Discussion of 'Blood in the Water' cover art

Taylor Anderson posted the cover of Blood in the Water due out in June 16, 2016.



My interpretation of the cover art: two engine bombers (Kurokawa’s Japanese/Grik?), a carrier (one of the converted Grik ironclad conversions?) with two bomb hits, Walker or a Walker clone with a bomb hit on forward gun, and sail/steam DDs the one to the left of the carrier on fire. Look closely under the ‘T’ of ‘WATER’ either a P-1 Mosquito Hawk, or a Japanese/Grik fighter. Foreground beside Walker (?) a Gri-kakka? Looks like the tail of a Jap/Grik bomber in the water between the carrier and Walker(?).

If this is an attack on the second India Convoy the carrier must be one of the converted Aratta-Amigi class BBs with casemate and armor removed and hull extended up as both converted Home carriers are with Walker.  Salissa came with First Fleet south and Arracca came with the first convoy.

The bomber looks like a Japanese 'Betty' Bomber or Mitsubishi G4M with a wider nose for a crouching Grik pilot.



Mitsubishi G4M2E Model 24 Tei bomber from Kokutai 721 carrying an Ohka

I think that the design is far too advanced as it looks loke a WW2 plane.

I would more expect something like the Ki-2

Enlargement of carrier in pic:



Look at bow to the left and stern closely

Now look at Taylor's sketch of a Grik Arata-Amagi Class BB:



Could that forward cut water be seen on bow, and might higher free board come from removing casemate and armor?

Now the Jap/Grik bomber enlarged:

Look at bow to the left and stern closely

Now look at Taylor's sketch of a Grik Arata-Amagi Class BB:

And now look at the "Salissa"



You could see that the central cluster of masts and funnels are essentially the same.

The Grik "Arata Amagi" have distributed boiler rooms. She couldn't have her funnels concentrated in such a tight formation.

The Lemurian Engineers are putting new engines in, and can move boilers to concentrate them.  As the artist of the above I should point out Taylor said it's not right,  I think it will look closer to this with the ramps wrapping around the flight deck, Note drawing is 180^o degrees from the cover art:



Notice if you look close at the cover's aircraft carrier the ramp goes up from the center section to the stern rather than how I did it in that above.

Pokermind wrote:The Lemurian Engineers are putting new engines in, and can move boilers to concentrate them

Engineeringly, this make no sence, i'm afraid. Basically, you are talking about the complete rebuild. It would faster and cheaper to just build a new ship.

The rebuilds of warships on THAT scale - we are talking about complete change of powerplant, weight distribution, ect. - usually are the results of some artifical limitations to the new warship construction. I really doubt that Lemurian and Griks have some equivalent of naval limitation threaty.

It would be much simpler and faster to let the original powerplant be here.

I've always wondered how the ship could have maintaiend structural integrity with the marina deck: even now we empty those decks while under way as water movement would kill the stability of any ship.

Another discussion of the cover art was linked by Taylor on his Facebook page, http://www.rtbookreviews.com/blog/87261/cover-breakdown-taylor-andersons-blood-water

For those who don't know this is Taylor's Facebook page's address: https://www.facebook.com/TaylorAndersonAuthor/