Z-Plan: Mine Warfare Ships

_________________
[ img ]

MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

Another variant for the minelayer design: This time the main armament had been changed to 105mm twins, but only three of them. Otherwise it's the usual 2*2*37mm and 2*2*20mm. The main changes were to the aircraft installations: Instead of the catapult, there now was a flightdeck.
[ img ]

_________________
My worklist
Any help and source material is always welcome.

really a great work, and i concur with those who said it's nice to know about the smaller ships of the plan Z

How on earth were they going to land again? That flight deck is tiny

_________________
“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

Worklist

Source Materiel is always welcome.

Into the wind at a good clip of speed and the Storch might just be confused for a Harrier. But I wouldn't want to be anywhere near that deck when spinning propellers are around.

_________________
Republic of Lisenia AU - In progress
Republic of Lisenia in FD Scale - In progress

DG_Alpha wrote:

Thiel wrote:

How on earth were they going to land again? That flight deck is tiny

This kind of light STOL reco aircraft (Fieseler Fi 156) was very well know to be able to land or take-off in a very short distance (usually 50 meters to take-off and only 25 meters to land

)
At the same time, this kind of plane is so light (+/- 2 tons), it is sufficient that the wind can be a strong for...

Yes, the Fi-156 would be the only plane that makes sense. There were trials with a seaplane tender that had a flight deck mounted on it. The Storch did indeed make successfull take-offs and landings (Can be seen here around 16:00). Personally, I don't think the flight deck variant would have proven too successfull, and in the end, it was not the variant chosen. Would have been nice with helicopters, probably...

To bring the minelayers (but not this topic) to an end, here are two more earlier versions: The first one had a catapult and once again the 105mm singles, light AA was only two twin 37mm. The funnel was smaller and lacking the searchlight platform.
[ img ]

A variant of this had a 'bobblehead' rangefinder added as well a larger funnel.
[ img ]

_________________
My worklist
Any help and source material is always welcome.

Fantastic additions!

One last ship:
The Z-Plan also called for two large mine warfare support ships, called 'Minenräumschiffe' (Mine sweeping ships) or 'Minenräummutterschiffe' (Mine sweeper motherships). They would transport a small force of smaller minesweeping ships to minefields and support them in their work, similar to the Preussen and Lothringen after WW1.
The new ships were 136m long, had a displacement of 6,000t, and four diesel engines four a top speed of 20,5kn with a very slim superstrcuture. The armament consisted of six 105mm Flaks in the new enclosed twin turrets, four 37mm twins and three 20mm twins. The boats were carried below deck and could be released with the help of a back ramp and crane. They would be lifted back onto the upper deck after their work was done and moved back below deck with a ramp. An aircraft catapult and hangar was included as well, it would probably be used as a rescue craft should a vessel be lost in inaccessable waters. Overall, the design was very similar to the modern LSD, minus the well deck.
There were two variants of boat complements: The first one had 12 boats with remote minesweeping gear, 4 tug boats, 3 buoy boats and 1 leader boat, the second one consisted of 10 small minesweepers (KR-boats), 6 buoy boats and 1 leader boat.
The first ship was ordered in October of 1938 and cancelled with the outbreak of the war, no order was given for the second ship.
[ img ]

_________________
My worklist
Any help and source material is always welcome.

Shipbucket

Who is online