Article about BB-61 with lots of pictures

Would still have some issues with lock time. Gyroscopic stabilization system? Doable. Mechanical fire control computer? Doable. Electrical primer connected to the gyro system? Hmmmm... not really.

I suppose you could build a heavy enough gyro control system that would rely on activating a mechanical trigger, which in turn would detonate a primer. However, it would be useful only in local control. I don't think there's a way to make a long - and reliable - fire control line without electricity.

Would be useful, however, for the King Hahraald's main batteries.

Thoughts, anyone?

Hydraulics or pneumatics could provide the remote fire control and stay non-electric. With the new recoil systems on guns and all the other pneumatic and hydraulic systems the Delthak Works is gaining experience building, I think they could be close to having the tech base for pneumatic logic and controls. For that matter pneumatic controls alone could even suffice for a slow speed digital fire control system. American industry for years had depended upon Numitrol pneumatic logic for packaging equipment control in place of electrical relay logic. Numitrol pneumatics provides very reliable and very precise motion control and position placement as long as the air supply stays dry but is a royal bitch to trouble shoot. I'm long retired from that career but I understand the Numitrol logic has been mostly supplanted by PLC controllers in the past 20 years as the cost of and availability of microcontrollers has increased. I was lucky as I came into the trade when relay logic, mechanical motor starters and pneumatic controls and instrumentation was the norm and spent the last 10 years of my career programming PLC systems and writing MMI programs. So I was familiar with both generations of industrial controls.

On a side note, Numitrol built a pneumatic 8-bit digital computer that did simple match as a demo project at a trade show back in the very early 1970s. It could add and subtract. I think it had 512 byte memory, all mechanical slide pneumatic valve driven.

Joat42 wrote:Stumbled upon an article about USS Iowa BB-61 that has lots of interesting pictures.

Link here for those interested: http://arstechnica.com/information-tech ... owa-bb-61/

Wonder what the timeframe is for Charis to produce something like it.

With regard to the timeframe, I would say that the KH VIII's Charis are currently building are roughly equal to the pre-dreadnaught ships built around the 1880s and 1890s. So in the real world it took something like 50 or 60 years to move from the level of the KH VIII's to the Iowa class, depending on exactly which historical pre-dreadnaught you feel is most comparable.

I am almost certain Charis can beat this timeframe substantially for 2 main reasons. First, the development of real world battleships was greatly slowed by the Washington Naval treaty in the 1920s. Second, Charis's rate of technological advancement is much more rapid than the historical real world, due to help from Merlin and OWL.

I'd guess that Charis could design and build something on the level of the Iowa class 20 to 25 years from the end of LAMA, contingent on 2 factors. First, the OBS has to be dealt with so that electricity can be used for the ship's sub-systems. I just don't see how something like the Iowa class could work without some electrical systems. Second, Charis would have to have a reason to keep pushing hard on warship R&D for a long period of time. For example, if the current war ends short of total victory and a cold-war style arms race breaks out.

I wonder if Nimue ever saw Space Battleship Yamato in some form back on Earth?

The biggest issue with that is developing good steam turbine tech, Honestly they are already beating the historical performance of Tripple expansion engines (realistically limited to 22/23 knots in cruisers) to get a faster/more powerful ship you have to use turbines.

That was the real breakthrough in HMS Dreadnought both the yanks and Japanese and Italians had concluded that all big guns was the way to go. Turbines combined all big guns with a 2-3 knott advantage, even then the design is terrible in gun distribution. That of the South Carolina class was much better with 4x2 superimposed as opposed to 3 centreline and 2 wing turrets.

The bigger issue is why build such a monster it's hideously expensive to build and run and even if you can fool the OBS there is no way the COGA will be able to build somthing even at the King harald level in the next few years they just don't have the metalurgy for it. See the comments when thirks wizard is amazed that the captured rifles are made of steel not iron. The way things are going any ironclads the COGA makes would be like putting Merrimac up against the Dreadnought if they tried to fight a King Harald.