Aranethon.
Achilles, an Odyssey-class Heavy Cruiser
The Royal Navy was fairly late to the heavy cruiser, mostly due to limited funding until the Naval Act of 1936. The plus side of this is that they were never a signatory of the Eiswald Naval Treaty (a fact which they would exploit brutally), the downside being that they had a lot of catching up to do. After months of consulting naval analysts and taking notes on foreign designs, with many more devoted to a uniquely painstaking design process, the Odyssey class was cleared for construction in 1937, with the first, Achilles, (pictured here) being launched in early 1940. Following the Royal Navy's principles of gunnery and ruggedness before anything else, the Odysseys (like most succeeding Royal Navy cruisers) lacked the torpedoes that made many foreign equivalents powerful strike vessels. This was due in part to a design prioritizing fleet defense before offensive capabilities, but mostly because Nenya's torpedoes of this time were notoriously short ranged, and it simply wasn't worth installing them on a ship the size of an Odyssey. And boy were they big. At 219 meters long and 24 meters wide, they were among the largest cruisers in the world. Although initially designed with twelve eight inch guns in four triple turrets (to counter the plethora of heavily armed cruisers present in other nations), this design was scrapped in favour of a stern seaplane facility, complete with a heavy-lift crane with space and stores to operate four scout aircraft. The tonnage saved by the nerfing of the artillery allowed for a little more speed, while the spare weight was awarded to the massive anti-aircraft complex. Built around a series of the Navy's new Tachynometric Fire Computers, the AA suite consisted of twelve 5in guns, nineteen 40mm guns on raised pedestals (of which 16 were aided by the Tacky Computers) and twenty 20mm guns spread around the deck. In fact, preliminary designs utilizing the Papillon method of quad turrets could have allowed for a staggering forty to sixty 40mm cannons, but this was brought down to be kinder on weight and ammunition storage, as such an extreme measure was not deemed necessary, even for a ship intended to be a floating AA battery (The current year is also 1940, not 1945). Despite being so heavily armed and armoured, with the additional weight of a lot of fancy mechanisms, the Odysseys actually met their weight quotas just as planned, thus avoiding the seakeeping issues that seem to plague many other large cruiser designs, and are surprisingly maneuverable despite their size (the secret is to set out with a plan for a 14,000 ton cruiser from the start, and not change your mind along the way). Although they lack the punching power and night-fighting capabilities of torpedo-armed ships, their combination of firepower, armour and survivability mean that they should be able to hold their own in a gunfight against anything short of a capital ship. Combined with perhaps the most powerful AA setup of any cruiser class, they are indispensable defensive assets to any fleet. Of course, it's not exactly clear how many of them will see service, as they aren't cheap ships, and the nation which they serve isn't exactly rich.
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At 219 studs, or five foot seven, this is the largest and grandest LDD model I have built to date. It started life as a Cleveland-style light cruiser, which was to be followed up by a Baltimore modification, but I decided to go heavy cruiser first due to the nice big 8in turrets I made, and how well they fit the deck. Also the whole thing about twelve main guns was just text flavour, I wouldn't have been able to fit that many turrets on. Although said deck and hull were complicated, and took a while to finish, the hardest part for me was the superstructure. There was just so much space to fill! And aiming for quality, I couldn't just fill all that space with junk. I was aiming for a Baltimore or Cleveland sort of look, but decided to go with the Des Moines (although I didn't realize the schematic I was copying was Des Moines until it was practically finished) with extra gun directors, smaller structure, one less midships AA mount a side and a single funnel. Although even more afield of the groups' date than the original Baltimore plan, it was the only structure I could make fit. Furthermore, finding an AA setup that both looked good and kept to Divide and Conquer VII's time frame was a challenge, but I'm fairly happy with the dual 40mm mounts.
Credit to Backward Matt for the hull and deck technique, to Awesome O'Saurus for inspiration on the variety of weapons designs and to Ian, because I definitely I used some of his techniques (the anchor, spotlights and single 40mm guns to name a few). I have tagged all three.
Also, thanks to Lego Pilot for the render! I swear I'll have my own POVray working soon.
I'm probably gonna take a short brake from ships this size, after which I'll (probably) make the light cruiser and light carrier modifications off this hull. Then I'll move onto an even larger ship, projected to be 250-270 studs (6.5-7 feet, god help me with this scale).
Achilles, an Odyssey-class Heavy Cruiser
The Royal Navy was fairly late to the heavy cruiser, mostly due to limited funding until the Naval Act of 1936. The plus side of this is that they were never a signatory of the Eiswald Naval Treaty (a fact which they would exploit brutally), the downside being that they had a lot of catching up to do. After months of consulting naval analysts and taking notes on foreign designs, with many more devoted to a uniquely painstaking design process, the Odyssey class was cleared for construction in 1937, with the first, Achilles, (pictured here) being launched in early 1940. Following the Royal Navy's principles of gunnery and ruggedness before anything else, the Odysseys (like most succeeding Royal Navy cruisers) lacked the torpedoes that made many foreign equivalents powerful strike vessels. This was due in part to a design prioritizing fleet defense before offensive capabilities, but mostly because Nenya's torpedoes of this time were notoriously short ranged, and it simply wasn't worth installing them on a ship the size of an Odyssey. And boy were they big. At 219 meters long and 24 meters wide, they were among the largest cruisers in the world. Although initially designed with twelve eight inch guns in four triple turrets (to counter the plethora of heavily armed cruisers present in other nations), this design was scrapped in favour of a stern seaplane facility, complete with a heavy-lift crane with space and stores to operate four scout aircraft. The tonnage saved by the nerfing of the artillery allowed for a little more speed, while the spare weight was awarded to the massive anti-aircraft complex. Built around a series of the Navy's new Tachynometric Fire Computers, the AA suite consisted of twelve 5in guns, nineteen 40mm guns on raised pedestals (of which 16 were aided by the Tacky Computers) and twenty 20mm guns spread around the deck. In fact, preliminary designs utilizing the Papillon method of quad turrets could have allowed for a staggering forty to sixty 40mm cannons, but this was brought down to be kinder on weight and ammunition storage, as such an extreme measure was not deemed necessary, even for a ship intended to be a floating AA battery (The current year is also 1940, not 1945). Despite being so heavily armed and armoured, with the additional weight of a lot of fancy mechanisms, the Odysseys actually met their weight quotas just as planned, thus avoiding the seakeeping issues that seem to plague many other large cruiser designs, and are surprisingly maneuverable despite their size (the secret is to set out with a plan for a 14,000 ton cruiser from the start, and not change your mind along the way). Although they lack the punching power and night-fighting capabilities of torpedo-armed ships, their combination of firepower, armour and survivability mean that they should be able to hold their own in a gunfight against anything short of a capital ship. Combined with perhaps the most powerful AA setup of any cruiser class, they are indispensable defensive assets to any fleet. Of course, it's not exactly clear how many of them will see service, as they aren't cheap ships, and the nation which they serve isn't exactly rich.
-
At 219 studs, or five foot seven, this is the largest and grandest LDD model I have built to date. It started life as a Cleveland-style light cruiser, which was to be followed up by a Baltimore modification, but I decided to go heavy cruiser first due to the nice big 8in turrets I made, and how well they fit the deck. Also the whole thing about twelve main guns was just text flavour, I wouldn't have been able to fit that many turrets on. Although said deck and hull were complicated, and took a while to finish, the hardest part for me was the superstructure. There was just so much space to fill! And aiming for quality, I couldn't just fill all that space with junk. I was aiming for a Baltimore or Cleveland sort of look, but decided to go with the Des Moines (although I didn't realize the schematic I was copying was Des Moines until it was practically finished) with extra gun directors, smaller structure, one less midships AA mount a side and a single funnel. Although even more afield of the groups' date than the original Baltimore plan, it was the only structure I could make fit. Furthermore, finding an AA setup that both looked good and kept to Divide and Conquer VII's time frame was a challenge, but I'm fairly happy with the dual 40mm mounts.
Credit to Backward Matt for the hull and deck technique, to Awesome O'Saurus for inspiration on the variety of weapons designs and to Ian, because I definitely I used some of his techniques (the anchor, spotlights and single 40mm guns to name a few). I have tagged all three.
Also, thanks to Lego Pilot for the render! I swear I'll have my own POVray working soon.
I'm probably gonna take a short brake from ships this size, after which I'll (probably) make the light cruiser and light carrier modifications off this hull. Then I'll move onto an even larger ship, projected to be 250-270 studs (6.5-7 feet, god help me with this scale).