But sadly she would do poorly in small gun. Just the thought of 14 7/32" guns shooting at a small merchant, well, its a great thought indeed.
I like the idea of building HMS Agincourt but love HMS Erin. I'll borrow a digit to give this idea three thumbs up. Patrick
Looking at Agincourt as a CWC-X ship. It would be allowed 5.5 units. The .5 unit can be used as a Torp cannon. Ship can have 4 firing cannons any Quadrant. Speed 26 seconds. This would make a decent ship for this format. Erin 5.5 units, 28 sec, can carry a Torp cannon, 4 firing cannons in any quadrant. I think these 2 would be interesting to build.
Erin would be a good performer with regard to maneuverability and firepower per size but it's slow speed is a turn-off for me. Unless there are opposing ships of the same speed in the local fleet a captain with a slow ship that hs good maneuverability may find himself short of opponents. I used an IRCWCC Espana for a couple of years when there were no other 28 sec. ships in the NABS fleet. Once her opponents got a taste of her maneuverability and limited penetrable area (20 casemates on a short hull) they avoided her. That limited me to chasing faster opponents and rarely getting to engage them. That was the reason I sold Espana and built HMS Warspite (see photo: "The British are Coming" in the gallery). In Treaty Erin would be one of the slowest ships on the water, in common with most WWI dreadnoughts. Unless there were several ships with similar speeds in the local area I wouldn't build another slow ship. Bob
Thats the reason I went with triple bow guns in my PE (VU class). She is slow, 28 sec, but can out turn anything on the water, nothing is even close, but not hit anything, if it was not for those bow triples. People just stay away, unless Tim shows up with his SC.
Of course, in Big Gun, Erin gets the minimum allowable speed that several of her opponents are also at, like the Lutzow. Espana gets that same minimum speed, but her hullform does not allow it hydrodynamically (she tends to tunnel under at something like 20 knots or more with the one in our fleet). And she has no end of fun - as fast as or faster than most convoys, about as fast as many of the warships (uf sgh\he doesn't dive). A little planning ahead, and she cuts people off on their way back to port. As I have already said, I would love an Erin. Might be interested in multiples. Another testament to ships of this size/era - one of our members has just gotten a retired WWI HMS Invincible to put back into service after seeing the fun the Espana was having. Of course, he has also picked up an Agincourt hull (one of the Bowning ones) to build up. Cheers, Wreno
Why would you think that? 7/32" with a 6 second fire rate compares very well with the 1/4" 8 second fire rate of the biggest, 15" - 18" guns. No-one complains that the Dunkerque or Scharnie are under-gunned that I know of. As for armor, I believe she has 12" allowing her the maximum 1/8" of balsa. A lot better than the 1/16" of a Deutschland. Better even than the 3/32" of the Dunkerque. In short, probably a very nice contender, though not overly fast (she only gets 24 knots, or 2.4 actual km/h). But, in our pond, being slow has not been shown to be much of a hinderance to fun. And they can still outrun/catch most of the convoys, which only get a minimum of 22 knots. Remember, convoys are a regular, important, part of Big Gun battling. In fact, in AUSBG, convoy runs are the key part. Cheers, Wreno
