Shipbucket

I broke with tradition and drew a non-real life ship. Thanks to DeskJetser for the awesome render!



This is the American light cruiser "Dallas" from World of Warships. As far as I can tell, this ship is not based on any particular "spring style" or preliminary design. Indeed I have had trouble figuring out just what exactly it's supposed to be. Main armament is ten 6"/47 rifles in twin and triple turrets (superfiring turrets are triples). WG seems to have invented a twin 6"/47 mount (of the same type used aboard the real life Brooklyn, Cleveland, and Fargo classes) specifically for this ship. Secondary armament are 5"/38 Mark 12 guns (in early twin Mark 29 mounts, a nice touch) and Mark 30 open mounts amidships. I have trouble believing the USN would choose to only mount two open mounts amidships - I suspect another pair would be mounted just forward of the catapult above the hull break.

The bridge structure seems to be built around a large armored conning tower... certainly a departure for a ship of this size. The forward main battery Mark 34 director sits right on top of the conning tower, which is most likely just an error on the part of the designers as this director required one level of deck penetration, and I don't think the WG artists understood this when designing this ship. The aft Mark 34 has the same issue. There is a chance the structure around the Mark 34 director foundations are intended to "surround" the barbette, but this is contrary to USN design practice as I understand it and I think the placement of these directors is just an oversight.

Mark 33 directors for 5" gunfire control sit on pedestals above the bridge. Their Mark 4 radars basically require the Mark 34 directors below them to be fitted with the oblong Mark 3 Mod.2 radar. The square Mod.1 radar would be a better choice here but the strange director positioning prohibits it. Early design practice dictated the main battery directors should be placed higher than the secondary battery/DP directors - this was found to be a mistake, as having the AA directors above the main battery directors gave better sky arcs. This problem persisted all the way to the Cleveland class, where it was resolved with the introduction of the "square bridge" Clevelands which mounted their Mark 37 DP directors above their Mark 34s. As this "Dallas" class cruiser is clearly meant to portray some sort of pre-war design, I think the director positioning WG has chosen is an error.

The foremast has a small platform mounting an SA air search radar, and the mainmast (correctly) shows an SG surface search set. The SA air search radar was not fitted to combatant units larger than DDs (and usually only to DEs); a cruiser of the Dallas's importance would at least receive SC or SC-2. The small foretopmast supports a truck light; this is also erroneous, as the SA and SC radar sets could mount a truck light behind the reflector to reduce the need for lighting masts above the radar set.

The amidships catapult is mounted on the centerline, and there is no aircraft hangar. I am a bit skeptical of this as no USN cruiser after the Pensacola class shipped aircraft without twin catapults and a hangar of some sort (the Pensacola class had a large handling area amidships). While it's not impossible for this ship to have been commissioned without a hangar, its overall configuration suggests that it was designed long after the Pensacola class had shown the issues inherent with lack of hangar space for aircraft. Cruiser scout planes were considered very valuable (they are the 'eyes' of the ship in the pre-radar days), so hangar space was a consideration on all cruisers after the Pensacola class. The in-game model also shows an aircraft handling trolley below the catapult on the main deck, which hints at the presence of multiple aircraft (two would be the minimum for a ship of this size) - this arrangement would be extremely cramped in the available deck space, which is also shared with the ship's boats. I think a better solution here would have been twin catapults in an arrangement similar to the treaty cruisers.

Finally, the ship is camouflaged in an adapted version of Measure 32/1D (the ship's "permacamo"). Based on the radar fit, gun mountings, and deck equipment, I've dated this design to a time range of late 1942-mid 1943. It's unlikely that this ship, were it real, would be painted in dazzle camouflage while remaining in this configuration, but WG is known for ignoring configuration when creating camouflages so I'm not surprised. A more correct camouflage for this ship would just be overall Navy Blue Measure 21.

Here's the WG version in Measure 21 and the Measure 22 (perhaps it's serving in the Atlantic Fleet?):





Finally, because I wanted to challenge myself and see if I was even capable of doing what everyone else here does so easily (draw a non real life ship), I made some edits to the Dallas to hopefully make it a bit more realistic. Adding a hangar was too much work so I didn't bother, but I did add a deck level to the forward superstructure, removed the ridiculous conning tower, added the usual open bridge, and swapped the gun directors to a more realistic (and time appropriate) arrangement. I removed the foremast radar platform and added an SC radar, giving this ship a radar fit comparable to Helena (CL-50) as lost, or the CLAAs through 1944.



Would love to hear everyone's thoughts on these.

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USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)

Beautiful as always! I especially like your take on the design.

If it's not realistic at least it's pretty! WG's model looks good and your rendition looks even better.

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Drawings signed both (Miklania) and (M.Morris)

Hi Colo!

Redundant to say it's perfect drawing-wise (but even the perfect among us like to hear that from time to time).

That's BTW quite what I need for the Chilean Navy in the Thiariaverse... the original fire control fit says mid-1930s, doesn't it? If you don't mind me fitting some British stuff to it, I'll modify it a little!

Greetings
GD

Looks great.
While I was scrolling through he text, noting the various annotations about inaccuracies in the design, I began thinking "would be cool if Colosseum draws a corrected version of it". And at the end of the post that's exactly what was there

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I'm not a WoW player so this kind of stuff passes me by.
As a design its a little odd as surely the Atlanta would fulfill much the same role as this design.
Overall its a pretty design but I think your corrected version does look much better.
My eye is drawn to those long propeller shafts though, the three turrets aft certainly don't help in that regard, pushing the machinery spaces quite far forward.

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I think world of warships follow a set of rule when they decide what they are going for:

- Real design
- Never build design
- paper design
- just written about design
- close a opening between ships classes

I don't care much at all about WoW (I've never played and don't care to), but I took considerable interest in Colo's explanation of what made this graphics-designer's drawing different from what USN naval architects considered appropriate at the time

It's not an ugly design per se, but my eyes are also drawn like lasers to "nope, that's wrong, that's wrong". The catapult arrangement is positively German.

She's beautifully drawn, of course. I share Hood's concern about shafting.

Wargaming went with what would fit into the new tier slot. Most USN designs are either too advanced, or too old. So they designed their new ship to be similar the competing ships of the other nations in the same tier.

Mid mounted catapults are nothing new on USN ships. All cruiser designs from the 20s and early 30s had mid mounted catapults. On Springstyles, there are some late 30s early - 40s designs that have mid mounted catapults, albeit with hangars.

These spring to mind:
http://www.shipscribe.com/styles/S-511/ ... 511-25.jpg
http://www.shipscribe.com/styles/S-511/ ... 511-29.jpg
http://www.shipscribe.com/styles/S-511/ ... 511-22.jpg

I think WG mixed some of the features of the old cruisers, like a forward/midships break, and twin/triple turrets and the mid mounted catapults with a style more reminiscent of the new cruisers designed from the Brooklyn and onwards.

As for the no hangar nitpick, the Pensacola and Salt Lake City never had hangars, of any type. A feature remedied on the Northampton class. I have seen all the Springstyles drawings of the preliminaries for Pepsicola and their predecessors, none have hangars for the planes.

My doubts are not about the amidships aviation facilities (at all), but rather the single centerline mounted catapult. None of the prelims you've linked show that arrangement.
Yes, I was wrong about that - I still don't think it's very realistic. Based on appearance, "Dallas" seems to be a ship that comes after the treaty cruisers... by which point a hangar was required.

Anyway, I've edited the commentary about the hangar in the OP:

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USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)