German Capital Ship Design Studies of The First World War

[BrockPaine]

Haven't they been redrawn to SB standards by anyone?

I doodled around with re-doing them. Ran out of interest and I don't think I ever saved my work. Par for the course for me.

[Tempest]

GK 4542 Battlecruiser
The GK 4542 project was a 1918 design proposal for a 45,000 ton battlecruiser, armed with eight 42cm (16.5in) SK L/45 guns in four twin turrets, in a superfiring arrangement on the centreline.

Secondary armament consisted of eight 15cm (5.9in) L/45guns in casemates, four 15cm (5.9in) L/45 AA guns in turrets (an advanced design feature for the time) and one torpedo tube in the bow.

The GK 4542 was to have been 240m (787.40ft) long, with a beam of 33.5m (109.9ft) and a draught of 10m (32.8ft). His speed was estimated to be 28.5kts.


Next project will be the GK 4541, a variant of GK 4542, i'll finish the L 22 c as well.

[Hood]

That's and interesting design.
Only eight casemate 5.9in and the other four are HA only. That seems weak given the cruiser/ destroyer threat in the North Sea. Also, I wonder if provision was made for extra HA rangefinders to control those large calibre HA guns. I'm guessing they were intended primarily as anti-airship weapons.

[DG_Alpha]

Fantastic work, as usual.

I think the 15cm turrets should have a horizintal barrel, unless they could not turn that low. (I assume that's hard to guess on a never-built turret...)
Also, the prop shafts look a little bit too thick for me...

[Tempest]

Thanks DG_Alpha. I've updated the drawing, hadn't thought about the AA's. The props shafts are that thick in the design, there's one or two other designs with thick prop shafts as well.

Hood. With it being a 1918 design perhaps the aircraft threat was being taken more seriously?

[eswube]

Very interesting thread. Keep it up!

[denodon]

Interesting design for sure. I find it interesting that the hullform appears to reflect more on the battleships than the previous classes of battlecruiser.

[Tempest]

The book i've got is in German, except for the brief descriptions which i can translate with google translate app, i've yet to attempt the main text which might enlighten us to the German design philosphy for these projects. I'm off work for a few days this week so as well as finishing the L22 C and hopfully drawing the GK 4541 i'll have a look at the text, DG_Alpha has generously offered to help in translating i'll attempt it myself and ask for help if i get stuck.

[Tempest]

Here's a mega WIP of a 5-way view i've been working on, on and off, the bow and stern views need a lot of work to change to SB standards.

[emperor_andreas]

Nice!