Shipbucket

I would add to Krakatoa's post that no post WNT ship had more than 4 main gun mounts (Bismark&T), and most had only 3 or even 2.

Lots of reasons for this such as saving weight by reducing length that needed protecting and not mixing magazines and engines to avoid heating propellant etc.

pre WNT aircraft are not a massive threat and good AA is 4x4" hand operated guns and a few heavy machine-guns...

I guess what I mean is that instead of having 6x2 turrets, it would be better to do either 4x3 or even 4x3 for the main guns, that way more room is left over for secondaries. I definitely don't want to sacrifice its main role just for more AA. The main reason I wanted to do 6x2 was for a battleship that spared no expense on survivability, more turrets means a need for more armor but with more redundancy in case a turret gets knocked out. I guess its all about balancing the benefits of more turrets and fewer guns per turret vs. fewer turrets with more guns per turret in a ship that doesn't have expense issues.

I did come up with a partial solution, this gives one giant main structure to build more AA upon.

Historically post WNT the only options that got built,

3x3 = N&R, S&G, all USN, Italian, Y&M
2x4 = all French
2x4+1x2 = KVG
4x2 = B&T and V(old guns)

To me that suggests very strongly that reducing number of mounts is a good idea, for start look at the length of your hull that needs protecting and the size of empty/Mags/BR/ERs.

Your belt/deck will be quite thin if you have to spread it so much and if you want a fast BB the size of your BR/ER is quite small ?

Yeah I think I will do that, what about the Nelson class? I do love that gun arrangement, but what was the effect on armor layout for that ship? That was a 3x3 but arranged all front.

One thing I'd suggest for your secondaries is a stagger-step arrangement as on the US battleships if you're having a lot of them along the sides - you'll get better arcs fore and aft from the same number of mounts if they're separated vertically and laterally.

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The all forward saves weight if you are willing to have different protection for mags v ER/BR like RN did, as it saves on the protected bulkheads between stronger and weaker parts.
Ie in a N&R (3x3 ABC)you can have 1 forward strong bulkhead and then 2 weaker ones between Mags/ER and again at stern after BR, compared to a 'normal' (3x3 ABX) that needs a extra bulkhead in front of the stern X mags as well) the problem is that you have worse arcs and in late 30s with the development of magnetic (mines/torpedoes) you risk losing all the main guns to one hit flooding all the Mags.

I would add historically you need about 8 guns to get good salvoes and be able to hit things at long range and more is really a waste and you should go for a larger calibre of guns.
(6 in 3x2 or 2x3 doesn't really give you sufficient guns to salvo well and only have 2 mounts in one case is bad from a DC standpoint)
(8 in 4x2 or 2x4 gives you ideal number of guns but in one is very wasteful of length and therefore weight and the other suffers from DC issues again)
(9 in 3x3 is good as get 1 gun almost 'free' due to saving on weight from shorter length and don't get the only 2 mount DC worry)
(10 in 2x4+1x2 is just a oddity caused by treaty limits 14"/35,000t and RN being the only ones who had to rush and stick to the limits and you get the problem of 2 different turret designs)

I would suggest that with hindsight in 1919-43 the 3x3 in an ABX arrangement is the way to go, with the alternatives of 4x2 if old school or 2x4 is you want to look new. (IMO pre 1919 you should go 4x2 and post 43 you should be building a CV)

Ok, great outline and explanation. So I might aim for two designs, a 'cheap' 3x3 and an 'expensive' 4x2. In my AU, the country building these lacked good aeronautical capability compared to their rival, so their carriers are well behind by the end of the war (which came about by winning the war on the ground, internal issues from their enemy and a latent allies intervention in the war with a major strategic bombing campaign).

One thing to remember, I love realistic mistakes. I cant stand ships that are too good, but I also like to keep my mistakes realistic. So I will probably pump out a few more battleships, some idea, some not so ideal but understandably designed in a way that might have made sense for an amateur naval power.

Another question: What was up with the Montana? if 3x3 is optimal, why go with 4x3? My guess is that it had to do with the lack of 18" guns for the ship, if it had 18" guns it would have stayed 3x3.

US already had 16" in inventory, easy to create 4x3. To create new triple 18" would have required a much longer time to go through the new design, proving grounds, and other trials before the guns would reach the ships. When Iowa/Montana were being designed and built, US still under impression Japanese ships were armed with 16" as per Treaty.

The same could be said for the later French Alsace-class battleships planned with 3 x 4 just saves time and simplifies logistics.
Much earlier this lead to really silly ships like HMS Agincourt !