Posted By froggyfrenchman on 15 Feb 2010 02:18 PM
Interesting question..
The Iowa class battleships are 7 units ships.
In treaty, you basically buy your offensive, and defensive units. How you go about it would depend on how you want to set up the cannons
and pump(s), to best serve your battling style.
There is no limit to how many pump units one can have in their ship.
A one-unit battleship pump will pump 1.25 gpm.
However, one can go with only a half-unit pump if they wish. This would pump 1gpm.
You can utilize more than one unit towards the pumps if you like. But if you have more than one pump in the ship, or a single pump, that pumps
more than one unit, then although you will pump more water, you do start to sacrifice .25 gpm for each stage, or pump.
So if you opt to go with a multi-unit pump, say a single pump in the ship that can pump 2 units, then it will only pump 2 gpm.
If you opt to go with 2 one unit pumps in the ship, say one in the bow, and one in the stern. Then again, they will only pump 2 gpm total.
For the cannons..
If one were to utilize a one unit pump in the ship, then they would have 6 units for the cannons.
One could put two one-unit (50 round) cannons in each turret. If they were to leave the stern turret stationary over the stern, then they could have
a pair of 50 round cannons in the two bow turrets aimed off each side. But the two bow turrets could rotate to cover both sides, as long as they were never
both covering the same side at the same time.
If you wanted to go with triple stern guns, then you would have twins in one of the bow turrets, and a single cannon in the other bow turret.
If you utilize a 2-unit pump in the ship, then you could still have triple stern cannons, and a pair of cannons in "B" turret, that could rotate to cover both sides.
Conways lists the Iowa class battleships at 32.5 knots (so 32). Which would mean that she would cover the 100' speed course in 28 seconds. So she would be
one of the fastest battleships on the water.
Mikey
You know, Mikey, that wonderful explanation is, of course, one of the reasons I like the general Big Gun take on rules - in some respects simpler, in others far more complex options. No "units" or the common "unit creep" or politics/negotiations ove the number of units a ship "should" have.
For those not familiar with the dfference (if there is such a person here), under Big Gun, it generally works like this: Note, WWCC has some variations with the below, but most Big Gun clubs, I believe, are pretty much the same as the NTXBG and BGCWI.
Armament: Whatever the prototype had over 3" (according to Conways') can be armed if you want to (and can figure out how). Warships and merchants.
Speed: Speed is 0.1 km/h per original knot listed in Conways', but with a minimum allowable. See chart for comparison ntxbg.org/documents/NTXBG_Technical_Appendix.pdf
Pumping: Pumping capacity is based on tonnage as listed in Conways' (how you get to your capacity - one pump, multiple pumps, staged pum[ps, etc. is up to you). The pumping capacity is in the same Technical Appendix, as is the armor thickness, armament caibers, etc.
Basically look up the ship in the book, and pretty much all the options you can imagine for it are fair game.
A fully armed Yam? Go for it if you wish (no-one does).
Arm only the secondaries on your Bis? Fine (haven't see that one either, though I have considered it and am working on an appropriate gun design).
A PE with only torps? Would be very simple to battle, and I might actually do that someday.