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Posts: 1496
Feb 14 10 11:41 AM
Just call me Author
POD Proposal β RN Battleship construction Part 2
New Battleship Build β Lion or Vanguard?
As we saw in Part 1, the decision to go ahead with Battleship construction takes place early 1942. The need is urgent, the ships are needed as soon as possible. Realistically there are two options on the table:
Option 1 - Vanguard
Re use the turrets and guns from Glorious and Courageous, and use them to arm a modern ship. Superficially a good idea, however there are some potential issues:
Β· Detailed plans have not been drawn up β there are a few sketch designs, but (unlike OTL where discussions/refinement of plans took place throughout 1940/early 41) there are no detailed plans available.
Β· The turrets are of an old design, with magazines sited above shell handling rooms, whereas modern design calls for shell handling rooms to be above magazines. The turrets will have to be re-worked and modified to bring them up to modern standards, and to incorporate the current level of flash protection. This will require considerable work, both in terms of design effort and manufacturing/construction resources.
Β· Only one set of turrets is available, which means only one ship can be produced.
These issues are solvable, however solving them will take time, and time is a luxury right now β the perceived need is to get the ships build as soon as practicable.
Option 2 - Lion
Lion looks like a good option for the following reasons:
Β· Detailed plans (approved by the Admiralty Board) already exist. They will need to be reviewed in light of wartime experience, but this should only result in comparatively minor changes.
Β· One of the main bottlenecks in battleship construction is the gun mountings. Thanks to the (OTL) decision that work on the mountings would continue (see Part 1), work on the mountings has already been underway for over two years β by now they should be largely complete.
These advantages would seem to swing the decision for the Lion, however there is a fly in the ointment β the armament. The Lions are designed for a new 16in gun. This isnβt yet in service, is of unproven reliability, and the production facilities for the ammunition arenβt in place yet. Furthermore, shortage of spare ammunition may place logistical constraints on deployment of the ships when complete.
POD β Proposed Solution β Modified Lion
In the end, the availability of sufficient turrets to build 2 ships swings it in favour of a modified Lion design. The modification takes two forms:
Β· Tweaking the design to take account of war experience (for example more light AA)
Β· Change the armament to 9 x 15 in guns β the 15 inch is a well liked and reliable weapon, and logistically speaking the logical choice β stocks of ammo exist all over the Empire, and wartime experience has already shown that in extremis, old 4crh ammo can be pressed into service (see APOD 6-9 Sept 40).
While the change will require some modification to the turret and magazine fittings, these can be designed to enable them to be reversed later, giving the option of upgunning to 16in later if required.
As far as availability of guns is concerned, taking the 8 intended for Vanguard, plus one from stores gives enough to arm one of the Lions. Working on the assumption that there are insufficient weapons left in storage to arm the second ship, decommissioning and de-arming one of the R class (which are well past their sell-by date and not fit to face a modern opponent anyway) arms the second.
Time to Build
Hopefully youβll pardon a historical digression, but this sets the yardstick by which Iβm judging potential build time.
Warship 2009 contains an article βA shipyard at Warβ, all about the John Brown Yard during WW1. It contains a fairly detailed account of the building of HMS Repulse.
According to the article, her keel was laid on 25 January 1915, and she had completed steam and gun trials and finally left the yard on 16 August 1916. As this included a 6 week delay while the ships plans were finalised, the effective build time was around 18 months.
The reason the ship was completed so quickly was that the turrets were already available, having been re-assigned from an R class.
OK digression over - taking 18 months for construction of a WW1 Battlecruiser as our yardstick, if we assume that the Lions are assigned top priority for men/material, and given the availability of (almost complete) turrets, I think that 20-22 months construction time is a reasonable estimate. The extra time allows for more complex electrical/electronic equipment fit.
So, from the timescales established in Part 1, building schedule goes like this:
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