Shipbuilding Collection
Using the example of an American heavy cruiser of the World War II era, the collection demonstrates the shipbuilding process from various angles: what it takes to lay down a ship, the people required to build her, the equipment used at shipyards, and finally, the arms and equipment mounted on warships.
The overall collection was comprised of five sub-collections. Each sub-collection granted 24-hours Premium Account. There was a separate reward for obtaining all 20 items. Items may be bought for 4 duplicates.
Contents
Collections
Creating a Ship
Shipbuilding Collection - Creating a Ship
The first stage in the life of any warship is her design. If the project isn't initiated by the design bureau itself, the whole process starts with an issuance of the Terms of Reference describing the basic performance specifications of the ship. It sometimes has several versions and is issued by the Naval Authorities. With the most suitable sketches of the new ship's appearance and layout selected, detailed development of the project begins. Depending on any changes to the requirements of the future warship and the feasibility of her construction in the context of the country's available resources, the design stage can last anywhere from a few months to several years. For example, the keel of the U.S. Navy's first "large cruiser" was laid down in November 1941, whereas the project's first sketches had appeared back in January 1940. These sketches included the CA2-D project of a heavy cruiser armed with twelve 305 mm guns mounted in four turrets.
The official keel-laying ceremony is the next important stage in the history of a ship. Depending on the significance of the warship, which is often proportional to her size, the ceremony is attended by various guests, including the Navy's highest ranks. At the ceremony, these guests usually participate in the first rivet-installing ritual, i.e. placing the ship’s fitting board in the keel structure. However, the occasion of the official keel-laying ceremony doesn't always represent the actual start of the ship's construction. Usually, at the time of the ceremony, tens and even hundreds of tons of steel hull structures are already mounted on the slipway.
The most solemn event in a ship’s "career" is usually her launch, which is often accompanied by a ceremonial ritual. As a rule, a ship officially receives her name during her ceremonial launching. Attendees of these ceremonies are often quite noble, sometimes even monarchs or heads of state are present for a ship's launch. If a ship inherits the name of one of her predecessors, tradition dictates that one of the namesake's former crew members should be invited to the celebration. If ships are named after prominent historical figures, their relatives or descendants are invited to the ceremony.
After the ship has been launched, finished, and passed all her trials, she is finally "commissioned". When a rather high-ranking warship is being commissioned, the positive decision of the special Selection Board is followed by a solemn ceremony. Even though this represents the moment when the ship is technically considered to be "in service", she still has a long way to go before she is ready for battle. It will take several months of all kinds of exercises and crew drills to fully master the workings of all her systems and mechanisms, to understand the ship's behavior out in the open sea, and to learn her shooting and maneuverability peculiarities.
Reward
Completing this sub-collection provides the following rewards:
+24 hours Warships Premium time
Banners
Shipbuilding Collection - Banners
For many decades, from the point that steel became the primary material for hull construction, riveting was an absolutely fundamental part of shipbuilding. It was the most reliable method of securing and fastening the structures of a ship’s hull. Riveting remained immensely hard work, even when pneumatic riveting hammers came into use. The thoroughly coordinated work of two people was required for the installation of each rivet, which would be heated up to 1,000 degrees Celsius, and the number of such rivets on a large ship could amount to hundreds of thousands.
Nowadays, the image of a woman driving a heavy vehicle or any industrial machine isn't quite out of the ordinary. However, during World War II, such an image was still considered to be rather odd. Nevertheless, men who had left their jobs at industrial enterprises to join the army were replaced by women in nearly all professions, including, for example, that of a crane operator. U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt said that citizens' sacrifices on the home front were no less important for securing victory than the efforts of soldiers serving overseas. The outcome of the war had its roots in the millions of women who picked up heavy equipment or took their places at machine tools when the industry needed them the most.
Assembling a ship's hull includes many different processes, such as riveting, welding, equipment mounting, and painting. For shipbuilding in particular, all the workers involved in these processes are called shipfitters. In the United States during World War II, the majority of shipfitters were women—they accounted for almost 30 percent of all workers in the manufacturing sectors of the U.S. economy. Around this time, images such as "Wendy the Welder" made an appearance, with "Rosie the Riveter" being especially popular.
During World War I, the process of welding joined the permanent struggle to reduce ships' displacements, and hence the cost of their construction. At first, welding was used in the assembly of relatively "light" frames of superstructures. Over time, with the development of the technology, welding became more widespread, until ships with fully welded hulls finally appeared. As a result, their weight was decreased by 15–20%, and in some cases, even up to 30%. At the same time, the construction time was also reduced.
Reward
Completing this sub-collection provides the following rewards:
+24 hours Warships Premium time
Shipyard Machinery
Shipbuilding Collection - Shipyard Machinery
In December 1941, the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, was the only shipyard on the U.S. West Coast capable of accepting and recovering the heavily damaged American battleships that had suffered in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Crane No. 42, which had been in service at the shipyard since 1925, made its contribution to the revival of the battleships and maintenance of the combat effectiveness of other ships participating in the war in the Pacific Ocean. The crane's design enabled it to travel along rails, and the high mobility of cranes of this type meant that they were in demand at all stages of ship construction, repairs, and overhauls.
An extremely large crane is required to mount a main caliber turret, the weight of the individual components of which exceeds tens or hundreds of tons, on the hull of a warship. In the era of battleships, the huge cantilever tower cranes ("Hammerheads") handled this task best of all. The crane of this design was invented in Germany at the turn of the 20th century. A total of around 60 Hammerhead cranes were built in the world, mostly in the British Empire and the U.S.A. At the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, the Hammerhead was erected between 1932 and 1933—a huge, 25-storey-tall, 2,400-ton crane, which was taken out of regular use only in the 1990s. To this day, it remains the city's most outstanding and recognizable structure.
Any shipyard where warships are built or repaired needs a constant influx of cargo, whether it's metal, armor, weapons, or propulsion parts. Perhaps the only way to ensure an uninterrupted supply of such items directly to the ship's hull is by rail. Main-line locomotives aren't quite suitable for short-distance transportation along complex, branched networks of the tracks that are typical of any port; small locomotives, the so-called "shunters", are the best fit. In the first half of the 20th century, most of them belonged to the type of tank locomotives—steam locomotives not requiring an additional carriage with fuel and water. H.K. Porter was the largest producer of this kind of locomotive in the United States. For example, the naval shipyard in Brooklyn was served by a huge fleet of steam locomotives of the H.K. Porter 0-6-0T type for several decades.
Floating workshops are a special class of auxiliary vessel and watercraft that facilitate the repair of warships, both away from bases and on their territory. These included non-self-propelled repair ships (floating workshops), built in the U.S.A. during World War II at various shipyards as per a standard design. These ships were assigned the YR (Yard Repair) board code. Several floating workshops that underwent repeated refurbishments continued their service until the early 21st century.
Reward
Completing this sub-collection provides the following rewards:
+24 hours Warships Premium time
Arming a Large Cruiser
Shipbuilding Collection - Arming a Large Cruiser
The 305 mm Mark 8 gun, with a barrel length of 50 calibers, was developed in the U.S.A. at the turn of the 1940s, specifically for the large Alaska-class cruisers. In terms of range and penetration capabilities, it surpassed all artillery systems of a similar caliber that were in service anywhere in the world at the time. The gun’s rate of fire was an impressive three rounds per minute, and the weight of the AP projectile created for it was 517 kg. Mark 8 guns were mounted on Alaska-class cruisers in triple turrets weighing over 920 tons.
In the early 1940s, development began on the dual-purpose 127 mm Mark 16 gun that was supposed to replace the Mark 12 gun used at that time on nearly all U.S. warships. The Mark 16 gun barrel was 54 calibers long (compared to 38 calibers for the Mark 12), which provided the new artillery system with greater range and height, while maintaining the same rate of fire. The significant superiority in firepower was complimented by a heavier shell. The guns of this model were mounted on Midway-class aircraft carriers, and were planned as dual-purpose batteries for Montana-class battleships.
The famous 20 mm Oerlikon AA machine gun was developed in Switzerland in 1934. However, its initial characteristics didn't impress the largest potential customers—the United States and Great Britain. Ironically, the company was saved from bankruptcy only after having received an order from the Japanese Imperial Navy. In 1939, the gun was improved. Due to the outbreak of World War II, the demand for the new anti-aircraft machine gun grew to a cosmic scale, and the Swiss company could no longer satisfy it. This factor eventually brought the guns' licensed production to the U.S.A. and Great Britain. During the war, in the United States alone, more than 120,000 guns were assembled, making the 20 mm Oerlikon the most numerous anti-aircraft gun of the World War II era.
The order for the development of a new reconnaissance seaplane to replace obsolete aircraft which had entered service in the late 1930s, was issued by the U.S. Navy to the Curtiss company in mid-1942. A specific feature of the new planes had to be their versatility: the easy replacement of their pontoons with wheeled chassis and vice versa made it possible to use them both at ground airfields and on the decks of aircraft carriers, and even with battleship and cruiser catapults. The first vehicles to be produced, which received the SC-1 Seahawk designation, were placed onboard cruiser Guam (Alaska class) in October 1944. An improved SC-2 model with a more powerful engine and better aerodynamics appeared in 1945, when the war was about to end. It would be the last U.S. Navy catapult aircraft.
Reward
Completing this sub-collection provides the following rewards:
+24 hours Warships Premium time
Equipping a Large Cruiser
Shipbuilding Collection - Equipping a Large Cruiser
The battery director, or Mark 38 main battery fire-control tower, has been mounted on American battleships and heavy cruisers since 1941. Equipped with a range finder with an 8-meter base and combined with radar, it became a key element of the most advanced battery fire-control system that existed in the U.S. Navy at that time. Since 1945, the Mark 13 radar antenna has been installed on the director, with a beam capable of detecting a target at a distance of around 40 km.
Fire control of the dual-purpose 127 mm guns widely used in the U.S. Navy was carried out with the help of Mark 37 directors, which became an integral part of American warship architecture in the mid-20th century. The stabilized director "tower", equipped with two range finders, could determine the position of both air and surface targets with high accuracy. During the final stage of World War II, the Mark 25 radar antenna was installed on the director’s roof.
The SK2 aerial-target detection radar entered service in the U.S. Navy in 1943. Its most noticeable element was a round 5-meter antenna mounted at the highest possible position that the architecture of a ship allowed. The SK2 radar could detect high-flying large targets (e.g. bombers) at distances of up to 230 km. Aircraft trying to hide from the radar by flying at the lowest-possible altitudes could be spotted by the SK2 at distances of around 50 km, determining their position with an accuracy of 100 m.
Patented in the U.K. in 1821, a stockless anchor that could be pulled into the ship’s hawsehole, and the later Hall anchor, which appeared in 1885, made by casting and with movable arms, revolutionized the history of ship anchors. At the turn of the 20th century, more advanced designs appeared, some of which are still being used. These include the anchor patented in 1898 by American engineer, Frederick Baldt. In the early 20th century, it was adopted as the standard anchor for ships of the U.S. Navy. The anchor retains this status, even now at the beginning of the 21st century.
Reward
Completing this sub-collection provides the following rewards:
+24 hours Warships Premium time
Overall Reward
Completing the entire collection provides the following reward:
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Santa's Big Gift |
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