KW45

[AL_Gascogne]

Found an "interesting" German warship design, from 1939 not posted on this site.

 

 

Quote

More intriguing were projects KW45 and KW50, designed between June and September 1939. Reports issued by the Director of Naval Intelligence on 8/29/45 contained capture documentation of submarines, cruisers, destroyers, battleships and carriers. Discussed by the “Neubauausschuss” during the 1939 time period, no other previous or subsequent mention of these ships have been found in the German archives.

 

Immense, fast, under-armed and under-armored battlecruisers had advanced designs completed but were never approved. These would have suffered from the same design defects as the OPQs but remain intriguing ships.

Bearing the same family resemblance to all other German capital ships, these twin funneled ships basically mounted a BISMARCK armament on an H sized hull. The triple 5.9” resembled the LITTORIO layout while the 4.1” AA was completely inadequate. 16-37mm completed the AA armament.

 

A five shaft power plant consumed enormous hull space and provided 36 knot speed with 300,000 shp. Special tunnels housed the shafts and towing tests revealed at least a 10% increase in efficiency with co-efficients ranging between 0.42 and 0.48. Three different power plant arrangements were being considered.

Proposal A had 4 diesel shafts and 1 steam turbine while Proposal C had 2 diesels and 3 steam turbines. All had three rudders in the aft 3 propeller races.

 

Reference: http://www.alnavco.c...tors series.pdf

[Wunderwaffen1945]

fast

[Azumazi]

Great concept, wouldn't have worked. KM didn't have the technology at the time to get 300k shp with the diesel and turbine setup, they had serious mechanical issues with the Hipper class due to it.

[Elouda]

Azumazi, on 26 February 2013 - 09:38 AM, said:

Great concept, wouldn't have worked. KM didn't have the technology at the time to get 300k shp with the diesel and turbine setup, they had serious mechanical issues with the Hipper class due to it.

Curious what they would have done with the propulsion arrangements had they been able to actually work such a powerplant, given the KM's propensity for triple screw designs. My estimate says you'd need atleast 5 to transfer that amount of power with any efficiency, perferably 6...

[Azumazi]

Not to mention too many screws will cause cavitation and drastically reduce effective propulsion due to low pressure zones created by the other screws. Personally I think they might have managed around 200-230k shp with 4 screws giving it 33 knots, which is roughly around Iowa's speed if not a little faster with the same amount of screws, just getting upwards of 300k shp is not an easy feat especially with power transfer loss. Hell even in our modern age we have a decent bit of power transfer loss in modern vehicles hence why we rate them at ehp and whp (Engine HP and Wheel HP).

 

On a different note, I think she would make a great tier 8 premium ship. Her low armor and good fire power would make her an ideal premium BB, and not be that over powering.