A Random (Ship Model Related) Eureka Moment

You all have some great ideas. I am curious what someone might come up with. It is an interesting concept of a 'what if' boat. I think you should have a group build on that topic and see what everyone comes up with. It would be very interesting to see all the concepts that you all have. 

I agree with Gregbale on this, "Ivan" made good use of this concept.  http://www.wio.ru/fleet/ww2armorb.htm

Also agree with Sharkbait. A variety of 1/72 tank/AA turrets on the inexpensive Revell PT boat might be awesome!

Jack

Looking at the "Boat with Tank Turret" photo in the opening post of this interesting post.

The first thing that springs to mind is that the hull resembles a PT Boat hull split down the middle and the tunnel added between the 2 halfs and wider upper deck and superstructure installed thereupon.

A PT boat model could be a good starting point for a scratchbuild project. 

Just an observation.  

Cheers to all.

Sharkbait

Hi,

I pulled down a couple free 3D models off the internet to see what the M109 and M2 turrets might look like @ 1/144 scale (if I did the scaling correctly).

Pat

PS.  The grey blob is an explosion model that I printed out awhile ago, but onyl recently found whie cleaning my room.  I originally printed it out to see how smoothly my 3D printer might print round-ish object.  I'm still playing around with trying different things with regards to paint and shading on it.

Hi,

Here is a rough sketch of my idea (I need to double check to make sure that I scaled everything right).  I just dropped the PGM deckhouse for reference right now, since it is a similarly sized ship.  I was also thinking it might be useful to put a small platform somewhere to launch and recover small UAV/drones to assist in surveillance ans targetting.

Pat

PS. 1/200 scale might not be a bad idea either as it would scale out to a ship about 221ft long, which mightt give some additional extra room onboard.

Personally, I'd go with using the 350 scale hull and call it 192 or 200 scale. Then .  .  . set it up like I was saying previously.   Should be fun!!!!!   Heck, we could make it a group build or something.

Hi,

Interestingly enough, the more I have thought about this the more I've been coming round to maybe an M109 or Abbott type Howitzer turret at one end and an M2 Bradley Turret at the other, for alot of the reasons others have mentioned here.  Specifically a howitzer would probably be better for dedicated  indirect fire, while the Bradley turret seems like it should be able to provide a resonable amount of suppressive fire, and the two TOW missile tubes would hopefully provide some sort of dedicated back line of site fire.

If I take the 1/350 scale hull as it is and assume that it is instead a 1/144 scale hull then the 115.5m long ship would then be about 47.5m long (or about 156ft long) which isn't too far off the size of the old Asheville class PGMs.

Asheville-class gunboat - Wikipedia

Since I already have a Flower Class Corvette and a Type 143 class Fast Attack Craft model in this scale (and the old Revell 1/142 scale fishing boat) it might help me make sure that things like ladders and lockers etc look right for my vessel, since I would be able to copy some of the details from these otther ships.

In looking at some of these new artificial islands being built in the Pacific, it looks like a small vessel nearshore could potentially provide some direct and indirect support to a landing force across a wide swath of the islands (for reference, the runway on Fiery Cross Atoll, shown below is listwd as about 3,125m long, and Firey Cross Atoll appears to be possibly the largest of the artificail islands built to date)

Fiery Cross Reef - Wikipedia

Pat

Yeah, kinda went off on a tangent didn't we .  .  .     But, then again .  .  .

Not speaking for Pat, but I assumed this was bordering on absurd what-if type of a build - correct me if I'm wrong.

I say put a german 88mm gun on the bow and the gepard turret with it's own rangefinder on the stern.  Maybe a couple torpedos and depth charges to round it out.

There are a number of DE and frigate hulls 'back in the day' that were great at this sort of mission. It's just a matter of getting your priorities straight. The problem lies in that with the cost of big gray things these days, nobody wants to overly limit the mission, or build too specific for just one area of operations / mission profile.

'Near the beach' requires speed and maneuverability (smaller hull), but limits firepower and range. Deep blue (bigger hull) permits heavier firepower and longer range, but places maneuverability and speed on a lower priority.

To clarify; when I say speed and maneuverability here, it also implies quickness. 

You Know!

 That is what always puzzled me. It seems they lost common sense somewhere along the line,trying to re-invent what was already in front of them. The Buckleys if cut down in size and weight could easily still accomodate 5" guns. One forward one Aft! Still a pretty good punch! The Brits proved small ships could make a difference!

This gets complicated in real life.

Tank gunfire in direct fire is limited to about 4km, which is getting you very close to shore (as in suseptable to man-portable anti-tank missile fires, which necessarily have a similar range to tanks).

Now, sawp the tank turret for a Paladin of M-109 or the like, and you get the 4km direct fire (just not with specialized AP rounds per se).  And, you get the 10-15km indirect fire 155 rounds can provide.

Ammo capacity and protection of same becomes an issue, though.  It might be less weight than a bof-standard 127mm(5") gun mount.  The latter, though does convey a considerable anti-aircraft (and anti-helo especially) capability.  Something the 155 artillery willl not.

Realistically, once over the littoral, CAS becomes a simpler solution.  Vertical envelopment using existing "airborne" assets also takes a great burden off the need to move things by landing craft.

So, a hgh speed, necessarily lightweight, vessel with a 57mm or 76mm DP gun could be at a disadvantage versus one with with a turreted 90mm.  But, a simple destroyer with a 5" gun could stand off well out of range of the 57/76/90 guns.

Ther used to be a notion that one could "swarm" larger ships with smaller ones.  But, sadly, modern economics do not "scale" very well.  The LCS ships are the same cost as a small frigate, and for less capacity (above and beyond all the "systemic" failures of that Class).

The notion is sound enough, and modeling it would be cool.  Mind, fitting up a multi-ton turret into a plywood or aluminum hull can have other engineering issues.

Remember, tank turrets originally were inspired by a ship design.  Most early ships that used turrets were called monitors.

Well, if you want a landing craft, you build a landing craft. But, if you want a coastal gunfire support / littorals op area ship .  .  . that's what you build.

I'm just not particularly impressed with the two designs the navy came up with.

Hi HooYah!

      I was wondering, after working with wildlife folks in Florida and Oil Spill folks in the Sloughs and Channels in Northern Cal.Waters. Why not a Jet boat or Air boat kind of hull profile, Almost flat bottomed but also fast if need be? Plus the boats I speak of have hulls similar to landing Craft so they are  already Shallow Draft.

Anything less than 20mm is considered 'small arms', and therefore dependant on the mission profile. Besides, putting your 'boat' close enough to the beach to effectively use the .50 BMG, is 'hazarding said 'boat'.

Actually, it kinda depends on just how big (or small) the craft is, and how much water it draws.

Despite it's reputation, the .50 BMG is only good for short duration use. It is manpower intensive to reload / restock after the initial 'loadout' is burned up, especially in multi-gun applications.

A modern version of the Vietnam era quad .50 mount (or two) should be in there somewhere. 

Hey, Hoo Yah!

     Second that Motion  on the Diesel propulsion!

If I were to build something like that .  .  .

From long range to direct fire - 25 cell, mixed bag VLS (modular, of course, for easy swap-out), 1 or 2, 57mm Oto-Melara guns (again, mixed bag on ammo options), Gamekeeper 30mm gatling gun with HE, depleted uranium, and tracer mix ammo), and 2-20mm vulcan mounts for close-in (comparitively speaking). Then, 1- HH-60, and 2- Predator drones.

Make all the weapon systems (other than the CIWS's) modular, again for quick and east swap-outs. AND, (contrary to the present LCS boats) a solid, bulletproof propulsion system. ( I'd go diesels vice gas turbines).

Hi,

All those ideas are really good food for thought.

Originally I was thinking that the ship would act like an "offshore" tank engaging targets ashore like tanks and other armored vehicles, soft sided vehicles, weapon stations, electronics sensors and antennas and such, and possibly both reinforced and non reinforced buildings like hangars and warehouses.   As such, my original thoughts were toward fitting a tank turret and "tank gun" capable of firing standard high-explosive and anti-armor rounds.  And from what I have read, some guns (of about 90mm) can actually be used to fire in both a direct and in-direct mode (for targetting things hidden from off shore).

However, since most tank turrets seem to have limited magazine capacity and sensors located very close to the gun, I'm beginning to think that maybe a more typical naval gun mount, or even a mortar, for indirect fire coupled with a small number of anti-tank missile box launchers, might potentially be more suitable.

Either option above could potentially then be coupled with a 20 to 40mm mount aft (including possibly a Phalanx 1B mount or some other typ of weapon), to provide suppressive fire and maybe even some self-defense capability.

I guess there aree a lot of options to be considered, and I'd be really happy to hear anyone elses suggestions.

Pat 

Hmmm!

 How about a pair of CIWS staggered like they did in the twenties. Oh, and the same with  Mortars on Port and Starboard side. One mortar each side. Or how about two Oto-Melara fast fire guns, Is that what you mean? I have never learned the Calibre of those guns.

OR .  .  .   an Oto Melara rapid fire gun (you pick the caliber) and a goalkeeper / vulcan multi-barrelled mount. You really shouldn't need the heavy armor of a tank turret, but suitable marine gun mounts are 'aplenty' to choose from

Have Fun. 

Oho!

      Now you have me intrigued! I'll be waiting!

Everything old is new again.

Didn't the Soviets during WW2 have whole classes of river assault boats with tank turrets mounted on boat hulls?

In any case...cool project! 

That sounds like fun.  Throw a Gepard turret on for AAA