Naval History Forums

No need for apologies, memory can betray any of us .

Hi guys. I have always believed that the sailors of the SMS slept in barracks when at port. Can anyone confirm this or if they stayed at their ships?

Regards

Yes Byron, the Rodmans soldiered on until they were far surpassed by technology. The guns were cast hollow, the mold contained a central insert that formed the bore of the gun, this insert had an inner piping thru which water was circulated during the cooling. This ensured that the casting cooled fr...

Yes, just look to the photos of the land version and you get a glimpse of the mechanisms involved. There would be more complexities for sea use, for example I don´t know if a chain rammer would be able to push the 3 t shell into the breech. The recoil would be heavy, somehow you have to provide spac...

I remember seeing a reconstruction in Discovery many years ago. I think the re curved was described as the best one, with an iron pointed arrow it pierced a reconstructed chest armor of the era at close distance. In the same series, a trebuchet was reconstructed and tested. I was astonished by the p...

I paid 100 U$ for Raven´s British cruisers. Anyway, it is worth every cent.

Regards

Oh yes, I know the Rodmans quiet well, we have a pair of them in Argentina, 10", but of a post Civil War rifled version. The Rodmans were quiet obsolete at the end of the Civil War, they were cast iron muzzle loaders , while UK were then manufacturing Armstrong´s rifled breech loaders, and Krupp was...

No problem Byron, we always learn something ! I imagined that you meant smooth bore!

The calculation of the Cb must be properly done, the waterline length must be used along with the corresponding draft and displacement. Estimating it from overall length can lead to a lower than real value.

Regards

A block coefficient of less than 0.5 means two things:

-concave lines
-rise of floor

Is this possible in a warship?

Well, you have very few instances of guns bigger than 16" at sea. On the other side, on land the biggest gun was the 800mm Gustav. Could it be mounted afloat? Let see: -the barrel is 32 m long, they would take a considerable space on deck -the shell weights 7 t, for a 4 gun ship providing 100 shells...

Byron, what do you mean for straight faces?

Regards

Hi Paul, the numbers for H classes can be found in Dulin&Garzke. H-42 8 x 420 mm 98.000 t full load 305 m x 42.8 m H-43 8 x 508 mm 120.000 t full load 330 m x 48 m H-44 8 x 508 mm 141.500 t full load 345 m x 51.5 m H-42 is bigger than Yamato with less armament. H-43 and H-44 had 20" guns. The size i...

Yes Byron, I know the book and have it in my wish list, mostly because it is highly recommended.

Regards

Thanks Wadinga!