Alt-RN building plan for the 1930s and 1940s

[1bigrich]

Sept 29, 2020 5:33:24 GMT simon darkshade said:

A few points:

Vanguard
Vanguards only make sense of any kind when compared to nothing at all or continued Rs. As a fully-armoured battlecruiser/fast battleship, it was a fine vessel, but the 15"/42 was at the end of its development life. When first contemplated, the battleship wasn't nearly as dead as some would think. It was in some ways a better deal than 2 supercruisers, but they did have the advantage of there being two of them. The optimal BB for the RN is the Lion.

Full agreement

KGV
The particular situation of the KGVs (12 x 14" then 10 x 14") came from rearming first and fastest. The decision to go for 14" over 16" was driven by finance to some degree, but the difference was not truly substantial - they never had to fight an enemy ship that couldn't be killed by 14" gunfire. However, given the opportunity to choose between the two, the RN would have gone for 16" for the advantages involved. It would not have any substantial bearing on their postwar service life.

I think some of the detail faults of the KGVs, such as the sharp corners instead of rounded, might have seen them go to reserve earlier. I believe these were corrected in Vanguard, and would have been corrected in the Lions as well.

Washington Naval Treaty
Washington was an issue, but not an existential one. The treaty that really came back to bite them in the backside was the 1930 LNT and the sheer mistake that was the 1936 LNT. The former constrained warship size artificially and had a negative impact on cruiser numbers, whilst the latter was doomed from before it began. The most striking impact of the WNT in some ways was the blow of the 10 year building holiday on British naval firms and capacity, but the circumstances of the 10 years leading up to 1914 were not in any way normal or repeatable. Washington arrested ship size growth to some extent and froze designs until the 1930s artificially - many will have seen the graph of BB sizes with the general rate pointing towards Yamato sized vessels by the mid 1930s.

I think one of the subtle accomplishments of Washington was that it added value to existing investment/expenditures. Ships like New York, Iron Duke, or Fuso, that would have been hopelessly outclassed by the likes of South Dakota, N3 or Tosa, had their useful lives extended greatly.

British Naval Rearmament
Bottlenecks existed in heavy guns/gun pits and armour production, as mentioned in the Crystal Eye thread. This came from a willful destruction of previous capacity, which was considered over-capacity in the circumstances of the 1920s/Great Depression/International Peace and Amity period, but at the end of the day only acted as a constraint on BB production rather than an absolute ironclad refutance.

Had the holiday not been extended by First London, even these bottlenecks might have been less constraining as new hulls would have been in commission and the industry put to more use over a longer time.

A shedload of money was spent on the RN in the lead up to war, but much of it ended up not showing its true value due to timing and circumstance. There was no notion that the war would always begin in 1939 or even 1940, certainly not from the position of 1935/36 when rearmament began. If the process is kicked further back by 18-24 months, we'd see some different outcomes.

Conclusion: It isn't that there was no enough money, but that it was spent early and didn't end up showing true bang for buck. There were some decisions driven by finance within an overall prism of rearmament, but it wasn't a true sword of Damocles.

Given First and Second London, I'm not sure another path was available...

Regards,

[1bigrich]

Sept 29, 2020 10:53:29 GMT stevep said:

  Actually, if the RN had had its way while still limited to the 35k limit its preference was for a design with 9x15" in three triple turrets.  However the government was pushing for a reduction in the main armament to 14" so that size had to be adopted by the navy.  [As I understand it that would have been a new solid cast gun rather than copying the old wire wound guns of WWI vintage although probably based closely on them.

[/div]

15A/36 or 15B/36 were the historical concepts, IIRC. Nine 15in, 20 x 4.5in.

 

Part of the problem with WNT was that it left the RN with an elderly fleet and a bloc obsolesce problem.  Definitely both the fleet and the construction capacity would have declined greatly from the artificial size that it was in 1914-18.  However it wouldn't have gone as far as OTL and the capacity, both in terms of size and technology of the industry would have been markedly better as well as a slow gradual production rate would have eased the problems for the RN.

 

Agree.

 

I have been told that the real problem was the continuation of the construction holiday past 1930, which was partly due to the panic over the depression.  Not only did this stretch the holiday until the British fleet was really struggling in terms of capital ships but the government had provided some subsidies to maintain capacity in both design and construction and those were ended in the early 30's.  Without this while British capacity for new construction would still have been limited it would have been markedly less than OTL.  Especially in terms of the two key bottlenecks of armour and gun turret production.

First London does seem to have been more of an obstacle to the UK than to the other signatories.

 

Britain did have a big naval programme to make up for the two decades of decline but it was seriously restrained by the loss of capacity.  If limited construction had been allowed through the WNT period, something the RN had argued for but the British government had supported the US government on this or even those subsidies had continued then Britain would have been able to manage things markedly better.  The fact that war came earlier than just about anyone expected and the crisis over the fall of France did throw everything into a spin, especially with the drastically increased threat in the Atlantic but things wouldn't have been quite as bad with earlier production and/or greater capacity.

 

Of course with an even partially new fleet in the 1930's its possible that there could be drastic changes to the path of the 1930's.  For instance if Britain and France had seriously stood up to Italy over Ethiopia.  A reason which was given for not doing so was that with so many elderly ships and a number under reconstruction plus concerns about Germany and Japan the RN wasn't able to confirm it could also handle a conflict with Italy.  A war in 1936 which sees Italy defeated, even if Mussolini's regime survived in charge would have drastically changed a lot of things.  Italy might well have lost its colonial empire and the allies would have had some very recent war experience which could have changed later events.  I'm not saying that would have happened but a lot could change.

 

Steve

[/quote]

The planning for an strike on Taranto with carrier aircraft began during the Abyssinian Crisis. CinC Med was Dudley Pound. The Med Fleet's carrier was Glorious, and her captain at the time was one Lumley Lyster.

Regards,

[1bigrich]

Sept 29, 2020 11:51:04 GMT simon darkshade said:

Steve,

Vanguard and any putative sisters worked because of the availability of slips and guns, but the armour bottleneck is the nasty part that crops up to prevent them being a completely ideal solution. The design of the ship herself with the exception of the main guns was very modern and right up there with late war/early postwar cutting edge battlewagon design.

The 15"/45 was worked on from 1935 onwards, but the 35,000t limit was artificial and extremely limiting on nations that followed the Treaties; on those that were more flexible or cheated outright, it was less of an issue.

I understand the desire for limits, but with the Continental powers all building 15in armed battleships, the 14in limit should never have existed. In my humble opinion, of course....

Yes, the RN faced block obsolescence, but it only cropped up from the early-mid 1930s, long after the political memory/impact of the high-minded thinking of the Treaty supporters. At that point in the early 20s, the 13 x 15" ships were seen as pretty darn decent. If the Royal Sovereigns were repeat QEs, then the worst part of the block obsolescence of the remaining fleet is butterflied.

Agree, especially on the usefulness of the 13.5in armed ships.

Bigger issue: If I might slip into my own terminology, at the WNT, there are 12" dreadnoughts, Gen 1 superdreadnoughts (13.5" and 14") and Gen 2 superdreadnoughts (15" and 16"). The first lot were always going to go and the RN was glad to see them go. In the second category, Britain had 14 (4 Orion, 3 KGV, 4 Iron Dukes; 2 Lions, 1 Tiger), the USA 9 (2 New York, 2 Nevada, 2 Pennsylvania, 3 New Mexico) and Japan 8 (4 Kongo, 2 Fuso, 2 Ise). In the third, Britain had 13 ships, the USA 5 (2 Tennessee, 3 Colorado) and Japan 2 (Nagato and Mutsu). I've taken the liberty of grouping the Big 5 together from the other USN Standards, but the 7 USN ships with all-or-nothing protection are certainly worthy of comparison to the QEs.

From this number, the IJN and the USN kept the lot for service in WW2. They got far better use out of their 14" ships than the RN got out of their 13.5" vessels. However, of that British number, the four Orions and 2 Lions were obsolete or flogged out by 1919 anyhow, which puts them back to effective parity in that category. Without the extention of the WNT, the 13.5" KGVs get replaced by new construction in the early 1930s and the Iron Dukes from the mid 1930s by something better. As you point out, it is the continuation of the building holiday that really hurt the RN more than other powers.

I think this is where the Mutsu problem arises. She had been paid for by public subscription, and the Japanese absolutely were NOT going to let her go to the breakers and waste all the good-will with the public her financing and construction had garnered. The initial draft of the 'ships to be retained' saw the US with Maryland as its premiere capital ship, the RN with Hood and the IJN with Nagato. The retention of Mutsu mean the us got to build 'two more West Virginias' (as the treaty called them) and the RN could build two new 35,000 ton ships with 16in guns, that became Nelson and Rodney.

The other big hit on the RN was the Rs being inferior throwbacks that swiftly became second or third line capital ships. This would have been bad enough had the RN retained its 2nd generation ships, but the nature of the Treaty did write them into a corner.

Would four Iron Dukes have been more useful to the RN in the '20s and '30s that two Nelsons?

Britain's construction programme wasn't too little, but by nature of the LNT, it was constrained and delayed (I'm looking at the KGV delays here). It ended up being too late, but this only became directly apparent well into the rearmament process. Kicking things off 24 months earlier would change a great deal of how we view the process.

Changing the policy of appeasement and having a go at Italy would dramatically change a great number of factors.

War would end the treaty regime for all powers. It might have been something the UK wished to avoid...

Regards,

[/quote][/quote]

[1bigrich]

Sept 29, 2020 13:55:55 GMT stevep said:

 

  Agree that the 9 US with 14" guns were more parallel with the 15" ships Britain produced.  They did have some shortcomings, most being coal fired originally and having a lower max elevation and hence range but the USN was able to remove those problems by extensive refits in most/all of them during the 1920's and 30's.  Britain of course did get two more ships in Nelson and Rodney under the treaty, which were very good after some problems had been resolved but far more was needed to keep the RN battlefleet [and supporting construction industry] up to the sort of strength needed for any real crisis.

 
[/div]

The Standards were oil-fired. The older ships, the Wyomings and New Yorks were converted to oil firing. As an aside, the ships the USN sent to the UK in World War I to form the Sixth Battle Squadron (when it was reconstituted) were all coal-fired. Delaware, Florida, Arkansas, Wyoming, New York and Texas. The US didn't want to send oil-fired ships as it was felt there would be too much oil consumption in fleet operations given the RN already had some oil-fired capital ships. And the US had domestic access to good, hard anthracite coal from fields in the Eastern US.

 

One problem of course with understanding this period is that too often people only compare the RN with the USN and the IJN.  Britain's problem was that with other powers in close proximity also had substantial forces and that it was so dependent on SLOC, a position only matched [or exceeded even] by Japan.  It turned out that neither Italy nor Germany could be ignored, especially again after the sudden fall of France and that prevented Britain being in a position, by land or sea to oppose Japan in Dec 41 onwards. 

 

Definitely there would be butterflies if there had been war with Italy in 36.  Some of which might have been negative but if it had happened and especially if the ships had been available to make it a practical idea it changes a hell of a lot.

 

Steve

[/quote]

The RN was a large navy on the strategic defensive, a position it was in for over a century by the time World War Two started.
Japan started the war on the strategic offensive, but was built for the strategic defensive with the emphasis on the decisive battle (which planning steadily moved farther away from Home Waters as the interwar years passed).
The USN was a large navy on the strategic offensive. It saw its mission as crossing the Pacific, fighting and defeating the Japanese and returning home.

Those varied view impact choices...

My thoughts,

[stevep]

Sept 29, 2020 15:55:07 GMT oscssw said:

Reading the thoughts of Steve and Simon sure is an education.

Have either of you ever worked with a real BB?

Now this is no Sh!t

In 1968, when I was on my first enlistment, my Can was part of Operation Sea Dragon

along with New Jersey.  We were inshore with our 4 5"38's she was father out.

You could sometimes hear those 16 inch rounds passing close by.  They sounded like a freight train.

We could sometimes see those High Capacity 16 inch shells tearing up the country side.  Damn impressive.

I never had much use for the Big Boys. A short time aboard a CV convinced me it was too much

"chicken sh!t", like the army with saluting, pressed uniforms and far too much brass getting into your way.

Give me the small boys every time. The Tin Can Navy was good blue water sea duty. 

But that's just me.  I'm funny that way!

  oscssw,

  No much admit I've very much an armchair general, basically its my interest in history, including military [which being British definitely includes the navy ] matters.

  Steve

[stevep]

Sept 30, 2020 4:23:51 GMT 1bigrich said:

Sept 29, 2020 11:51:04 GMT simon darkshade said:

Steve,

Vanguard and any putative sisters worked because of the availability of slips and guns, but the armour bottleneck is the nasty part that crops up to prevent them being a completely ideal solution. The design of the ship herself with the exception of the main guns was very modern and right up there with late war/early postwar cutting edge battlewagon design.

The 15"/45 was worked on from 1935 onwards, but the 35,000t limit was artificial and extremely limiting on nations that followed the Treaties; on those that were more flexible or cheated outright, it was less of an issue.

I understand the desire for limits, but with the Continental powers all building 15in armed battleships, the 14in limit should never have existed. In my humble opinion, of course....

Yes, the RN faced block obsolescence, but it only cropped up from the early-mid 1930s, long after the political memory/impact of the high-minded thinking of the Treaty supporters. At that point in the early 20s, the 13 x 15" ships were seen as pretty darn decent. If the Royal Sovereigns were repeat QEs, then the worst part of the block obsolescence of the remaining fleet is butterflied.

Agree, especially on the usefulness of the 13.5in armed ships.

Bigger issue: If I might slip into my own terminology, at the WNT, there are 12" dreadnoughts, Gen 1 superdreadnoughts (13.5" and 14") and Gen 2 superdreadnoughts (15" and 16"). The first lot were always going to go and the RN was glad to see them go. In the second category, Britain had 14 (4 Orion, 3 KGV, 4 Iron Dukes; 2 Lions, 1 Tiger), the USA 9 (2 New York, 2 Nevada, 2 Pennsylvania, 3 New Mexico) and Japan 8 (4 Kongo, 2 Fuso, 2 Ise). In the third, Britain had 13 ships, the USA 5 (2 Tennessee, 3 Colorado) and Japan 2 (Nagato and Mutsu). I've taken the liberty of grouping the Big 5 together from the other USN Standards, but the 7 USN ships with all-or-nothing protection are certainly worthy of comparison to the QEs.

From this number, the IJN and the USN kept the lot for service in WW2. They got far better use out of their 14" ships than the RN got out of their 13.5" vessels. However, of that British number, the four Orions and 2 Lions were obsolete or flogged out by 1919 anyhow, which puts them back to effective parity in that category. Without the extention of the WNT, the 13.5" KGVs get replaced by new construction in the early 1930s and the Iron Dukes from the mid 1930s by something better. As you point out, it is the continuation of the building holiday that really hurt the RN more than other powers.

I think this is where the Mutsu problem arises. She had been paid for by public subscription, and the Japanese absolutely were NOT going to let her go to the breakers and waste all the good-will with the public her financing and construction had garnered. The initial draft of the 'ships to be retained' saw the US with Maryland as its premiere capital ship, the RN with Hood and the IJN with Nagato. The retention of Mutsu mean the us got to build 'two more West Virginias' (as the treaty called them) and the RN could build two new 35,000 ton ships with 16in guns, that became Nelson and Rodney.

The other big hit on the RN was the Rs being inferior throwbacks that swiftly became second or third line capital ships. This would have been bad enough had the RN retained its 2nd generation ships, but the nature of the Treaty did write them into a corner.

Would four Iron Dukes have been more useful to the RN in the '20s and '30s that two Nelsons?

Britain's construction programme wasn't too little, but by nature of the LNT, it was constrained and delayed (I'm looking at the KGV delays here). It ended up being too late, but this only became directly apparent well into the rearmament process. Kicking things off 24 months earlier would change a great deal of how we view the process.

Changing the policy of appeasement and having a go at Italy would dramatically change a great number of factors.

War would end the treaty regime for all powers. It might have been something the UK wished to avoid...

Regards,

[/quote][/quote][/div]

  1bigrich,

a)  Fully agree on the attempt to get a 14" limit.  It was partly because the RN situation, with three threats, two basically on the doorstep, and an elderly fleet that the politicians having pushed for bringing that into the 36 treaty had to start building such ships as they couldn't afford to wait a year or so to see the collapse of the attempt and lay down 15" or 16" ships.

b)  Is there a cross purpose here as Simon was talking about the 13 ships with 15" guns and your reply mentions 13.5" ships, which were the Iron Dukes and earlier?  Or possibly a typo?

c)  I can't see 4 Iron Dukes being better than the 2 Nelsons.  To make them practical ships the former would have needed extensive [and expensive] reconstructions, probably including removing the mid-ship turret to give the space for other changes.  Which might well be illegal under the treaty.  They would still have been markedly inferior to the Nelsons 1-on-1 by a large measure and while they would have twice the number this would have been expensive to man.  Also I wouldn't fancy say sending even two of them against say a Bismarck to take the obvious example while a Nelson, while it couldn't catch a Bismarck or other late 30's ship can give them one hell of a fight if they get into range.

d)  By 1936 the treaty regime was dead.  It was just that some people didn't recognise/accept this.  Of course to have a larger or more modern fleet would have meant the regime being killed off or greatly modified - say by ending the 'holiday' with some limited production - but I think that would have been accepting the obvious and would have been beneficial to the western powers as part of the entire problem of the late 30's was because the allies waited too long before real rearmament starting.

  Steve

[stevep]

Sept 30, 2020 4:37:37 GMT 1bigrich said:

Sept 29, 2020 13:55:55 GMT stevep said:

 

  Agree that the 9 US with 14" guns were more parallel with the 15" ships Britain produced.  They did have some shortcomings, most being coal fired originally and having a lower max elevation and hence range but the USN was able to remove those problems by extensive refits in most/all of them during the 1920's and 30's.  Britain of course did get two more ships in Nelson and Rodney under the treaty, which were very good after some problems had been resolved but far more was needed to keep the RN battlefleet [and supporting construction industry] up to the sort of strength needed for any real crisis.

 

[/div]

The Standards were oil-fired. The older ships, the Wyomings and New Yorks were converted to oil firing. As an aside, the ships the USN sent to the UK in World War I to form the Sixth Battle Squadron (when it was reconstituted) were all coal-fired. Delaware, Florida, Arkansas, Wyoming, New York and Texas. The US didn't want to send oil-fired ships as it was felt there would be too much oil consumption in fleet operations given the RN already had some oil-fired capital ships. And the US had domestic access to good, hard anthracite coal from fields in the Eastern US.

 

One problem of course with understanding this period is that too often people only compare the RN with the USN and the IJN.  Britain's problem was that with other powers in close proximity also had substantial forces and that it was so dependent on SLOC, a position only matched [or exceeded even] by Japan.  It turned out that neither Italy nor Germany could be ignored, especially again after the sudden fall of France and that prevented Britain being in a position, by land or sea to oppose Japan in Dec 41 onwards. 

 

Definitely there would be butterflies if there had been war with Italy in 36.  Some of which might have been negative but if it had happened and especially if the ships had been available to make it a practical idea it changes a hell of a lot.

 

Steve

[/quote]

The RN was a large navy on the strategic defensive, a position it was in for over a century by the time World War Two started.
Japan started the war on the strategic offensive, but was built for the strategic defensive with the emphasis on the decisive battle (which planning steadily moved farther away from Home Waters as the interwar years passed).
The USN was a large navy on the strategic offensive. It saw its mission as crossing the Pacific, fighting and defeating the Japanese and returning home.

Those varied view impact choices...

My thoughts,

[/quote][/div]

  1bigrich,

  OK thanks for the point on the standards.  I knew some early 14" were coal fired and later refitted but relied too much on the memory.  Apologies.

  The RN was on the strategic defensive but for most of the last century it was happy to do this as it had the capacity to outclass just about every opponent when needed and also often had plans to take the war aggressively to any opponent.  It no longer had this capacity in the late 30's due to the drastic run down of the fleet and production capacity.  It could be argued that this would have occurred without either the 21 or 30 treaty but not sure I would agree with this.  At least with regards to the prime OTL opponents or potential opponents i.e. Germany, Japan, Italy and possibly the Soviets.

  Steve

[1bigrich]

Sept 30, 2020 15:39:22 GMT stevep said:

1bigrich ,

[/div]

a)  Fully agree on the attempt to get a 14" limit.  It was partly because the RN situation, with three threats, two basically on the doorstep, and an elderly fleet that the politicians having pushed for bringing that into the 36 treaty had to start building such ships as they couldn't afford to wait a year or so to see the collapse of the attempt and lay down 15" or 16" ships.

b)  Is there a cross purpose here as Simon was talking about the 13 ships with 15" guns and your reply mentions 13.5" ships, which were the Iron Dukes and earlier?  Or possibly a typo?

c)  I can't see 4 Iron Dukes being better than the 2 Nelsons.  To make them practical ships the former would have needed extensive [and expensive] reconstructions, probably including removing the mid-ship turret to give the space for other changes.  Which might well be illegal under the treaty.  They would still have been markedly inferior to the Nelsons 1-on-1 by a large measure and while they would have twice the number this would have been expensive to man.  Also I wouldn't fancy say sending even two of them against say a Bismarck to take the obvious example while a Nelson, while it couldn't catch a Bismarck or other late 30's ship can give them one hell of a fight if they get into range.

d)  By 1936 the treaty regime was dead.  It was just that some people didn't recognise/accept this.  Of course to have a larger or more modern fleet would have meant the regime being killed off or greatly modified - say by ending the 'holiday' with some limited production - but I think that would have been accepting the obvious and would have been beneficial to the western powers as part of the entire problem of the late 30's was because the allies waited too long before real rearmament starting.

  Steve

[/quote]


Hi Steve,

I was replying to Simon's thoughts on the 13.5in armed ships.

With respect to the 13.5in ships against Nelson and Rodney, I'm not saying they are better, but possibly more useful in the late '20s most of the '30s. For example, for the bulk of that period, the RM dreadnoughts were just that: 12in armed, slow dreadnoughts. It was only with their extensive rebuild they became more useful. For that period, the four 13.5in armed ships could have been the Mediterranean Fleet's battleships, freeing up the 15in armed ships to serve elsewhere.

I agree on the holiday extension.

Regards,

[1bigrich]

Sept 30, 2020 15:45:11 GMT stevep said:

 

1bigrich ,

 

OK thanks for the point on the standards.  I knew some early 14" were coal fired and later refitted but relied too much on the memory.  Apologies.

Steve,

Apologies for what?   I wasn't trying to correct you, I was corroborating you.    You're correct, the older US BBs got converted from coal to oil firing.    Wyoming became a training ship, but Arkansas, New York and Texas after First London were attached to the USN's scouting forces.   They were Battleship Division 5 (BatDiv 5); the idea was to give the scouting forces a strong point (three battleships) to retreat to if they encountered serious opposition.  They didn't get main battery elevation increased because they weren't supposed to be fighting enemy battleships; that was the job of the Standards in the battleline.   The Standards did get main battery elevation increases, as you say, and their rebuilds also featured new turbines, mostly from the ships cancelled by Washington, but Nevada specifically got the geared turbines that had been retrofitted to North Dakota when the latter was scrapped. 

 

The RN was on the strategic defensive but for most of the last century it was happy to do this as it had the capacity to outclass just about every opponent when needed and also often had plans to take the war aggressively to any opponent.  It no longer had this capacity in the late 30's due to the drastic run down of the fleet and production capacity.  It could be argued that this would have occurred without either the 21 or 30 treaty but not sure I would agree with this.  At least with regards to the prime OTL opponents or potential opponents i.e. Germany, Japan, Italy and possibly the Soviets.

 Agreed.

Regards,