Methinks that general consensus, not just on this forum, is that 2nd LNT is best not to happen.
Optimize the RN for WWII
- Thread starter Spencersj345.346
- Start date
However, ITTL we've got the money to start a programme of infrastructure improvements in 1923 and we don't have to renegotiate/break any naval treaties to do it. That also makes it easier to build Malta size carriers during World War II and "Super" 1952 Carriers & CVA.01s after the war.
Also due to "future knowledge" the Admiralty will know the specification of the H-39 class battleships which strengthens the case for "Super Lion". Although, due to "future knowledge" the Admiralty will also know that the H-39s won't be completed.
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The main argument against unit machinery is that it is relatively heavy. Note OTL as soon as the treaties collapsed it was adopted where possible.
It is, but what you can do is some creative number interpretations (lie). Everyone else was doing it after all.
What are the earliest possible dates for the RN to adopt the Bofors 40mm and Oerlikon 20mm? Can they be introduced early enough to allow the 2pdr pom-pom and 0.5-inch machine gun to be withdrawn before World War II? If it was possible it would have simplified the production of guns, mounting and ammunition during the war as well as improving the anti-aircraft capability of many RN warships.
The army showed interest in the gun in 33 but ordered them in 37, you could do the same in 33 but order them right away for the 40mm.
But the 40mm wasn't a mass produced weapon.
To quote - http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_4cm-56_mk12.php
So when introduced its not ideal and you'll need to refine the thing to get the numbers you need, which means expense and time as you've got to set up a factory and get the people trained on it. So whilst the 40mm is a great gun, you've got to get it refined to be useful and you're going to need hundreds of the things. All of which will take time.
So if you can get to work on that with the Army and share the cost of setting up a production line as well as working out the kinks of it so it can be produced in large numbers more easily, then great but in the mean time, work on improving the pom-pom to increase muzzle velocity and fit a tracer for it.
Quoting - http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_2pounder_m8.php
Work on getting the HV projectile and breech mechanism worked out and developed as part of the gun, its 23 and you've got the time to do so. See if you can fit a bigger shell and develop a tracer for it too, and see if you can save weight and simplify it as well. Develop a quad and twin mounts too with the same HV barrels/breech. The octuple mount was developed and could have been tested in 23/24, but funding and budget issues delayed this until 27. That's gone now with the extra money, so spend that to make these mounts lighter, more reliable and firing at a higher velocity with a longer shell (more internal room for explosives) and a tracer.
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In hindsight I perhaps shouldn't have said future knowledge but use logic and stuff the RN was talking about in the era anyways
Oerlikon S was made in 1927. Bofors is much later.
RN might be advised to make the HV version of the 2pdr pom pom ASAP, not to wait until second half of 1930s, with Bofors following suit.
Exactly, if its 1923 when we take over then the Pom-Pom is being developed and tested now. So you delay it a bit, spend more money to go for a HV round/barrel and improving the shells and putting in a tracer as well as working on the mount to improve reliability and see if you can cut down on weight/construction time. Also develop a twin and quad mount because the octuples are IMMENSE.
With regards to battleships, build within your means, you need 5 battleships, so the typical KGV with 15-inch guns and 4.5's that this site loves gets rolled out, its bigger than a KGV by a few thousand tonnes but isn't massive and isn't some uber schiffe.
What you do is work in changes that we know of work and are important, (additional generator capacity, more pumps, space for radar, remove the requirement for 0 elevation fire over the bow and put a sheer on it to improve sea keeping etc.) as well as improve soft factors for the crews, proper messing facilities and quarters, airconditioning and heating throughout.
This is also done on your CV's from the Ark Royal (and hopefully a sistership) as well and your next generation of cruisers will also have these features.
With the Colony class, they were not bad ships, and they got a lot of firepower into them, i'd honestly build them as 9 gun ships from the start but ensure they're the best damn ships you can. You have unit machine spaces, you have extra power etc, you use the weight that you've saved by turning them from 12 to 9 gun ships into a damn good light cruiser.
You could also start basing a next generation heavy cruiser off the Belfast, again, 9 guns, and with all the features of the Colony class.
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Fortunately, there was a quadruple pom-pom. According to the Naval Weapons entry on the 2pdr QF Mk VIII it entered service in 1935-36. It also says that a twin was developed for the British Army and that 57 were built. This might have been the 2pdr designed for the Army before it decided to adopt the Bofors.
Based on the information provided by @tomo pauk and @steamboy might it be better if the Army sticks to the pom-pom instead of adopting the Bofors so we can reduce the types of gun that way?
Its possible but you'd have to develop a mounting for the Pom-Pom for land use, but this could sweeten the pot with the army and you could offer to help development of it and set up production for it. In return, they give you the tachymetric fire control system they have for the 3.7-inch AA gun which was considerably better than HCAS which the RN uses, or you jointly develop it and basically make the next HCAS a fully tachymetric fire control system and iterate on it from there.
If developed correctly you could have the equivalent of a home grown Mk 37 fire control system that the USN had
Tachymetric anti-aircraft fire control system - Wikipedia
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Are you open to an improved RN, that doesn't get more/better ships, but does get more and better aircraft?
Couldn't the Army have used the money it used to design the mounting for the Bofors for land use and set up production for it IOTL to develop a Pom-Pom mounting for land use and set up production for it ITTL?Its possible but you'd have to develop a mounting for the Pom-Pom for land use, but this could sweeten the pot with the army and you could offer to help development of it and set up production for it. In return, they give you the tachymetric fire control system they have for the 3.7-inch AA gun which was considerably better than HCAS which the RN uses, or you jointly develop it and basically make the next HCAS a fully tachymetric fire control system and iterate on it from there.
If developed correctly you could have the equivalent of a home grown Mk 37 fire control system that the USN had
Tachymetric anti-aircraft fire control system - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
I don't remember the exact details, but from what I do remember from reading about Anti-Aircraft Command and its predecessors is that one of the Ideal Plans included 300 LAA guns to engage low flying aircraft. The Pom-Pom was selected, ordered and put into production. Then the Army evaluated the Bofors, decided it was better and cancelled the the Pom-Pom order. As I wrote in Post 90 these 57 twin mountings for the Army that are mentioned in the in the Naval Weapons article on the Pom-Pom may have been what was produced before the order was cancelled in favour of the Bofors. So the Pom-Pom for land use might have existed IOTL.
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It was the Modified Reorientation Plan of 1936 (also known as the Ideal Plan) which was for 608 HAAG (288 x 4.5" and 320 3.7") in 76 batteries, 300 LAAG in 25 batteries, 2,627 searchlights in 108 companies and 450 barrage balloons.
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Better ships but perhaps not too many more of them and of course aircraft would need to be improved albeit not sure that falls under 3rd Sea Lords remit
Probably cancelled because of the problems with the pom-pom (Low MV, smaller shell, no tracer) that got it cancelled for the army as the Bofors WAS the superior weapon.
But that's not going to happen here, instead we're probably going to see a higher caliber Pom-Pom get developed with a larger, heavier shell with a higher MV as well as tracers etc as we've gone back to 23 and can get this done.
So when the army is looking for a low altitude AA gun, you can go "Allow us to introduce ourselves." and show them the dual Pom-Pom mount, and then work with them in putting it on a wheeled or towed system, as well as working with them on fire directors to get the 3.7's system introduced earlier in the fleet.
The other thing is getting the 20mm earlier, the RN had 100 of them in 1940 and they needed a LOT more. They looked at getting them in 37, but it took until 39 to get them right as the RN wanted them to be easier to maintain and an increased MV.
If you could speak with the firm in say 34 or 35 or even better, say 1932 instead and get them by 34/36 and then start producing them on licence, this will give you a good AA gun for the time. Until then the Vickers .50 will have to soldier on.
Oh! And one thing! The RP Projector and mounting.
When they slide that across your desk and go "We've got an idea!" have a suitable stick or sword in scabbard with which to whip them by and threaten with banishment to Penguin counting duties in the Falklands if it every crosses anyones desks again.
BUT
What you could do is give it to the army and go "What if you put some HE in these things, would that be useful to you?"
If you could speak with the firm in say 34 or 35 or even better, say 1932 instead and get them by 34/36 and then start producing them on licence, this will give you a good AA gun for the time. Until then the Vickers .50 will have to soldier on.
Oh! And one thing! The RP Projector and mounting.
When they slide that across your desk and go "We've got an idea!" have a suitable stick or sword in scabbard with which to whip them by and threaten with banishment to Penguin counting duties in the Falklands if it every crosses anyones desks again.
BUT
What you could do is give it to the army and go "What if you put some HE in these things, would that be useful to you?"
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IIRC it was because the Bofors could put "a greater weight of metal into the air" for want of a better expression.
I agree.
I repeat that I think the Army won't need help from the Navy to turn the Pom-Pom into a wheeled or towed system because it looks like one existed in the first place IOTL and if it didn't they can use the resources they used to develop the Bofors into a wheeled or towed system IOTL to turn the Pom-Pom into a wheeled or towed system ITTL.
However, what they do have to do is make sure that the differences between the Army and Navy versions of the guns, mountings and ammunition are minimised so that the economies of scale are maximised. I think that there's a good chance of that happening because AFAIK relations between the ordnance branches of the Admiralty and War Office were good.
I don't believe that this would have led to the RN adopting tachymetric fire control systems sooner because it's very likely that the Director of Naval Ordnance's Department knew that the Army was working on them in the first place. So we have to ask the question why wasn't it adopted sooner IOTL? I think it was because the RN thought HACS could cope with the type of air attacks that were expected so the extra cost, complexity and weight of a tachymetric fire control system wasn't required. If I'm correct something has to happen to make the RN change its mind. The most obvious one is that it discovers that it was wrong about the type of air attacks and it needs something better than HACS. Could we have it as one of the consequences of the RN regaining control of naval aviation in 1923 instead of 1937 and/or a larger FAA between the wars? I've also suggested an earlier start on naval radar, could the RN have decided that they needed a better fire control system to compliment the gunnery radars that were being developed?
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Is this enough budget to start developing a new way to power ships using the splitting of atoms and have it ready by 1927?
Budget and the RN being cocksure was largely the two OTL reasons.
1 - they didn't have the money.
2 - The RN was pretty damn confident in its AA doctrine and defences and because the RAF didn't have dive bombers and said that it wouldn't be possible to engage a ship with a dive bomber, then the RN was focused on HA gunnery to break up the main threats such as level bombers. The pom-pom would engage torpedo planes.
They modified the HCAS with some additional equipment to make it into a tachymetric system in 1940 but then they had to catch up and it was never really an idealised solution.
What you could do is basically give the Admiralty a kick in the complacency and use FAA aircraft to attack ships in exercises, including dive bombers. The problem is that by having a superior Pom-Pom mount, we might have an issue getting the RN to accept this because a higher MV/better Pom-Pom (lets call it the Mk 1 and Mk 2 just to save typing that name out) earlier could make the other Sea Lords and FAA go "Well you've got that covered."
Its why until the RN really came under air attack off Norway, the prevaling theory was that the AA gun and if needed, the helm was the best defence against an attacking aircraft. And that carriers were to get their aircraft down, and under the hangar, and NOT be up in a CAP attacking the inbounds. Or at best were to operate at a distance and not come after the attackers once the fleet opened up.
So exercises against attacking aircraft, not too scripted either. By the early 30's the RN knew that the Mk 1 mount was just not cutting the mustard, due to the issues discussed above, but they kept at it because the budget said no.
In this case the budget isn't an issue so much, so we can do proper attacks with modern aircraft for the time at all types of attacks including diving ones and accept genuine feedback instead of trying to hush it up to basically go "We need something better, we can see that its just not bloody working. But those army chaps are working on a system and we should investigate that, immediately."
1 - they didn't have the money.
2 - The RN was pretty damn confident in its AA doctrine and defences and because the RAF didn't have dive bombers and said that it wouldn't be possible to engage a ship with a dive bomber, then the RN was focused on HA gunnery to break up the main threats such as level bombers. The pom-pom would engage torpedo planes.
They modified the HCAS with some additional equipment to make it into a tachymetric system in 1940 but then they had to catch up and it was never really an idealised solution.
What you could do is basically give the Admiralty a kick in the complacency and use FAA aircraft to attack ships in exercises, including dive bombers. The problem is that by having a superior Pom-Pom mount, we might have an issue getting the RN to accept this because a higher MV/better Pom-Pom (lets call it the Mk 1 and Mk 2 just to save typing that name out) earlier could make the other Sea Lords and FAA go "Well you've got that covered."
Its why until the RN really came under air attack off Norway, the prevaling theory was that the AA gun and if needed, the helm was the best defence against an attacking aircraft. And that carriers were to get their aircraft down, and under the hangar, and NOT be up in a CAP attacking the inbounds. Or at best were to operate at a distance and not come after the attackers once the fleet opened up.
So exercises against attacking aircraft, not too scripted either. By the early 30's the RN knew that the Mk 1 mount was just not cutting the mustard, due to the issues discussed above, but they kept at it because the budget said no.
In this case the budget isn't an issue so much, so we can do proper attacks with modern aircraft for the time at all types of attacks including diving ones and accept genuine feedback instead of trying to hush it up to basically go "We need something better, we can see that its just not bloody working. But those army chaps are working on a system and we should investigate that, immediately."
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