Tankovian Meta Thread

[EchoFiveMike]

USA has almost 200 60pdr's and ammunition that they simply "disposed of", mostly as memorials, in 1931.  S/F....Ken M

[Markus Becker]

Thats a heavy field gun(with a low RoF) and its not available in the early 20s. Simon said that smaller caliber guns were usually kept for possible later use. 

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_4-40_mk8.php   Bloody hoarders! 

 

 

 

[Simon Tan]

The US stores everything and then just scraps or monuments stuff. It just doesn't flog stuff off. The French are worse. The British engage in Scrapathon because of Parliament and that is we get most of our surplus. The RN scraps all it's prizes and lots of it's older hulls too but the latter are all disarmed and the guns stored. I think they don't store torpedo tubes but I might be wrong. The Imperial German Navy is mostly at the bottom of Scapa and thus lost to us.

Indeed I think the Armaments Commission will need a fast packet to move around the ports and scrapyards of Europe. It is proposed to buy ex-HMS Portia at disposal prices and have her fitted out as a government yacht. It will provide our Navy with experience of running a high-speed, oil-fired turbine powered vessel while allowing our purchasing agents to have a full office as they travel. 

 

[Markus Becker]

Scrapped prizes could be a source of larger guns* too. All but two Helgolands and Nassaus were broken up as opposed to sunk as targets. Half of them were scrapped in the UK and I'd be surprised if they kept the guns given how many British ships got scrapped too. 

 

*15cm and 8.8cm

[Argus]

Points in my outline I didn't have time to elaborate on.
1/ I can't image it will be very long before some bright spark works out how to convert the 3pdr into a sub-calibre training gun for the 15cm 22cm guns - hint 75x12mm steel figure 8 straps.
2/ the light gun batteries can be re-armed basically with any naval deck gun in the 100-130mm range from 1900 to 1939 and fulfil their designed function to an acceptable level. These guns are cheap like borscht so I can't imagine it would be too long before the 7cm were replaced. 
3/ when the 7cm get replaced in the light batteries, and the 3pdr's are providing sub-calibre practice, say at some point before 1936-8, those 'spare' gunpits will be just the ticket for a bit of AAA. The battery's are all a bit too far apart to make sense for medium or heavy guns, but for point defence of the battery position... hehehe you might almost think it was planned that way. Almost any LAA would do, anything form a quad .50, 2x20mm or a single (automatic) in 37-45mm  range. The ideal is probably the twin 2pdr PomPom mountings built for land service (dockyard defense IIRC), yes I know the Pom Pom is not as good as the Bofors, but a twin Bofors would be bleeding edge stuff in the late 30's, where the Pompom was thoroughly mainstream. 

While a bag gun, my understanding is that the 60pdr's 2rpm is a book limit not a physical one. WWI field service for medium artillery being more about barrages and less about burst of rapid fire (when no one cared what the book had to say anyway), preserving the barrels and so heat control was the point. 

Barges - I was a bit dismissive of oil storage in barges before without justifying myself.
First point - storage.
Crude and bunker grade oils are not nice things to store and at this stage we had not been doing it for very long. Bulk oil storage has only been a serious 'thing' for about 20 years at this point, but they had still had time to work out a few things. Left in storage various acids can/will settle out and rot the tanks. Acids are not the only things to separate out of cruder grades of oil in storage, heavier tars and lighter paraffins, mineral fines, metallic particles. The result being a delightful acidic/abrasive sludge that loves to cling to nooks and crannies, is a general pain in the bum and a drama to clean out. The answer for this is concrete lining, smooth construction to minimise both surface area to be attacked and awkward corners to clean when (lastly) the tank is washed out on the regular basis. A liquid storage barge of the 1920's is going to be riveted and so all nooks and crannies and thus utter pain to clean.  So they will rot out - a long term problem but an inevitable one with a predictable lifecycle cost. Mostly likely they will just time expire them, they didn't always make things to last in the old days, colliers (ships built to move coal) for example had finite lives in this period, riveted joints always have a little movement. After 10 years at sea the coal dust in the rivets would have them leaking enough to be sold on to second rate operators who might get another 5 years before insurance became uneconomic and see the ship sold on to a third tier use or scrapped. I only mention all this to illustrate the tank part of 'barge = tank - land' is not a simple business.

Second point - plumbing.  

The whole point here is to move and store fluids on an industrial scale. I can think of a couple of ways to ran a barged base tank farm, but I can't see any of them beating a simple pipe for cost or practicality. Not the least because by default liquid stored in a barge is always going to need pumping, there's nothing like the same opportunity to use gravity.

Third point - security 
A 1,000 ton tank is much less likely to be get blown away by a storm, is going to be easier to fix should it leak and that leak will be easier to contain. Tanks also aren't going to need divers, a small fleet of tugs, and all the other floating support, and overhead. Although granted a barge is easier to provide fire service for. 

Command - Not every nation drew a clear intuitional distinction between field artillery and the more 'scientific' forms of gunnery, but it was there all the same. There's difference in skill base and mind set between the field and medium artillery that gets more pronounced with the next step up to the heavy stuff. Just the level of mathematics expected in handing standard fire orders grows with each step, and the operational environment and tempo... anyway, I'm not saying it is necessary, only that it could be justified and might be interesting to put the navy in charge of all guns over say 17cm and all fixed/emplaced guns. It means a portion of it would be attached to the Army to provide the Heavy Artillery, but its not like that wasn't happening all the time anyway in various places.  The 60pdr gun came out of Naval 4.7" guns landed from warships and dragged all over South Africa by sailors to make up a shortfall in medium arty, likewise sailors and marines of various flavours were dragged out of battleship turrets to serve heavy arty behind the trenches.  t'd make for an interesting argument about who got what when air defence becomes a thing in a few years  

[DB]

Have command operated minefields been considered?

Additionally, by booms to deter submarines and/or long range torpedoes. Do we need to consider a seafort or two to provide anchor points for booms?

[Simon Tan]

The naval base in Atiya is well provided with a breakwater and the risk of torpedoing while moored up is low, submarines and MTBs having come right into the bay before getting a shot. 

Command operated minfields are probably not desirable given their maintenance requirement and the like. 

The Convent of St Anastasia (Tankovia does not close it and turn it into a prison) means we cannot really fortify the island in a way we would like. The Church who owns the island is unwilling to take property ashore in lieu. 

The lighthouse and observation post are staffed by female naval personnel. 

[Markus Becker]

Command operated minefields haven't been talked about so far but they have been around since before the war, so that is something to be considered. Mayen Maybe not in a permanent basis though.

Sea forts? Does someone have a map of the seabed off Burgas? WAG: The Church doesn't want to sell because it disapproves of the extreme social progressiveness of the military.


And it seems the 7cm Skoda isn't necessary at all because an AA version of the 8.8cm already existed during the war.

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNGER_88mm-45_skc13.php

Edited October 13, 2020 by Markus Becker

[Simon Tan]

I'm fine with the 7cm. 

[Markus Becker]

Of course you are, it's from Skoda!  

It actually is a good AA-gun but it fires a 10lb shell. The 8.8cm is a good AA-gun that fires a 20lb shell. That makes it more effective against surface targets and a dual-purpose role is intended for the land based naval AA-guns.  

[Simon Tan]

The only MPLC/13 AA mounts available would be from Emden(3) and Nurnberg(3), both beached in Scapa after scuttling. Konigsberg is in Germany and ceded to France. Everything else is either at the bottom of Scapa or incomplete.

Otherwise it is low angle mounts. 

K16s are also dismally few in actual AA mountings with the bulk of them going to the Italians after the war only to get scrapped. There is no sign the Italians keep them. The 4 guaranteed will be off the Prinz Eugen, with a dozen more Italians by the mid-20s. Another dozen K10s are available in LA mounts from Prinz Eugen and. Enough for coastal defence but not much more.

 

[Argus]

Sorry I thought Controlled mine fields were a given. Well established solid technology (we had them in Australia in the 1890's) so nothing to be worried about, and suitable for reservist manning. Stored ashore with essentially an infinite life for low cost and easy enough to lay given a little notice.  Practice requirements are low, there's a certain consumption of cable for splices with each exercise cycle, with a charged mine case every few years to give the reservists a thrill and the local papers something to print. The port and naval yard between them are going to have suitable service craft, so its really only if you want the Army to run it there needs to be a medium sized launch provided - and frankly there'd probably be a few such launches assigned to the garrison in any case for communications duties between the positions. We're in shallow water so would be using ground laid mines which is great as they are cheaper and easier to lay and lift, if a little harder to service, and they will incorporate well into the port ASW plan.

Torpedo boats
This is not the 1880's. Even if bring regional we have a better appreciation of what the Italians got up to in the Adriatic. We still have a rather more mature grasp of reality than the june ecole, and more to the point MUCH better searchlights. Burgas is more or less 10,000m wide, this is a little wider than ideal, but well within the coverage of the big expensive searchlights that helped blow out the fire control budget. The Atiya battery is specifically set up to provide an inner cordon against such intrusions, and if more reinforcement along those lines is desired, then we can put a battery out on the point by the oil terminal and another one on the naval breakwater +/- searchlights in either case. 

Basically in a general war scenario, we'd be closing the northern half of the entrance with a declared mine field 5000m south to the 10m contour and 4000m west of Pomorie point (dumb contact. This is covered directly by lights from Promorie and fire from Krotirya, in addition to cross observation/fire form other positions. South of that we'd have our controlled field covering the deep water to the south coast, covered by fire and observation in depth from Cape Accra and Atiya, with cross coverage form the north.  
 

[Markus Becker]

What type of AA mounts did the Helgoland and Nassau class BB have? Per Wiki they got a pair of 8.8cm AA guns in 1915. CL got them too. 

[Simon Tan]

It is unclear what FlaK 88mm mounts are used. The suggestion is that they go to 45 degrees. German CLs are almost all scuttled. 

4 more K16s are available from the scrapping of SMS Wien, Budapest, Sankt Georg and Admiral Spaun. They only have a single mount each. It looks like the Italians hold onto their 7cm guns.

We propose dummy guns in the interim

Are controlled minefields laid and left or laid as needed?

The plan is to lay in gun and searchlight emplacements on St Anastasia island and then cover them with earth. These can then be rapidly dug out and fitted out during mobilization. 

[Simon Tan]

The Navy will need a Marine Brigade to variously manage it's self-defence, coastal artillery and boarding party/ship's troops commitments. 

The Marines will be specially trained and equipped with the Sjogren self-loading shotgun, in the M(19)24 military pattern developed in response to the US usage of trench shotguns. Essentially a 18" barrel with a 6-shot  magazine, a bayonet lug and heatshield. This, the machine carbines and the hi-cap M(19)25 Steyr-Hahn pistols are the primary arms for boarding parties. 

[Markus Becker]

1 hour ago, Simon Tan said:

It is unclear what FlaK 88mm mounts are used. The suggestion is that they go to 45 degrees. German CLs are almost all scuttled. 

A quick search shows eight weren't with most going to the RM and MN. Can't say if and when they were re-gunned. 

Not sure if our mini Navy needs an entire brigade of Marines. 

Shane, what are ground laid mines(anchored?) and what's the other, more difficult to deploy type?  

Edited October 14, 2020 by Markus Becker

[Simon Tan]

It's a Brigade command and manages training and force generation as well. 

[Argus]

All mines are generally stored ashore in peacetime. Ashore they are usually broken down into their major components, and housed in appropriate facilities. Explosive charges and fuses/pistols/exploders in magazines, the cases, sinkers and all rest in storehouses. The usual thing is to have a little complex out in a suitable quiet corner of the port with a wharf, magazines, warehouses and workshops. In our case the Nos Feros/Kraymorie area in combination with a larger magazine complex seems the best solution.  

Ground mines, for our purposes, are generally conical or semi-spherical and just sit on their weighted bases on the seabed. As controlled mines, they are linked in groups by electrical cable to one, or better two, shore observation posts. When a post observes a ship over a specific group of mines it pushes the appropriate big red button and +/- a cross reference form another post to confirm the location - Kaboom. Dead simple stuff and very effective within its limits. Normally the mine groups (of 4 or 5 mines) are laid in lines across the anticipated path of the ship/s. Ideally this is a nice narrow shipping channel, a area field needs a lot more mines, but the lovely thing is we can put them exactly where we want them, to get the best results. Needless to say there switchboards with interlinked cross connections, aiming telescopes pre-registered to carefully surveyed and tabulated coordinates and yadda yadda. 

Moored mines are buoyant mines tethered to sinkers on the sea floor.  One can have moored controlled mines, but they are not quite so robust as controlled ground mines and we don't need them. So ours are self activated, probably hertz horn type. Sinker vs Anchor - in case of ministerial questions, this is a difference with an actual distinction. An anchor gains the bulk of it holding power by gripping the bottom, thus an anchor of a few tons can hold a ship of tens of thousands of tons. A sinker on the other hand relies for the most part on its own deadweight, its basically tying your ship to a big rock. This matters, because an anchor is expected to move a bit, so it can dig in, before it hold, but a sinker is not expected to move.... much. Its all situational, but for a mine that we are rather keen to put in one particular place and for it to stay there, sinkers not anchors.

Laying and maintaining 
Between the 4 basic types of mine; ground, ground controlled, moored and moored controlled, the differences are mostly between the controlled and uncontrolled mines.  The moored mines have a bit more faff going on with reels of cable and trip lines. But with uncontrolled mines of either type you essentially throw them off the back of a ship, and that's it. Getting them to end up exactly where you want them too is a bit more complicated, but that's why navigating officers on minelayers get grey hairs on their legs. Controlled mines on the other hand get carefully lowered into place one by one, it doesn't really matter if they are ground laid or buoyant, they have to be connected to the cables and then put exactly where the mine plan calls for them to be - btw the issue with buoyant controlled mines is the cable flexing as it runs up from the seabed to the mine. AIUI mine layer can put in about 5 controlled mines a day, it might need a little help or extra time for long cable runs, and this isn't counting the shore end of the business, but one group per layer per day was the working rule of thumb if everything else was sorted.  

Unfortunately we can't really throw our uncontrolled field off the back of a trawler in a few hours. We may well do a single run that way to establish a presence on the first day, but our minefield is close inshore, partially unsheltered and upwind/up weather from a lot of things we don't want to blow up by accident, like Burgas. Moored minefields need maintenance or they degrade over time. They suffer from three forms of attrition; broken cables, hopping and drifting, and lastly 'acts of god.' Hopping and Drifting are different means of the weather moving mines about. A mine hops when a tall enough wave passes over it for long enough to lift enough weight off the sinker for the mine to be moved by a current. Get some deep sea roller come though and that hop can be miles, or on the flip side it could move a millimetre a wave. Drifting is just the mine's mooring not being sufficient to hold up to conditions its been laid into.     

In this area at least we are certainly going to be following international law by fitting our mines with self safeing gear, essentially the mooring eye on the bottom of the mine is connected to the fire mechanism, so if the weight comes off (ie the mooring has broken and the mine is drifting), the firing circuit gets broken and so the mine is rendered safe. But of course safety begins long before any safety catch comes into play, we have the luxury of time and proximity, thus we can afford to lay our moored mines with heavy chain to oversized sinkers - on sand too which is nice for this. But again it means more or less planting every mine carefully and so at about the same rate as controlled mines, maybe 6 to 8 per day?  
 

[Rick]

Any attempt to switch from Tankovia to what would you do with Italy from 1920 onwards?

[Simon Tan]

Are we going to license production of a R-boote? It's somethign we both need and probably can build. With maybe the exception of the marine diesel? I'm guessing even the Voith-Schneider thruster is doable.

[Argus]

6 hours ago, Rick said:

Any attempt to switch from Tankovia to what would you do with Italy from 1920 onwards?

Italy?

Remember Rome wasn't built on its Empire, the Empire was built on Rome -  concentrate on making up lost ground and developing what the country already has. Make deserts bloom in Libya, make Puglia look like part of Europe in the 20th century not the levant in the 19th. 

[Argus]

2 minutes ago, Simon Tan said:

Are we going to license production of a R-boote? It's somethign we both need and probably can build. With maybe the exception of the marine diesel? I'm guessing even the Voith-Schneider thruster is doable.

Anything is doable given enough resources, but how is opportunity cost justified? 

The R-boote is a nice design, but I'm not sure there's anything special enough to justifying buying it specifically, and the Voith units are... there's a reason they are not mainstream even today. The essence of utility launch is utility, a good part of which is economy and ease of operation/maintenance.  I'd think the same sort of goes for the diesels to a lesser degree, sure we could make them, but in small numbers the unit cost is going to be ferocious. 

 

[Simon Tan]

We ought to design our motor launch to be able to take different marine diesels and be prepared to armament in war time. I wonder what we can use marine diesels for other than launches? 

 

[Argus]

Interesting you should ask about the diesels, as there's not really any such thing as a marine diesel - oh sure the manufacturers will tell you there is, but the second you're not looking, they'll slap a different label on the same engine and sell it as locomotive diesel or an 'industrial' unit for power generation or pumping.

Fit the right ancillaries and a diesel can do its thing anywhere, the difference lies in what that thing is, and how well a given engine does it. 

For motor launches we're looking at medium speed diesels, the exact range depend on who you're talking too, but more than 1,000rpm and less than 5,000rpm broadly covers it. These engines exist to provide a high power to weight ratio which mostly means mobile applications. Not necessarily for actual propulsion, but (in this period) the same power could always be had cheaper and more reliably for more weight with a low speed engine. So going for a medium speed engine is paying a primum to save weight. In low powers <200hp we have plenty of applications in road transport, light marine use (eg fishing boats), power generation, pumping, rail shunting (switching) - this zone is below the curve for steam post WWI. >200hp is back into the zone at which steam is comfortable and competitive,  arguably more competitive than diesel. 

There's a reason diesels like this weren't common pre-WWII. In Russia the command economy could warp nature to power the T-34, in the US wage rates were high enough to encourage the railways to search for manpower savings in servicing locomotives.  But for the rest of the world fast ferries and submarines, neither exactly expansive segments, were the main market. So it was a niche business, a ton of engines available in limited numbers but few to none with much sales momentum. 

 

[Simon Tan]

Given a requirement for modern launches to meet the needs of both the Navy and shipping, do we invest in steam or diesel? I'm still keen on ex-Portia as a training ship for the navy to learn about steam turbines and such. We buy her for scrap money without armament and rework her with more accommodation and maybe a 10cm K10 and a 7cm K16.