Probably for Neil only: WI 30 knot Nelsons?

[grumbler]

One of the boards I visit has a thread about the Nelson class re-imagined as 30 knot fast battleships, sacrificing a 16" turret to gain the space necessary (thus ending up with a main battery of 2x3 16" guns).  I thought it a very interesting idea.   Those ships would be actually useful as something other than convoy escorts and shore bombardment ships, and I'd think could take a Bismarck even with just six main guns.

Thoughts?

Pic, though it has the stacks too far forward, given the thinking at the time that the  engine rooms should be before the boiler rooms

[Ed Anger]

Still an ugly ship.

[grumbler]

Still an ugly ship.

With 1921 boiler technology you can't get a good looking and well-protected ship.  Nagato is probably the closest comparison, and her protection sucked.

[CountDeMoney]

I dunno...while I can appreciate the speed increase, I simply can't abide losing an additional turret that could shell the fuck out of Ed at Chateau du Handicapé from the Channel.

[Ed Anger]

 

[Ideologue]

You know he's under 100 feet of earth and concrete.  He's safe.  He'll emerge from his spiderhole with his army of brides and progeny and push the landing back into the sea.

[Ed Anger]

I would release the Panzers.

[Ideologue]

EXPLOIT THE ENEMY REAR AREAS, DISRUPT COMMUNICATIONS, AND SEIZE THEIR ICE CREAM!

[Admiral Yi]

  Yellow fever.

[CountDeMoney]

That's the Shanghai GM supply chain rep that oversees ignition switches.

[Eddie Teach]

Yellow fever.

Isn't it the reason you exist? 

[dps]

Wtih that bow, the ship's not going to be doing 30 knots in anything but a dead calm, I'd think. 

[Neil]

It's certainly interesting to think about.  The sacrifice of the turret gives them 1500 tons to play with, but to get 30 knots out of a relatively short hull like the Nelsons, you'd probably need something like 130-140,000 horsepower.  And in the years before high pressure superheated steam, that's going to take up some serious weight and space, probably a similar stretch to what you saw on the Hood.  That means you have to lengthen the citadel.  Once you do that, you start running into problems with making tonnage.  560 lb armour plate really adds up in a hurry.  You would also need to run four propellers, rather than two.

Now, as good a move as that would be from a 1940 standpoint, I don't think that the British could have possibly made that decision in 1923.  The whole reason for building Rodney and Nelson was to be able to destroy the Marylands and (especially) the Nagatos.  Speed was certainly a useful factor, but the British battlefleet already had an advantage in speed over the Americans, and the Japanese were thought to have similar speed to the British.  And when you consider that Hood, Renown and Repulse were probably the most powerful fast ships in the world, and nobody was able to build any new capital ships, I can understand why the British felt that firepower over speed was the way to go.  Especially since the thinking at the time was of fleet actions rather than the smaller engagements of WWII.  Why have a ship that sacrifices firepower for speed when the fleet that they would be  opperating with would make 25 knots at best (assuming a fast wing of the battlefleet consisting only of the Queen Elizabeths and the battlecruisers), and probably less than that?

The reversal of engine rooms and boilers on the Nelsons was done because of the relative width of engine rooms vs. boiler rooms (putting the wider engine rooms in a wider part of the ship) and also because it kept the vulnerable uptakes further away from the main magazines.  On a four-shaft hull, you might have seen a more conventional arrangement.

All that said, I agree with your assessment that even with a reduced main armament they would still be a formidable opponent for a Bismarck, and certainly capable of destroying the German ship.  It would be more useful in a variety of roles, although crappy British AA suites would keep them from matching the all-around utility of USN battleships.

[Neil]

BTW:  What kind of a board has such interesting discussions?

[grumbler]

BTW:  What kind of a board has such interesting discussions?

It's the old warships1 board, reincarnated at http://warships1discussionboards.yuku.com/directory#.U7n-RPldU6U