Warship Discussion Thread - For all boats, ships, and subs of your flavor

[WelperHelper99]

Oh I am sure they could poke surface targets shit back in - I am sure they where involved in shore support on D-Day - then again anything that had a decent sized gun was used for that as well honestly the amount of ordnance fired at shore targets for the first few weeks was insane.

I mean in there final WW2 refit config they carried 120 depth charges with about 3rd of them ready to go at any one time and German sub's where the only marine threat the allies where realistically worried about during D-Day, and what limited aircraft the Germans could get into the fight and by mid 44 that wasn't much but Black Swans, Towns and prety much any ship was armed to the teeth in that regard by late in the war.

Oh yeah that's definitely what they became by the end, depth charge dispensers to kill the shit out of every U-boat in sight, it's just that their gun armament puts them into a pseudo destroyer/ light AA vessel. I guess that's the interesting thing about Sloops, heavier duty than corvettes but lighter and less capable than full destroyers. I guess patrol ships kinda fill the role now, maybe coast guard cutters or even just modern corvettes, it's a odd class in modern terms.

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

Oh yeah that's definitely what they became by the end, depth charge dispensers to kill the shit out of every U-boat in sight, it's just that their gun armament puts them into a pseudo destroyer/ light AA vessel. I guess that's the interesting thing about Sloops, heavier duty than corvettes but lighter and less capable than full destroyers. I guess patrol ships kinda fill the role now, maybe coast guard cutters or even just modern corvettes, it's a odd class in modern terms.

Transitory classification fit's better I think, if you look at them they where the midway point between other classes.

I don't know if the US ever used them but during WW1 and WW2 we used Navy Trawlers, sometimes purpous built sometimes "taken from trade" in the latter case they where a trawler that was built and subsidised by the navy so that it could be rapidly refitted into a warship and they filled a lot of roles some where Sub Chasers i.e. if they recived reports of a Sub in a area they would go and hunt it down or make it keep below torpedo depth till larger ships came in (and had a high number of sub kills), Some as early air raid warning ships, crew recovery from downed aircraft etc, they also served with larger fleets as a ship to fill a hole.

Most where armed with 3"/50's in dual mounts but all had one main gun, hedgehogs, machine gun mounts small basic ASDIG kits etc

 

[WelperHelper99]

Transitory classification fit's better I think, if you look at them they where the midway point between other classes.

I don't know if the US ever used them but during WW1 and WW2 we used Navy Trawlers, sometimes purpous built sometimes "taken from trade" in the latter case they where a trawler that was built and subsidised by the navy so that it could be rapidly refitted into a warship and they filled a lot of roles some where Sub Chasers i.e. if they recived reports of a Sub in a area they would go and hunt it down or make it keep below torpedo depth till larger ships came in (and had a high number of sub kills), Some as early air raid warning ships, crew recovery from downed aircraft etc, they also served with larger fleets as a ship to fill a hole.

Most where armed with 3"/50's in dual mounts but all had one main gun, hedgehogs, machine gun mounts small basic ASDIG kits etc

The US had a lot of ships that were basically dragged into service. The Liberty class was surprisingly well armed, and things like PT boats were basically speedboats with torpedoes and sometimes a 37mm autocannon from a Aircobra. And yes we slapped those 3 inch guns on EVERYTHING, a few are still in use in some nations lol. As for purpose built sloops, nothing I can think of. You Brits cared more about the smaller screening ship classes

 

[Cultured Xeno]

The next RC Battleship I ordered is coming along nicely. I am expecting to get it at the end of this year or the beginning of next year.

 

[ComStar]

World of warships is a fun game if you're willing to dedicate time to it. I don't blame you for dropping it lol. I still have fun when I can be arsed to play, but I ranked up as a teenager with lots of free time.

I ended up playing a lot of Steel Ocean because my WoWS didn't work for some reason. I did some back and forth with tech support but they couldn't figure out what went wrong, leaving me to play a chinese knockoff for a year or two.

Steel Ocean was a badly optimized cashgrab, but it had subs, manual secondaries, manual AA and various officers you could slot into your ship for bonuses. They got some things right, but ended up killing it in like 2020 with no fanfare. It was relaunched recently and from what i've heard is just as janky as it was in 2015

Nowadays i get my naval fix from Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts. I'd like to pick up WoWS (or Steel Ocean) again, but i think i've moved on from that style of game. It's the same with World of Tanks and War Thunder

 

[WelperHelper99]

I ended up playing a lot of Steel Ocean because my WoWS didn't work for some reason. I did some back and forth with tech support but they couldn't figure out what went wrong, leaving me to play a chinese knockoff for a year or two.

Steel Ocean was a badly optimized cashgrab, but it had subs, manual secondaries, manual AA and various officers you could slot into your ship for bonuses. They got some things right, but ended up killing it in like 2020 with no fanfare. It was relaunched recently and from what i've heard is just as janky as it was in 2015

Nowadays i get my naval fix from Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts. I'd like to pick up WoWS (or Steel Ocean) again, but i think i've moved on from that style of game. It's the same with World of Tanks and War Thunder

I've heard of ultimate Dreadnoughts. Haven't played WoWs in a while honestly, but my account is there ready to go with tier 8 ships lol. It's a fun time waster, I'd recommend starting with Japan, very user friendly and quite satisfying even through tiers 5-7.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

The Alaska-Class, like the german Panzershiffe, is one of my favorite designs, just for the odd nature of it. It's really just an enlarged Baltimore-Class, not really a battlecruiser, but you can't fault people for making the mistake. On the other hand, if the US wanted real battlecruisers, we would have armed them with 16in guns, but since we went all in on Fast Battleships, the USN didn't need them. A cruiser hunter that never had cruisers to hunt.

 

[Cultured Xeno]

View attachment 5093353

The Alaska-Class, like the german Panzershiffe, is one of my favorite designs, just for the odd nature of it. It's really just an enlarged Baltimore-Class, not really a battlecruiser, but you can't fault people for making the mistake. On the other hand, if the US wanted real battlecruisers, we would have armed them with 16in guns, but since we went all in on Fast Battleships, the USN didn't need them. A cruiser hunter that never had cruisers to hunt.

Wasn't the Alaska-class built as a result of a mistranslation of intercepted IJN communications?

IIRC Naval Intelligence mistranslated the kanji for Shokaku into "Kadekuru" and, when combined with other intercepted intel, came to the conclusion that this "Kadekuru" was part of a new class of super heavy cruiser. This lead to the USN designing a counter super heavy cruiser which lead to the Alaska-class. However, by the time they came into service most of the IJN's cruiser forces had been wiped out leaving the Alaskas without anything to fight.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

Wasn't the Alaska-class built as a result of a mistranslation of intercepted IJN communications?

IIRC Naval Intelligence mistranslated the kanji for Shokaku into "Kadekuru" and, when combined with other intercepted intel, came to the conclusion that this "Kadekuru" was part of a new class of super heavy cruiser. This lead to the USN designing a counter super heavy cruiser which lead to the Alaska-class. However, by the time they came into service most of the IJN's cruiser forces had been wiped out leaving the Alaskas without anything to fight.

They were based off the results of German launching the Deutschland-class and the IJN's Design B-65 cruiser. The IJN had been kicking around the concept of a large heavy cruiser for awhile, we actually beat them to the punch, so they went forward with the B-65 in part to counter the Alaskas. So the USN got the counter the Japanese concept out before the Japanese could even finalize it. Fortunately, the Alaskas were also designed to provide escort to carriers, so we got some use out of them, but yeah, by the time they launched, nothing they were built to counter was still floating or actually constructed.

The most terrifying part of the War in the Pacific is that even if the Japanese had scored a 3-to-1 kill ratio in comparable ship classes, the USN still would have buried them in sheer weight of numbers. We might have gotten the dreamed of Iowa vs Yamato though, but I figure that goes 7 to 8 out of ten to the Iowas, just based on speed and vastly superior range finding and fire control. Never mind the possibility of the Montana-class being completed, which was just fucking overkill at that point.

 

[WelperHelper99]

Wasn't the Alaska-class built as a result of a mistranslation of intercepted IJN communications?

IIRC Naval Intelligence mistranslated the kanji for Shokaku into "Kadekuru" and, when combined with other intercepted intel, came to the conclusion that this "Kadekuru" was part of a new class of super heavy cruiser. This lead to the USN designing a counter super heavy cruiser which lead to the Alaska-class. However, by the time they came into service most of the IJN's cruiser forces had been wiped out leaving the Alaskas without anything to fight.

They were based off the results of German launching the Deutschland-class and the IJN's Design B-65 cruiser. The IJN had been kicking around the concept of a large heavy cruiser for awhile, we actually beat them to the punch, so they went forward with the B-65 in part to counter the Alaskas. So the USN got the counter the Japanese concept out before the Japanese could even finalize it. Fortunately, the Alaskas were also designed to provide escort to carriers, so we got some use out of them, but yeah, by the time they launched, nothing they were built to counter was still floating or actually constructed.

The most terrifying part of the War in the Pacific is that even if the Japanese had scored a 3-to-1 kill ratio in comparable ship classes, the USN still would have buried them in sheer weight of numbers. We might have gotten the dreamed of Iowa vs Yamato though, but I figure that goes 7 to 8 out of ten to the Iowas, just based on speed and vastly superior range finding and fire control. Never mind the possibility of the Montana-class being completed, which was just fucking overkill at that point.

Drachinifel actually did a really good deep dive on the Alaskas

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

This is the Sail the HMS Victory used during the Battle of Trafalgar, it was known as saved and it was displayed for a short while after the battle but it then got put into stores and was last seen around 1890, it turned up in a locker that was last opened before WW2 in the Plymouth Naval Dockyards during a refurbishment in the late 1990's and has since been conserved and put on display.

OT but thread related, as I said in conversation with @WelperHelper99 I'm willing to put some effort into the tools an skills used for the farms of making a age of sail ship but there is one topic I'd like to cover but it would be kinda odd and that's the sourcing of the tree's for the timber used - it's a really important foundation a lot of people don't understand today and that's the quality of Wood in general but for a Ship let alone a warship it's a critical factor, would you guy's be OK with that level of detail?

 

[WelperHelper99]

View attachment 5096631

This is the Sail the HMS Victory used during the Battle of Trafalgar, it was known as saved and it was displayed for a short while after the battle but it then got put into stores and was last seen around 1890, it turned up in a locker that was last opened before WW2 in the Plymouth Naval Dockyards during a refurbishment in the late 1990's and has since been conserved and put on display.

OT but thread related, as I said in conversation with @WelperHelper99 I'm willing to put some effort into the tools an skills used for the farms of making a age of sail ship but there is one topic I'd like to cover but it would be kinda odd and that's the sourcing of the tree's for the timber used - it's a really important foundation a lot of people don't understand today and that's the quality of Wood in general but for a Ship let alone a warship it's a critical factor, would you guy's be OK with that level of detail?

I think we need that autism @Phalanges Mycologist . Tell us all about that wood. I think it'll be quite useful in fleshing out the thread.

On a separate note, i've been looking at a lot of ship stuff during the down time. First I want to start off with something historical: the BRITISH 9.2 inch gun MK X


Or 233.7mm for metric conversions. Link here for the page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BL_9.2-inch_Mk_IX_–_X_naval_gun
Its actually pretty intersting, served from 1899 (!) to 1956. Pretty powerful stuff too firing a 380lb shell at 2643ft per second, or just over 800 meters per second. They used it in everything, from Battleships, cruisers, coastal defense, heck NATO used it for a while, thats how good it was. For any and all brits, any thing to add?

Now modern shit. Meet the heaviest frigate ever put to sea, the German F125 Baden-Württemberg-class frigates


Clocking in at 7,200 tons, but with a armament mostly consisting of guns and a few RAM CWIS for air defense, the germans consider it a "Low intensity frigate".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baden-W%C3%BCrttemberg-class_frigate

It is so heavy, and with such flaws that it lists 1.3 degrees, limiting future upgrades. It does have anti ship missiles, theyre trying to get ones for land attack, but come on. They first started construction in 2011, but only finished in 2022 due to massive design errors. Holy fuck. Now it does have some unique capabities, like a diving room and little drone submarines. But I think that this is the closest thing, in modern day at least, that we can class as a lolcow ship. Can it fuck up land targets? Sure. Small attack boats with its auto cannons and 50cals? Yeah. Aircraft? Depends if they are retarded enough to get in range of the very short range RAM, and not just fire anti ship missiles at it. They also arent fully operational yet despite some of them being finished before 2022, the first of the class is supposed to be fully operational by MID 2023. Germany, how, just how?

 

[make_it_so]

Red Storm Rising is even better - it was so well written that it war recomended reading for Army, Navy and Airforce and politicians on BOTH sides of the Atlantic, the audiobook of it is amazing.

The Soviets where always trying to get their hands on NATO tech I mean there was the 2nd Cuban Crisis where a sonar tow line got caught in a Russian Warships prop off the cost of Cuba and there was essentially a tug of war between a US Sub and a Russian missile cruiser and both sides called in reinforcements because the Russians where trying at the time to get there hands on the NATO sonar hydrophones I think it ended when the US Sub dumped more power into the circuit to try an destroy it an cut the line and the Russians still copied a lot of it.

Actually, it was the other way around - a Russian Victor III sub got tangled up in the towed sonar array of a US surface warship (USS McCloy). It still ended up with the Soviets getting their hands on and copying the tech.

 

[WelperHelper99]

Actually, it was the other way around - a Russian Victor III sub got tangled up in the towed sonar array of a US surface warship (USS McCloy). It still ended up with the Soviets getting their hands on and copying the tech.

Either way, the Cold War was full of a lot of tech stealing, especially ships. Just look at that Yak-38 VTOL jet that they copied from the harrier for the Kiev carriers- I mean heavy aircraft cruisers

 

[WelperHelper99]

https://www.naval-technology.com/news/babcock-royal-navy-ssbn-refit-vanguard/

Restarting the thread, the HMS Vanguard SSBN boomer sub is under refit despite its replacement being under construction