The Ship Model Forum

Another in the long list of possible ship whiffs bouncing around in my brain. When I win the lottery I will be able to devote most of my time to actually building all these hair-brained schemes.

So, crazy idea I had cooked up for the Scharnhorst/Gneisenau class. I was thinking a hull plug extension, not too long, but long enough to include a fourth triple 11" turret. I might either add a second funnel or do some weight trimming to the superstructure . I was also thinking of ditching the single 150mm mounts and replacing the double mounts with the triple turrets as on the KM light cruisers such as Königsberg. I am not sure the realism is high as far as power requirements and on the naval design front for this one in terms of structural stability, stability and seaworthiness, but it would definitely look cool in my opinion.

Thoughts? Any other ideas?

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"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today"

hey there , i also think that SCHARNHORST AND GNEISNAU would look better with 4 main batteries , the front guns could have been 2 x 4 barrels 12 inch and the rear the normal 2 x 3 , 10 inch maybe ? ? I am open to ideas

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be inspirational today , you might never get that chance tomorrow

Wouldn't that just be a Bizmark wih triple 28cm?

well maybe it would have been but a smaller bismarck lol , i have heard that scharnhorst would have been outfitted with 3 main gun turrets in front and the ships length made longer at a later stage but that never happend , so the question is what would be crazy ?

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be inspirational today , you might never get that chance tomorrow

Scharnhorst class with 12 28cm guns is better than 9 28cm guns. The original deal was that the 15" guns wouldn't be ready for the "Twins" so a new model 11" that was already in development was substituted.

Some nice info on the 28cm used on the "Twins": http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNGER_11-545_skc34.htm

The weight of the APC round was close to 725 pounds so in a broadside of 9 guns you get 6,525 pounds of AP thrown, with 12 you get 8,700 pounds of AP thrown.

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A) As I understand it, they were both designed to receive 38cm twins, but Hitler wasn't ready to throw out Versailles so a compatible 28cm triple was designed & subbed until he was ready to go all out, they were just never able to get the replacements produced & fitted (to busy with BM & Tirp).

B) In any case 9 or 12 wouldn't have done Scharnhorst any good. DoY was out of range & she couldn't close, so being unable to reach with 4 tons instead of 3 wouldn't help. 38cm guns would have.

This is true. In fact Gneisenau spent the final part of her life tied up and in the process of being fitted with 38cm twins. Her 28cm triples had been removed and her bow had been cut off to make way for a new one that was to be longer. Extensive camouflage netting been draped on her in a vain effort to hide her from frequent RAF bomber raids. Ultimately these raids damaged her and disrupted construction to the point that it was virtually abandoned. The armament to be used was spare main guns originally intended for Bismark and Tirpitz which were available (others were used for the Battery Lindemann on the Atlantic Wall).

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"There's something wrong with our bloody ships today" - Admiral Beatty