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For those in the Dreadnought campaign that wonders what the ship of our campaign name looks like. This is a picture of the HMS Dreadnought, Royal Navy 1906-1918' The first big gun Battleship.







527 feet in length.
82 feet in beam.
Ten 12" guns.
27 12 pounders.
Five 18" torpedo tubes.
With a complement of 773 men onboard.

The only model of this ship that I know of is the Combrig resin 1/700 kit, and sells for 45.00 US Dollars. I would love to see one in 1/350 Scale!

Regards,

Garry

Like this one?:




http://steelnavy.com/SNDreadnought.htm

Oh yes yum! Is this kit still in production? Was'nt the stealnavy kits changed to the bluewater trade mark ?

Interesting!

Garry

AFAIK the Steelnavy/ Rhino kit is available? You're thinking about Bluewater navy change to Yankee Modelworks

alas, tis a resin kip and therefore costs much to much money for me, though I would kill to see that baby in injection molded plastic.

Howdy fellas,

Just lurking and lookin'......don't mind me. I really like the photo you provided of the HMS Dreadnought there Garry. She looks well armed. I especially like the turrets amidships.

Which brings up a question...(remember my 'pain in the a**' questions last time Garry? ).. If I remember correctly, didn't the earlier Battleships (maybe the Dreadnought classes...not sure) normally have additional guns of some type mounted on top of each main turret??
I can only assume that if that is indeed true, that at some stage the increasing size of the main gun improvements moved the 'piggyback' guns to some other location?

Just curious.......{hehehe}

Tread.

Hiya Tread,

The double turret was first tried on the USS Kearsarge. The idea being they wanted the power of the 8" secondary batteries but didn't want to use them broadside due to the slow rate of fire. 6" weapons being much quicker. And to place the 8" turrets along the ships centerline would take up length so they decided to put them atop the 12 or 13" main batteries in a fixed position to train with the main guns. Reason being they were likely to be fireing at the same ship anyway. The double turret reappeared on the USS Virginia. However by this time the rate of fire of the 8" had increased to the point that it was a real problem to figure out a fire rate for the main and secondary batteries so that the blast and heated gasses were clear between one battery and the other so another gun could be fired. This in fact slowed the rate of fire down and the double turret sank into oblivion...Mike T

Thanks for that input Mike, I was stumped on that one. That clears it up well!

Garry

A huge, but immensely readable and interesting book on the subject is Dreadnought, by Robert Massie. I've read that, but not yet gotten around to reading his follow-up, Castles of Steel, which covers The Great War at sea.

Plenty of time with 7 months to start date .

John

Just look on top of all the turrets except the first one in the front. They all have two 12 pdrs on top If I remember correctly.

Howdy and Good Mornin' to you all,

Many thx for the intel fellas (Mike), I kind of felt I was correct about the "double-turrets". Your explanation about them was the only surprise. I didn't think the rate of fire synchronization issue was the reason for the change, but rather, the increasing level of shock affect produced by the much larger calibers of main guns being employed aboard the larger Battleships.

I can't even imagine sitting on top of one of those 16-inch main gun turrets when it wen't off!

Tread.

By the time the 16" guns were in use the 8" guns were no longer even considered for a secondary battery. All US BB's used in WW-II had 5" secondary batteries. The oldest of these being the Wyoming class laid down in 1910. The first 16" BB was the USS Maryland of the Colorado class and it was completed in July of 1921. Heavy cruisers shipped the 8" guns as their main batteries.


Kearsarge:



USS Virginia 8" over 12"