Republic of Dalmatia Imagi-Nation

[MechCommander]

you can just ditch the helipad and just put ABLs in the stern just like what I did to the KGVs refits and maybe put Sea Sparrow launchers on the tops of two of the main gun turrets.

[redleg]

No way - we use helicopters in the ROD Navy! Even if we aren't assigning a helicopter to the ship they need to be able to land on them. Casualty evacuation, resupply, mail delivery.

[MechCommander]

Same for us in the Royal Canadian navy though its role is limited to ship to shore transport with the sea knights and Chinooks, and ASW warfare for the Sea Kings.

everything else is handed by just docking along side another ship, hospital ships for casualties, cargoships for resupply, and we reuse some of the older destoryers for transporting mail.

[7.62]

Must have the heli pad.
Forget your big guns, short of any nukes a Helicopter is probably the most potent weapon system you can put on there.
(It could carry the nukes too!)

The Karma Navy has departed ROD waters. We would have liked to come ashore but are still on lock down, next year for sure.
We have cleaned up the best we could, trying to leave no trace. A recovery operation found one of our Unmanned underwater vehicles that had malfunctioned.
This was a source of some embarrassment as it had failed while still emitting a very strong EMP when returning from a ROD Navy site. Unknown to us it was only 75 meters from a civilian internet server hub. Sorry for the bad PR.
All land, air and sea launched airborne drones are accounted for.

Now heading to watch the incoming NC CG.

[chrisswim]

Montana idea.
Remove the rear exhaust stack. Then move the two radar/fire control stems forward behind the 1 remaining exhaust/smoke stack. Put VLS just in front of the X turret toward the bow but behind the two radar/fire control stems. Another idea is remove both exhaust/smoke stacks.
.
I hope you come up with a great idea and show us what you have done.

[redleg]

Forget the big guns????? You are speaking to an artilleryman, Sir! The big guns are my life! LOL

I like your idea Chris. I don't know what's inside of that part of the ship, but it may work. I don't really not too many missiles - I've got cruisers and SSGNs for that, but I do want a little more modern punch. and I also want TWELVE 16" GUNS!!!

Your idea of moving the funnels also gave me a crazy idea - what if I move both funnels to the sides - sticking out at an angle looking all garish and scary? Probably more than my limited modeling skills could handle though.

[redleg]

Tank you to the Karmanaskis Navy for testing us! Sometimes you need someone to slap you around a little bit!

[Hoth_902]

I am not sure why I am wading into these waters again.

Mech,
You need to ask yourself why almost all navy ships are built with help pads. Because there are countless reasons for there use. How would you pull along another ship in ruff seas when you need to get someone off the ship,. Say a critically injured person. Tin cans will be way more effected by the waves than a huge battleship. So you would have the destroyer bouncing up and down while the battleship is more stable. Good luck on transferring a guy then. If you wait, he could be dead. Some naval people could expand on other reasons.

[MechCommander]

The problem to be honest Hoth is that I don't have many ships with helipads on them (in miniature form that is). and the Hospital ship i use the Fredrick Banting is a converted WW2 era liner. The KGVs do have Helipads located Amidships between the funnels where the Float Plane catapults used to be.

Though I am getting some modern ships in the form of the Belknap class CGs, Adams class DDGs to expand my Destoryer fleet, and the Albany class CGs.

In short I have to prioritize the use of the Helipad on all RCN warships equipped with them.

[redleg]

I wasn't able to find any blueprints or cutaway drawing of the Montana class with any useful level of detail, but I did find this one of an Iowa class battleship. So using this I am going to make 2 assumptions about the Montana:

1. The compartments in the aft superstructure area are not vital to that area of the ship, so they can be moved to other areas (just need to make sure the helicopter control section has a view of the helipad.

2. The funnels can be moved around to some degree and are not tied to the location of the engine room.

With this in mind I'm leaning heavily toward Chris' suggestion of moving the aft fire control bits and possibly the aft funnel forward so that a vertical launch missile system can be installed in that area. The big question now is do I have the skill to pull it of without completely butchering the model? Only time will tell!

[MechCommander]

Sounds like you got your hands full redleg.

[redleg]

Yes, hands full and probably over my head, but I'm driving on anyway!

I started work last night. USS Montana hull and superstructure straight out of the package:


I attached the forward superstructure and I removed the 2 boats from the hull. Then I cut the rear funnel off before attaching the rear superstructure piece. It left a big gap where the boats were:


I probably should have used styrene, but I had wood on hand so I cut a small piece of 1/32" basswood to fill in the gap. It looks a little scheisty in this picture, but I swear the corners are squared! 1/32" was the perfect height to even that space out, which is just dumb luck on my part. It overhangs the remaining boats a little bit so I may sand them down some once I get closer to finished.


Tonight I'm going to add more basswood to build up the superstructure and then re-attach the rear funnel further forward. Then I'll cut the rear fire control stuff and move it forward too.

[chrisswim]

Looking good. Could use just 1 funnel as an idea.

[redleg]

Merry Christmas from the ROD! It's been a good holiday - fairly quiet with just the immediate family...just the way we like it! Just a week until 2021 when we will release our State of the ROD Military report, as well as a comprehensive global intelligence report.

Update on the Montana class battleship upgrade:

Rear funnel has been moved forward a little bit, as well as the two fire control things (range finders?) Next I'll try putty to make the open area on the back of the superstructure a bit more solid.


I just eye-balled a Ticonderoga class cruiser next to the battleship and it looks like a Mk41 VLS launcher will fit easily into the space and that will be 61 missile cells. I'd like to add a couple Harpoon launchers too, but I think that's just a bit too small for me to handle!

[MechCommander]

Kind had the same Idea with my KGVs redleg, removing the boats from the aft castle deck. heres a pic of my refit progress, the red lines on the stern is where the ABL launchers will be I may have to pull those out of the modern Iowa model.