Week 4 - Secondary Armament and Propulsion

 Hello Readers,

    This week we have some more secondary developments running alongside the main things. Speaking of which, I've got 1/4th of the hull printed, and the rest which I'll print over the weekend. But for right now, we'll focus on the propulsion and the secondary armaments

    Propulsion is very critical, particularly to a battlecruiser due to the doctrine it's intended to be used in. The whole point of a battlecruiser is to have the firepower of a battleship but be able to outrun another battleship, and so if its propulsion is lacking, well then you've just got a battleship with no armor (in other words: a sitting duck). There are two aspects to a ship's mobility, her cruising speed, and her maneuverability.

    A ship's cruising speed is primarily determined by its engine and the streamlining of the hull. We've already covered hull design and engine power isn't really something I can model so we will leave this alone for now

    A ship's agility, on the other hand, is determined by its hull shape, keel depth and shape, and most importantly, its turning mechanism. Ships use two turning mechanisms, Rudders, Azipods, or a combination of both. Azipod stands for Azimuth Pod, azimuth meaning an angle off the centerline of the ship. This means that the thrust from the rotor is applied at an angle to the center-of-mass, therefore causing a rotation in the water.

    Rudders work just like the control surfaces on an airplane, deflecting the flow of water to the left or the right in order to turn the ship. One of the key differences here from the Azipods is that the force is generated by the flow rate of the water. More specifically, by converting the ship's linear momentum into angular momentum, which causes the ship to slow. The downsides here are two-fold: one, turning causes you to lose speed, so should the ship need to adjust bearing while chasing down a target or fleeing from a threat, it puts the ship in a disadvantageous position. Secondly, since the torque which turns the ship is generated from the flow of the water around the rudder, the turning force is proportional to the ship's speed, meaning she becomes less maneuverable at low speeds and impossible to turn at a standstill. 

    The magic of the Azipod is that it derives a torque, not from the ship's forward momentum, but the thrust of the engines. This means that instead of slowing the ship when you turn, it simply reduces its acceleration. Therefore, if a ship using Azipods were at cruising speed, then made an adjustment of course, it would not lose any speed directly as a result of the Azipod turning (any speed loss would be due to drag along the hull due to the increased angle of attack in a turn, which is inevitable). Also, this means that a ship using Azipods would be able to turn on the spot, from a standstill, by turning its azipods and increasing the throttle. Thirdly, since its turn rate would not be affected by its speed, it means that a ship using Azipods would be able to turn at the same rate at flank speed as it would at very low speeds in port. This is why I've chosen an Azipod system for my ship

    Now, onto the secondary armament. Secondary armament is often overlooked, but can sometimes be more critical to a large ship's performance than its main armament. The two types of secondary armaments are generally classified into anti-ship, and anti-air. Anti-air is an extremely important aspect of a ship, with the Yamato being a prime example of what happens if your AA isn't up to standard. I've designed a hybrid missile/gun anti-air system, inspired by the Russian 2S6/2K22 Tunguska Self-Propelled Anti-Air System.

    

    The guns fire a variable-time fuzed explosive shell, which increases the probability of hitting an aircraft, as it detects how far away the target is, and explodes when it gets near it. This means that even with a near miss (up to 5m), the shrapnel from the explosion will still deal critical damage to an aircraft. This means you've effectively made your target 5 meters larger in every direction. The missiles are fairly standard, IR-tracking highly maneuverable missiles, armed with a shrapnel-containing fragmentation warhead.