Enhanced Survivability Ship Construction Methods
Nemorlandian ships have always specialized in being durable. Our ships survive much more damage than any other ships. Our engineering department has drawn up a standardized method of laying out the internal structure of a ship, so that the hull and structural pieces of the ship is reinforced so that damage to then will not begin twisting the hull or otherwise spreading damage through the frame of the ship. Our ships will be subdivided by bulkheads and watertight doors so that flooding will not spread far enough to capsize or sink the ship until multiple compartments have completely filled with water. Sections that don't normally need to be travelled between don't even have armored doors connecting them---the after turrets' barbettes don't need to have access to engineering, for instance. This reduces the number of weakpoints in the bulkheads and reduces the possibility of human error rendering the scheme nonsensical (leaving a door open). Integrated into this new method of ship construction is a powerful pumping system capable of clearing enough water to make repairs or continued operations feasible even with multiple holes in each section. Integrated into the layout of the ship are rooms where there are wall panels that can be removed to give access to firefighting, pumping, and medical equipment, so that damage control teams are never far from the things they need to keep the ship afloat.
Magazines in this standard layout are covered in devices to ensure the safety of the crew: The bridge, gun crew, magazine handlers, and a damage-control station just outside the turret's barbette all have the ability to flood the magazines remotely in case of damage that threatens to start a fire or explosion, while the hoists are fitted with flash-proof doors that are mechanically synced to the hoist to open as a shell is hoisted up. Doors are likewise flash-proof, designed to resist the force of a flash fire that consumes the entire propellant complement of a given magazine if at all possible.
Armor is mounted inside of an external hull---this hull is composed of non-armor-grade metal merely meant to give the ship a hydrodynamic outer shell. The armor belts of any ship provided with a substantial belt is recessed, meeting the outer hull at the top of the deck and inclined from the vertical so that the armor plate will tend to deflect shells down to the water's surface, away from the vital components of the ship. This arrangement is pretty much only for armored cruisers and larger vessels with substantial armored belts, smaller ones don't have enough armor to warrant the additional construction work.
This engineering work will make it effortless to apply all of these useful traits to any warship we need them in, while giving us great experience in making exceedingly durable ships that are hard to disable.
Effectiveness: 6 | Cost: 3 | Bugs: 5
Indeed, Nemorlandian ships have always been able to take a hit, as was proven a while back with the use of the Primebrook as a target ship, an old ship, both the only one of her class and the last ship of the old fleet. Made of iron rather than steel and named after the important port city, and yet even with modern guns it took quite some time to actually see her start getting dangerously low in the water, in fact, it took so long we had to return to port because the cruiser firing at it was out of ammo. However, before continuing using the battered old cruiser for target practice, a through inspection was done to try and figure out how it was still afloat, why, and how we could apply that knowledge elsewhere. During the inspection which took place after we towed the thing back and put it in a dry dock, we gained a number of extremely important insights into her design that made it just so difficult of a nut to crack, even with the weaker armor.
This was mainly due to how her rooms were set up, she had many bulkheads and all the doors were large, heavy, and water tight. This, combined with the fact that she had a very small number of connecting corridors on the inside of the ship, as few as she needed without becoming a hindrance to the crew, along with determining just how much longer she could last before sinking gave us valuable insights, specifically the fact that she'd likely have sunk if left out at sea for another hour or two, and would have had a catastrophic flash fire if she had been actually loaded with ammo when being used as gunnery practice, however this gave a engineer an idea of how to fix all of this, at least as best as possible.
A number of pumps, combined with easy access to fire fighting equipment, repair tools, and medical aid would likely result in the ship being able to, had it revived no more damage and sailed slowly, stay afloat and get back to home. And the turrets and ammo storage reinforced in a way that, in the worst case scenario, the damage would take out the turret but not do enough to actually sink the ship, and even a preventive measure in place to reduce the chance of something like that happening also included being included.
This, with a final touch of modifications to the hull for hydrodynamics without sacrificing cost and armor and in a position where deflected shells are more likely to bounce down into the sea will surely cause all major warships of ours to be true floating fortresses. If a bit more costly in some places more than others due to the extra precautions. Though, certainly well worth it.
With our rearmament comes a noted requirement for a new weapon. This has been answered by our engineers in the form of this 7-ton, six inch bore, 22 foot long artillery piece developed for near universal service in our navy.
The gun is rifled, with the shells using copper "wedding rings" to engage the rifling. Construction is of the wire-wound type. Loading is done in two parts (shell and standard brass case, loaded with Ballistite) through a horizontal sliding wedge which, on firing, automatically opens and ejects the empty case. Recoil is moderated via the gun's Hydraulic recoil mechanism taking the form of a pair of oil pistons located on each side of the barrel.
Five types of separately fused shells(the fuses consisting of timed and delayed contact; and are mounted on the base of the shell) are developed for the gun and are listed as follows; "Star"(phosphorus parachute flare), "Smoke"(White phosphorus bursting), "Shrapnel", "Capped-Common" and "Capped-Armored". All explosive shells utilize a mixture of picric acid and Ballistite as their bursting charge. The caps referred to by the common and armored shells are thin, aerodynamic tin shells that "cap" the forged steel body of the shell in an effort to reduce the likelihood of the shell shattering against modern armors.
The gun is designed to have a range of some 10 miles at 25 degrees of elevation.
The gun is designed for use in two mountings, both based on the same basic setup. In each case the gun is mounted on an electronically powered turntable designed to move to a specific heading, along with a similar system for controlling elevation. Fine controls are via geared hand crank.
The first, and main, mounting consists of a angular turret on said turntable, open at the rear, built of inch thick steel plates welded together, with integrated optical gunsight for the gunner. The turret is sunk about 3" into the deck and is ringed by a 9" high barbette. No access to belowdecks is present in this mount and provisions are made for storing some five shells and two propellant charges in the turret.
The second type of mounting is of of the Disappearing gun type for use in shipboard gun pits or in land fortifications. In this mount, a small periscope is mounted on the wall of the gun pit and the gun is designed to lower on firing, with energy stored by the motion to raise it again. Otherwise, this mount is totally unarmored. Any more details of this mounts use must by necessity be included only in design documents for the project using them.
Effectiveness: 6 | Cost: 5 | Bugs: 2
The 6"/45 QF M1890, usually just called the M1890 for simplicity sake, is technically two important steps rather than one. It is the first gun designed specifically for the usage of more advanced propellant, specifically the smokeless kind known as Ballistite, patented only a few years ago. Naturally, this alone makes the gun show much more promise over the older models we use, and has a good range of a bit over eighteen thousand yards, or almost nine nautical miles. Quite far for such a small gun, mostly thanks to the propellant and the barrel length. Testing with a few prototypes show that, with the new ammunition, it has much greater punching power than our older and smaller guns, and even the seven inch gun we have in service using the older ammo they were designed to use.
The gun is quick firing, and with the pair of oil pistons for recoil dampening, its able to have a healthy firing rate so long as it doesn't run out of ammo or jam, which it tends to do more often than we'd like. You see, the gun has an issue with ejecting the shells, sometimes, the manage to get stuck. They can be removed and this doesn't damage the gun or stop it from firing once the offending shell is removed, but it can be an issue, and the shells can be either fairly easy to remove to quite bothersome to attempt to remove. Other than this issue, the gun works perfectly fine and is safe to use so long as the one using it has proper training. The last thing to note is the addition of a small bit of optical aid to help the gunner hit what they are shooting at, though, not too much.
It is now the Design Phase of Pre game Turn 3. You have 6 dice remaining to spend on Revisions or Save for the next turn.
Naval
Early 2/3/4/5/7/9/10/12 inch guns
6"/45 QF M1890 (6 inch gun, jams more often than liked, but jamming can be cleared in combat. Max range of roughly 18000 yards)
Triple-expansion engines.
Steel hull construction.
Compartmentalization.
Single Casemates.
Single and Double gun turrets.
Basic Steel making techniques.
Early Damage control techniques.
Decent Anti Flash fire measures.
Ballistite.
Marines
Defensive guns (Uses same calibers as naval guns)
Rosemary 85 Rifle (Basic Bolt Action Rifle)
Holly 8 (Basic Revolver)
Nemorland Naval Academy's School of Nautical Engineering (Costs 7 PP Per turn to keep running)
Intensive Nautical Training School (Costs 5 PP per turn to keep running)
4,000 Displacement Dry docks.
Author
Topic: Refit and Repair, Nemorland, Spring, 1890, Production & Deployment Phase. (Read 22075 times)