Drake's Drum

[stevep]

Jun 21, 2019 10:38:56 GMT lordroel said:

Jun 21, 2019 10:23:54 GMT stevep said:

  Thanks for that.  A valuable set of clues there.  Sound like the 1st significant butterfly is a markedly better Jutland for the RN which from that comment about Jellicoe and Beatty's advice being treated almost with divine instruction, leading to a far less damaging WNT for Britain.  Then Churchill not forcing Britain back onto the gold standard - although as I understand it the main damage was that he and the Tories insisted on them returning to the 1914 value for sterling, which was good for bankers but very bad for industry.  Followed by a new deal type approach to the recession which would have reduced the damage considerably.    I also like HMS Fearless being a CV built on the hull of an incompeleted Hood class BC.  Looking very good for Britain here.

  On the Invincible the OTL G3 design I referred to was G3_battlecruiser, which had three turrets, two forward and one amidship - the wiki article in the description wrongly mentions all three turrets being ahead of the bridge, which was what happened in the cut down Nelson class that followed the OTL WNT.  The images in Nick's book seem to have a more conventional two forward and one rear turret.  Mind you the OTL G3's were ~48,000 tonners despite using that layout so what size the Invincible's are here I don't know.

So which ship is more powerful, this HMS Invincible ore OTL HMS Hood.

  Well OTL Hood was deeply flawed in some ways.  Very much a pre-Jutland design which meant that while fast and powerful her armour had problems.  There were attempts to add more armour during construction which added to her weight and I have seen some suggestion that it meant much of her armoured belt was submerged in some circumstances. 

  If the Invincible is based on the G3 class their markedly more powerful.  The latter were about 48,000 tons, i.e. ~8,000 tons heavier but with advances in knowledge and the concentration of the main armament forwards/midship, which enabled a short main belt they have much better protection and 9x16" guns compared to the 8x15" on the Hood. 

  Of course the G3s were never actually built and the Invincible is presumably a TTL equivalent, albeit built somewhat later.  However if their a similar sort of size an Invincible would be markedly more powerful that the Hood.

[lordroel]

Well just bought the kindle version of this book, going to read it so i can understand more of the Drake's Drumverse.

[nicksumner]

Jun 21, 2019 10:38:56 GMT lordroel said:

Jun 21, 2019 10:23:54 GMT stevep said:

  Thanks for that.  A valuable set of clues there.  Sound like the 1st significant butterfly is a markedly better Jutland for the RN which from that comment about Jellicoe and Beatty's advice being treated almost with divine instruction, leading to a far less damaging WNT for Britain.  Then Churchill not forcing Britain back onto the gold standard - although as I understand it the main damage was that he and the Tories insisted on them returning to the 1914 value for sterling, which was good for bankers but very bad for industry.  Followed by a new deal type approach to the recession which would have reduced the damage considerably.    I also like HMS Fearless being a CV built on the hull of an incompeleted Hood class BC.  Looking very good for Britain here.

  On the Invincible the OTL G3 design I referred to was G3_battlecruiser, which had three turrets, two forward and one amidship - the wiki article in the description wrongly mentions all three turrets being ahead of the bridge, which was what happened in the cut down Nelson class that followed the OTL WNT.  The images in Nick's book seem to have a more conventional two forward and one rear turret.  Mind you the OTL G3's were ~48,000 tonners despite using that layout so what size the Invincible's are here I don't know.

So which ship is more powerful, this HMS Invincible ore OTL HMS Hood.

The Invincible of the Drake's Drum timeline is essentially an OTL 1921 K2/K3 design with G3 characteristics. I've called it the E3 - a fictional designation.

The TTL Washington Treaty schedules a managed program of replacement of ships that keeps the 1920s balance of power similar to our timeline, but permits a few larger warships of 45,000 tons displacement. As in OTL there is a 3000 ton modification clause. In TTL it gets used to justify displacements of 48,000 tons and both the Brits and Americans are a bit more willing to push the rules than they were OTL.

The Graf Spee of this timeline is based on another OTL design, Neuentwurf D-02-31, one of the Scharnhorst preliminaries.

[stevep]

Jun 21, 2019 10:38:56 GMT lordroel said:

Jun 21, 2019 10:23:54 GMT stevep said:

  Thanks for that.  A valuable set of clues there.  Sound like the 1st significant butterfly is a markedly better Jutland for the RN which from that comment about Jellicoe and Beatty's advice being treated almost with divine instruction, leading to a far less damaging WNT for Britain.  Then Churchill not forcing Britain back onto the gold standard - although as I understand it the main damage was that he and the Tories insisted on them returning to the 1914 value for sterling, which was good for bankers but very bad for industry.  Followed by a new deal type approach to the recession which would have reduced the damage considerably.    I also like HMS Fearless being a CV built on the hull of an incompeleted Hood class BC.  Looking very good for Britain here.

  On the Invincible the OTL G3 design I referred to was G3_battlecruiser, which had three turrets, two forward and one amidship - the wiki article in the description wrongly mentions all three turrets being ahead of the bridge, which was what happened in the cut down Nelson class that followed the OTL WNT.  The images in Nick's book seem to have a more conventional two forward and one rear turret.  Mind you the OTL G3's were ~48,000 tonners despite using that layout so what size the Invincible's are here I don't know.

So which ship is more powerful, this HMS Invincible ore OTL HMS Hood.

  Damn it.  I thought I answered this but must have lost the post .  Hood was powerful but basically a pre-Jutland design and with some flaws.  Adding several ktons of extra armour during construction helped with some of those but caused problems, lowering speed and freeboard and by at least one account this also meant a lot of her main protective belt was below the water line.  She was about 40kton as completed capable of ~30kt new and armed with 8x15" guns in twin turrets.

  The G3 class was designed to fully incorporate the lessons of WWI and some extensive tests post-war.  She came in at ~48kton displacement with a speed of 32kts and 9x16" guns in triple turrets.  Despite the fact she was called a BC [Battle-cruiser] she was actually armed better than many new BBs, with up to 8" deck armour over her magazines.  [There is a story that the RN let it be known that they were ordering 8" armour for the ship but at least the US assumed this was for the main belt, i.e. a thinly armoured ship, like the Lexington design or the initial I class BBs in the 1900s.]  Coupled with advances in design and the concentration of the main guns which enabled a shortening of the main belt this enabled such a powerful ship on 'only' 48kton.  This is definitely more powerful than the Hood.

  I'm assuming that the Invincible, despite the different apparent lay-out of main guns, is based on the G3 design and probably of a similar tonnage but possibly slightly weaker armour and/or lower speed.  However I would say she was definitely more powerful than the Hood given the earlier design of the latter.  Also I think it mentioned her completion as being in 1927.  If the G3's were built with no treaty they might well have been completed say 1923-24 period unless their production was delayed.  If so the Invincible and any sisters could be further developments of the design.

  One uncertainty in this argument is that TTL's WNT limited rather than banned new construction but doesn't say whether there was any restriction on their size or main guns.  OTT what new ships were allowed to be completed and future 'treaty' ships were to be restricted to 35ktons and 16" main gun armament.  If there were restrictions like this then Invincible would be smaller than Hood but how they would compare would depend on a lot of circumstances I don't know.  However I suspect Nick's TL doesn't have such limitations - can't remember from his orginal version on AH - so I would say that Invincible is probably at least 45ktons in size.  As such even if some design decision to save weight such as having 15" rather than 16" guns then I would still give the edge to the latter ship.

  PS  Idiot!  Forgot to check for a 2nd page so had replied and Nick has already clarified the issue so please ignore this.

[lordroel]

Jun 21, 2019 13:56:18 GMT stevep said:

Jun 21, 2019 10:38:56 GMT lordroel said:

So which ship is more powerful, this HMS Invincible ore OTL HMS Hood.

  Damn it.  I thought I answered this but must have lost the post .  Hood was powerful but basically a pre-Jutland design and with some flaws.  Adding several ktons of extra armour during construction helped with some of those but caused problems, lowering speed and freeboard and by at least one account this also meant a lot of her main protective belt was below the water line.  She was about 40kton as completed capable of ~30kt new and armed with 8x15" guns in twin turrets.

  The G3 class was designed to fully incorporate the lessons of WWI and some extensive tests post-war.  She came in at ~48kton displacement with a speed of 32kts and 9x16" guns in triple turrets.  Despite the fact she was called a BC [Battle-cruiser] she was actually armed better than many new BBs, with up to 8" deck armour over her magazines.  [There is a story that the RN let it be known that they were ordering 8" armour for the ship but at least the US assumed this was for the main belt, i.e. a thinly armoured ship, like the Lexington design or the initial I class BBs in the 1900s.]  Coupled with advances in design and the concentration of the main guns which enabled a shortening of the main belt this enabled such a powerful ship on 'only' 48kton.  This is definitely more powerful than the Hood.

  I'm assuming that the Invincible, despite the different apparent lay-out of main guns, is based on the G3 design and probably of a similar tonnage but possibly slightly weaker armour and/or lower speed.  However I would say she was definitely more powerful than the Hood given the earlier design of the latter.  Also I think it mentioned her completion as being in 1927.  If the G3's were built with no treaty they might well have been completed say 1923-24 period unless their production was delayed.  If so the Invincible and any sisters could be further developments of the design.

  One uncertainty in this argument is that TTL's WNT limited rather than banned new construction but doesn't say whether there was any restriction on their size or main guns.  OTT what new ships were allowed to be completed and future 'treaty' ships were to be restricted to 35ktons and 16" main gun armament.  If there were restrictions like this then Invincible would be smaller than Hood but how they would compare would depend on a lot of circumstances I don't know.  However I suspect Nick's TL doesn't have such limitations - can't remember from his orginal version on AH - so I would say that Invincible is probably at least 45ktons in size.  As such even if some design decision to save weight such as having 15" rather than 16" guns then I would still give the edge to the latter ship.

  PS  Idiot!  Forgot to check for a 2nd page so had replied and Nick has already clarified the issue so please ignore this.

How can i ignore anything you wright stevep, it is always so full of information.

So the Drake's Drumverse E3 class battlecruiser is a OTL mixed of 1921 K2/K3 design with G3 characteristics, i wonder if like the OTL version is a series of 4 ore is like HMS Hood a single ship design.

[stevep]

Jun 21, 2019 14:12:00 GMT lordroel said:

Jun 21, 2019 13:56:18 GMT stevep said:

  Damn it.  I thought I answered this but must have lost the post .  Hood was powerful but basically a pre-Jutland design and with some flaws.  Adding several ktons of extra armour during construction helped with some of those but caused problems, lowering speed and freeboard and by at least one account this also meant a lot of her main protective belt was below the water line.  She was about 40kton as completed capable of ~30kt new and armed with 8x15" guns in twin turrets.

  The G3 class was designed to fully incorporate the lessons of WWI and some extensive tests post-war.  She came in at ~48kton displacement with a speed of 32kts and 9x16" guns in triple turrets.  Despite the fact she was called a BC [Battle-cruiser] she was actually armed better than many new BBs, with up to 8" deck armour over her magazines.  [There is a story that the RN let it be known that they were ordering 8" armour for the ship but at least the US assumed this was for the main belt, i.e. a thinly armoured ship, like the Lexington design or the initial I class BBs in the 1900s.]  Coupled with advances in design and the concentration of the main guns which enabled a shortening of the main belt this enabled such a powerful ship on 'only' 48kton.  This is definitely more powerful than the Hood.

  I'm assuming that the Invincible, despite the different apparent lay-out of main guns, is based on the G3 design and probably of a similar tonnage but possibly slightly weaker armour and/or lower speed.  However I would say she was definitely more powerful than the Hood given the earlier design of the latter.  Also I think it mentioned her completion as being in 1927.  If the G3's were built with no treaty they might well have been completed say 1923-24 period unless their production was delayed.  If so the Invincible and any sisters could be further developments of the design.

  One uncertainty in this argument is that TTL's WNT limited rather than banned new construction but doesn't say whether there was any restriction on their size or main guns.  OTT what new ships were allowed to be completed and future 'treaty' ships were to be restricted to 35ktons and 16" main gun armament.  If there were restrictions like this then Invincible would be smaller than Hood but how they would compare would depend on a lot of circumstances I don't know.  However I suspect Nick's TL doesn't have such limitations - can't remember from his orginal version on AH - so I would say that Invincible is probably at least 45ktons in size.  As such even if some design decision to save weight such as having 15" rather than 16" guns then I would still give the edge to the latter ship.

  PS  Idiot!  Forgot to check for a 2nd page so had replied and Nick has already clarified the issue so please ignore this.

How can i ignore anything you wright stevep , it is always so full of information.

So the Drake's Drumverse E3 class battlecruiser is a OTL mixed of 1921 K2/K3 design with G3 characteristics, i wonder if like the OTL version is a series of 4 ore is like HMS Hood a single ship design.

  Well there are restrictions on construction but not a total ban and that some 48kton designs allowed so it would depend on the details of what is allowed and how willing the assorted governments would be to invest.  [OTL the French and Italians were permitted to build new capital ships but other than the two Dunkirk class BCs the French built in the early 30's as counters to the German 'pocket battleships' but neither did so until the race to war really began in the late 30's because of a lack of political will and economic resources]. 

  With Britain, the US and Japan I would expect there would be more construction but how much would depend on what the treaties allow.  IIRC Nick said the Invincible was completed in 1927.  It normally took 2-3 years to complete a ship of that size, at least for Britain, so it might be that at least one earlier 'sister' would have been constructed.  Might be that each in the 'class' have differences as doctrine changes, new tech becomes available and lessons are learnt from the earlier ships.  On the other hand a navy would probably want the ships similar enough that they could work together pretty easily and weren't different enough that supply and maintenance wasn't complicated too much.  Ideally something like a 4 ship class would be completed in the 20's and possibly early 30's but would depend on what else was constructed and what other nations were building.  The book might tell you when you get it. 

  Hopefully if nothing else construction should avoid the bloc obsolescence that Britain was facing in the late 30's and also have the shipyards in markedly better shape simply because they have been working fairly regularly. 

  The other good thing is that at least one Hood class was converted to a CV which will give a much better ship to develop carrier tactics with.  Now if the creation of the RAF is avoided, or at least the RN gets the FAA back earlier a good carrier arm could be a serious possibility.

[stevep]

   Lordroel@admin,

   Seeing on another site Nick mentions two ships of the class, Invincible and Inflexible so that should answer that question. Pity I was hoping for a small squadron of 16 say.

[lordroel]

Jun 22, 2019 9:16:44 GMT stevep said:

   Lordroel@admin,

   Seeing on another site Nick mentions two ships of the class, Invincible and Inflexible so that should answer that question. Pity I was hoping for a small squadron of 16 say.

A, yes, i think it was on The Naval Fiction Board.

[stevep]

Jun 22, 2019 9:27:35 GMT lordroel said:

Jun 22, 2019 9:16:44 GMT stevep said:

   Lordroel@admin,

   Seeing on another site Nick mentions two ships of the class, Invincible and Inflexible so that should answer that question. Pity I was hoping for a small squadron of 16 say.

A, yes, i think it was on The Naval Fiction Board.

  Yes that was it.  Didn't realise/had forgotten you were a member.

[lordroel]

Jun 22, 2019 9:40:59 GMT stevep said:

Jun 22, 2019 9:27:35 GMT lordroel said:

A, yes, i think it was on The Naval Fiction Board.

  Yes that was it.  Didn't realise/had forgotten you were a member.

More a lurker, do not like how new tapatalk looks these days.

But we know know that HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible are two ships in the E3-class thanks to that post and also some more information that nicksumner has not posted yet.

[nicksumner]

I couldn't seem to post here yesterday, probably me being computer illiterate... Yes, two ships, there's more detail on the Washington Treaty in Annex 2 of Drake's Drum. In TTL the British are allowed 2 Hoods and 2 Invincibles. Graf Spee in TTL is a 30,000 ton ship armed with 9 11 inch guns that runs into a 48,000 ton ship with 9 16 inch guns she can't run from. It's not a great day for Langsdorf but he goes down fighting.

I'll have another bash at posting the pics I tried to post yesterday a bit later. I've got to take kids to their Saturday activities right now...

[lordroel]

Jun 22, 2019 10:03:48 GMT nicksumner said:

I couldn't seem to post here yesterday, probably me being computer illiterate... Yes, two ships, there's more detail on the Washington Treaty in Annex 2 of Drake's Drum. In TTL the British are allowed 2 Hoods and 2 Invincibles. Graf Spee in TTL is a 30,000 ton ship armed with 9 11 inch guns that runs into a 48,000 ton ship with 9 16 inch guns she can't run from. It's not a great day for Langsdorf but he goes down fighting.

I'll have another bash at posting the pics I tried to post yesterday a bit later. I've got to take kids to their Saturday activities right now...

No problem nicksumner, so now we have two Hoods and two E3s that is good information to work on, thanks.

[stevep]

Jun 22, 2019 10:03:48 GMT nicksumner said:

I couldn't seem to post here yesterday, probably me being computer illiterate... Yes, two ships, there's more detail on the Washington Treaty in Annex 2 of Drake's Drum. In TTL the British are allowed 2 Hoods and 2 Invincibles. Graf Spee in TTL is a 30,000 ton ship armed with 9 11 inch guns that runs into a 48,000 ton ship with 9 16 inch guns she can't run from. It's not a great day for Langsdorf but he goes down fighting.

I'll have another bash at posting the pics I tried to post yesterday a bit later. I've got to take kids to their Saturday activities right now...

  Ah that makes me think two Hoods as fast BBs - hopefully with better protection from the start - and with the other two hulls converted to CVs to match the OTL Lexington and Saratoga.  That could be very good.   Thanks.

[lordroel]

Jun 22, 2019 10:08:59 GMT stevep said:

Jun 22, 2019 10:03:48 GMT nicksumner said:

I couldn't seem to post here yesterday, probably me being computer illiterate... Yes, two ships, there's more detail on the Washington Treaty in Annex 2 of Drake's Drum. In TTL the British are allowed 2 Hoods and 2 Invincibles. Graf Spee in TTL is a 30,000 ton ship armed with 9 11 inch guns that runs into a 48,000 ton ship with 9 16 inch guns she can't run from. It's not a great day for Langsdorf but he goes down fighting.

I'll have another bash at posting the pics I tried to post yesterday a bit later. I've got to take kids to their Saturday activities right now...

  Ah that makes me think two Hoods as fast BBs - hopefully with better protection from the start - and with the other two hulls converted to CVs to match the OTL Lexington and Saratoga.  That could be very good.   Thanks.

Seems we almost posted the same thing stevep.

[stevep]

Jun 22, 2019 10:09:39 GMT lordroel said:

Jun 22, 2019 10:08:59 GMT stevep said:

  Ah that makes me think two Hoods as fast BBs - hopefully with better protection from the start - and with the other two hulls converted to CVs to match the OTL Lexington and Saratoga.  That could be very good.   Thanks.

Seems we almost posted the same thing stevep .

  Great minds - or just minor ones like us?