Shipbucket

I honestly don't think you have enough beam for the VLS at that location. You also have a full AAW sensor suite without the the number of cells to use it to any effect. Given the land strike purpose of this ship I'd reduce the sensors to focus on horizon search and use quad packed ESSMs (or equivalent) to give you magazine depth and an AAW capability tailored to the most loikely threat which is shore launced ASMs. If you want this to be battlecruiser of doom that can be both a land attack vessel and an area air defense cruiser you need to at least double your VLS so you have a depth of fire in long range SAMs suitable to that mission. Thats going to be tough given the amount of tonnage and deck realistate that you have dedicated to strike including not just the guns but the cells you reserve for Tomahawk.

How are you plannig on launching and recovering that UAV?

As for the 15" guns it really only needs fire control in the general category of "point in direction of GPS coordinate 50 miles away, elevate for greates effect of rocket assist." You can do that with a calculator. There is really no reason to design them for SUW against other vessels inside the horizon. Just make them your strike asset and be done with it. You have your secondaries which are more than enough to deal with modern unarmored surface combatants.

EDIT: Also, what exactly is the justification of the 15"? The ERGM was to use the 5" and the LRLAP is planned to use the 5" and newer 155mm. Is it just warhead size that made you pick that caliber of gun? I would also question the need for twin mounts if their sole reason is to fire these things. Modern arillery with autoloading has long ago advanced to be able to provide rapid fire burst salvos with MRSI of 5 to 10 shells. I can't see much reason to go further than that. Two single mount turrets firing at the same target to could double that already.

See the Pzh2000, a navalized version of this would fit your needs much better in my opinion. Scale it up if you need to but 155mm is pretty standard for battlefield artillery these days especially since the point of a smart shell is to use fewer to better effect than a lot for general area effect. These type of shells are alredy in the tens of thousands of dollars per warshot range, a 15" version would easily be in the hundreds of thousands (the ERGM already was before cancellation, and it was 5")

EDIT EDIT: You are also not going to use this for close fire support. These rounds will be far too expensive for that. What this is for is stike missions within the 100-200km range that most modern versions of these types of shells aim for. Its basically the poor man's Tomahawk that you can carry far more of and put on target far faster for a fraction of the cost of a similar number of cruise missiles. So you sit off the coast and destroy all the SAM sites, power plants, bridges, government buildings, command centers, runways, etc. Or maybe it drops one on an airbase every fifteen minutes for a day to keep them from pulling the aircraft out of their bunkers while your aircraft rule unopposed. You use Tomahawks for anything too far inland for the guns.

Lance Corporal so and so will need to call in something with a cost measured in four digits, not four or five.

I also have a question, if that's alright - you've got two 4.5" wing mounts on the ship, may I ask the reason? The arcs of fire are going to be almost identical (with potential for the front one interfering with the aft one's arc, and vice versa) so I'm not sure what you gain from having two...

Ad

Why do you need the 4.5 at all ? or 2 x 15inch turrets ?

IM(none expert)O,

- cut to 1 x 15inch turret
- put the VLS in the B position (and make it bigger)
- cut the 4.5 and just add 2 x 57mm
- cut rear phalanx
- sponson out (for better arc, maybe on the hangar ?) the 2 remaining Phalanx (or just use the 57mm and save the cost ?).

JSB

Thanks for all your helpful comments. Some more than others. Some I have no understanding of what is required - outside my knowledge level of the systems.

I will not be removing the 15" turrets. They may not be of much use in todays environment, but that was not why I made the ship as it is. With the 4.5", one per side may be good, two must be better. Both have more than adequate fire zone of at least 135 degrees. I do not need to save costs, I have a BIG gold and diamond mine to pay for the ship and its equipment.

There is more than enough room forward for two blocks containing 80 vls tubes, the biggest problem will be either the blast of the 15" if fired directly forward, or if vls is required to be fired in heavy weather. A second wave deflector forward of the tubes may solve the second part of the problem.

An update of the ship is shown one page 1.

many big guns battleship did not fire over the bow, due to the risk of damaging/tearing up the deck!

As Heuhen has pointed out not all ships need to fire their big guns directly forward. Also remember that most mountings have blocks in place that stops a mounting from firing into a dangerous direction. Like your own ship! Like the interuptor gear stopped aircraft blasting off their own propellors.

I will gradually update the overhead view as I draw the parts.

I have been trying to find out how much launch room a Predator drone requires for take off. If anyone knows and can let me know it would be much appreciated. I did see they are being launched off CV's.

http://www.airforce-technology.com/proj ... dator-uav/predator typically requires 2,000ft take off and landing run 609m un-assisted. i'm not sure the airframe can withstand a cat launch and even with a ski jump i'd expect you'd still need 1/2 if not 2/3 of this.

Regarding gunfire control: Type 45 uses an electro-optical system using two of the Radamec 2500 directors, mounted over the bridge. Unlike Type 23, which has separate systems for the MCG and SCGs, on Type 45 all the upperdeck guns are integrated and can be controlled using the same system.

I don't know if Type 1045 (SAMPSON) is programmed to perform gunfire control. Type 997 (ARTISAN) is said to "support" surface gunfire, but I suspect that that may be limited in scope.

RP1

Thanks Shippy,
That takes care of that. I can see it working on a cv with 30 knot winds over the bow to take off into. But they wont work off a helo deck cruiser. So they will have to go. Pity, the idea of having an integrated spotting service was nice while it lasted.

RP1,
So I do not need any extra equipment to control the 15"? What is already available will do the job?

Added the 15" to the overhead.

Nige

perhaps take a look at Iowa, and what she used in the end of here operation time.

or just take an look at that experimental 8" gun armed destroyer.


I don't think an modern big gun ship that only do arty mission need more than GPS gun control... so satellite communication, but for that to work the guns need computers to calculate... for a big gun ship with modern technology will most likely fire over horizon... But I am no expert on this.

Didn't Iowa use spotter plane to mark it's target during the Gulf War, but did also get some help by laser/GPS marking by men on the ground?