Shipbucket

Go for it ace. I was actually thinking that this morning. I've added a deck above the waterline and below and both just look wrong. I was going to split the difference to see how that looked but didn't get to it. I would like to see your thought

what do you think of this?

added my belowdeck parts to illustrate the usage of the hull, and the requirements of the freeboard (missile magazines are in all but a few cases above the waterline)
I have also added (in blue, amidships) some approx deck levels.
I have also swapped the aft funnel and intake housing for the one of my spruance. it might not fit 100% because they are different ships, of course, but I leave that up to you. my opinion is that this new aft intake and uptake setups looks somewhat better then the original one.

btw, something I just noticed: the bilge keel is very low on your ship. the bilge keel is most often near the 45 degree turning point of the bilge, and this position of the bilge keel thus gives your ship an very narrow bilge diameter over one third of the length of your ship (giving your ship an block coefficient of between 0.7 (container ship) and 0.9 (tanker) which is nothing near the 0.45 and 0.65 that warships tend to be.

with this hull, the strength issues are gone, some or most of the space issues are gone (more space in the hull, so the superstructure can be limited) (you could build up the hull another deck amidships, if you can warrant this with stability) and the stern issues gone (an deck just above the waterline for towed arrays etc) on a sidenote, I would still change that stern a bit even if just for the looks. what about lowering the Mk 71 one deck? the ABL's can take it and the harpoons can't take it anyways.....

note the thigthness of the Mk 26 plenum vents and reload hatches with the helideck and the ABL's forward. this might limit your Mk 26 to the smaller mod 1 instead of the 64 missile mod 2. was this intentional? if not, it might be an good idea to put them closer to the guns, the DXG would have had the Mk 26 and the Mk 71 forward so from the distance on the kidd from Mk 26 to Mk 45 rotation axis you can find your minimum distance for this ship.

Couldn't get into the main spaces today, they were doing some work down there.

Shipright wrote:Couldn't get into the main spaces today, they were doing some work down there.

Thank you for thinking of my project while you were on board. If you ever do find out the mounting I'd love to hear about it

Thanks again

Joe

ok, here is the latest. I'm not going to put deck fittings and rails until I'm sure I like the weapons layout. so I thought I'd ask you all how you like this.



PS I realize this is not ideal but don't forget...VLS is in the near future

a few little problems:
- the intakes. the way you have put them, they are too small. on the spruance, these housings have all around (4 sides) intakes, as you have put them now you have 1/2. you have thus 120/50% too few intakes roughly.
- the aft harpoons would better be placed on the superstructure as on the spruance. I have doubts about the forward ones, but more about the aft ones. the ABLs on both positions are fine, but the harpoons would suffer from blast damage and sea damage.
- well, it is interesting to see the fitting of the guns and GMLS like this, I am not certain it is the best fit. let me look up the text about the virginia class in US destroyers when I get back to my own home after the weekend
- on all this length, isn't it possible to fit the phalanxes on better positions then these? (with marginal fore and aft coverage at best, due to the bridge and the hangar which are both full beam)
- don't forget an unrep position, most likely somewhere amidships, you have no mast fitted for that.

acelanceloet wrote:a few little problems:
- the intakes. the way you have put them, they are too small. on the spruance, these housings have all around (4 sides) intakes, as you have put them now you have 1/2. you have thus 120/50% too few intakes roughly.
- the aft harpoons would better be placed on the superstructure as on the spruance. I have doubts about the forward ones, but more about the aft ones. the ABLs on both positions are fine, but the harpoons would suffer from blast damage and sea damage.
- well, it is interesting to see the fitting of the guns and GMLS like this, I am not certain it is the best fit. let me look up the text about the virginia class in US destroyers when I get back to my own home after the weekend
- on all this length, isn't it possible to fit the phalanxes on better positions then these? (with marginal fore and aft coverage at best, due to the bridge and the hangar which are both full beam)
- don't forget an unrep position, most likely somewhere amidships, you have no mast fitted for that.

Good points. I like the intakes as they are now laid out now. The ones from the Spruance make perfect sense for the Spruance because the are mounted off center. So how about if I make them twice as big? As in keep them where they are now but extend them down to deck level. would that give them enough flow? Or leave them open at the top also, or would that give them the possibility of ingesting large amounts of sea spray? I don't think that would be anymore of an issue than the amount they would normally ingest, due to their height, but I could be wrong.

After researching a little more about CIWS placement I realized that given the "on-line" date of this ship, she wouldn't even have Phalanx yet. So now a redesign is in order to fit her with sea sparrow for the first few hulls. I'm showing that Phalanx wasn't ready until 78. The Virginia didn't even get hers until the 80's

As far as the gun behind the MK-26 launchers it was a general consensus aboard Virginia that the guns would have been better utilized if they had been located forward (and aft of) the MK-26 launchers for obvious reasons. I am unsure of the official reason for mounting them the way they were, and being that the ship is primarily an AAW ship, the placement worked out fine. I decided to put my MK-71 behind simply because it gives more room for the deep magazine.

Anyway, back to the drawing board

Thank you again for all the help

Joe

open at the top is no option, as these deckhouses were designed exactly to keep water (rain and sea) out.
I would make them an full deck high and extending them sideways a bit too. try to make the area the same as on the spruance, and add 10% for the different shape. that can be done by just counting pixels: on the spruance, it was about 300% of the area that we actually see on the drawing (front and back the same size, sides about 50% of the front and back so together 100%) so you would need 310% of what you have in sight now. seeing that you have 100% at the other side too (if the intakes are symmetrical on the ships axis, that is) you only need to enlarge each intake housing with 50%.

sea sparrow IS NOT an alternative to phalanx, but an alternative to tartar. the USN has never fitted both these systems on the same hull, and your sensor fit would need an upgrade to do so. what would be an better idea is to make the ships fitted for phalanx, as was done on at least some of the spruance concepts and the perry. if the spruance as build was designed to incorporate phalanx, that I don't know, but there were at least proposals to include an CIWS, which was not developed yet.

while it seems like an good reason (and I am going to check it in friedmans tomorrow, remind me if I don't!) keep an eye on the fact that the Mk 71 magazine shape is more flexible then that of the Mk 26. I will return to that subject after I have read this bit again.......

but even with all this in mind, you are getting near something that would work and what I actually could see as being build.....

Sea Sparrow (only in BPDMS form, I think) was fitted on some Knox hulls on the fantail; others received Phalanx. However I do not believe any ships received the former after the latter was available.

ok, how is this? too many ABL's? I could live without the forward ones, but....this would have been pretty BA back in the day. Anyway, I think this is about how I want it and I'm ready to start with future flights and upgrades



As always, thank you for all responses

Joe