Shipbucket

Why? Why anything? People all over here are drawing ships that don't exist. I've got mine. BTW, I've shared this with some kibashers and they like it. You just may find photos of 2 or3 plastic and metal kitbashes of this on the net in the next few years much your chagrin. I told y'all, I had my own special reasons for doing it. I had hoped I would get a little bit more help on those radars and obsolete gun directors and such. I may move the RAMs and Harpoons around a little, but rest of the weapons are pretty much staying where they are. I want to know on the other aforementioned items before I fix the blured stuff and clean up the pixel errors. Yes, there have been some good suggestions and humor, so we're have fun. I thought y'all were suppose to nuture us newbies in learning this stuff. I'm thankful for the info, but I want more.

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."They don't call me good for nothin'"

I am a newbie and I have gotten a hell of a lot more flak than you have in this thread.

From what I have learned this forum is all about real ships or plausible personal design to help advance knowledge of actual naval engineering as well advance the ship bucket artistic style. This is the prism most will be looking at a drawing from. If its a pure fantasy project taking no heed to reality most just won't bother with it.

Why not take some of the advice and make a better ship? You don't need to take all of it, but you asked for it right?

I certainly don't mean to sound disgruntled. I did say I put it here to scrutinize, advise, or laugh at, though I had hoped I'd get the core advice I was seeking. I'll eventually get the info anyways, but I was trying to cut corners and speed up the process by consulting the very knowledgable experts here. I had been visiting the site for sometime before I joined, and had already seen that there were those who were sticklers for total accuracy. That's what I want to know, then I can determine what liberties I want to take with reality. I'm having fun and have enjoyed the discussion so far. I just hope I haven't upset the purists too much.

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."They don't call me good for nothin'"

I've added clean copies of the updated gun directors along with red arrows to explain what to replace. I chose the Mk.38 Mod.7 director with a Mk.13 radar for the main battery gun directors (the latest model available). The Mk.37 is a Mod.17 with a "cockpit" for the Mk.3 slewing sight (also the latest model available). It's fitted with the Mk.25 radar, whose accuracy I have not really double checked. Please understand post-1945 equipment items are generally out of the scope of what I draw so I have not checked the Mk.25 radar as much as I have checked the wartime stuff.

I have circled the anachronistic wartime equipment (searchlights, DAK direction finding antenna, and 40mm gun directors) in purple. These should be removed. I might have missed some so check the entire drawing for these.



Anyway, re: the actual design, I can't imagine a "modernized Montana" that doesn't follow along the lines of the modernized BB-61 class ships. That means no dumb autoloading 5" AGS guns, no turreted Bushmasters, and certainly no VLS (we have destroyers that can do that). There is no scenario where this ship isn't just a Tomahawk launching platform, flagship, and shore bombardment ship.

For that matter, I'd look at the New Jersey in the archive and just copy the radar and weapons fit from that but suit it to the Montana's design.

I have to say that I really do like the look of the mainmast you have added.

Why do you have a Mk.56 director abeam the fire control tower? What exactly is it controlling?

Three RAM launchers per side seems a bit much, I would do MAYBE one launcher and locate it aft of the fore funnel.

How is the motor whaleboat launched and recovered? I see no kingpost and no davits.

You should include a large kingpost for UNREP.

Anyway, you complained about me making jokes... so here's some advice.

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USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)

I want to comment on the AGS again. Given this is a modern refit the 16" guns are for NGFS only, but that's pretty much what the AGS is for too. Sure both could be used for surface tangents but your 57mm and 30mm pretty much have that covered. So what you end with is duplication of weapon mission and given the expense of maintaining either four 16" tripple turrets or ten AGS mounts you just can't justify the cost. You sort of have the same issue with your 57mm and 30mm, there really isn't anything you need th 30mm for that the 57mm can't handle.

"Why?" means:

• What mission does this ship satisfy?
• Does this mission really matter?
• Why can't other extant ships fulfill that mission? What makes this concept special?
• What is this going to cost? Is the performance-to-cost ratio worthwhile?
• How does this concept differ from the standard hull, and why are the systems different? How do we justify these differences?
• What other out-of-the-box alternatives (MLRS DEATHBOAT, etc) might satisfy this requirement? Why are they inferior to this idea?

If you can't answer those questions, then we're left yelling at you for double-black-lines and dumb nonsense like that. Hopefully we can offer criticism that is more constructive, but no constructive criticism can exist before the construction of the idea occurs in the first place.

I can tell you why we threw a block of Tomahawks onto the Iowas in the 1980s. I can't give any rational explanation for a Montana surviving that long, never mind why she might get same-idea-but-drastically-more-extensive refits.

ok....... you asked us to point out the errors. well, we did, and now you are mad, because we not say 'ow what an awesome design, keep it that way, it is perfect!' ?
you showed it to kitbashers who liked it. have you showed it to any naval engineers? have you showed it to people who know how the original montana worked? I guess not.

anyways, with the current setup, don't bother with radars, as you won't have the power to operate them and not the space to add additional generators. and how to fix that? well, then you should look at my first post, it adresses most that is wrong with the design.

if you ignore that, well, go ahead, have fun, but don't expect any realism in your ship, and at least for me you sink to the line of nationstates kitbashers who just do things because 'it looks cool' instead of 'it works'.

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

erik_t poses these questions,

• What mission does this ship satisfy?
• Does this mission really matter?
• Why can't other extant ships fulfill that mission? What makes this concept special?
• What is this going to cost? Is the performance-to-cost ratio worthwhile?
• How does this concept differ from the standard hull, and why are the systems different? How do we justify these differences?
• What other out-of-the-box alternatives (MLRS DEATHBOAT, etc) might satisfy this requirement? Why are they inferior to this idea?

Let's see if I can address some of this.

• Projection of power, Gunfire/missile support, Amphib assault support, Carrier Battle Group protection which includes air protection.
• No
• They do now, it just takes more of them. The concept is based on the the "what if" assumption that they had actually been built, modernized and kept in service like the Iowas. The concept is special because of the armor being greater than the Iowas, would be one ship that could survive all but worst case senarios. You also have the arguments from those who still see the value of the BB's to this day and think the navy should still have them commissioned. (not to imply that I agree with all the arguments)
• A lot and No, not in today's economies.
• The Montana's by design would have been the most armoured capital ships in the fleet from below the waterline to the top decks. The technology used in making this armor, which can no longer be duplicated in modern steel works, would still be effective against modern guns, torpedos, and missiles.
• There are intangibles a BB of this magnitude brings to the table, that would be hard to duplicate, outside of great numbers of newer specialty ships.

I am most thankful Col for the help. I'll be working on it.

I agree with Shipright that there is overlapping overkill with the 57mm and 30mm. I will consider removing at least the 30mms from the inside positions. When the concept was thought out, I knew that the 16" guns were rendered obsolete along with their great expense of manning and maintainance by the AGS-Ls. But if the 16" guns are removed, then we no longer have a battleship in the traditional sense, but a missile ship with guns.

Ok Ace, I did state, this was here for you scrutinize, advise, or laugh at. Not once during this discussion have I been angered over any comment that has been made. I explained what I hoped for in my last post. I have indeed had a former naval engineer to look at it. and while he sees problems, (some not so good) he has stated that I haven't pushed too terribly far beyond believability for the purposes of this being a fantasy ship. I do understand where your coming from. I am thankful for your original suggestions but have to dismiss them because otherwise there would be no 2013 Montana if I followed those suggestions. It is obvious that this stretch of reality is too much for you, which is normal for a purist. I'm not mad at you, I respect your opinion, but in the end, I'm doing what I want to do, if it means mounting a B-52 on the fantail. So yes I'll continue having fun at this. While I normally like accuracy, in this case I'm leaning more toward cool. Most of the people who will eventually see this won't know the difference anyways. I may even kitbash a model one day and pretend it all works perfectly while being a pretty sight to behold.

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."They don't call me good for nothin'"

You should have SPQ-9B. that is the system modern guns are using for fire control. And again, you want your SPS-48 on the forward mast. Thats the one youll be using to pick up sea-skimming missles (along with SPQ-9B, which you would want the highest of the three main radars) and every second counts. so the higher the better.

I didn't suggest removing all of the guns, I get the artisitc want to keep this thing a battleship. One of the added benefits of removing two of the turrets is that it frees up a vast amount of space for converting the 16" shell magazines into expanded engine spaces to support generators to power the sensors you would need to utilize that VLS correctly. Such additions would be horrendously expensive but I think we are hand waving that, I am just trying to come up with an end game that works regardless of how much money we spend to get there.

You have to move the VLS, the interference from the mast and funnels makes them nonfunctional. Also, it looks like you have a couple roll up doors right where the VLS magizine would be, what are those for?

Armor really isn't important, and the weight of it is one of the reasons such a conversion would never take place. Sure it would stop small boat attacks and most naval guns in service these days but not ASMs or torpedoes, the most likely threats to it. There is a reason we don't use it anymore. More sensors and armament gets you more bang for your buck in the modern age.