (an awful lot) of rockets replace a lot of the bombs.
All of this ordnance had to in cooled magazines with fast flooding capabilities (and venting), secured. Protected at least somewhat from bombs/shells/torpedoes and with access (hoists) to move the ordnance up to the hanger and/or flight deck. You want to reload your strike group of 15 plane with 500lb bombs? you need to get 15 bombs out of the magazine/s and up to the hanger/flight deck in how many minutes? Moving bombs up to hanger deck before the planes land may leave you open to the the problems the Japanese had at Midway. Your safety procedures may vary.
Anybody who wants to use a couple of carriers as long distance 'raiders' had better be planning on a lot of supply ships and a lot of hours transferring "stuff" (even food) to the raiders.
Hi
The British Air Commission that arrived in the USA at the end of May 1938 was looking for various aircraft to fulfil requirements which included a FAA fighter. The only aircraft that the USA was able/willing to sell were the; Vought SB2U Vindicator, Curtiss SBC Helldiver and a Grumman two-seat fighter (and probably the F3F). None of these was what was needed, indeed because of this the order for Fulmars was increased from 127 to 250 machines (source; page 11, 'Air Arsenal North America' by Butler and Hagedorn).
The first Buffalo production machine was rolled out in June 1939, while the first production Wildcat was ready to fly in February 1940, both too late for use off Norway in early 1940.
The first Buffalos that arrived in the UK was in August 1940, this was a Belgian order of 32 aircraft that arrived too late for that country. In August 1940 six Martlets (Wildcat), non-folding, turned up, by October 1940 the total was 44. The Fulmar entered first line service with the FAA June 1940.
Wildcats and Buffalos did not exist to "save the day" in this scenario.
Mike
In the same sense we consider a WWII era ship equipped with a couple of floatplanes a hybrid. So no.
If you want a modern analog to the hybrid carrier maybe a LHD?
OTOH, the Italians didn't really have excess airframes to nearly the same extent as the British. I'm not sure they would have been prepared to lose a plane for the sake of a single mission.
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
I think the LHDs mission is amphibious assault, not sea control so no.
- Thread starter
- #133
The armor protection still makes a lot of sense when the possible air attack is considered, be that by the bombs or by the torpedoes.
British were about to introduce the armored flying deck for their carriers, that also should be considered wrt. the weight and the top weight.
For sake of simplicity, we can leave the armor protection on the big hybrids as they were the interwar battleships, minus the armor protection related to the guns behind the main bridge. The flying deck remaining unarmored.
For the hybrids, 2 x 3 x11in for the S&G, 2 x 2 x15in for the B&T, IMO. 3-gunned 15in turrets for the B&T would've been interesting.
French - one quad 15in in a hybrid, since it is lower than if the super-imposed turrets are considered.
Italian 320mm gun was out-bored 305mm gun, so the weight of the 3-gunned turret will be perhaps a bit bigger than the Japanese twin 14in turret, while the 2-gunned turret will weight less than the Japanese one.
Thank you for finding out and typing out the loadouts.
We can recall that the 'lift capacity' of the late 1930s/early ww2 European and and Japanese aircraft was much lower than what the Essexes had in 1944. Even the fighters on the Essex will carry more than the Ju 87C, let alone a Skua, a French dive bomber, or the imported Helldiver biplane.
Amount of fuel that the US strike group needed in 1944 to cover vast distances will dwarf the amount of fuel needed for the 1000-1200 HP engines and the under 1200lb bomb loads that will be expected for the hybrids in Euro-Asian case. A Bf 109T, or it's French, Italian or Japanese fighter counterpart will carry a pitiful 'attack' loadout vs. that the Hellcat or Corsair managed, and will be using perhaps 50% of the liquid consumables per mission.
Even the light carriers of 1944 were with the much more powerful aircraft, that again used a lot more of fuel and ordnance.
The number of the aircraft on the hybrids will also be smaller than on the Essex.
tl;dr - While the hybrids will be carrying less of the AvGas and aircraft ordnance than a future big American carrier, their air group will be using less of that stuff, thus the usability of the air group will still be more than okay.
The only people that might consider the hybrids as the raiders are probably the Germans.
Against the unescorted merchant ships, the 250 kg bomb will suffice, nut there are also the guns on the ships if the unlucky ship is caught nearby. The merchant ship will also provide the on-hand training for the aircrew - cruel as that sounds - as well as for the deck crew.
The German raiders hybrids don't need to operate just by themselves, the 'normal' ships, auxiliary cruisers, U-boats and MP aircraft can also play along. British will need to make the task groups centered around their own carriers to tackle this problem; having the groups of cruisers will not cut it.
Reading through some of the stuff posted above mixing MAC ships with anything up to battlecruiser conversions, and the emphasis on the strike part of the role, I'm left wondering about the recce part needed to find individual ships / convoys in the first place. What is everyone envisaging? A sneaky peak just over the horizon? Or a much deeper look further afield? Remembering that these are the early war days before aircraft were radar equipped (ASV II for the Swordfish didn't begin to turn up until Spring 1941).
MAC ships.
Their role was esssentially defensive. They waited for the enemy to come to them. Most of their flying time was single aircraft flying A/S patrols around the convoy, most usually ahead of it, flying a racetrack across its front and moving forward at the pace of the convoy about 50 miles distant for a couple of hours. The other type of mission was a "Cobra" when an aircraft would be sent out to chase down a HF/DF contact or searches to find downed aircraft or to round up stragglers. By 1944, when sufficient became available, they were attachd to convoys in pairs. But this was in an environment where convoys were also getting a lot of air cover from shore based General Recce aircraft. So MAC ships didn't need to provide continuous air cover most of the time.
During Empire MacAlpine's first voyage her 4 aircraft flew for 84 hours (21 searches, 25 A/S operations & 38 for training and other flying) during the 12 day passage of ONS9 (a 27 ship convoy)
Fleet recce
The three major navies used their aircraft to fly a similar pattern for recce ops to find an enemy. A number of aircraft would be dispatched along different bearings tasked to fly out to a defined distance, turn 90 degrees and fly for another set distance, turn again and fly back to the carrier. These aircraft would typically be flying out in the Pacific and Indian Oceans to a depth of anywhere from 180 miles (RN and IJN in the IO in 1942) to 275 (USN at Philippine Sea) to 300 miles (IJN at Midway). But the arcs covered differed:-
RN in IO April 1942 - 4 Fulmars sent to cover an arc of 50 degrees
IJN at Midway - 7 aircraft sent to cover an arc of nearly 180 degrees.
For various reasons Japanese recce proved inadequate on more than one occasion in the early war period, something they recognised with the decision to convert Mogami post Midway into a third "aircraft cruiser".
Searches were not guaranteed to find the enemy where they were expected to be, as all navies found. Even in 1944 it took the USN three attempts with carrier searches to find the IJN fleet, even when it knew what direction to search in.
So some questions?
1. Do you have some idea of the direction your target is located? Long range maritime recce certainly helps as at Bismarck chase for the RN and Midway for the USN. But until that is available what arc do the carrier aircraft need to search? 45/90/135/180/360 degrees? And if operating in the more distant waters of the mid-north Atlantic, Central Atlantic, South Atlantic or IO your Axis navies don't have that shore based aviation support nor that of the U-boats in the early war period.
2. How many aircraft do you devote to the search phase? The more you have the wider the arc you can cover. BUT try to cover too large an arc with too few aircraft and the pie slices of your search start to have holes appearing. Are you prepared for your search aircraft to go sick either before or after take-off (a problem the Japanese ncountered at Midway).
3. Do your aircraft report immediately they spot a target? If so what is the liklihood of their transmissions being picked up and alerting your target (assuming of course that their radios actually work). Or do you have them return and report, or in the event of a failed radio, be forced to await their return.
4. How many searches will you require to run daily? This is before radar so you need the first search airborne just before dawn. And you need the last search flown as late as possible to detact any enemy force that might sneak up on you in the night, while ensuring that your aircraft are safely back on deck before it gets dark.
5. Remembering that this has to be a visual search, your aircrew are only going to be able to spot targets about 25 miles either side of their flight line. And that is in the best case scenario. Poor weather and you have to close up the search lines of your aircraft, narrowing the total arc covered or devoting more aircraft to the task.
Just by way of illustrating some of the problems that can be encountered, I recently had cause to look at the cruiser Dorsetshire in Dec 1941. On the day of the encounter with the German supply ship Python, she had her sole Walrus out on patrol, when an eagle eyed lookout on the ship spotted the masts of the Python on a bearing removed from that being searched by her aircraft. She found she couldn't contact the aircraft to divert it for a look see. So went to intercept the target herself. Python was scuttled by her crew. Dorsetshire, after picking up survivors then had to set out to find her aircraft, which she did with her own radar, and guide it back to mother. While it might have involved just a single aircraft, it does illustrate some of the search problems.
MAC ships.
Their role was esssentially defensive. They waited for the enemy to come to them. Most of their flying time was single aircraft flying A/S patrols around the convoy, most usually ahead of it, flying a racetrack across its front and moving forward at the pace of the convoy about 50 miles distant for a couple of hours. The other type of mission was a "Cobra" when an aircraft would be sent out to chase down a HF/DF contact or searches to find downed aircraft or to round up stragglers. By 1944, when sufficient became available, they were attachd to convoys in pairs. But this was in an environment where convoys were also getting a lot of air cover from shore based General Recce aircraft. So MAC ships didn't need to provide continuous air cover most of the time.
During Empire MacAlpine's first voyage her 4 aircraft flew for 84 hours (21 searches, 25 A/S operations & 38 for training and other flying) during the 12 day passage of ONS9 (a 27 ship convoy)
Fleet recce
The three major navies used their aircraft to fly a similar pattern for recce ops to find an enemy. A number of aircraft would be dispatched along different bearings tasked to fly out to a defined distance, turn 90 degrees and fly for another set distance, turn again and fly back to the carrier. These aircraft would typically be flying out in the Pacific and Indian Oceans to a depth of anywhere from 180 miles (RN and IJN in the IO in 1942) to 275 (USN at Philippine Sea) to 300 miles (IJN at Midway). But the arcs covered differed:-
RN in IO April 1942 - 4 Fulmars sent to cover an arc of 50 degrees
IJN at Midway - 7 aircraft sent to cover an arc of nearly 180 degrees.
For various reasons Japanese recce proved inadequate on more than one occasion in the early war period, something they recognised with the decision to convert Mogami post Midway into a third "aircraft cruiser".
Searches were not guaranteed to find the enemy where they were expected to be, as all navies found. Even in 1944 it took the USN three attempts with carrier searches to find the IJN fleet, even when it knew what direction to search in.
So some questions?
1. Do you have some idea of the direction your target is located? Long range maritime recce certainly helps as at Bismarck chase for the RN and Midway for the USN. But until that is available what arc do the carrier aircraft need to search? 45/90/135/180/360 degrees? And if operating in the more distant waters of the mid-north Atlantic, Central Atlantic, South Atlantic or IO your Axis navies don't have that shore based aviation support nor that of the U-boats in the early war period.
2. How many aircraft do you devote to the search phase? The more you have the wider the arc you can cover. BUT try to cover too large an arc with too few aircraft and the pie slices of your search start to have holes appearing. Are you prepared for your search aircraft to go sick either before or after take-off (a problem the Japanese ncountered at Midway).
3. Do your aircraft report immediately they spot a target? If so what is the liklihood of their transmissions being picked up and alerting your target (assuming of course that their radios actually work). Or do you have them return and report, or in the event of a failed radio, be forced to await their return.
4. How many searches will you require to run daily? This is before radar so you need the first search airborne just before dawn. And you need the last search flown as late as possible to detact any enemy force that might sneak up on you in the night, while ensuring that your aircraft are safely back on deck before it gets dark.
5. Remembering that this has to be a visual search, your aircrew are only going to be able to spot targets about 25 miles either side of their flight line. And that is in the best case scenario. Poor weather and you have to close up the search lines of your aircraft, narrowing the total arc covered or devoting more aircraft to the task.
Just by way of illustrating some of the problems that can be encountered, I recently had cause to look at the cruiser Dorsetshire in Dec 1941. On the day of the encounter with the German supply ship Python, she had her sole Walrus out on patrol, when an eagle eyed lookout on the ship spotted the masts of the Python on a bearing removed from that being searched by her aircraft. She found she couldn't contact the aircraft to divert it for a look see. So went to intercept the target herself. Python was scuttled by her crew. Dorsetshire, after picking up survivors then had to set out to find her aircraft, which she did with her own radar, and guide it back to mother. While it might have involved just a single aircraft, it does illustrate some of the search problems.
Thumpalumpacus
Major
Right, but the working space has to be wider to accommodate the blocks.
If you've followed the conversation you'll note that Tomo has stipulated that 2/3 of the ship is taken up by aircraft facilities, which prevents moving the turrets further aft.
Right.
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Gun axes in the 38cm twin mounts on Bismarck & Tirpitz were 375cm apart to allow for the horizontally opening sliding breech of these weapons.
In the 15cm/55 twins the gun axes were 175cm apart with the guns in individual sleeves. The casemate mounts for the GZ saw the gun axes only 80cm apart. The triples mounted in the earlier cruisers were 155cm apart and in separate sleeves. But these guns all used vertically opening breech blocks.
The British 6" guns in the Mark XXII and Mark XXIII were individually sleeved and had the center gun set back 30 inches (76.2 cm) in order to reduce the interference between shells in flight, give the loading crews more"elbow room" and to better balance the revolving mass. These three-gun mounts had two right-handed guns and one left-handed gun.
Interference in flight was also a problem for the French quad 380/45 guns and turrets leading to a wider spread of shot than desired. This was not finally resolved until postwar when delay coils were fitted, so spreading the exact timing point of firing by small amounts. The gun axes were 195cm in each pair and 295cm between the inner guns.
In the 15cm/55 twins the gun axes were 175cm apart with the guns in individual sleeves. The casemate mounts for the GZ saw the gun axes only 80cm apart. The triples mounted in the earlier cruisers were 155cm apart and in separate sleeves. But these guns all used vertically opening breech blocks.
The British 6" guns in the Mark XXII and Mark XXIII were individually sleeved and had the center gun set back 30 inches (76.2 cm) in order to reduce the interference between shells in flight, give the loading crews more"elbow room" and to better balance the revolving mass. These three-gun mounts had two right-handed guns and one left-handed gun.
Interference in flight was also a problem for the French quad 380/45 guns and turrets leading to a wider spread of shot than desired. This was not finally resolved until postwar when delay coils were fitted, so spreading the exact timing point of firing by small amounts. The gun axes were 195cm in each pair and 295cm between the inner guns.
One further point to what I wrote above. The ammunition supply seems to have come up from the magazines between the guns. The Germans 380mm guns were unusual in that they used brass cartridge cases to contain the charge. This is the loading description from Navweaps which I find confusing.
"Each gun was served by a shell cage driven by hydraulic cylinders with rack and pinion drive of a wire drum. The shell cage picked up the charge cage on its way to the gunhouse. The shell cage carried the main and fore charges end to end on a single tray. The hoists came up between the guns and the shells were transferred to the loading tray by rammers. As the shell was transferred, the charges were moved to a waiting cage. After the shell was loaded, the waiting cage moved down to the level of the loading tray. The space between them was bridged by a ramp and the charges were then rolled into the loading tray. Both charges were rammed together. The auxiliary hoists lifted shells and propellant one after the other in a vertical position and came up to the rear of each gun. These were transferred to a tiltable cage and could be then loaded by the main rammer. A manual rammer which required between ten to fourteen crewmen to operate was provided as a backup."
In British battleships of the era, the charges were contained in silk bags which were consumed in the firing process. The 14" guns in the KGV class had the gun axes 244cm apart in both twin and quad mounts, and there were no bulkheads between each gun. Shells and charges were brought up from the shell rooms and magazines on central hoists to a working space under the gunhouse itself where a traverser system was used to move them under each gun. Finally shells and charges were delivered upwards to the immediate rear of the gun breech for ramming into the gun.
"Each gun was served by a shell cage driven by hydraulic cylinders with rack and pinion drive of a wire drum. The shell cage picked up the charge cage on its way to the gunhouse. The shell cage carried the main and fore charges end to end on a single tray. The hoists came up between the guns and the shells were transferred to the loading tray by rammers. As the shell was transferred, the charges were moved to a waiting cage. After the shell was loaded, the waiting cage moved down to the level of the loading tray. The space between them was bridged by a ramp and the charges were then rolled into the loading tray. Both charges were rammed together. The auxiliary hoists lifted shells and propellant one after the other in a vertical position and came up to the rear of each gun. These were transferred to a tiltable cage and could be then loaded by the main rammer. A manual rammer which required between ten to fourteen crewmen to operate was provided as a backup."
In British battleships of the era, the charges were contained in silk bags which were consumed in the firing process. The 14" guns in the KGV class had the gun axes 244cm apart in both twin and quad mounts, and there were no bulkheads between each gun. Shells and charges were brought up from the shell rooms and magazines on central hoists to a working space under the gunhouse itself where a traverser system was used to move them under each gun. Finally shells and charges were delivered upwards to the immediate rear of the gun breech for ramming into the gun.
don4331
Senior Airman
There are a couple of diagrams in "The Anatomy of the Ship: Bismarck" which would help explain the loading procedure; I'll try to upload shortly.
A twin turret is a rectangle with the long axis in direction of fire; therefore, there is little incentive to place the guns at minimum distance as the diameter of the barbette has been determined by other requirement. In the case of the Bismarck, per the aforementioned diagrams, there is space to walk (OK, you need to be skinny) between the shell hoist and the gun carriage.
A triple turret is more/less a square, as a result, there becomes much more incentive to place the guns at minimum distance. If you place the gun carriage up against the shell hoists as per the diagrams of the 28cm turrets (diagram in German Naval Artillery vol. I, by Miroslaw Skwiot); you may reduce the spacing by ~1.25m. Which puts the distance at 2.5m more/less the same as the guns in the KGV.
A quad turret becomes a rectangle with the short axis in direction of fire. But you can "cheat" a little as the outside barrels may be outside the barbette (only the shell hoists need be inside). And the inner pair of gun carriages may be placed very close together: There are structural and well as flight interference considerations on exactly how close.
German quad would be opposite of French - inner barrels would be closer with outer barrels further apart.
RN kept the detail design consistent between the twin and quad turrets (why reinvent the wheel)
As the breech block only needs to open 38cm + a little for the case rim + a bit for case clearance + some for locking, the 125cm minimum between barrel in lots extra.
Admiral Beez
Major
Have Glorious' five operational Swordfish on deck, torpedo-armed and fueled, with their crews and engines on five minute readiness, along with two (or even one) of her nine operational Sea Gladiators running a 60 mile diameter circuit around their ship, and the two German battlecruisers will have a very bad day.
By the time the Germans detect Glorious (historically at 4pm), she would have had sufficient warning from her Gladiator patrol to light up all boilers, move away at speed and launch her five Swordfish. The odds are that at least one torpedo will strike home. Meanwhile a radio call is made to HMS Ark Royal to launch a larger Swordfish operation.
Admiral Beez
Major
I was assuming Richelieu specs. Have the Germans capture her and increase flight capabilities aft.
