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Posts: 3716
Mar 28 10 12:22 AM
Born Again P-76 Pilot
Introduction
In APOD as in ‘old FFO’, the drivers acting on the RN are very different to OTL. In OTL, the RN was forced by an existential crisis to work its ships much harder than planned, leading to premature aging. In addition, they were forced to shift manpower between heavy ship construction and merchant ship repair. Finally, they forced to abandon most long range and post-war planning considerations and focus on short term efforts to maximise ship utility across the fleet.
In APOD and in ‘old FFO’, these considerations do not apply. The RN must take long range and post-war considerations into its planning.
Battleships
Vanguard (See discussion at Annex A)
This battleship cost £9,000,000 instead of the £7,400,000 average for the KGV because of her protracted building time and major redesign. She was forecast to cost ~£5,500,000. She was a modified KGV design. Despite the opposition of the DNC (Goodall, who viewed BB as a waste of resources) in APOD this ‘fully armoured battle cruiser’ for the Far East will be built as follows:
2 March 1940 Vanguard laid down on Duke of York’s recently vacated slip.
1 March 1942 Vanguard launched (Malta class CV laid down on this slip 1 May 42)
1 March 1943 Vanguard completed
Note 1 the shorter time is because her armament already exists
Note 2: She was planned in OTL to be commissioned 36 months from keel laying. In APOD there is no reason at all why this cannot be done because the problem which affected her construction (an excess of 100 old ex-US merchant ships to refit/repair in UK yards and numerous war-damaged merchant ships) are not present.
However, this shows a problem. The RN and RAN need flagships for trade protection and ‘presence’ formations on the following stations: China, Australia, Singapore, Indian Ocean South America and West Indies. Six stations means 8-9 ships to maintain that. These are the County replacements. Using a Vanguard-sized ship (she is a ‘second class BB’) is out of the question on cost grounds.
So what replaces the County class?
Lion Class
Lion and Temeraire were laid down in 1939, suspended in October 1940 and scrapped in 1941. In APOD, there is no reason to delay these ships, as the Germans may still produce the H class and their allies are continuing construction of the 16” gunned Sovietsy Soyuz class.
Lion and Temeraire will complete in mid-late 1943. The major difference from their 1939 design will be an ‘OTL Vanguard’ style bow, to eliminate the forward wetness problem with the KGV class.
The need to build ~24 x 16” guns will have an effect on the cruiser program. The addition of 16 + 6 twin 5.25” turrets (the latter for Nelson in her ~Jun-Dec 41 refit) will have a serious impact on the Dido program.
Cruisers
In OTL, the RN was forced by the events of 1940 and by the losses off Crete to cancel their 1940 6” and 8” cruiser designs. This forced repeat Colonies and Towns to be considered later (Minotaur class).
Dido class
The Lion and Nelson decisions stop this program cold by re-allocating their armament.
Worse, the four completed in 1940 were all weather damaged, the worst being Naiad (the only one with 5 turrets fitted) which was completely disabled, had the bridge start to separate from the hull, had pillar failure forward and deck/shell buckling. This was traced to extreme pitching motions caused by weight concentration forward. The options available are obvious.
1937 Program
Bonaventure 24.5.40
Dido 30.9.40
Hermione 25.3.41
Naiad 10 x 5.25” 24.7.40
Phoebe 30.9.40
Euryalus 30.6.41
Sirius 5.5.41
All except Naiad being completed with 8 x 5.25 (C turret being suppressed and replaced by a 4” starshell gun and a quad pompom)
1938 Program
Charybdis 3.12.41
Cleopatra 5.12.41
Scylla 12.6.42
All being completed with 10 x 4.5” in Mk II mounts
1939 Program
Argonaut 8.8.42
Bellona 29.10.43
Black Prince 20.11.43
Diadem 6.1.44
Royalist 10.9.43
Spartan 10.8.43
All being completed with 10 x 4.5” in Mk IV mounts, and lengthened hulls for longer range and more internal volume
A switch to the available 4.5 means these ships are still able to overpower a disguised merchant raider. This means they are the C/D replacement as the fleet screen. AA and minimum trade protection cruiser.
Town Class
No change
Colony class
The need to build 16” guns means that something has to give at Vickers. Skilled manpower is not quickly to be expanded, and industrial capability has to be freed up for this job.
This will be orders for 6” triples. Fiji, Kenya, and Nigeria will be the only ships to commission as 12-gun ships. They will lose their C turrets in 1942 to arm Newfoundland. Mauritius will lose hers before completion.
The rest will complete with 9 guns only. This class is the RN ‘general purpose’ cruiser.
County Replacement
The Washington Treaty CA was a second class capital ship. It was forced into this role due to the mass scrapping of all older BB and BC by that Treaty. War service plus age means these ships will not last to 1950.
The County replacement must be a Station flagship with full flagship capability. It must be a second class capital ship in that it must force any enemy to deploy a capital ship to deal with it.
The cruisers being examined in January 1940 were 9 gun 12,500t 8” and a 9 gun 15,500t 8”. The other large cruiser being looked at was a 11,000t uprated Town with 12 x 6”.
There is no real difference in combat power between these 8” and 6” designs, and no real advantage over the existing Town class.
The drivers applying, then, are exactly those which applied to the Elizabethans when it was decided to complete the class in 1919. What is required is a second class capital ship superior to any cruiser building or planned, and demanding a ship of at least capital ship status to deal with it. This ship has to be affordable, as a minimum of 8 are needed. The Australians can be relied on to order one. Ships of this class can be expected to see war service.
The central problem is that the 8” gun is too light to demand a capital ship in response. Yet, a ship using 12” guns will be 25,000 tons and that is not affordable.
The logical response is an ‘expanded County’ type of hull with 8 x 9.2” guns in four twin turrets. This gun can make a capital ship wince, fires as fast as the 8”, and is superior to any cruiser gun. This is because it hits a ‘sweet spot’ in the range of guns and in shell ballistics. Even better, the RN has much experience with this weapon, which makes development of a new 9.2 a low-risk project. Twin 9.2” mounts have also been built in the past, giving a design basis, and also mitigating risk.
Oct 2010 Edit: The bit in blue above proved to be a load of total bollocks. Turns out that the RN was examining a 9.2" cruiser with triple turrets. So teh Warrior class becomes a ship with 9.2" triples.
This ship cannot be armoured against guns of 12” and up, so it will be armoured against 8” gunfire and have a 4.5” belt.
This cruiser will also be a break with current RN practise. The RN will spend money on the USN tachymetric AA director systems for this class (cash and carry). This is an AC system, so these ships must be AC ships. In 1940, RN DC ships lose up to 10% of their generating capacity wasted in having to convert it to AC for electronic system use.
If the ship has to be AC, then the turrets can also be electric, which saves on weight and cost. With this level of innovation occurring, it also makes sense to improve their range and engine efficiency by adopting higher-pressure steam plants for which the resources now exist for R&D.
The bit in blue above ALSO turned out to be nonsense. That might be teh consequence of a 1944 decision, but this is 1940-41. So she does get a lot more generation plant as radar and tropicalisation (air conditioning) demands, but she stays with hydraulic turrets.
The result will be a return to three cruiser classes in the RN. The Armoured Cruiser, a semi-capital ship with full flagship capability, the Cruiser, a general purpose vessel with limited flagship capability, and the Leader, a minimum trade protection ship, AA vessel and fleet surface screen ship with the ability to act as flagship of a DD flotilla.
Warrior Class
~18,000t
4.5” belt, 2” deck, 4” over magazines and machinery
3 x 3 9.2”
8 x 2 4.5”
32 kt deep and dirty
4 ordered 1941 for completion 1944/45 (Warrior, Defence, Bellerophon, Australia ex Minotaur)
4 ordered 1942 for completion 1945/46 (Superb, Tiger, Blake, Minotaur ex Hawke)
Late war 6” Design
This will be based on Colony with 3 twin 6” automatics. Post-war realities will mean that, at best, some Colony class will be rebuilt with 2 x twin 6” automatics in A and Y positions, utilising the magazines originally built for 6 x 6” at each end.
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Mar 28 10 3:18 AM
Just call me Author
Mar 28 10 11:48 PM
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Apr 1 10 3:40 PM
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Apr 4 10 6:18 AM
Umpire
James1978 wrote:Mark, Pretty much every discussion I've ever seen that mentions the idea of building 9.2" cruisers ends up nixing the idea over the issue of gun pits needed to build new rifles. Can you address this issue and how you see it playing out in APOD?
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Apr 7 10 11:20 AM
Apr 7 10 11:40 AM
Apr 9 10 9:46 PM
Battleships--The drivers for the completion of VANGUARD, LION and TEMERAIRE have been established and the projected completion dates set. In light of the identified need for an efficient medium calibre AA gun and the recognized shortage of the 5.25" guns, would consideration be given to completing these ships with 20 x 4.5" in BD mtgs MK III? IRC, the orginal design of the KGV's had this armament until it was decided that the 4.5" was too light for anti-destroyer work. The mounting is "slightly" easier to produce that the heavier gun mount and the production is on the same assembly line at Vickers and can be accomplished at other facilities as well.
As an aside, enough twin 15" exist to complete 2 VANGUARDs without disarming any existing ships. There are the four mountings which were used in VANGUARD, a spare mounting used in the monitor ABERCROMBIE, the mount from MARSHAL SOULT used in ROBERTS and the two mounts in EREBUS and TERROR.
Aircraft Carriers--I think the AUDACIOUS class is still a viable option. The design exists and the material requirements will be less than the MALTA class. And it meets the requirement for an American sized airgroup. Even with the design revisions incorporated in 1941/42, this will get a large carrier in service faster than the MALTA design.
I have always been a big fan of the COLOSSUS class; relatively inexpensive, easy to build and embarking a good sized airgroup for the size of the ship. Looking at the origins of the class, as a fighter carrier, this is your platform to get naval fighters over the fleet. Its biggest flaw is the lack of speed. I think it would be reasonable to build enough of the class to meet the immediate needs of the fleet and then move on to the CENTAURs. This class addresses the need for more speed to act with the fleet without a huge increase in size.
To my way of the thinking, the biggest problem with British carriers operations is not the size of the airgroup, but the doctrine on its use. They seemed to be wedded to the small deck strike, regardless of the number of aircraft embarked. The RN needs to switch to USN style deckhandling and strike size.
Cruisers--IMVHO, there is not a material need to reduce the FIJI's to 9 gun ships, sufficient production facilities exist to build enough triple mounting for these ships. Now the sort of change in staff requirements that lead to the design of the UGANDAs may be sufficient to warrant the change to 9 guns.
With the DIDO's, I would complete the last three of the original group, CLEOPATRA, SIRIUS and ARGONAUT as repeats of CHARYBDIS. There are sufficient UD mtg MK II available to accomplish this without any effect of production of guns and mountings if you replace the UD MK II's on some of the depot ships with twin 4". The remainder of the orginal group, I would replace Q turret in the 10 gun ships and the 4" in the 8 gun ships with a quad 2 pdr. The DIADEM's should be completed as design OTL. With the completion of three extra ships armed with 4.5", there will be considerable resistance, IMVHO, to reverting to the smaller calibre for the remainder. The cruiser qualities of these ships will be considered more valuable than the additional AA value they may bring.If completing the last three DIDOs with the UD mounting is unacceptable, I propose using the BD mtg MK III in lieu of the MK IV. The MK IV will not be available in any considerable numbers until late 1943 and will be needed for destroyers. The deeper hulls of the cruisers should accommodate the MK III without any trouble and the MK III is in production now.
Concerning the "County" replacements, I see two options, with subsets. First, build a new 9.2" gun. I think this is the least probable course of action as the resources just are not there to design and build a new gun. The second option is to use an existing gun. Here I can see three possibilities. 1. use the MK IXs in storage. This gun, while a bit long in the tooth, is in widespread use with plenty of support and ammunition distributed around the world. 2. Use the 9.2"/50 that are in storage. These guns were removed from the NELSONs and armoured cruisers, but no mounting exist. Since the new ships would require a new turret and mounting, this is not an obstacle. 3. D. K. Brown refers to a MK XV gun developed as an improved MK IX, but never put into service. He mentions that 36 guns were ordered, and some were proofed, but he does not know if all of the guns were built.
The second option is to buy American. It has been implied that the US will provide a replacement for AUSTRALIA, which I assume ( with all of the dangers that entails) that this means the transfer of a BALTIMORE class CA. This introduces the 8"/55 to the British/Commonwealth inventory. But this is a one off situation, so that this ship is really only supportable from Australia. This leads to two possibilities; buy the guns, mountings and fire control equipment from the US or buy incomplete BALTIMORE cruisers from the US and complete them to meet RN requirements. The clarity of hindsight shows that these ships were used by the USN postwar in exactly the role of second class battleship proposed for the British ships. This may be a politically unpalatable option, but it leaves British construction resources free for other projects.
Finally, concerning cruisers, I would still try to get the US to convert two "D" class into anti-aircraft cruisers with 5"/38 guns. This adds to the anti-aircraft capability of the fleet using what would otherwise be marginally useful hulls. The remaining "C" and "D" should be transfered to minor allies (Poland, Greece, Brazil?) or used for alongside duties such as static training ships or berthing hulks
What is the status of the Destroyers for Bases deal. I think most of the drivers that lead to that arrangement still exist. British destroyer losses up to the loss of France are still there and while I recognize that these are less than ideal ships, they are still hulls in the water. Remember, these are not Lend-Lease assets, these ships were transfered directly to British ownership, lock, stock and keel plate.
And what direction is British destroyer development taking. Will we still see the large number of utility ships followed by the large fleet destroyers or will we see a more limited construction of the utility type and the "U/V/W/Z/C" classes be something more akin to the "Battles"?Basically, Geoff has proposed as close to OTL as possible.
Apr 10 10 3:13 PM
Thanks for the update.IIRC, the discussions on the construction of US bases on British territory began pre-war, though obviously without any talk of swapping old destroyers for basing rights. The drivers for such bases still exist from the US point of view, though the British will not be under the same pressure. Has any consideration been given to going ahead with the agreement, but instead of old destroyers, the British receive modern materials in lieu. And not necessarily military hardware, but perhaps a certain number of modern fast tankers or refrigerated cargo ships each year for the duration of the war as payment.My remarks on the 15" mountings were for frefernce only, I was not suggesting disarming TERROR or EREBUS, though I think MARSHAL SOULT will still lost her turret.What is the status of the Future Building Committee?I refered to using the US 8"/55 due to its performance vis-a-vis the 9.2"/45. The heavy shell fired by the US gun has a better performance than the older 9.2" and at the 335 pounds, is not much lighter. While I definately agree that acquiring US built cruisers is a no-go, I think that getting the guns is a possibility. If this is an absolute non-starter as well, what about the 8" mk IX/X. The design was approved in 1941 and I believe one gun was proofed, though I am not on sure ground there. A modern all steel 8" would be better than an old design 9.2", even if updated. (My opinion only and we know the value of opinions.)Another question I have concerns the old Coventry Ordnance Works facility at Scotstoun. It is still in operation run by Harlond Wolff and resumed building gun mountings in 1936. Would it have the capacity to build new turrets for the projected large cruiser, taking the load off of the Vickers plant?Again, thanks for all of the great stories and information. I never fail to learn something from this site.SlainteGator
Apr 12 10 7:48 AM
Apr 12 10 10:11 AM
Thanks for the clarification.Scotstoun built mountings up to the twin 5.25", I can't find any reference for anything larger, and it is my impression that they did not build any of the guns for their products. They did do the upgrades for the 15" installed in VANGUARD, so the erection pits do still exist. COW did build 15" guns, though I suspect those facilities are gone, and did build the turrets and mountings for 15", and some of that capacity apparently remains.Harlond Wolff used the facilities to build diesel engines for a period and did return the Scotstoun plant to the production naval gun mountings in 1936. With the increase of British capacity in APOD, I think that some might be invested in expanding this facility, at least to the ability to build 6" turrets, and possibily 8", though this is a stretch. My point was, (and made badly on my part), that if Scotstoun picks up more of the production for the smaller medium calibre gun mountings, that leaves more capacity at Vickers.
slainte,
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