Alternate warships of nations

McPherson

Banned
The Italians engaged in a number of actions with British Battleships. Their problem was they were relying on long range shooting, sometimes over 25,000 yards. The modern Littorio Class were fine well protected ships, with good 15" guns, but they suffered from a dispersion problem, that degraded their accuracy. The older rebuilt Battleships were poorly protected, and only had 12.6" guns, but they did have 10 of them. Again they were relying on very long range shooting, and without fire control radar their chances of scoring a hit on even a Battleship sized target was very small.

What British BB fought Italians with 12.6” guns?

Giulio Cesare at the Battle of Spartivento was physically present. No gunfire from her hit anything AFAIK. The wording is confusing.

The Littorios had good artillery tubes as did the Cavours. It was the shells which proved inconsistent in mass and shape, so their flyout during salvo was not something the Italians could rely to be ballistically predictable in the atmosphere at their preferred long ranges. Such aerodynamic inconsistency was not just an Italian problem as Somerville (or rather Lancelot Holland) discovered during the cruiser action.
 

McPherson

Banned
At the Battle of Calabria in July 1940, Warspite, and Malaya engaged Cesare, and Cavour. The old Battleships fired at Allied Ships on several occasions, and tried to engage British BB's on several others.

Not one of Cunningham's better days. The way Warspite and Malaya were mishandled was atrocious. This was also the day when someone should have been keelhauled back at Ansaldo for the faulty ammunition the Giulio Cesare and Comte de Cavour had been issued. Cruiser destroyer brawls were predictably inconclusive. Both sides got their convoys through. As a battle problem, I think Campioni handled his ships better and that Cunningham was LUCKY to get out of it relatively unscathed.
 
Giulio Cesare at the Battle of Spartivento was physically present. No gunfire from her hit anything AFAIK. The wording is confusing.

The Littorios had good artillery tubes as did the Cavours. It was the shells which proved inconsistent in mass and shape, so their flyout during salvo was not something the Italians could rely to be ballistically predictable in the atmosphere at their preferred long ranges. Such aerodynamic inconsistency was not just an Italian problem as Somerville (or rather Lancelot Holland) discovered during the cruiser action.
At the Battle of Calabria in July 1940, Warspite, and Malaya engaged Cesare, and Cavour. The old Battleships fired at Allied Ships on several occasions, and tried to engage British BB's on several others.
Ah, sorry. I read it that the old British ships were firing 12.6”. That’s what I get for responding too late at night.
 
The Italian ships had the 12.6" guns.

As did some French, Spanish and Japanese ships in the pre dreadnought period in the 1880's to 1900 period. 32 cm/35 (12.6") Model 1880 of the french firm Canet, used on the Spanish Ironclad battleship Pelayo. 12.6"/38 (32 cm) Canet, or: 12.6"/38 (32 cm) 41st Year Type, 32 cm/38 (12.6") 41st Year Type on the Japanese cruisers of the Itsukushima class.
Battleship Pelayo about 1889. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph # NH 88720.
Japanese second-class cruiser Hashidate at Kure in November 1908. Photograph copyrighted by Fukui Shizuo.
 
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Luftwaffe 1946, Volume 2, Issue No.4
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Kamikaze 1946, Issue No.5 (Yes, those are aircraft, but you can see the name of the carriers)
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Kamikaze 1946, Issue No.3
 
Your so right. The should've built at least a dozen. It looks like their selling the Type 26 Frigate to the Dominions, and building them in good numbers. That's the way they should do it, a bigger RN, and Dominion wide production. Didn't they think they'd need a few AD Destroyers to escort their new Carriers?
Not really, Australia and Canada are modifying the design with their own selected radar, combat systems, weapons, so the UK 26s are still relatively bespoke, hence why the order is already down to just the ASW 23’s being replaced (at best with some of the review leaks) and the “cheaper” Type 31 based off a foreign design being selected for 5 hulls. As to what they were thinking, when the 45’s were finally getting built the QEs we’re still stuck in political hell.
 
I just liked the 39kt submerged speed from electric engines for the USN sub.....
Yeah, that was what got me. The hull, 680t, is far two small for those engines to fit (especially with 18Mm of fuel). And they'd need at least 8-10 times the engine power to get that speed.
 

McPherson

Banned
Yeah, that was what got me. The hull, 680t, is far two small for those engines to fit (especially with 18Mm of fuel). And they'd need at least 8-10 times the engine power to get that speed.

Correct dimensions and mass and crew would be...

380 feet by 38 feet roughly
6800 tons
Crew of 58
25,000 HP turbo-electric and that on the snort would yield 21 knots for 300 hours semi-submerged or 12 knots for 2 hours on the battery.
It would be a virtual fuel tank with engines to achieve that Captain Nemo performance.
 
So here on this forum and other forums, there have been discussions about making the Queen Elizabeth class battleships faster or at least more capable of making their designed 25 knots. This could be accomplished by better preliminary work, fewer design changes, and small tube boilers. I think geared turbines were are possible but I'm not sure. These changes might give the QE's about 28.5 knots from what I have read. Other designs include an upsized Iron Duke class that was also discussed with 10 15-guns in 5 twin turrets.

So taking these design elements together, let's say the RN decides to be a bit more radical. For their money, they get a ship with 10 15-inch-guns and a speed of 25 knots or so.
1912-1913 program
5 improved QE's with one coming from Malaya
1913-1914 program is a bit different
3 battleships are built with a battlecruiser. This battlecruiser would have 30 knots and 8 guns and would basically be design Y.
Canada then decides to chip in and buys another battlecruiser for the RN
After the battle of the Falklands, it's decided to build another battlecruiser.

This means that at the end of WW1 the RN would have 9 battleships with 10 15in-guns capable of 25 knots and 3 heavily armored battlecruisers with 8 guns and capable of 30 knots.

What do you think? Or has someone already thought of this?
 
The QE's traded the fifth turret form bigger turbines and more boilers, Going to small tube boilers, geared turbines and oil firing will all help but is really stretching the possibilities in 1912! Just repeating the QE's and only ordering four instead of the R Class is a big enough difference. Getting the R class built as QE's with small tube boilers, oil firing and geared turbines is just about possible in OTL'. The Mark two QE's could well then have around 80,000hp to make 27/27 knots but more importantly be worth modernising post war.
 

McPherson

Banned
So here on this forum and other forums, there have been discussions about making the Queen Elizabeth class battleships faster or at least more capable of making their designed 25 knots. This could be accomplished by better preliminary work, fewer design changes, and small tube boilers. I think geared turbines were are possible but I'm not sure. These changes might give the QE's about 28.5 knots from what I have read. Other designs include an upsized Iron Duke class that was also discussed with 10 15-guns in 5 twin turrets.

So taking these design elements together, let's say the RN decides to be a bit more radical. For their money, they get a ship with 10 15-inch-guns and a speed of 25 knots or so.
1912-1913 program
5 improved QE's with one coming from Malaya
1913-1914 program is a bit different
3 battleships are built with a battlecruiser. This battlecruiser would have 30 knots and 8 guns and would basically be design Y.
Canada then decides to chip in and buys another battlecruiser for the RN
After the battle of the Falklands, it's decided to build another battlecruiser.

This means that at the end of WW1 the RN would have 9 battleships with 10 15in-guns capable of 25 knots and 3 heavily armored battlecruisers with 8 guns and capable of 30 knots.

What do you think? Or has someone already thought of this?

The hull form is wrong.
 
A lot of the Queen Elizabeth's design changes were necessary.

Small tube boilers were something you could have thought about at the time. It was too early for geared turbines I think in 1912. If you go for small tube boilers you might get a 25 knot Queen Elizabeth class but most likely you will get the otl Queen Elizabeth speed on 500 tones less.

There was design work done on a battlecruiser equivalent of the Queen Elizabeth's but that was cancelled when the Queen Elizabeth's was selected instead of the super Iron Duke.

If they went for a 10x15 inch gun fast Queen Elizabeth class you wouldn't be getting 5 of them. 3 is more likely though 4 is possible. They would be too expensive.
 
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