Issues with the Wayfarer's Armament

saber964 wrote:

robert132 wrote:
That was the general idea behind the British Royal Navy adding AMCs to the North Atlantic convoys early in WWII, something better able to deal with the AMC raiders that the Germans sent out early in the war than the sloops and frigates that made up the (very slim) bulk of the RN's convoy escorts. The little guys carried depth charges for ASW work but pee shooter guns while the AMCs carried heavier metal, sometimes as heavy as old 6" pieces, though normally the weapons would be in the range of 4" to 5".

If a regular warship like a CA or Battlecruiser like Scharnhorst showed up then the AMC would be totally out classed and out gunned and would be doing well simply to keep the enemy warship busy while the convoy scattered. HMS Rawalpindi (AMC) met her end delaying Scharnhorst AND sister Gneisenau while her convoy made smoke and scattered.

Frankly, I like the idea of an AMC like Wayfarer being able to uncork a shipkilling surprise like those pods and still have the LACs available to bolster her own anti-missle defenses or cover another convoy sector.

Don't forget HMAMS Jervis Bay.

IMHO The Trojan class were a mix of the RN's stop gap measures in he early part of WWII, namely the CAM MAC and AMC. CAM stands for Catapult Armed Merchant
MAC stands for Merchant Aircraft Carrier

The MAC's were tankers and grain ships with flight decks instead of a superstructure they could carry up to four Swordfish TB.

Rawalpindi and Jervis Bay both had open Mk VII 6 inch mounts, built ca 1900 - 1914 for use on cruisers and battleships. They were salvaged when the ships were regained or scrapped, and used for coast defense, or to arm AMCs or troop ships. Quite a contrast with the grasers, lasers and missiles diverted from SD(P) construction to arm the Wayfarers.

Fox2! wrote:
Rawalpindi and Jervis Bay both had open Mk VII 6 inch mounts, built ca 1900 - 1914 for use on cruisers and battleships. They were salvaged when the ships were regained or scrapped, and used for coast defense, or to arm AMCs or troop ships. Quite a contrast with the grasers, lasers and missiles diverted from SD(P) construction to arm the Wayfarers.

6" was pretty much the upper limit of a manually worked gun without powered loading equipment. Plus much bigger than that and you'd need a lot more deck reinforcement to handle the recoil stresses.

But a 6" on an AMC was a lot less effective than that same gun on a CL, especially by WWII. The AMC didn't have the fire control of a real warship and with a much longer ammo lift (due to its much higher deck) and lack of power assist it was slower firing as well.
Still it was enough of a gun that a surface raider couldn't afford to ignore its threat - and that's a fair bit of what an AMC needs to accomplish to achieve the program's strategic goals.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Fox2! wrote:
Rawalpindi and Jervis Bay both had open Mk VII 6 inch mounts, built ca 1900 - 1914 for use on cruisers and battleships. They were salvaged when the ships were regained or scrapped, and used for coast defense, or to arm AMCs or troop ships. Quite a contrast with the grasers, lasers and missiles diverted from SD(P) construction to arm the Wayfarers.

6" was pretty much the upper limit of a manually worked gun without powered loading equipment. Plus much bigger than that and you'd need a lot more deck reinforcement to handle the recoil stresses.

But a 6" on an AMC was a lot less effective than that same gun on a CL, especially by WWII. The AMC didn't have the fire control of a real warship and with a much longer ammo lift (due to its much higher deck) and lack of power assist it was slower firing as well.
Still it was enough of a gun that a surface raider couldn't afford to ignore its threat - and that's a fair bit of what an AMC needs to accomplish to achieve the program's strategic goals.

The Convoy Jervis Bay was protecting was attacked by Admiral Scheer. Jervis Bay never came even within range before she was sunk (she because I am not a Grayson ). However the convoy was saved as the battleship was occupied by Jervis Bay and dusk was coming. WWII Helen Zilwicki senior so to say.

Jonathan_S wrote:

Fox2! wrote:
Rawalpindi and Jervis Bay both had open Mk VII 6 inch mounts, built ca 1900 - 1914 for use on cruisers and battleships. They were salvaged when the ships were regained or scrapped, and used for coast defense, or to arm AMCs or troop ships. Quite a contrast with the grasers, lasers and missiles diverted from SD(P) construction to arm the Wayfarers.

6" was pretty much the upper limit of a manually worked gun without powered loading equipment. Plus much bigger than that and you'd need a lot more deck reinforcement to handle the recoil stresses.

But a 6" on an AMC was a lot less effective than that same gun on a CL, especially by WWII. The AMC didn't have the fire control of a real warship and with a much longer ammo lift (due to its much higher deck) and lack of power assist it was slower firing as well.
Still it was enough of a gun that a surface raider couldn't afford to ignore its threat - and that's a fair bit of what an AMC needs to accomplish to achieve the program's strategic goals.

Agreed. There is some discussion on line that the AMCs were intended to protect their convoys against German Q-ships, not "real" combatants of CA size or larger. As you said, 6 in was about the biggest gun that could be mounted on a hull not designed or reinforced to take a larger gun. There is a comment on a page devoted to one of the AMCs that a crew member remarked that the RN had tried to fit an 8 in gun, but failed. Lack of integrated fire control and more convoluted ammo handling path weakened their ability to engage real warships. Lack of compartmentalization and armor meant that the AMCs were more vulnerable than a proper warship. One page notes that part of taking the AMCs "up from trade" involved filling the holds with empty barrels and cork to provide some floatation, and fill other wise empty holds. Unlike a starship, where having the holds "filled" with vacuum doesn't really threaten the ship, having the holds fill with water would kill a WWII AMC.

As a side note these guns were designated as "BL" rather than "QF". "BL" were breech loaders, using bagged powder, vs. the "Quick Firing" guns, which used "fixed" ammunition. Studies supposedly showed that a well trained crew could fire as many rounds per minute from a BL as a QF. And the bagged powder and separate projectiles were easier to handle and store than the metallic cartridges of fixed ammo, especially without power ammunition handling equipment.

saber964 wrote:

robert132 wrote:In 21 years in the Canoe Club I only served in two ships. I retired off the Nassau in '93, my first ship was Caron (DD 970.)

When I found out I had to return to sea I tried everything I knew to go back to Caron or, barring that to another Spru-can. Looking back now, while my tour in Nassau wasn't bad I would have preferred the 'can.

CTA1(SW)

Join the tin can sailor FB page. The thing I like is my ship is the last Spruence class left all of the rest are scrap or were targets. She is the current NTDS ship. We are currently working on getting her as a memorial when she is finally decommissioned.

I'm a member of both the Caron and Spru-can sites on FB. It's a long uphill climb we face to preserve the Foster and "reconverting" her into a "stock" Spruance will be expensive.

Hornblower wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:6" was pretty much the upper limit of a manually worked gun without powered loading equipment. Plus much bigger than that and you'd need a lot more deck reinforcement to handle the recoil stresses.

But a 6" on an AMC was a lot less effective than that same gun on a CL, especially by WWII. The AMC didn't have the fire control of a real warship and with a much longer ammo lift (due to its much higher deck) and lack of power assist it was slower firing as well.
Still it was enough of a gun that a surface raider couldn't afford to ignore its threat - and that's a fair bit of what an AMC needs to accomplish to achieve the program's strategic goals.

The Convoy Jervis Bay was protecting was attacked by Admiral Scheer. Jervis Bay never came even within range before she was sunk (she because I am not a Grayson ). However the convoy was saved as the battleship was occupied by Jervis Bay and dusk was coming. WWII Helen Zilwicki senior so to say.

That battle is a little hard to figure out if the 6" on the Jervis Bay caused the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer more delay than a lighter weight gun.
HMS Jervis Bay occupied her for almost and hour, but my understanding is that only about 22 minutes of that was while actually under fire. (And nobody expected an AMC to live longs under fire from 11 inch guns)

Without track logs (which I don't have) I'm not sure if Admiral Scheer actually steered to hold the range open (which would indicate that the Germans were concerned enough about 6" gunfire to spend a little time to avoid it) or if she just overwhelmed Jervis Bay before their combined closure rate brought the 6" gun into range.

The other part of the battle that's hard to parse is that the merchant ship SS Beaverford, giving some DEMS gunners and a 3" and 4" gun for self-defense, was able to keep the pocket BB's attention for over 4 hours - through she had the advantage of a smoke screen to work with. The much more lightly armed ship was able to, by virtual of her tactical position, buy the rest of the convoy far more time than the actual AMC escort.

Smoke screens do seem to be an effective portion of keeping a heavy raider delayed or at arms length. Especially if you have at least a few ships it knows carry torpedoes - no ship is well protected enough to be nonchalant about the chance of low visibility letting someone plant a torpedo in its side.

Jonathan_S wrote:
Without track logs (which I don't have) I'm not sure if Admiral Scheer actually steered to hold the range open (which would indicate that the Germans were concerned enough about 6" gunfire to spend a little time to avoid it) or if she just overwhelmed Jervis Bay before their combined closure rate brought the 6" gun into range.

The other part of the battle that's hard to parse is that the merchant ship SS Beaverford, giving some DEMS gunners and a 3" and 4" gun for self-defense, was able to keep the pocket BB's attention for over 4 hours - through she had the advantage of a smoke screen to work with. The much more lightly armed ship was able to, by virtual of her tactical position, buy the rest of the convoy far more time than the actual AMC escort.

Smoke screens do seem to be an effective portion of keeping a heavy raider delayed or at arms length. Especially if you have at least a few ships it knows carry torpedoes - no ship is well protected enough to be nonchalant about the chance of low visibility letting someone plant a torpedo in its side.

I don't think it's shocking that Scheer would want to hold the range open, as a raider it's in her best interest to avoid unnecessary damage, even those old 6" could get lucky even without rangefinder direction and do damage that can't be easily repaired at sea.

As to the other, smoke screens tend to hide nasty things that can bite, warships or torpedo armed escorts not noticed earlier or reported by intelligence come to mind. Cruiser and battleship skippers in "World of Warships" learn THAT lesson fairly quickly.

IIRC the SS Beaverford was a faster than normal merchant ship. Also she ducked in and out of the smoke screen.

robert132 wrote:
That was the general idea behind the British Royal Navy adding AMCs to the North Atlantic convoys early in WWII, something better able to deal with the AMC raiders that the Germans sent out early in the war than the sloops and frigates that made up the (very slim) bulk of the RN's convoy escorts. The little guys carried depth charges for ASW work but pee shooter guns while the AMCs carried heavier metal, sometimes as heavy as old 6" pieces, though normally the weapons would be in the range of 4" to 5".

If a regular warship like a CA or Battlecruiser like Scharnhorst showed up then the AMC would be totally out classed and out gunned and would be doing well simply to keep the enemy warship busy while the convoy scattered. HMS Rawalpindi (AMC) met her end delaying Scharnhorst AND sister Gneisenau while her convoy made smoke and scattered.

Frankly, I like the idea of an AMC like Wayfarer being able to uncork a shipkilling surprise like those pods and still have the LACs available to bolster her own anti-missle defenses or cover another convoy sector.

Don't forget HMAMS Jervis Bay.

IMHO The Trojan class were a mix of the RN's stop gap measures in he early part of WWII, namely the CAM MAC and AMC. CAM stands for Catapult Armed Merchant
MAC stands for Merchant Aircraft Carrier

The MAC's were tankers and grain ships with flight decks instead of a superstructure they could carry up to four Swordfish TB.[/quote]

I'd forgotten about the CAM ships. Can you imagine the "pucker factor" that goes along with being launched from a ship KNOWING that win or lose you were going into the icy North Atlantic, no chance of landing on solid ground or on a flight deck? I doff my battered and salt stained Dixie cup hat to those guys.

All three (MAC, CAM and AMC) were "fill the gap" expedients because there just weren't enough warships to go around. The need brought about the development of the USN and Brit Escort Carriers and crash building programs for destroyer and smaller ASW ships. But you already know that.

I've been out on the N.Atlantic and up the Denmark Strait into the Artic Ocean in winter storms. I have trouble imagining ANY sailor hoping or praying for weather like that to protect him from U-Boats and the Luftwaffe. The ship I was riding at the time was USS Nassau(LHA 4,) a 40,000 ton bucket about the same size as an Essex class carrier though not as graceful. We were tossed around like a kid's bathtub toy in a washing machine, 40 to 60 foot waves with hurricane winds and -20 degree temps.

Those were the good old days. *Sigh* [/quote]


--------------------

(1) We are all entitled to be young and "foolish" , some of us live to be older and "wiser" (debatable condition)
(2) It was only marginally better on an 1100 ft CVN in the North Pacific -- we periodically had white and green water (actually it looked gray) over the bow.
(3) I tend to look at the Trojans as a parallel to the WWII CVE's (Cumbustible, Vulnerable, Expendable) -- Both programs were to meet a short term need, used merchant hulls, and both were test beds for technologies used successfully on later classes.

In the real world -- the CVE's were the original CVS / ASW carriers in the North Atlantic and the original Marine assault carrier / assault ship in the Pacific leading to the LPH, and LHA/LHD's
In the Honorverse -- The Trojans were the testbeds for both the LAC Carrier and the POD-SD.

-- Stewart
(USN-Ret)

saber964 wrote:IIRC the SS Beaverford was a faster than normal merchant ship. Also she ducked in and out of the smoke screen.

Wiki confirms she was, steam turbine powered and capable of 15-16 knots. Whereas iirc most merchant ships of the day were more like 10 knots. Though SS Beaverford was no faster that HMS Jervis Bay. The difference in their relative survival times seems to be largely due to the smoke screen. Though I don't have info on the relative acceleration and turning rates of the two ships. It's possible Beaverford could dodge around more effectively - and with just pop guns if seems that there would be less temptation to hold a steady course to improve your own gunnery. So the smokescreen may not be the only significant factor.