Which fourth-generation dreadnought do you think looks best?

[Monoriu]

Yamato.  There is even a spaceship version of it

[Habsburg]

Richelieu class.  Tres sex-a.

[grumbler]

Grumbler, why do you keep harping on about "extra" turrets - the turrets on that hypothetical ship are from Anson and Howe.

Why do you keep harping on the fact that i specifically note that these turrets are used because they are deemed surplus to requirments?  You do not actually believe that the British would build such a ship in preference to one with four triple `6" turrets, do you?

In other words, they are not a brilliant choice, but they are already there, and replacing two small ships with one larger ship really does not make a lot of difference given when Anson and Howe were completed historically.

And because they are "already there" is why I "harp on" the fact that they are already there.  The new ship could not be designed, bid out, laid down, constructed, and finished anywhere nearly as quickly as Anson and Howe could be just finished, especially because the Anson and Howe's construction was benefiting from lessons learned from building the previous three ships of the class.

Still, it is only a hypothetical, and I am well aware that such a concept did not cross the Admiralty's mind; doesn't change the fact that it would be an interesting ship for a naval combat simulation.

It is, frankly, a rather silly concept.  While a single larger ship would be cheaper to operate than a pair of smaller ones, it couldn't possibly be designed and built in time to see action in the war (as the Vanguard already showed).  If it was going to be ordered sufficiently far in advance of the war to be finished during the war, then it would be better-built with 16" guns (but then you are just duplicating the Lions on a larger scale, and a better design than this one existed for that already).

[Agelastus]

Why do you keep harping on the fact that i specifically note that these turrets are used because they are deemed surplus to requirments?  You do not actually believe that the British would build such a ship in preference to one with four triple "16" turrets, do you?

As I've made clear elsewhere, no. However, it is more likely to be built than a ship with triple 16" guns. Incidentally, you are the one who blocked that possibility by debunking the idea of scrapping Nelson and Rodney.

And because they are "already there" is why I "harp on" the fact that they are already there.  The new ship could not be designed, bid out, laid down, constructed, and finished anywhere nearly as quickly as Anson and Howe could be just finished, especially because the Anson and Howe's construction was benefiting from lessons learned from building the previous three ships of the class.

You are ignoring the real life examples of Renown and Repulse here, are you not? I repeat, the long lead time items for this ship come from a cancelled Anson and Howe. Now, the idea would only occur to the Admiralty if somehow preliminary information regarding Yamato had leaked (and not been fully understood) which is unlikely, but if it was constructed it would be ready considerably quicker than Vanguard. As I said, Anson and Howe did not enter service until 1942, a good couple of years too late anyway. The author of this particular "alt history" has the ship entering service in 1944; however, given in reality the decision to construct such a ship could not be made later than 1939 (early 1940 at the absolute latest), I can easily see an in service date of 1943 for this vessel.

[grumbler]

As I've made clear elsewhere, no. However, it is more likely to be built than a ship with triple 16" guns.

Why is it more likely to be built than an effective ship with superior weapons?  I would think the opposite is true.

Incidentally, you are the one who blocked that possibility by debunking the idea of scrapping Nelson and Rodney.

Scrapping the Rodson is a likelier outcome than building a ship like this one.

You are ignoring the real life examples of Renown and Repulse here, are you not? I repeat, the long lead time items for this ship come from a cancelled Anson and Howe.

I think you are confused here.  Renown and Repulse commissioned in August and September 1916, and Anson and Howe were not even ordered until April of that year.

Now, the idea would only occur to the Admiralty if somehow preliminary information regarding Yamato had leaked (and not been fully understood) which is unlikely, but if it was constructed it would be ready considerably quicker than Vanguard.

I am not sure why this would be true.  In what year are you postulating this ship being ordered?

As I said, Anson and Howe did not enter service until 1942, a good couple of years too late anyway. 

I am not sure what "too late" means in this context.  The Royal navy was were delighted to have Anson and Howe in 1942, and their arrival relieved a great deal of strain in maintaining the watch over Germany's "Fleet in Being." 

The author of this particular "alt history" has the ship entering service in 1944; however, given in reality the decision to construct such a ship could not be made later than 1939 (early 1940 at the absolute latest), I can easily see an in service date of 1943 for this vessel.

I don't think the British shipyards were capable of delivering a ship in less than five years from the time of its ordering (particularly a lead ship). 

[Neil]

The real question is how they are going to get 33 knots out of a 55,000-ton, 900+-foot long hull in an affordable manner.  The British wouldn't have the advantage of American powerplant designs, nor could they afford to construct her out of similar materials to the Iowa.

Moreover, because of the additional length in the middle and the additional turret, the added length over th KGV is almost all in the armour belt, which means it would disproportionately add to the displacement.  The Iowas managed because their citadel was relatively short for such a long ship.  Unless this was armoured with on the scale of a Great War battlecruiser, it would be hard to see this working out.

[Agelastus]

Grumbler, I give up trying to reply point by point with quotes...I just can't do it with the problem I have with the reply box scrolling down for long posts... 

I'll have to do it, "by the numbers" - sorry.

(1) It's more likely to be built than a ship with 16" guns for two reasons, firstly that the Admiralty will not scrap Nelson and Rodney, and the second is the time required to construct new 16" turrets, the absolute longest lead time item of this sort of warship. I can't even borrow the turrets from the first two Lions given how little progress was made on them by September 1939.

(2) Skipped.

(3) Renown and Repulse were built using materials (ie. guns and armour) already on order for three R class battleships. This allowed them to be completed in less than two years from being laid down to commissioning. When you add the design time, you still don't get much more than two years for these ships. Allowing for wartime delays and the greater size of the hull, assuming the ship is laid down in late 1939/early 1940 I can easily see a completion date of 1943. If you eliminate Anson and Howe and consider the threat the British felt the Japanese represented by 1941, she should avoid some of the delays Vanguard suffered.

(4) The time frame for ordering this ship cannot be later than April 1940 (I do not know when the turrets were actually fitted to Anson and Howe, but given the hulls were launched in February and April 1940 I cannot delay too long.) If information on Yamato is leaked prior to September 1939 then it is quite likely that the Lion's would be redesigned and the plan be to use 16" guns. So I figure I have the period between roughly September 1939 to April 1940 for this sort of ship to be laid down.

(5) By 1942 you have the Bismarck sunk, and the Italian battleline crippled. You have Japan showing the world that the future was carrier aviation, and you have the USN in the war with roughly half its' battleline intact and some very good battleships in service, working up or under construction. If WWII had a "battleship period" it was between June 1940 and December 1941, and Anson and Howe both missed this period (I am not forgetting the Guadalcanal campaign here, but it is a very unlikely permutation that has British battleships involved here.)

(6) See above for the "Renown" contention of the argument. King George V took four years to complete, which if I recall correctly includes a six month period when all work on major warships was stopped because of a crisis in the repair of merchant shipping. If new turrets had to be built (or old turrets modernised, as with Vanguard) I would agree with you, but in this case the ship postulated is using guns and armour originally ordered in 1937.

[Agelastus]

I got tired of trying to edit the above post.

Two other thoughts.

(1) Given the original plan was for the 16" triple and the 14" quad to fit the same barbette, an alternative possibility could be that the ship was ordered in place of one of the Lions, but ended up armed with Anson and Howe's quads as a wartime emergency measure.

(2) Could Anson and Howe's hulls have seemed useful to the Admiralty as carriers given the Japanese example of the Kaga and the loss of both the Courageous and Glorious early in the war?

[Agelastus]

The real question is how they are going to get 33 knots out of a 55,000-ton, 900+-foot long hull in an affordable manner.  The British wouldn't have the advantage of American powerplant designs, nor could they afford to construct her out of similar materials to the Iowa.

I'll be honest, I havent simmed it but I do not see how such a ship would make 33 knots. Apart from the factors you list, it would be contrary to British practise of the time. I suspect if it was simmed the best you could manage would be in the 28-29 knot range.

[Neil]

(2) Could Anson and Howe's hulls have seemed useful to the Admiralty as carriers given the Japanese example of the Kaga and the loss of both the Courageous and Glorious early in the war?

Unlikely, given the low priority of fleet carrier aviation in the Atlantic war.  It's more likely that they would scratchbuild the Magnificent as a large carrier.

[grumbler]

Grumbler, I give up trying to reply point by point with quotes...I just can't do it with the problem I have with the reply box scrolling down for long posts... 

I had that issue until I just learned to yank the bottom of the window down until the message appeared in a single window.

(1) It's more likely to be built than a ship with 16" guns for two reasons, firstly that the Admiralty will not scrap Nelson and Rodney, and the second is the time required to construct new 16" turrets, the absolute longest lead time item of this sort of warship. I can't even borrow the turrets from the first two Lions given how little progress was made on them by September 1939.

I don't think that the turrets are necessarily that long-lead an item, if you are just duplicating existing designs. As noted below, the turrets for the Renown class were produced very quickly.

(3) Renown and Repulse were built using materials (ie. guns and armour) already on order for three R class battleships. This allowed them to be completed in less than two years from being laid down to commissioning.

They also had an absolute priority on materials, per Fischer.  The guns and turntables for the "R" class Renown and Repulse were, indeed, used, but new turrets were fabricated (since these had not been ordered - the guns and turntables had been ordered as spares in July 1914 when the Renown and Repulse were canceled, and the guns and turntables for Resistance were never ordered). 

When you add the design time, you still don't get much more than two years for these ships.

there was no "design time" for Renown and Repulse.  They were literally designed as they were built.   Even considering that, though, the speed of their construction was remarkable, though in no book I have attributed to the availability of the guns.

Allowing for wartime delays and the greater size of the hull, assuming the ship is laid down in late 1939/early 1940 I can easily see a completion date of 1943. If you eliminate Anson and Howe and consider the threat the British felt the Japanese represented by 1941, she should avoid some of the delays Vanguard suffered.

I don't see how this applies.  What would this ship have that Vanguard did not?  In nay case, I see absolutely no reason why the British would eliminate two under-construction battleships in favor of an untested design that would further delay getting guns to sea.  I cannot see any rationale for the British to deliberately risk a battleship disaster when Bismarck and Tirpitz finished and the British had so little that could face them.

(4) The time frame for ordering this ship cannot be later than April 1940 (I do not know when the turrets were actually fitted to Anson and Howe, but given the hulls were launched in February and April 1940 I cannot delay too long.) If information on Yamato is leaked prior to September 1939 then it is quite likely that the Lion's would be redesigned and the plan be to use 16" guns. So I figure I have the period between roughly September 1939 to April 1940 for this sort of ship to be laid down.

I understand the desire to postulate behemoths, but if the British really want tubes at sea because of Yamato, they would simply resume full-scale and full-priority production on the Anson and Howe (making them available in 1941) rather than stopping construction on them to start a whole new ship that would be delivered two years later.  The Lion and Temeraire, if built at normal wartime speed, would have been available before your ship.

(5) By 1942 you have the Bismarck sunk, and the Italian battleline crippled. You have Japan showing the world that the future was carrier aviation, and you have the USN in the war with roughly half its' battleline intact and some very good battleships in service, working up or under construction. If WWII had a "battleship period" it was between June 1940 and December 1941, and Anson and Howe both missed this period (I am not forgetting the Guadalcanal campaign here, but it is a very unlikely permutation that has British battleships involved here.)

The British repeatedly slowed construction on Anson and Howe to carry out other work.  Your proposed "emergency" would presumably not have seen this, or else your proposed battleship would have suffered precisely the delays that Vanguard did.

(6) See above for the "Renown" contention of the argument. King George V took four years to complete, which if I recall correctly includes a six month period when all work on major warships was stopped because of a crisis in the repair of merchant shipping. If new turrets had to be built (or old turrets modernised, as with Vanguard) I would agree with you, but in this case the ship postulated is using guns and armour originally ordered in 1937.

The problem with your concept, as I see it, is that the British would have had to decide that they faced an emergency, and then decided to respond with a weaker force (a single ship rather than two) that would be delivered two years later than the stronger force.  I just cannot see that being a good decision.

And, yes, there was a five-month delay in all battleship construction while workers were moved to a "crash" project, but that project was the arming of the almost-useless AMCs!  That is one of those decisions that, in retrospect, seems mad.

[Agelastus]

Grumbler, thanks for the advice regarding long posts.
:grumbles:  Why couldn't we just stick to the old software. :grumbles:

I think its' quite amusing that I am now trying to justify the possibility of a ship being constructed that I myself have said would never have been built. at myself.

Anyway, as for naval rifles and turret assemblies being "long lead time" items, remember that the Naval Scare of 1909 was partly based on the fear that Krupp was starting production of these items a year before the hulls they were for were due to be laid down. The theory that the Germans would have 21 dreadnoughts in service to the Royal Navy's 16 in 1913 can be attributed largely due to this fear, as it would allow the Germans to have a "hull laying to service time" of a year less than the Royal Navy relied on for its' predictions of German strength. I have not read anywhere that this fundamental relationship (gun time to hull time) had changed in the 1930s compared to the 1910s.

I do know, but am damned if I can find a convenient reference to hand, that among the first items ordered for any battleship, even ahead of hull materials, are the guns and the armour plate.

As for build time, if the British were responding to partial information on Yamato, then the ship would have priority. If they were not aware of Yamato, then the ship would not have been laid down as they already had a "Far East battleship" in Vanguard. The lack of delays is inherent in the reasons for the ship being laid down.

Of course, they also have the armour plate and guns ready as these items were ordered in 1937 for Anson and Howe, unlike materials for Vanguard which were not ordered until 1940 IIRC.

As for responding with one ship rather than two - well, "Magnificent" is a stopgap, built since the materials are there. That is, after all, the nature of an emergency measure. If I was DNC, I'd have a much better unit in mind for when it became possible to divert funds for new 16" turrets etc. Of course, by the time this became possible I'd be screaming "carriers, carriers, carriers"!!!

I am aware of a six month delay in all major warship construction due to the neccessity to clear a backlog of merchant ships needing repair in 1940. Since the AMCs were requisitioned in Autumn 1939, I don't think this is the same delay you are talking about, although I have not come across this one myself. If they are separate instances, then the four year construction time for KGV should be cut to a three year construction time for a ship without delays. We are, after all, talking about 11 months of stoppage there!

[grumbler]

I think its' quite amusing that I am now trying to justify the possibility of a ship being constructed that I myself have said would never have been built. at myself. 

It is entertaining, sometimes, to debate a topic you don't actually care a lot about, just for the info that you have to pick up to make your points.

Anyway, as for naval rifles and turret assemblies being "long lead time" items, remember that the Naval Scare of 1909 was partly based on the fear that Krupp was starting production of these items a year before the hulls they were for were due to be laid down. The theory that the Germans would have 21 dreadnoughts in service to the Royal Navy's 16 in 1913 can be attributed largely due to this fear, as it would allow the Germans to have a "hull laying to service time" of a year less than the Royal Navy relied on for its' predictions of German strength. I have not read anywhere that this fundamental relationship (gun time to hull time) had changed in the 1930s compared to the 1910s.

I ran across an interesting tidbit looking for info on this topic:  the Erebus class monitors were ordered on a crash basis in 1915, and to complete them ASAP they took two turrets from Royal Oak and assigned them to this project, and ordered two more turrets built for Royal Oak.  Royal Oak commissioned 28 months after being laid down, exactly the same amount of time as Royal Sovereign, which had been laid down the same day but had not had any turrets diverted.  I think guns can be the log pole in the tent, especially for a new class with new guns (pretty much every source I have agrees that this is true for at least some ships), but clearly they aren't always such (especially, perhaps, when they are repeats of a well-known design).

As for build time, if the British were responding to partial information on Yamato, then the ship would have priority. If they were not aware of Yamato, then the ship would not have been laid down as they already had a "Far East battleship" in Vanguard. The lack of delays is inherent in the reasons for the ship being laid down.

I am just not convinced that the British would have abandoned two under-construction battleships for one hypothetical one, which would be delivered two years later than the battleships it displaced.  I agree with the rest of your reasoning.

Of course, they also have the armour plate and guns ready as these items were ordered in 1937 for Anson and Howe, unlike materials for Vanguard which were not ordered until 1940 IIRC.

As for responding with one ship rather than two - well, "Magnificent" is a stopgap, built since the materials are there. That is, after all, the nature of an emergency measure. If I was DNC, I'd have a much better unit in mind for when it became possible to divert funds for new 16" turrets etc. Of course, by the time this became possible I'd be screaming "carriers, carriers, carriers"!!! 

I am not sure how much use the Anson and Howe's plate would be for a new ship.

I am aware of a six month delay in all major warship construction due to the neccessity to clear a backlog of merchant ships needing repair in 1940. Since the AMCs were requisitioned in Autumn 1939, I don't think this is the same delay you are talking about, although I have not come across this one myself. If they are separate instances, then the four year construction time for KGV should be cut to a three year construction time for a ship without delays. We are, after all, talking about 11 months of stoppage there!

The AMCs were requisitioned at the start of the war, and the construction holiday occurred that fall and into early 1940 (but didn't apply to escorts).  I am not aware of a six month holiday of all major construction in 1940, but that is just due to lack of information.

[Neil]

I don't think that much of the armour plate would be usable, given how much thicker the KGV armour plate would be next to the Magnificent.

[Agelastus]

I ran across an interesting tidbit looking for info on this topic:  the Erebus class monitors were ordered on a crash basis in 1915, and to complete them ASAP they took two turrets from Royal Oak and assigned them to this project, and ordered two more turrets built for Royal Oak.  Royal Oak commissioned 28 months after being laid down, exactly the same amount of time as Royal Sovereign, which had been laid down the same day but had not had any turrets diverted.  I think guns can be the log pole in the tent, especially for a new class with new guns (pretty much every source I have agrees that this is true for at least some ships), but clearly they aren't always such (especially, perhaps, when they are repeats of a well-known design).

There is a good chance that these two turrets would be the remaining pair of the eight ordered for the original Renown and Repulse (the battlecruisers only requiring six, but I doubt that the relevant information is on the net.) I'll have to believe you when you say Resistance' turrets were never ordered.

If the problem of the guns lengthening build time was specific to Krupp and Germany not being able to produce guns as quickly as British manufacturers, this may be due to technique, as the German 15" of WWI was an all-steel, rather than wire-wound type. Which is interesting as the British moved to a very similar technique, as I understand it, for the 14" rifles of the 1930s. So something that may not have been a problem for the British in WWI became one in WWII!

The AMCs were requisitioned at the start of the war, and the construction holiday occurred that fall and into early 1940 (but didn't apply to escorts).  I am not aware of a six month holiday of all major construction in 1940, but that is just due to lack of information.

My knowledge of the "general stop" comes from reading the detailed discussions from the FFO alternate history, where they use the continued presence of France in the war (with its' merchant ships) as a justification for the "general stop" not happening in their alternate history. I shall try an hunt down the posts for the references they sited.

Unfortunately, the most comprehensive site of their postings is in French, not a particularly strong suit of mine.