Shipbucket

HMNZS Black Prince - Auckland Libraries Heritage Collection

The cruiser has plied the seas for more than a century. It adapted to the dreadnought battleship, the torpedo boat, and the submarine. Now a new weapon threatens its existence: the aeroplane. Once a novelty and then a valuable scouting asset, the aeroplane has become a potent and deadly weapon. Its bombs and torpedoes can tear through a ship several thousand times its own weight. Can the cruiser adapt or will it be swept from the waves? Welcome to the Anti-Aircraft Challenge! Your task is to draw a fictional anti-aircraft gun cruiser commissioned between 1940 and 1960. Please read the challenge rules and requirements listed below before submitting an entry. Do remember that data sheets including text blocks and specifications are no longer permitted under Challenge Rule 2.

Design Requirements

1. Your entry should depict a fictional gun cruiser commissioned between 1940 and 1960, or an earlier cruiser converted to meet the second requirement within the same time frame.
2. The cruiser's armament should be optimised for anti-aircraft warfare.

Challenge Rules

1. Each participant may submit a single image.
2. The image should be a Shipbucket template modified to include the participant’s art and, optionally, one of the following: ship badge, unit insignia, manufacturer logo, national flag, or naval ensign. Other elements, including data sheets and scenic elements, are no longer permitted. If you have specifications and blocks of text, please include them in your post and not the image itself.
3. One side-view of the participant's ship must be included. One top-view is also permitted, but not required. All other views are prohibited.
4. If two views are included in a single image, they must depict the same ship, in the same configuration, at the same point in time.
5. All art must be in Shipbucket scale and conform to the Shipbucket style guidelines.
6. A textual description accompanying each submission is permitted, but not necessary.
7. Non-serious entries, or entries substantially deviate from the challenge requirements, are not allowed.
8. Off-topic posts will be reported to the relevant authorities.

This challenge will run until Sunday 23 October 2022, ending at 23:59 UTC-12 (International Date Line West).
A countdown timer can be found at this link.

A poll will be held after this date to select a winner! When it opens, please provide honest and meaningful scores for each entry. Responses which grant maximum scores to a select group of entries, and minimum scores to all other entries, will be deleted. Members of the community who manipulate the results in such a fashion may also be subject to a permanent ban. Scores will be allocated in two categories, each with a scale of 1 to 10:

• Drawing Quality - The overall quality of the drawing. One might consider detailing, shading, and accuracy.
• Design Quality -The quality of the design presented, irrespective of drawing quality. One could consider feasibility, practicality, and realism.

Design Requirement Change, Conversions Now Permitted
In response to a question asked on Discord, I have decided to allow conversions of older cruisers into anti-aircraft cruisers. Design Requirement 1 now reads: "Your entry should depict a fictional gun cruiser commissioned between 1940 and 1960, or an earlier cruiser converted to meet the second requirement within the same time frame." The main battery of the converted cruiser should be optimised for anti-aircraft warfare.

Here's my entry; an AA conversion of the Omaha class. There were proposals like this, but they entailed removing all of the aft superstructure, trunking the funnels, keeping the twin 6 mounts, no 5" guns etc. Mine is less extreme, since it basically keeps most of the Omaha features (I have remade the trunked funnel version,) but trades every single surface-firing gun for an anti-aircraft gun. Two twin 5" mounts replace the old 6" mounts, the aviation facilities (catapult and crane) have been removed, the casemates have been removed and replaced with AA guns. I've kept the two torpedo launchers, as they would still be useful for a 35kt cruiser. All in all, her general look is the same as a mid-late war Omaha class, with some slight changes. The camouflage scheme is standard measure 32C for the Omaha class (specifically the Trenton).

In total her weapon and electronic suite consists of:
2x2 5"/38 Mk.38 mod.0
4x1 5"/38 Mk.25 mod.1
12x2 40mm Bofors
22x2 Oerlikon 20mm
2x3 21" torpedo tubes

1x SK air-search radar
1x SC-2 air-search radar
2x SG navigational radars
2x Mk.37 fire-control directors w/radar
6x Mk.51 directors for 40mm
2x 36" SLs
2x 24" SLs

Very nice work, Karle! Almost makes me wonder if a revamp of the Omahas will be making an appearance in the 'Real Ships' thread soon...

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

Funny thing is, this one is mostly irl parts of war-time Omahas, so alot parts will be simply copy-paste. I also already have revamped Omaha 1923 and 1926 drawings.

I think you did a great job on the Omaha conversion.

Athens Class AA Cruiser




The Athens Class, like the Atlanta's, are AA Cruisers built for the United State's Navy during 1942-3. They were commissioned during the June of 1944 and scrapped in 1962. Originally designed to be an upgrade to Atlanta by having more 40mm and 20mm guns, and being better suited for this role. She was apart of many key battles during the later half of the Pacific Theatre. 10 ships where planned to be built but in the end only 5 where finished by the wars ends, the other 5 where cancelled shortly after.

Her armament consists of:
16x2 5"/38
32x4 40mm Bofors
24x1 20mm Oerlikon
2x5 21" Torpedo Tubes
4x1 M2 .50 Cal

The Athens Class was the most capably Light Cruiser in the US' Navy. She could preform many different roles including Naval Gun Fire Support, AA Support, and more.
The Athens served until such weaponry was becoming useless due to the Jet and SAM age

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"The further you are from the sound of guns, the less you understand."
- General Walter Natyncyk, CAF

Project list -
realstrange
USN Hellcat sheet
Greek F-16's
USAAF B-24 Liberator mega sheet (Europe, Italy/North Africa, and Pacific)

Artemis-class Air-Defence Cruiser / Destroyer Leader

Fittingly named after the goddess of the hunt in Greek mythology Artemis was the lead ship of her class which comprised of: Artemis, Athena, Alala, Badhbh, Banbha and Brigid.

Armed with a quartet of rapid firing twin 120mm guns a pair of twin 57mm guns and four twin 40mm mounts the class represented the peak of modernity at the time of their introduction. Additional to the gun armament were a clutch of fixed 550mm torpedo tubes for anti-surface use, a pair of 375mm anti-submarine rocket launchers and an anti-torpedo system on the stern.

Each of the primary and secondary batter mounts had on-board directors whilst the tertiary battery were directed from separate tachymetric directors.

Propulsion, like most Banbhan warships of the 1940s and 50s came from Sural Indret-type boilers and Rateau Bretagne impulse turbines, in the case of the Artemis-class, four boilers feeding two turbines. A smaller turbo-generator for shoreside use was also present as well as a number of Paxman Vega diesel generators for pump and salvage use.

The class would survive until 1979/80 and the end of the Vinyan War, having been substantially altered in their later years with the addition of surface-to-air missiles, removal of the anti-torpedo system and changes to their sensors. An attempt was made to save Artemis for preservation upon her decommissioning but despite strong backing, funding fell through. A reprieve was found at the eleventh hour by the King Consort, a retired destroyer commander whom after protracted wrangling and discussion managed to persuade the Admiralty to part with Artemis for the princely sum of one crown.

After a period alongside she was moved to the newly redeveloped west-bay dockyard area which had been converted to the national maritime museum, where she resides in drydock to the present day alongside the only other major surviving warship of years past, Nemain.

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AU Projects: | Banbha et al. | New England: The Divided States
Blood and Fire

I updated the Omaha with 4 single 5"/38 mounts since complaints were voiced over the lack of heavy AA firepower. I also removed two searchlights, as the Omaha class irl only retained two of the large ones, either on the foremost funnel, or on the aftermost one. According to most sources, measure 32 is supposed to be black, ocean grey and light grey. The sheet I used for the Trenton has the colors navy blue, haze grey and pale grey. So either she trialed a lighter version of the medium patter, used substitute colors, or the source was simply incorrect. Either case, I've also updated the colors. The overall effect is the same, but with slightly darker colors. I also replaced the SC radar with the SC-2, and replaced the last navigational rangefinder with another twin 40mm mount.

Kōchiyo-class Anti-Aircraft Cruiser Ōenkan

This was based on a proposal for an anti-aircraft oriented Ōyodo, which saw 12 DP turrets being placed in sets of three around the ship. Fore, aft and to each side. As such, Ōenkan is armed with this main battery (12x twin 4" guns) for usage against aircraft, with a secondary battery of 40mm guns in various tubs throughout the ship and one 25mm mount on either side. I also went ahead and added a launcher for short-ranged optical guided SAMs, which are based off the Funryu SAM from real life, but much smaller. One launcher is on either side, and holds 4 missiles each.

The ship is named after Mt. Ōenkan on the main island of Yamanobe, and was built in 1944 as part of an effort by the Yamanobe Admiralty to provide better anti-aircraft escorts for their aircraft carriers after devastating attacks during the early years of the Second Great War. Ōenkan was one of 4 sisters. After the Second Great War, each ship was upgraded to have better fire-control systems, and in 1951 were given helipads to allow the usage of transport helicopters such as the license-built Johannes Jo-33 (pictured).

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