- This is the first time I've ever heard that Tigers armor was retained. How long was in kept in storage?

I do not know when it was scrapped, probably post-war. It's like Iron Duke, her belt was also stored.

- Just how fast could a new battlecruiser be built if the need was there and armament could be found?

A 'new Tiger' using her gun systems and armour?. Maybe (a guess!) around 24 months. The long lead item would be the turbines.

- I seem to recall discussing this on the NFB. Did the proposed monitors account for all nine of the turrets from Tiger and Iron Duke?

Yes, it was discussed there and is down in the material from 'old FFO' on this board. The guts of this is that the British use a slice of their additional industrial capability in APOD to forcibly acquire a bunch of old closed shipyards on the Clyde and use the land to build a new shipyard. It's run on US industrial management and labour relations lines to produce three basic merchant motorship types in quantity (a large freighter, a tanker, and a large, fast cargo-liner), with the other end of that big yard producing a standard large monitor/small craft base-ship hull, a standard modular small monitor/gunboat/landing vessel hull, and standard landing craft.

Iron Duke (more of which later) retains two of her turrets, so we only have 7 x 13.5" systems available, and 3 x 15"

- How far ahead is the RN thinking here? Are we talking about basically wanting to emulate what the USN was able to do in OTL with regard to time at sea, or is this driven by a post-Singapore realization that its global base network may be vulnerable and shouldn't be counted on to always be there?

This is a developing idea at the moment. If you read W. David macIntyre's brilliant 'The Rise and fall of the Singapore Naval Base', McMillan, London, 1979, you'll see that the RN knew that it had a real problem post 1922 in covering 2 hemispheres of responsibility with a 1 hemisphere fleet. The result was exploitation of their global base network and a new base at Singapore. The old base net was really built in teh 19th century for numerous, small, cheap ironclads, and rebuilding all the abses was impossible. The graving docks were 10 times the volume of the old ones, for example. So the old bases were only useful as refuelling points and even then the storage was inadequate, so they had to pre-position tankers.

You can see where this is going. By not being able to upgrade the global base net, they had no choice but to increase the range and 'time at sea' of the USN, and to develop things like the MNDBO to make a 'mobile fleet base'. MNDBO was invented right after WWI (and pre Washington Treaty) for just this reason. It's a pity that HMS Agincourt was lost under WT - she was slated for conversion into the MNDBO HQ ship.

In OTL, the Malta class carriers and the development of the fleet train reflect both the understanding of the problem, and the financial and industrial inability to do much about it.

Here, they have all the same drivers but in APOD (as in 'old FFO' if it were being run as an academic exercise and not as a commercial venture) they have the ability to do something about it.

The new driver is a doozy, by losing Singapore the RN has to operate a full-blooded fleet in the Indian Ocean. The distances and the paucity of infrastructure are not quite as bad as when the USN faces in the Pacific, and the aim is to get Singapore back ASAP, but then you have to operate in another Indian-Ocean-like environment, in the South China Sea, East China Sea, and Yellow Sea/Sea of Japan. Only this time you have to operate within range of land-based air as well. Nasty.

So what sort of ship comes out of that? The carrier is reasonably simple - it has to have a huge air group, so it cannot be armoured and it has to use its airgroup to protect it and to swamp the enemy's land-based air. Then you add the existing armoured carriers, which can take a beating, for the inshore work. That bit's like the Med and Europe, at least.


- Are we talking about a real battleship meant to slug it out with other battleships? Or are we talking about a carrier-escort with big guns and lots of AAA, more of a modern battlecruiser?

This is the real issue, and I have no idea what the answer is. This BB has to be able to deal with an enemy BB, because in European waters, the weather sucks and enemy BB can get into gun range when you can't even fly. But in the IO and Pacific, the weather is much better and acft are the threat. These are diametrically opposed requirements. The RN cannot afford the USN answer: in APOD that's the 6 New Jersey type super-battlecruiser AND the 4 Montana class super BB. The Alaska class look like not being built.

The OTL Lion is also not the right ship. it can be modified into a 'working class Montana', that's 9 guns, long range and very heavy armour to tackle anyone else's BB. But that's 2 ships - the numbers are inadequate.

The Vanguard is NOT the right ship. it actually fails on all counts, too expensive to build in numbers for the AA need, and too weakly armed to be the BB. In APOD, I strongly suspect that Vanguard is going to be RN white elephant, although she'll make an excellent flagship in Singapore post-war.

- Just what are we talking about here? Are we talking about the 4x4 Belfast, or new 8" cruisers?

Another very good question, because here lies the possible answer for the 'heavy AA escort and flagship' function. In APOD, the RN can indeed afford some numbers here, especially since the 6" cruiser program can be cut to fund it, just like the Majestic/Colossus program can be cut (and the Centaur/Eagle programs can be cancelled) to fund the APOD 'Singapore' (OTL Malta) class program.

- Would the need for such a ship bolster Churchill's interest in big 9.2" armed cruisers? I recall that the big argument against these ships was that two Vanguards could be had for three of these cruisers, with the Vanguards being much more useful

Another very good question I do not have an answer to.

Looking at Raven and Roberts (British Cruisers) pp.272-273 shows that NONE of the drivers to cancel the big 8" cruisers in 1940-41 apply in APOD. We don't have the 1940 panic, we don't lose the MN, we don't bet the surge of naval losses at Crete which forced the planning staff to be diverted to otehr tasks etc.

So in March 1941, when it was decided that the orders were to placed in the 1941 program (this is OTL) there is no reason not to place them, and then there is no reason in May to cancel the intention.

These 9 gun ships (see R&R p.262) were designed to be 'global Empire capable', which is why endurance was 16,000nm at 12kt. They were also roomy, with a large growth margin. So there's the chance for electronics and AA. It also kills  the Minotaur i, Neptune and Minotaur ii orders stone dead.

Is this an answer? I don't know, but it may be the only game in town, looking at the drivers. Kind of eerily, it lines up against the APOD USN answer with NJ=RN cruiser and Montana=Lion!

If it does, then Lion MUST be got to 16,000nm@12kt. And there's the driver for tech swaps with the USN being insisted on.

What do people think?

Cheers: mark