The Viribus Unitis Battleship: 1:25 Model; Main Gun Turrets

Jeff Head said:

The detail on the operation of these guns is simple incredible.

Click to expand...

thanks for the comment, Jeff, and I go back to the above question

Jura said:

how the ammo got into the turret?!

Click to expand...

I think of this (while trying to understand Friedman's description and my own pictures LOL): in the middle of the turret model

you can see a tray (surrounding the actual turret), and as you can imagine, it was a revolving tray. Ammo from magazine(s) was put into loading trunks in that tray -- while this was going on, the tray would be locked. Then the tray was rotated to release the ammo to the inside of the turret (into the position to be put on the rack shown in post #7 and hoisted). As I said, this is not obvious from the 1:25 model, though, and for now I finish my description of the loading process of main guns.

while describing the handling room

Jura said:

...

• from it, shells and cartridges were sent up by three auxiliary hoists (which terminated between gun carriages -- not visible in the picture, of course), ...

Click to expand...

but I realized I had taken also "close-ups" of the turret model (the post right above) and this one shows -- after a little bit of tweaking, it was too dark in the turret at first -- where (one of the) hoists terminated, the loading tray with the shell on it, and the rails:

Terriffic work Jura!

I would recomend you to visit the 1:10 scale yamato at 26.3 m long


And the KGV 1:48 model (you can check out the wooden ships models as well!

Lezt said:

Terriffic work Jura!

I would recomend you to visit the 1:10 scale yamato at 26.3 m long

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

And the KGV 1:48 model (you can check out the wooden ships models as well!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

I appreciate this, Lezt

as for the Yamato, recently I came across what seems to be an excellent book (series), The YAMATO Class and Subsequent Planning, by an author who's able to critically compare Japanese and American sources, I mean it's great if somebody skips the (bragging about/bashing) part(s)!

as for the Greenwich, UK models, this is going to be good news for my wife -- she wanted to visit London this summer, my daughter -- Paris, so I took them to Vienna but I won't make any promise yet LOL

back to the Viribus Unitis: here's the 1:50 model (also huge, three meters, for scale you can check the 12" shell standing in the bottom-right; it's about one meter as seen there)

one more announcement here: I arranged for visiting tomorrow the archive of the manufacturer of these guns, turrets (Škoda Works in Pilsen, Western Bohemia -- but their former corporate archive was taken over by the State Archives and was moved to a place out of Pilsen, which is even more distant for me, and that's where I'll go LOL). I thought I'd be able to figure out more details from charts, but it's ... uncertain because, as I was informed by an email today ... they don't have them for the Tegetthoff-class! only for the Radetzky-class (almost the same gun, but twin mount, likely less sophisticated). Presumably they were taken to France in 1919, by

but who knows for sure ... If I find anything relevant, I'll post (I still hope so, as this week my holidays end

Jura said:

one more announcement here: I arranged for visiting tomorrow the archive of the manufacturer of these guns, turrets (Škoda Works in Pilsen, Western Bohemia -- but their former corporate archive was taken over by the State Archives and was moved to a place out of Pilsen, which is even more distant for me, and that's where I'll go LOL). I thought I'd be able to figure out more details from charts, but it's ... uncertain because, as I was informed by an email today ... they don't have them for the Tegetthoff-class! only for the Radetzky-class (almost the same gun, but twin mount, likely less sophisticated). Presumably they were taken to France in 1919, by

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

but who knows for sure ... If I find anything relevant, I'll post (I still hope so, as this week my holidays end

Click to expand...

It turned out to be in total 10 hours trip, a little adventure for my daughter a secretive place, where in the study room, watched, eyes-only, were scans of the charts made available to us ...

the good news is the Radetzky-class main-battery turrets were pretty much the same as in the Tegenthoff-class (except for the gun-house, of course; the ventilation system was different, too -- according to what I've read, but don't know any details), so I was able to appreciate new details of the respective levels of the turret, and I saw additional views like from the top etc. (the most stunning view was how the ammo magazines were placed around the circular tray) ...

and what's going to happen next? I officially requested four scans; if it gets approved, and I pay for them (it's not much), they'll be released to me (but I don't know yet on what terms) ... that's the procedure, despite the Radetzky-class was obsolete already 100 years ago LOL!

Jura said:

one more announcement here: I arranged for visiting tomorrow the archive of the manufacturer of these guns, turrets (Škoda Works in Pilsen, Western Bohemia -- but their former corporate archive was taken over by the State Archives and was moved to a place out of Pilsen, which is even more distant for me, and that's where I'll go LOL). I thought I'd be able to figure out more details from charts, but it's ... uncertain because, as I was informed by an email today ... they don't have them for the Tegetthoff-class! only for the Radetzky-class (almost the same gun, but twin mount, likely less sophisticated). Presumably they were taken to France in 1919, by

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

but who knows for sure ... If I find anything relevant, I'll post (I still hope so, as this week my holidays end

Click to expand...

Jura, if I ever find myself in Praque I'll be sure to have you as my tour guide!
I've heard it's a very nice city to visit.

kwaigonegin said:

Jura, if I ever find myself in Praque I'll be sure to have you as my tour guide!
...

Click to expand...

yea but now you gotta give me three Likes
Rolling On Floor Laughing Jura

if you're new to this, I think you should read
https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/the-viribus-unitis-battleship-1-25-model-main-gun-turrets.t7810/
(and subsequent posts, if interested

I'll try to show the secondary armament now; I start with remarking that if some gun was considered "big" on the ground, then the same caliber would be "small" if mounted on a battleship; here:

compared to the 12" main battery, the 15cm, 50 caliber gun in the casemate (middle-right)

looks tiny ... but compared it to me it doesn't:

(this is the copy which was probably used in Pilsen during "navalization" of the older, coastal-defence version of the gun, and remained there until ... it was moved to the Czech Military Technical Museum; last year it was brought from there to Prague for a couple of months

Here's the fire-control station for (half of) these guns; I believe the fire was coordinated by phones, wired from there to the casemates:


Lighter guns, which I'll describe next, could shoot once they thought they should

EDIT
I think the performance was the gun was very good, but the casemates ...

• Noppen says "... their close proximity to the waterline made them almost useless in rough seas"
• the link I posted above says "... were poorly designed, as they lacked ventilation. If smoke penetrated into them, the guncrews could not function."

the trend was, as we now know to put the secondary armament into turrets, too ...

while waiting for the scans of the turret
https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/th...del-main-gun-turrets.t7810/page-2#post-352144
I established the thread
Additional Details Of The Viribus Unitis Battleship 1:25 Model
which I invite you to visit
for now, I put in there just this:
https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/ad...e-viribus-unitis-battleship-1-25-model.t7815/