Girls In Red Cloaks Beware

General
1

Originally published at: Girls In Red Cloaks Beware | The Associated Worlds

(In which I noodle around with wet navy designs from the closest to a WWII-equivalent period in ‘verse history.)

Ulricik Bancrach (“Hungry Wolf”)-class destroyer

Builders:

  • Ambriel Dock Guild & Company
  • Consolidated Selenarian Shipbuilding
  • Ethring Iron and Steam Works
  • Ryudailai Pier Shipbuilding Cooperatives
  • Telírvess Naval Yards
  • Tortelsvard Naval Arsenal

Displacement: 3,090 long tons (standard)

Length: 119.48 m
Beam: 12.32 m
Draft: 3.65 m

Propulsion:

  • 4 x Empire Nucleonics, ICC “Kirchev’s Kettle” thorium boilers, driving
    2×2 Blackstone Industries, ICC geared steam turbines (and auxiliary turbogenerator)

Speed: 44 knots
Range: Unlimited (6 year refueling interval)

Complement: 340 officers and men

Sensors:

  • Artifice Armaments, ICC, ASR-6/1 air search radar
  • Artifice Armaments, ICC, SSR-12 surface search radar
  • Hydrodyne Group Mk. 0/2 experimental hydrophones

Armament (Primary):

  • 6 x 6″ Imperial Navy Type Four dual-purpose guns in single turrets
  • 24 x 24″ torpedo tubes in four stacked-hex turret mounts
    (bow and stern centerline mounts; midships bilateral mounts),
    firing 24″ low-signature LS/85 unguided torpedo with 450 kg high explosive warhead
  • 6 x 240 lb. depth charge delivery racks (bow, midships, and stern bilateral, former four on pivot mounts)
  • 4 x 12 mm machine guns, various types (two mounted on the wings of the flying bridge, the others at deck level)

Armament (Secondary):

  • 2 x quad 36 mm Black Sky anti-air defense guns
  • 6 x twin 24 mm Black Sky anti-air defense guns
  • 24 x twin 12 mm anti-air/anti-boarding defense guns, various types

Armor:

  • Engineering space (engines and boilers): 0.75″ heavy steel plate
  • Pilothouse: 0.5″ heavy steel plate
  • Gun directors: 0.5″ heavy steel plate
  • Elsewhere: None

Designed during the middle years of the Third Oceanic Dominance, the Ulricik Bancrach-class destroyer was the second and most common¹ of the “modern” types of destroyer that would dominate the last great era of wet naval combat, specifically designed for the multiple roles of serving as protective screening forces for battleships and carriers (especially against air attack), of mounting deadly “wolf-pack” torpedo attacks against enemy forces during surface actions, and of addressing the then novel threat of the militarily effective submarine.

The name of the class comes ultimately from their flush deck construction² (that would later become near-ubiquitous in later designs around the time of the War of the Twelve Tyrants), eliminating all well decks, reducing the overall height of the superstructure, and even eliminating the forecastle³, which along with her slender dagger profile gave Ulricik Bancrach and her successors a particularly lean, prowling, hungry look compared to their contemporaries. The substantial increase in firepower over the preceding Sar Anpeng-class only added to this reputation.

Serving through the remainder of the Third Oceanic Dominance and the War of the Twelve Tyrants, and with refits, upgrades, and successor classes based on their design continuing to fill out the squadrons of the IN into and through the Consolidation, the Ulricik Bancrach-class is perhaps the most iconic of all the destroyer classes commissioned by the Empire.

  1. 224 Ulricik Bancrach-class destroyers were commissioned, of which 148 served on the Upperside and 76 on the Underside.
  2. It should be borne in mind that, using nucleonic propulsion as they tended to, Imperial steamship designs near-universally lacked smokestacks.
  3. To the unfortunate detriment of the class’s seaworthiness, such that a partial forecastle was restored in subsequent classes.
2

The Zumwalt but it actually works.

3

About 75 years too early for that, but still…

(Also, plz note some revisions made on site. Specifically, not thorium but regular uranium nucleonic boilers, and I accidentally doubled the number of twin 12mm; that should be 12, not 24.)

((Also also plz note more revisions may be made when I hear back from the people about the things.))

4

Sounds like she’d be very wet and difficult to handle in moderate seas. The kind of class that gets a midlife modification to remove some armament to make her more manageable.

5

What does “very wet” mean in this context?

6

Her deck awash, and her forward weapons and fittings unusable as a result. I think her displacement is unrealistically low, for 24 torpedo tubes and six 155mm-class guns; bumping that up to 3500-4000 tons would not help matters.

7

@dziban

I have come to conclude that you are not wrong.

See latest revision (for which you will need to click through to the actual site, since plugin cannot update here); I have taken some advice on design, been pointed at better sources for weights, and brought the torpedo armament more in line with the IN’s then-dominant Speedy Horde Of Smol Murderballs doctrine.

1 Like
8

(Specifically on that last, you don’t need big, heavy, long-range torpedos when your doctrine is to charge in close using your speed and agility to not be hit, then turning to open the range even as you launch - for, say, a nine-ship squadron - a 162-fish murdersalvo right in the enemy’s face.

Then the rest of the task force turns up while they’re still trying to get back into something resembling a formation and find some fresh pants.)

9

Made a couple more changes (swapping the main deck turrets and torpedo mounts over), and adding a historical note about a later refit dropping the forward torpedo mount in exchange for better seakeeping.