1930s Air Ministry surprise sanity options

perfectgeneral

Donor
Monthly Donor
Expansion Plans At The Outbreak Of World War II
...
Implacable and Indefatigable were laid down in 1938 ITTL and scheduled for delivery by 31st March 1942. There would now be 15 aircraft carriers consisting of 6 Super Implacables, 6 Dreadnought class and 3 Courageous class. Courageous would be scrapped to bring the force down to 14 ships. One of the Dreadnought class would become training carrier and another would go into the Reserve Fleet.

I don't think this would happen in wartime. Even if you can't support it now, you want the option for contingency. Is this a projected intention to 1942 rather than thoughts in 1942? Also you have Dreadnoughts going into reserve. Is this about crew availability? I'd imagine the Outrageous class would at least act as convoy escorts with aircraft ferrying on board. Until such time as dedicated escort carriers and MACs can replace them. Training deck requirements are another reason why there would be no reserve.
 
Last edited:
Agreed that they'd not scrap the Courageous or any of the follies once war breaks out. They'd probably be shuttled into secondary areas or used as training ships but certinally not scrapped. By 1937 everyone who had a brain could tell something was brewing and by 1938 folks knew War was coming. So scrapping the follies would probably be off the books at least until the Imp's came along to replace them.

Oh and one thing, develop tracer ammo for the 2lber pom-pom!
 
It is a smaller leap (is 66% of full size) to a 20mm Browning from this calibre too. Although the Boys 13.9mm (69.5%) round is something the British have tools for already. A Boys-Browning heavy machine gun might even remain useful against land targets for longer. Either way a barrel and chamber calibre upgrade to 20mm is on it's way, once developed.
In 1940 when there were shortages of Brownings for aircraft, Rolls-Royce developed a machine-gun chambered initially for the .50 Browning round and later for the .55 Boys round. It made it to prototype stage and the Air Ministry (I believe) told them to concentrate on making engines.
 
  • was the "Belgian browning" a .5" - ie the uplifted M1919 - I thought that they'd got licence production of the French 13.2mm Hotchkiss ?
  • and I wonder whether an aircraft 15mm besa without the cooling issues would have been more reliable than the 20mm which had teething issues (sideways mounting) still the underlying question is what are you trying to shoot down - a fighter or a bomber - the larger and slower the target the less ROF matters but if you trying to shoot down a fast moving interceptor than higher RoF = more hits (all things being equal).
  • On the FAA theme - as the fulmar was a bomber/shadower destroyer in concept wouldn't 4 or 6 Vickers .5" been a better bet than 8 x .303 ? - much more likely to cause the attacking plane to abort and it could take the extra weight as it carried twice the ammo of a hurricane or spitfire
 
Re Cruiser construction.

One possible way of saving money could be to decommission/disarm the C/D class cruisers prior to WW2. As these ships were really of limited use with a short range and even when turned into AA ships they had little more firepower than a destroyer at the cost of far larger crews.

If you want to save cash, scrap them, put the guns ashore somewhere and be done with it. The more expensive option would be a conversion into CL-AA's.

Strip out the torpedo tubes and 6-inch mounts and fit dual 4-inch mounts and any single or double 2lbers and Vickers .50's you've got. Add some extra fuel tanks if you can. Whilst basically you'll have a large Black Swan with 8 x 4-inch guns and some 2lbers its better than what the RN has for the most part. But this is the expensive option and crew intensive too.

Perhaps scrapping ALL 22 is too extensive but you could get rid of 50% of them for scrap and put their guns ashore and then try converting as many as possible into CL-AA's to escort the Dreadnoughts.

One thing to also try getting the RN to do is standardize on a gun caliber for their DDs. The RN spent a LOT of money designing different turrets for different guns of the same size but varying calibers. There was loads of 4, 4.5 and 4.7 inch guns of varying caliber. Settle on two types and stick with it. 4.5 for the bigger more modern DDs and 4-inch for the cheaper vessels.

Naturally the 40mm Bofors is a superior weapon to the 2lber, but this is the 30's and the RN, whilst being very air aware had an overblown faith in the ability of AA guns to deter and defeat an air attack. As this is a doctrinal thing, its going to take bitter experience to change it. And as its the 30's the 2lber mounting (especially the Chicago Piano) is still one of the best AA guns in the world.

For the fleet DD's the J's Ks and Tribal likes i'd go for a DP 4.5-inch dual mount and for the Wartime emergency DD's a single but DP 4-inch mount, basically half one of these

Cruiser_Guns%27_Crews._May_1943%2C_on_Board_HMS_Jamaica_and_Berwick._A16318.jpg


in a DP mounting. The RN stuck with the LA mounts for way too long and if the RN who was in love with the gun as the main deterrent against air attacks in the 20s/30s they should realise that a DP mount is of greater use than a LA mount.
The extra cruisers were via spending more money, as the Dreadnought class aircraft carriers and the expansion of the FAA.

This was due to Ramsay McDonald having an attack of sanity so that he didn't place a voluntary limit of 91,000 tons on the number of cruisers the British Empire would build between 1929-30 and 1933-34. This attack of sanity was also why he was persuaded to allow the building of the Dreadnought class aircraft carriers. IOTL he also cut the destroyer programme by 4 ships as a goodwill gesture (which wasn't reciprocated) resulting in the C class having 5 ships instead of the normal 9.

The extra ships were 2 Leanders (one 1929-30 and one 1930-31), 2 Amphion class (one 1931-32 and one 1932-33) and 3 Southampton class (one each 1933-34, 1934-35 and 1935-36). In addition 4 extra Amphion class were built in place of the 4 Arethusa class.

Strictly speaking an equal tonnage of old ships should have been scrapped to make way for them. However, the OTL Royal Navy did not scrap all the cruisers and destroyers it should have scrapped IOTL. Therefore I think the British Government would have got away with keeping the C and D class ships it should have scrapped ITTL.

Then the Royal Navies would have had 70 cruisers between them at the outbreak of World War II instead of 63. This number was actually the number required to fight a war against another major naval power (Japan). Another effect is that the extra cruisers could carry one or two catapult aircraft so there would be an increase in the size of the catapult aircraft force of 10 aircraft from 81 as previously stated to 91.

As it happens many of the C class cruisers were converted to AA ships as you describe, but because they displaced more than 2,000 tons and had a maximum speed greater than 20 knots had still to be counted in the London Naval Treaty cruiser quota.

I think the standardisation of gun calibres and earlier introduction of the Bofors Gun in laudable, but not within the scope of the OP. I think that I am pushing it with the 7 extra cruisers and 4 extra destroyers, which perfectgeneral didn't give me explicit permission for.

Edit

IOTL the cruisers ordered in 1933-34, 1934-35 and 1935-36 weren't completed until after 31st December 1936, i.e. when the cruiser tonnage quota expired. Therefore there was not need to scrap ships to make way for them anyway.
 
Last edited:
Very very good stuff! I assume that the Super Imps are basically the OTL Implacables right? For the Dreadnought class I'm gonna guess their Air Groups are a mix of Herc powered Hurricanes and Henley's and Swordfish? Although we need a better name for the Henley (Hawker Sirocco perhaps?) And whilst the 20mm is ideal there's not really the means to produce it yet, and the RAF was still wedded to MG's. But if the FAA/NRNAS (New Royal Navy Air Service) wanted MGs then i'd say they'd go for the .50cal as it was simply available. 2 in the wings of a Hurricane and 4 .303's or 4 x .50cals would be quite a punch for its time.
I have explained the Dreadnought and Super Implacables, but rather than re-quote page and post references that I have forgotten...

The Dreadnought class is Ark Royal enlarged from 22,000 tons to 22,500 tons (so that six could be built within the 135,000 ton limit set by the Washington Naval Treaty). These enlargements were to allow first modifications to the lifts so that they were of the conventional single level type rather than the cumbersome two level type used IOTL and if the increase in displacement allowed increasing the width of the hangars from 60ft to 62ft as in the Illustrious class.

Also ITTL the British Government didn't have the aircraft carrier limit reduced from 27,000 tons to 23,000 tons. Therefore all eight armoured carriers were built to a homogenous design with two full-length hangars, which were 16 feet high and boilers producing 152,000 shp driving four shafts. This is effectively an enlarged Implacable so I called it the Super Implacable.

The 8 ships built were called Illustrious, Formidable, Victorious, Indomitable, Implacable and Indefatigable as OTL plus Invincible and Inflexible. I haven't worked out their building dates yet. However, the building time of an aircraft carrier was set at 3 years, but IOTL only Illustrious came close to meeting that target. ITTL I hope to employ some jiggery pokery that will improve on that.
 
I don't think this would happen in wartime. Even if you can't support it now, you want the option for contingency. Is this a projected intention to 1942 rather than thoughts in 1942? Also you have Dreadnoughts going into reserve. Is this about crew availability? I'd imagine the Outrageous class would at least act as convoy escorts with aircraft ferrying on board. Until such time as dedicated escort carriers and MACs can replace them. Training deck requirements are another reason why there would be no reserve.
Agreed that they'd not scrap the Courageous or any of the follies once war breaks out. They'd probably be shuttled into secondary areas or used as training ships but certinally not scrapped. By 1937 everyone who had a brain could tell something was brewing and by 1938 folks knew War was coming. So scrapping the follies would probably be off the books at least until the Imp's came along to replace them.

Oh and one thing, develop tracer ammo for the 2lber pom-pom!
Those were the peacetime plans. After spending all day yesterday writing and rewriting the thing I thought it was clear enough. Sorry.

Said peacetime plans would have been scrapped on 3rd September 1939 and the ships would have become operational warships until they were sunk like Courageous and Glorious IOTL or wore out like Furious IOTL.

Since about 1936 the OTL Fleet Plan had been to work up to a force of 14 aircraft carriers. In wartime 8 would operate with the fleet, 5 would be in the open ocean protecting trade from surface raiders like the so called pocket battleships and one would be the deck landing training carrier. In peacetime 10 would be in full commission, one would be the training ship and 3 would be in reserve.

IOTL the plan was for 10 Illustrious class, Ark Royal and the 3 Courageous class aircraft carriers. In peace the 10 Illustrious class and Ark Royal would be in commission with one of them serving as training carrier and the Courageous class ships in reserve. The plan was to order the 10 Illustrious class in pairs starting in the 1936-37 financial year. The building time for an aircraft carrier was set at 3 years. Therefore the final pair to be ordered in the 1940-41 financial year would be completed by 31st March 1944. At that time Courageous and Glorious (both completed in 1916) would be approaching their 28th birthdays and Furious (completed 1917) would be a youthful 27. Therefore I fully expect that the follow-on plan would have been for 3 aircraft carriers to be ordered in the 1941-42 and subsequent financial years to replace these ships by 31st March 1947. However, IOTL lack of money meant the building rate of the last 6 Illustrious class had to be changed from two per year to one per year.

ITTL the point of building six Dreadnought class (modified Ark Royal class) and completing them 1933-38 was to get rid of the experimental ships and replace them with faster ships that carried more aircraft out of the available displacement AND to replace the Courageous class which under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty could be replaced when they became 20 years old, i.e. 1936-37. However, they received a reprieve when the Second London Naval Treaty abolished tonnage quotas and the Admiralty raised its aircraft carrier requirement to 14 ships because it was now planning to fight a war against Germany as well as Japan.

The last 3 Super Implacable class of TTL were built specifically to replace the Courageous class which would be over 25 years old by the time their replacements were completed. If the Admiralty had said that it intended to keep them the Treasury could with some justification say, "If you are going to keep them for more than 25 years, we can postpone the construction of the replacements." Therefore no Indefatigable, no Invincible and no Inflexible.
 
Been reading this thread with interest very thought provoking for the AH story I'm working on
Couple of comments on hmg rather than 8 x rcmg
Tony Williams excellent site has article about raf testing of the vickers .5" and their conclusion was to go for 20mm as .5" was neither fish nor fowl
As a complete what if what about the 15mm Besa ?

The comparison between different guns should take in account the total weight of guns & ammo. Eg. how many guns & ammo can be installed within 500 lbs of weight devoted for firepower in an aircraft weighting 3000 lbs ready for take-off. For the weight of four .50s, only two big Hispanos can be carried; ammo is also twice as heavy. Then - how big the ammo load it is actualy possible? Hispano was a drum-fed cannon before late 1941, thus two big Hispanos will be carrying 2 x 60 rd drums - not enough for lousy shots the most pilots were (no offense).
What kind of drag (= reduction of speed) is still acceptable? Two Hispanos with protruding barrels cut the speed by 7-8 mph on the Spitfire V.
15mm Besa is a heavy beast - make a deal with the Czechs to out-bore it to 20mm in similar vein the Germans will do with MG 151/15 to get MG 151/20? Belt feed is the advantage, low RoF is disadvantage; a 100 rpm increase might come in handy?

Given that they already have the tools for 13.9mm barrels and chambers, plus a field tested armour piercing round, why not the .55 Boys?
Well given the option of 13.9mm or 15mm BSA felt that the larger round was worth it. Perhaps the army were still clinging to Boys AT rifles in the absence of something better. That rate of fire is limiting the firepower compared with the .5 Browning (750-850rds/min) and 20mm HS.404 (700rds/min). A longer round requires a longer bolt action. That takes a longer time, so the fire rate drops. Even so I think an AN/M2 style action for the BESA round could do better and offer a gateway to a 20mm version later.

The pre-ww2 .50 Browining is at 600 rpm, same for Hispano II. Some time around BoB, the Americans came out with 800 rpm M2. It was 1944 for the 800 rpm Hispano V to emerge.

Tony's site has good detail on the comparison testing between the vickers and browning .5" the raf could have had the vickers in the BofB but I guess it all goes back to rate of fire. (Vickers came out well and probably would have been choice had decision not been to jump to 20mm)
So you choice would be 8 (or 12) rcmg
4 x hmg (vickers) or maybe x 6
4(?) x besa 15mm
4 x 20mm hispano?
I guess that the realativly low RofF of the 15mm besa would disqualify it although you would have to wonder at the light tank aa version (2x15mm) vs the 4x7.92 version

Four big Hispanos will require two Merlins - installing them all 4 on Spitfire I, let alone Hurricane I will make under-performers.
The .50, whether Vickers or Browning, or the 13.2, or 0.55, might offer the opportunity to pierce both aircraft skin and fuel tank, or pilot's armor, unike the .30-is plain-vanilla ammo. So with Merlin III as the option, I'd go for 4 HMGs, perhaps upping to 6 HMGs when Merlin XX or 45 is available. With two Merlins, go for a full monthy - 4 Hispanos.

Why I'm keep saying 'big Hispanos'? The HS 404 was using the ammo from the 'big Oerlikon', the FFS. 'Small Oerlikon' was also the option (Oerlikon FF; used by Poland on P.24, Germans, Japanese navy) as well as 'medium Oerlikon' (FFL; used by Japanese navy).
 

marathag

Banned
The pre-ww2 .50 Browining is at 600 rpm, same for Hispano II. Some time around BoB, the Americans came out with 800 rpm M2. It was 1944 for the 800 rpm Hispano V to emerge.

That's for the ground M2 in 1940, they ranged from 550 to 700 rpm.

The aerial AN/M2 AN was for joint 'Army Navy' usage, with 750-850rpm. Why was 'Navy' added? they paid in 1933 for the development from the M1 .50 that dated from 1921. These included electric heating, charging and firing solenoids

Barrels made after 1944 had a higher Chromium content for added heat resistance.

the M3 was in late 1944, for 1200 rpm
 
For the Dreadnought class I'm gonna guess their Air Groups are a mix of Herc powered Hurricanes and Henley's and Swordfish?
The little grey cells are still shagged out after doing the research for Part 2 and then writing it. Therefore the next part won't be ready for a few days. However, when I do post Part 3 don't expect any super planes or wonder weapons because there won't be any. Furthermore there won't be any Henley's, Hurricanes and Swordfish powered by Hercules engines. There will be a Fairey Espadon which will be decidedly average for its day and possibly a Fairey Germon to replace it which would not be much of an improvement.
 
Well you're doing AMAZING research and work on this :) You really are! And it makes sense that there won't be super planes and wonder weapons. I'd assume the Espadon is the Herc powered Swordfish and the Germon is basically the Albacore replacement equivalent?
 
Well you're doing AMAZING research and work on this :) You really are! And it makes sense that there won't be super planes and wonder weapons. I'd assume the Espadon is the Herc powered Swordfish and the Germon is basically the Albacore replacement equivalent?
There is a big clue if you run Espadon and Germon through Google Translate.
 
Oh I know Espadon is Swordfish in French and heh..just spotted that Germon is German for Albacore :p, you sly fox you!
 
And re scrapping many of the C/D's it was more to save money in the long run. There's quite a few of them but in reality their use was rather limited due to their short range and obsolete gunnery arrangements. By scrapping them you save money on maintaining/running/crewing them and can put their crews on more modern vessels. The metal from their hulls could be re-used and the 6-inch guns put ashore, or scrapped (or put in places like Gibraltar, Malta, Singapore etc) And of the remainder, try and convert at least half into CL-AA's with 4-inch mounts. You could probably fit 4 - 5 mounts in there (with a 5th having a somewhat restricted arc as it would probably go where the Torpedoes were).
 
Last edited:
That's for the ground M2 in 1940, they ranged from 550 to 700 rpm.

The aerial AN/M2 AN was for joint 'Army Navy' usage, with 750-850rpm. Why was 'Navy' added? they paid in 1933 for the development from the M1 .50 that dated from 1921. These included electric heating, charging and firing solenoids
Barrels made after 1944 had a higher Chromium content for added heat resistance.
the M3 was in late 1944, for 1200 rpm

I draw the RoF figures from the 'Rapid Fire' book, by A. Williams. He states that RoF for the .50 M2 was 600 rpm in it's initial form; in 1940 the design was amended with changes to barrel and recoil springs that improved RoF to 750-800.
Granted, Chinn states 750-850 for the M2.
The M3 was great weapon, though too late for ww2 - it was not installed even in late war fighters like P-51H, P-47N or F8F. Belgians (FN) were offering for sell, before ww2, several HMGs that have had roots in the .50 Browning, with rate of fire between 1000 to 1200 rpm.
 
It's also French for Albacore and I'm trying to be consistent linguistically.

Bien joué ;)

To the general post: Regarding Aircraft construction etc - one very 'simple' POD is getting a better grip on Bromwich Castle much earlier and having Spitfire production ramping up 6 - 12 months earlier.

This has all sorts of ramifications

With more (or potentially all) Home Fighter command squadrons equipped with Spitfire this free's up Hurricane production for roles in secondary theatres as well as more being sold to other nations such as Belgium and Greece (possible Norway?) earlier

There is then the potential for the Sea Hurricane and Sea Spitfire (as well as other specialist Spitfires such as LR and PR versions) to be developed earlier as well - obviously there are other production hurdles to be overcome in addition to the Castle Bromwich factory pulling its finger out such as radio equipment and production of Merlin engines etc

For the Sea Service Spitfire (that name will never catch on) maybe it could be built with the internal LR Fuel tank (Fitted behind the pilot seats armoured bulkhead) this would add 29 gallons of Fuel capacity to its original 85 - a 35% increase in endurance.

Anyway - rather than develop awesome but unproven napkin designs just increase the number of Spitfires earlier - say the promised 60 AC per month at Castle Bromwich by Oct 39 - that should serve
 
Top