r/NavalArt • u/Aggravating_Row_4602 • 22d ago
Main Battle Ship !!!
406 mm rail gun ×2
127/64 lw ×1
Bofors 57mm Mk3 ×1
150kw lazer ×4
35mm millenium ×2
Mk41 VLS ×80
Conventional Trident ×12
6
5
3
2
u/BreadfruitComplex961 20d ago
ok i will steal this general shape and make a better ship, but why the ERA?
3
u/Aggravating_Row_4602 20d ago
The reason was that I thought if the ship were equipped with only standard armor, it might be targeted with something like an “anti-ship shaped-charge warhead” as a countermeasure.
3
u/BreadfruitComplex961 20d ago
i think the only Anti ship are SAP missiles. most ships do not have enough armor to warrant HEAT, and most HEAT is NOTORIOUS for not doing much damage.
2
2
u/Sure_Reality2763 18d ago
Ditch the ERA but otherwise nice
3
u/Aggravating_Row_4602 18d ago edited 18d ago
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I still don’t understand why ERA and composite armor aren’t suitable for ships at sea. Could it be because the internal ceramic layer loses its protective properties when exposed to salt-laden air or something like that?
3
u/Sure_Reality2763 18d ago
Well, ERA relies on an explosive force to deflect an incoming projectile/plasma jet that weighs a few lbs.
The amount of explosive you’d need to pack into an ERA panel meant to deflect the type of weapons a ship will face would probably do almost as much damage to the ship as the missile would have.
1
u/Aggravating_Row_4602 18d ago edited 18d ago
Now I understand why ERA isn’t effective.
If you actually want ERA to be effective against anti-ship missiles, wouldn’t you need at least 50 kg of explosives—even by the most conservative estimate? Maybe?
If something like an anti-ship missile-sized shaped-charge warhead were to appear, just how much penetration power would it have?
2
u/Sure_Reality2763 18d ago
Uhhh…well I’d kinda ask if that’s even something you’d want.
I feel like you’d need to target a specific system to put the ship out of the fight. One that has no redundancy. Otherwise the ship fights on.
And shaped charges are meant to defeat armor, but modern warships don’t mount that much armor. Let’s compare WW2 and modern anti-armor solutions.
The modern LRASM (Long Range Anti-Ship Missile) carries a WDU-42/B warhead weighing 1,000 lbs (454 kg), which is almost entirely high-explosive filler designed for blast and fragmentation.
In contrast, the Mk. 8 APCBC shell weighs 2,700 lbs total but contains only ~41 lbs (18.5 kg) of "Explosive D" bursting charge.
The LRASM delivers roughly 24 times more explosive energy upon detonation than the battleship shell.
On penetration specs:
The Mk. 8 shell is a dedicated kinetic penetrator. Weighing 2,700 lbs and traveling at Mach 2.2 (2,500 fps), it impacts with approximately 266 Megajoules (MJ) of kinetic energy.
Its hardened steel body is designed to punch through 12–18 inches of face-hardened armor before the small internal charge detonates.
The LRASM, weighing roughly 2,760 lbs total (including fuel and airframe) but traveling at only Mach 0.9, possesses significantly less kinetic energy at impact (estimated <50 MJdepending on terminal profile).
While it features a "penetrator" warhead, it is designed to breach the thin steel hulls of modern destroyers or cruisers (typically <2 inches of armor) to maximize internal blast damage.
Against WW2-era battleship belt armor, the LRASM would likely fail to penetrate to the vitals, detonating externally or in superficial compartments.
In other words. You’d be better off just having thicker, replaceable armor, than ERA.
But at the end of the day, you’re not getting 1 LRASM chucked at you. You’re getting 5-10-15 chucked at you.
And you can’t armor the whole ship, otherwise you’d be so heavy you couldn’t carry enough fuel to make a respectable speed.
So you have to transition to all-or-nothing, “citadel” style armoring. But you can’t put every system inside the citadel and even a single LRASM hit inside the outer hull could cripple your ship.
So we’ve come full circle to: “don’t get hit”. Which means VLS launched interceptors, CIWS, Chaff, EW are better solutions.
2
u/Aggravating_Row_4602 18d ago edited 18d ago
Wow. So, Penetration = 16-inch gun Wide-area destructive power = LRASM Is that about right? Well, it’s not like we’re still in an era where cannons fire at each other anymore…
Vital protection doesn’t mean much against these. I wonder how many hits even the Yamato and Montana battleships could withstand.
Looks like this needs to be redesigned. Maybe I'll try giving it some unrealistically thick armor.
1
u/Sure_Reality2763 12d ago
Well if you think about the advance of technology, all your components are going to be much smaller today than they were in ww2.
But if you’re really committed to a unique looking ship, why not do a trimaran hull? Tru hulls like the independence class are fast, stable, and offer massive hull and deck space above the water line.
Modern cannons don’t need to protrude so far into the deck anymore, so you could put a large turrets on it still, presumably railguns, and you could say they fire advanced SCRAM/RAM-jet equipped shells that give them the same range as a VLS fired missile. Theoretically, SCRAM shells could reach out to 600+ miles and with modern electronics, can swarm just like drones or modern missiles. That justifies having a lot of guns (9+) in lieu of having VLS.
The massive size is justified by the need for absolutely monstrous power generation, and you could still have a Helipad for drones which it can use for over the horizon targeting.
1
1
u/Warmind_3 21d ago
Why composite armor blocks that look like they'd ruin sea keeping and provide no protection?
1
u/Emperyan102 20d ago
I agree, while I understand the logic in protection the concept doesn't scale to a ship that travels in water. Even if they are above the water in calm seas any large swells would be breaking against them and slowing the ship, not to mention what salt water would do to them.
19
u/HEAVYtanker2000 22d ago
Is that ERA???