1930s Air Ministry surprise sanity options

[dave_r_gilbert]

If you sort out the Bristol Taurus earlier then their are some interesting possible butterflies for both the AM and the FAA. Both the Gloster F5/34 and the F9/37 can go into production with 1200hp engines. Also the Bristol 148 can be built as Skua substitute, 300mph top speed and a 48mph landing speed would be pretty useful on a carrier (especially the slower ones). Further, give the DH, Flamingo two 1200hp Taurus engines and you have a British built replacement for the Hudson which keeps Dollars for other purchases (machine tools to build more engines).
Put a Taurus into a Hurricane as a flying test bed and you have an radial engine fighter for the far east, there are companies who can build Hurricanes in 1937 who do not have the skill to build more advanced stressed skin aircraft such as the Gloster F5/34 and the Supermarine Spitfire. Another factor is that the one piece wing spar of the Gloster F5/34 makes it more difficult to crate up and ship compared to the Hurricane
Please have this sense of sanity in the AM cancel all ideas of the Turret fighter!

Not doing the Aquila and Taurus at all, and using the effort to get the Hercules earlier is probably a better option.
A Henly with a Hercules on front, built as a Divebomber/TB works very well as a Skua replacement.
Add in a Hurricane with a Hercules on front, and that provides a nice shipload with lots of common parts.
The Henly/ Sea Hurricane combo knocks the Sea Glad/Skua/Roc combination out of the park.

In order to replace the Hudson you don't need the Flamingo.
For training and light transport the Anson and Airspeed Oxford do nicely, and for coastal patrol the Bristol Beaufort (with Hercules) would do the job at least as well.

The OTL Flamingo had the Perseus, at about 900hp.
An expanded version with the Hercules at 1300-1500hp would be a home-grown equivalent of the DC3.

 

[Just Leo]

An expanded version with the Hercules at 1300-1500hp would be a home-grown equivalent of the DC3.

Airspeed did have a licence to build DC3, the real one, but decided to use it for their dog instead.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

So you propose an all Ark Royal class carrier fleet. Six 22,000t ships in treaty, then extra or a new larger design from 1937/38?

Since this supposed to be more about a difference choice using information at the time, rather than hindsight designs and choices, I like it. Imagine that the UK gets a magic eight ball that helps them make good choices, but only within options presented at the time.

These would be all unarmoured but with a decent TPS. Something to bear in mind for any follow up design in 1936/37. Your Illustrious order for six could follow on from this. The armoured brown water fleet carriers for operating within bf109 range of the coast. I'm thinking of the Med and North Sea.

The Dreadnought class Aircraft Carriers

This was a the Ark Royal design of OTL enlarged from 22,000 to 22,500 tons. They had conventional single-level lifts instead of the two-level lifts of OTL. If possible the width of the hangars was increased from 60ft to 62ft. Six ships were built as follows:

• HMS Dreadnought ordered 1930-31 Estimates. Laid down 1931, launched 1933 and completed 1934. She replaced HMS Argus, which became a depot ship for Queen Bee target drones as OTL;
  
• HMS Marlborough ordered 1931-32 Estimates. Laid down 1932, launched 1934 and completed 1935. She replaced HMS Eagle, which became an aircraft maintenance ship;
  
• HMS Monarch ordered 1932-33 Estimates. Laid down 1933, launched 1935 and completed 1936. She was to have replaced HMS Hermes, which would have been converted into a seaplane carrier. However, the abolition of tonnage quotas by the 1936 London Naval Treaty gave Hermes a reprieve;
  
• HMS Canopus ordered 1933-34 Estimates. Laid down 1934, launched 1936 and completed 1937. She was to have replaced HMS Furious, which being 20 years old would have been scrapped. However, the abolition of tonnage quotas by the 1936 London Naval Treaty gave Furious a reprieve;
  
• HMS Ark Royal ordered 1934-35 Estimates. Laid down 1935, launched 1937 and completed 1938. She was to have replaced HMS Courageous, which being 22 years old would have been scrapped. However, the abolition of tonnage quotas by the 1936 London Naval Treaty gave Courageous a reprieve;
  
• HMS Benbow ordered 1935-36 Estimates. Laid down 1936, launched 1938 and completed 1939. She was to have replaced HMS Glorious, which being 23 years old would have been scrapped. However, the abolition of tonnage quotas by the 1936 London Naval Treaty gave Courageous a reprieve.

Therefore the situation in September 1939 was ten aircraft carriers (6 Ark Royal class, the 3 Follies and Hermes) plus Argus and Eagle in commission as auxiliaries and the seaplane carriers Albatross and Pegasus.

New Construction
IOTL

The Royal Navy based its aircraft carrier requirements on the number of aircraft the fleet needed and then worked out the number of aircraft carriers it needed to accommodate them. When it was planning for a war against Japan only the requirement was for 360 aircraft to be accommodated in 5 aircraft carriers each carrying 72 aircraft. ITTL the requirement was still for 360 aircraft aboard 5 aircraft carriers plus a spare as one ship would always be refitting.

However, between the laying down of Ark Royal and October 1935 the Royal Navy had reduced its requirement for the fleet to 300 aircraft because multi-role aircraft like the TSR (Swordfish) meant the same roles could be performed by a smaller number of aircraft. Furthermore with the abolition of tonnage quotas it decided that the 300 aircraft would be carried by seven 23,000 ton carriers carrying 36 aircraft each and Ark Royal, carrying 48 aircraft.

The abolition of tonnage quotas allowed the construction of trade protection aircraft carriers. There requirement was for 5 and a training carrier. However, unlike the later escort carriers these ships were to operate on the far seas hunting down surface raiders. They needed to carry enough aircraft to mount a search pattern to find the raider and then launch an air strike large enough to sink it. The sketch designs came out at £3 million each carrying 18 aircraft each (about £150,000 per aircraft). This wasn't much less than an Illustrious that cost £4 million and carried 36 aircraft (about £100,000 per aircraft). Therefore the Admiralty decided to only build Illustrious class ships.

Thus the 14 carrier force was to consist of 10 Illustrious class, Ark Royal and the 3 Courageous class. The plan was to order the Illustrious class at the rate of 2 per year in the 1936-37 to 1940-41 estimates.

Quote Page 130 to 131 form British Carrier Aviation - The Evolution of the Ships and their Aircraft by Norman Friedman

When Ark Royal (Chapter 6) was laid down in 1934, the goal was a five-carrier force of maximum aircraft capacity, all units of which would accompany the main fleet(s). Washington and London (1930) Treaty restrictions on carrier replacement, moreover, dictated that a second unit could not be laid down until 1937.

I skimmed through my copies of both treaties and could find no article in either that prevented the Royal Navy from laying down a second aircraft carrier before 1st January 1937. I can only assume that it was a voluntary restriction placed on British naval construction by Ramsay McDonald like cutting 4 C class destroyers and restricting the number of the cruisers built in the 1929-30 to 1933-34 programmes (for completion by the end of 1936) to 91,000 tons worth.

The result was that Illustrious and Formidable (1936-37 Estimates) and Indomitable and Victorious (1937-38 Estimates) were all laid down in 1937. Defence cuts meant only one aircraft carrier (Implacable) was ordered in the 1938-39 and only one (Indefatigable) in the 1939-40 Estimates instead of 2 in each year as originally planned. Therefore a total of 6 Illustrious class ships were laid down before the end of 1939 instead of the planned 8.

ITTL

The new plan was still for 14 aircraft carriers (8 fleet, 5 trade protection and one training) consisting of the 6 Dreadnoughts and 8 Illustrious class which were to be ordered in pairs in the 1936-37 to 1939-40 Estimates. However, the number of ships ordered in the 1938-39 and 1939-40 Estimates was still cut back to one ship each.

On the other had the British Government imposed no voluntary restrictions on naval construction before the end of 1936. Therefore Illustrious and Formidable would be laid down at least 6 months earlier for completion by November 1939 (instead of May 1940) and May 1940 (instead of November 1940) respectively. Completing these ships 6 months earlier might release resources that allow Victorious and Indomitable to be completed earlier which in turn might have a knock on Implacable and Indefatigable.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Not sure if its been mentioned - give more support to Whittle and his jet engines

Who knows maybe these would have been in sky's during the Battle of Britain

Better and earlier wind tunnels and more of them

Buy the HS 404 20mm license earlier as soon as the rifle bullet calibre is deemed ineffective and buy it properly - this allows time for the icing and ammo feed issues to be ironed out earlier

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

The Dreadnought class Aircraft Carriers

This was a the Ark Royal design of OTL enlarged from 22,000 to 22,500 tons. They had conventional single-level lifts instead of the two-level lifts of OTL. If possible the width of the hangars was increased from 60ft to 62ft. Six ships were built as follows:

• HMS Dreadnought ordered 1930-31 Estimates. Laid down 1931, launched 1933 and completed 1934. She replaced HMS Argus, which became a depot ship for Queen Bee target drones as OTL;
  
• HMS Marlborough ordered 1931-32 Estimates. Laid down 1932, launched 1934 and completed 1935. She replaced HMS Eagle, which became an aircraft maintenance ship;
  
• HMS Monarch ordered 1932-33 Estimates. Laid down 1933, launched 1935 and completed 1936. She was to have replaced HMS Hermes, which would have been converted into a seaplane carrier. However, the abolition of tonnage quotas by the 1936 London Naval Treaty gave Hermes a reprieve;
  
• HMS Canopus ordered 1933-34 Estimates. Laid down 1934, launched 1936 and completed 1937. She was to have replaced HMS Furious, which being 20 years old would have been scrapped. However, the abolition of tonnage quotas by the 1936 London Naval Treaty gave Furious a reprieve;
  
• HMS Ark Royal ordered 1934-35 Estimates. Laid down 1935, launched 1937 and completed 1938. She was to have replaced HMS Courageous, which being 22 years old would have been scrapped. However, the abolition of tonnage quotas by the 1936 London Naval Treaty gave Courageous a reprieve;
  
• HMS Benbow ordered 1935-36 Estimates. Laid down 1936, launched 1938 and completed 1939. She was to have replaced HMS Glorious, which being 23 years old would have been scrapped. However, the abolition of tonnage quotas by the 1936 London Naval Treaty gave Courageous a reprieve.

Therefore the situation in September 1939 was ten aircraft carriers (6 Ark Royal class, the 3 Follies and Hermes) plus Argus and Eagle in commission as auxiliaries and the seaplane carriers Albatross and Pegasus.

I have changed my mind slightly about the above. Now I think that while the six ships were ordered at the rate of one a year 1930-31 to 1935-36, but that they were all laid down a year earlier and completed a year earlier with the fifth ship being named Benbow and the last Ark Royal as follows:

• HMS Dreadnought ordered 1930-31 Estimates. Laid down 1930, launched 1932 and completed 1933. She replaced HMS Argus, which became a depot ship for Queen Bee target drones as OTL;
  
• HMS Marlborough ordered 1931-32 Estimates. Laid down 1931, launched 1933 and completed 1934. She replaced HMS Eagle, which became an aircraft maintenance ship;
  
• HMS Monarch ordered 1932-33 Estimates. Laid down 1932, launched 1934 and completed 1935. She replaced HMS Hermes, which was converted into a seaplane carrier;
  
• HMS Canopus ordered 1933-34 Estimates. Laid down 1933, launched 1935 and completed 1936. She was to have replaced HMS Furious, which would have been scrapped. However, the abolition of tonnage quotas by the 1936 London Naval Treaty gave Furious a reprieve;
  
• HMS Benbow ordered 1934-35 Estimates. Laid down 1934, launched 1936 and completed 1937. She was to have replaced HMS Courageous, which would have been scrapped. However, the abolition of tonnage quotas by the 1936 London Naval Treaty gave Courageous a reprieve;
  
• HMS Ark Royal ordered 1935-36 Estimates. Laid down 1935, launched 1937 and completed 1938. She was to have replaced HMS Glorious, which would have been scrapped. However, the abolition of tonnage quotas by the 1936 London Naval Treaty gave Courageous a reprieve.

This reduces the aircraft carrier fleet to 9 ships (6 Dreadnought class and the 3 Follies) plus 3 seaplane carriers (Albatross, Hermes and Pegasus) and 2 auxiliaries (Argus and Eagle). However, it might be possible to convert Argus, Eagle and Hermes back to flush deck aircraft carriers. I think the main consideration for that would be the time it would take and whether the dockyards had the capacity to do it.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

New Construction
ITTL

The new plan was still for 14 aircraft carriers (8 fleet, 5 trade protection and one training) consisting of the 6 Dreadnoughts and 8 Illustrious class which were to be ordered in pairs in the 1936-37 to 1939-40 Estimates. However, the number of ships ordered in the 1938-39 and 1939-40 Estimates was still cut back to one ship each.

On the other had the British Government imposed no voluntary restrictions on naval construction before the end of 1936. Therefore Illustrious and Formidable would be laid down at least 6 months earlier for completion by November 1939 (instead of May 1940) and May 1940 (instead of November 1940) respectively. Completing these ships 6 months earlier might release resources that allow Victorious and Indomitable to be completed earlier which in turn might have a knock on Implacable and Indefatigable.

I have changed my mid about this too. IOTL the Admiralty soon decided that the Illustrious class carried too few aircraft, but attempts to add an extra hangar deck were frustrated by the 23,000 ton limit of the 1936 London Naval Treaty. This was the Admiralty's own fault because it was them who had the aircraft carrier limit reduced from 27,000 tons to 23,000 tons in the first place. The method behind that madness was to reduce the cost of individual aircraft carriers so that they could be built in larger numbers. However, it was a false economy because the reduction in cost was not worth the reduction in capability. If they had been built as 27,000 ton ships they would have been more expensive to build, but it would have been easier to rebuild them in the 1950s.

Therefore ITTL the 1936 LNT leaves aircraft carriers at 27,000 tons and a homogenous class of 6 enlarged Implacables is built instead of 3 Illustrious class, Indomitable and 2 Implacable class. The extra displacement is used to give the ships a pair of full-length hangars both 16ft high (the OTL Implacables hangars were both 14ft high) and a slight increase in the output of the boilers from 148,000 ship to 152,000 shp to maintain their maximum speed. The increase in size is about 25% and I think there would be a corresponding increase in cost from £4 million to £5 million. However, for that the air group is increased from 36 in an Illustrious to 72 in the Super Implacable and the construction cost per aircraft carried was about £100,000 for an Illustrious and £62,500 for a Super Implacable.

 

[steamboy]

What about the aircraft? Herc powered Hurricanes and Henley's?

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

What about the aircraft? Herc powered Hurricanes and Henley's?

Watch this space...

 

[steamboy]

Watch this space...

Shall also

https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ships-of-nations.326948/page-65#post-14271318

lemme know what ya think.

 

[sonofpegasus]

Here is another sanity idea for the AM/RAF. With the advent of RDF in 1936 and the setting up of coastal command the AM decide that they need a long range maritime Patrol aircraft that is not a flying boat. They seek idea's from the industry and Richard Fairy proposes a four engine aircraft comparable in size to a Sunderland but using four of his proposed H24 engines. The prototype flying 1939 with an ASV one installation. With a crew including four pilots and two engineers the aircraft sets a new endurance record flying a simulated patrol to look for raiders in the Atlantic. By 1940 the first two Squadrons are activated and are actively hunting down U boats and Commerce raiders, There is no Atlantic air gap! So ITTL there is a very different battle of the Atlantic.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Here is another sanity idea for the AM/RAF. With the advent of RDF in 1936 and the setting up of coastal command the AM decide that they need a long range maritime Patrol aircraft that is not a flying boat. They seek idea's from the industry and Richard Fairy proposes a four engine aircraft comparable in size to a Sunderland but using four of his proposed H24 engines. The prototype flying 1939 with an ASV one installation. With a crew including four pilots and two engineers the aircraft sets a new endurance record flying a simulated patrol to look for raiders in the Atlantic. By 1940 the first two Squadrons are activated and are actively hunting down U boats and Commerce raiders, There is no Atlantic air gap! So ITTL there is a very different battle of the Atlantic.

It would be simpler to buy more Wellingtons instead of the Botha and Hudson in the short term. Wellington doesn't have enough range to fill the Black Gap, but it does have more endurance than the Botha and Hudson.

Then amend B.1/35 and P.13/36 to 4 Merlins instead of 2 Vultures. The prototype of the Merlin Warwick might be ready a to fly sooner than the OTL Vulture powered Warwick and be ready to replace the Wellington on the five production lines of TTL (2 Blackburn and 3 Vickers) by the middle of 1940.

The Avro P.13/36 might also be flying sooner and be in service sooner. Effectively turning the OTL Manchester into the Lancaster would remove the need to prolong production of the Battle, Blenheim and Whitley. Furthermore the Halifax had its origins in a twin Vulture aircraft designed to B.1/35 that was cancelled. If it was ordered as a quad Merlin aircraft instead and not cancelled Handle Page might have got a quad Merlin heavy bomber into service a year earlier. However, it might not have been the Halifax as we know it.

Also the discussion has been skirting around the earlier construction of concrete runways. If that did happen 5 years earlier there is a good chance that the RAF would abandon flying boats in about 1935 in favour of modified heavy bombers for the LRMP role. That would mean the cancellation of the Sunderland and its Saunders Roe rival, the non-ordering of the Saro Lerwick and the Backburn B.20, Short Shetland and Saro Princess.

The construction of a chain of concrete runways along the Imperial Air Routes in the first half of the 1930s (so that the RAF can fly reinforcements to trouble spots) probably means that Imperial Airways orders more landplane airliners instead of the Short Empire Flying Boat and Golden Hind. Logically that would mean more AW Ensigns, but ITTL Short Brothers might design a better landplane powered by four Pegasus engines instead of the EFB that had superior performance to the Ensign. As a result Imperial Airways orders 14 extra Short Empire Landplane Airliners in place of the Ensign.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Not sure if its been mentioned - give more support to Whittle and his jet engines.

And when they are ready to go into production give the job to Rolls Royce instead of Rover.

Another one for @Just Leo. How much time did that blunder waste? Personally I doubt that avoiding the Rover interlude of about 2 years would automatically advance the entry of the Welland and Derwent into service by 2 years. However, I do think that a year is reasonable and that will bring the other RR engines based on Whittle's work forward by one year too.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

And when they are ready to go into production give the job to Rolls Royce instead of Rover.

Another one for @Just Leo. How much time did that blunder waste? Personally I doubt that avoiding the Rover interlude of about 2 years would automatically advance the entry of the Welland and Derwent into service by 2 years. However, I do think that a year is reasonable and that will bring the other RR engines based on Whittle's work forward by one year too.

Regarding this matter - I am a work so cannot do much research - but didn't the disinterest shown in the UK allow several patents to lapse in the 30s and be snapped up by other parties including those in Germany? More interest shown in the 30s and this data might have been better guarded and potential be far more advanced that OTL

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Regarding this matter - I am a work so cannot do much research - but didn't the disinterest shown in the UK allow several patents to lapse in the 30s and be snapped up by other parties including those in Germany? More interest shown in the 30s and this data might have been better guarded and potential be far more advanced that OTL

I've not heard of that before.

However, a good maxim is never sell advanced technology to the Soviet Union regardless of how desperate you are for the money.

ITTL we are going to have much better jet engines at the end of World War II and all other things being equal sell them to the Russians. That would allow them to build something better than the MiG 15 and its immediate successors, which would cancel out any improvements to western fighters in the 1950s that giving extra support to Whittle would bring.

 

[merlin]

And when they are ready to go into production give the job to Rolls Royce instead of Rover.

Another one for @Just Leo. How much time did that blunder waste? Personally I doubt that avoiding the Rover interlude of about 2 years would automatically advance the entry of the Welland and Derwent into service by 2 years. However, I do think that a year is reasonable and that will bring the other RR engines based on Whittle's work forward by one year too.

The problem there - is Whittle, his view was the conventional aero-engine makers had a vested interest in not making his engines a success, hence he didn't want anything to do with R-R., preferring Rover - because of their turbine work.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Before I go on to wank the Fleet Air Arm, building the Dreadnought class aircraft carriers in the first half of the 1930s means that the British naval shipbuilding industry was less run down than OTL in 1935 and therefore could cope with the increase in naval construction in the second half of the 1930s.

If Ramsay McDonald allows the building of the Dreadnought class he probably doesn't impose the voluntary limit on cruiser construction before the end of 1936 either. That means two things. First 4 additional Amphion class light cruisers were built instead of the Arethusa class. Second more cruisers would have been built under the 1929-30 to 1935-36 Estimates, I guess an extra ship a year for a total of 7. That would increase the average from 4 a year over this period instead of 3.

The above would also help the naval armaments industry cope with the increase in demand after 1935. That is an increase from 4 cruisers a year to 7 is much less than the OTL increase from 3 to 7. Or with 7 brand new cruisers in existence the Admiralty might reduce the new building rate from 7 a year to 6. The money saved could be used to keep the aircraft carriers deleted from the 1938-39 and 1939-40 programmes IOTL.

Finally another disarmament gesture by Ramsay McDonald was cutting the C class destroyers from 9 ships to 5. It saved an insignificant amount of money in the scheme of things and if they had been built we may have seen them added to the escort of HMS Courageous on that fateful day in September 1939. Maybe the Germans would have been down one submarine and the British up one aircraft carrier at the end of that fateful day instead of the other way around.

 

[yulzari]

When the RAF decided that the Vickers .303 was unsuitable for wing mounting they went for the same rifle calibre .303 Browning and looked to the 20mm Hispano as the long term future in drum fed form. Then there were all the belt feed and wing mounting issues that delayed their introduction.

A simpler and adequate choice might have been to choose a 13.2mm FN Browning using the Hotchkiss' 13.2x99mm round as the RAF standard thus not only having an adequate fighter gun for the duration of the war but hard hitting 2 gun turrets. It was chosen by Belgium for it's Hurricanes, Romania for the IAR80 and by Sweden and Japan. Not to mention AA versions.

One RAF aero gun and one ammunition supply for the whole war. It might result in the USA deciding to go up from 12.7mm to 13.2mm in their guns and achieve a Wallies standard gun and ammunition.

 

[tomo pauk]

The 13.2 mm makes plenty of sense, and it was available early enough, from a friendly country - thus licence production is no problem.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

When the RAF decided that the Vickers .303 was unsuitable for wing mounting they went for the same rifle calibre .303 Browning and looked to the 20mm Hispano as the long term future in drum fed form. Then there were all the belt feed and wing mounting issues that delayed their introduction.

A simpler and adequate choice might have been to choose a 13.2mm FN Browning using the Hotchkiss' 13.2x99mm round as the RAF standard thus not only having an adequate fighter gun for the duration of the war but hard hitting 2 gun turrets. It was chosen by Belgium for it's Hurricanes, Romania for the IAR80 and by Sweden and Japan. Not to mention AA versions.

One RAF aero gun and one ammunition supply for the whole war. It might result in the USA deciding to go up from 12.7mm to 13.2mm in their guns and achieve a Wallies standard gun and ammunition.

I seem to recall that the RAF decided after their experiments that the leap to .50 cal / 12.5mm type weapons was not worth the weight sacrifice / ROF reduction while going to a 20mm was as the 'shell' could carry a far more useful HE content

This makes sense considering the expected opposition was a 2 or even 3 engine Bomber with armour plate protecting the Pilot and Engines from rear attacks as well as improvements to self sealing fuel tanks etc

Had the HS 404 20mm Licence been bought properly and the company paid to help develop the weapon (which was developed as a Cowl gun for the French fighter planes of the day hence its long barrel) into a weapon capable of being installed into a wing then it could - as it almost effectively did for the British - become the standard fighter gun of the war.

As it was Smith was fitting HS 404 to the 5th production Spitfire in 1939 - if that can be started a year or 2 earlier - we might see a 2 x 20mm + 4 x 303 Browning setup on the Spit and a 4 x 20mm setup on the Hurricane as they enter 'mass' production

Now getting the US to build it properly as well....hmmmm....when you learn the story of the US Production of their copy of the HS 404...well that beggers belief

The USN pushed for the 20mm weapon earlier than the USAAF as they believed that an AC with 4 x 20mm Cannon was 3 x more effective at shooting down aircraft as the same AC with 6 x 50 cals - sadly even by mid war mistakes that survived the switch into mass production of these weapons and not accepting British suggestions on resolving issues they had already resolved with their cannon, further confounded by the treatment of a 20mm weapon as artillery (and therefore lower tolerances than Machine guns) resulted in a great amount of distrust. They got there in the end but even today among many US posters the weapon has a tarnished rep - which often comes as a surprise to the British posters given its service in British Aircraft.

 

[perfectgeneral]

I have changed my mind slightly about the above. Now I think that while the six ships were ordered at the rate of one a year 1930-31 to 1935-36, but that they were all laid down a year earlier and completed a year earlier with the fifth ship being named Benbow and the last Ark Royal as follows:

• HMS Dreadnought ordered 1930-31 Estimates. Laid down 1930, launched 1932 and completed 1933. She replaced HMS Argus, which became a depot ship for Queen Bee target drones as OTL;
  
• HMS Marlborough ordered 1931-32 Estimates. Laid down 1931, launched 1933 and completed 1934. She replaced HMS Eagle, which became an aircraft maintenance ship;
  
• HMS Monarch ordered 1932-33 Estimates. Laid down 1932, launched 1934 and completed 1935. She replaced HMS Hermes, which was converted into a seaplane carrier;
  
• HMS Canopus ordered 1933-34 Estimates. Laid down 1933, launched 1935 and completed 1936. She was to have replaced HMS Furious, which would have been scrapped. However, the abolition of tonnage quotas by the 1936 London Naval Treaty gave Furious a reprieve;
  
• HMS Benbow ordered 1934-35 Estimates. Laid down 1934, launched 1936 and completed 1937. She was to have replaced HMS Courageous, which would have been scrapped. However, the abolition of tonnage quotas by the 1936 London Naval Treaty gave Courageous a reprieve;
  
• HMS Ark Royal ordered 1935-36 Estimates. Laid down 1935, launched 1937 and completed 1938. She was to have replaced HMS Glorious, which would have been scrapped. However, the abolition of tonnage quotas by the 1936 London Naval Treaty gave Courageous a reprieve.

This reduces the aircraft carrier fleet to 9 ships (6 Dreadnought class and the 3 Follies) plus 3 seaplane carriers (Albatross, Hermes and Pegasus) and 2 auxiliaries (Argus and Eagle). However, it might be possible to convert Argus, Eagle and Hermes back to flush deck aircraft carriers. I think the main consideration for that would be the time it would take and whether the dockyards had the capacity to do it.

Red 3" armour steel
Pink 0.75" armour steel
Brown 0.25" armour steel

You could take the Outrageous class back to the hanger floor, level and armour it, then build up wider, as shown. The lower hanger could be about 14ft narrower than the beam at the waterline (76ft6" hanger floor) and the upper hanger floor 14ft wider than that beam (104ft6"). The flight deck could be 28ft wider still (132ft6").