1930s British Sanity Options (Economy, Navy, Airforce and Army)

[NOMISYRRUC]

Re your thoughts on rebuilding the V&W class destroyers.

My thought here was to get the 25 knot limit in the 1stLNT, and create available destroyer newbuild tonnage by converting the V&Ws so they no longer qualified.
Replacing torpedoes with ASW, and 1 boiler room removed to reduce speed(replaced with bunkerage in the lower space made available, and accommodation above), Also (possibly) replace 4"/4.7" with 2x2 4" and HACS.
Put them into reserve, and use them as recruitment/PR vessels in the early 30's by giving aspiring officers/recruits training trips to/from Gib escorting "convoys" as part of the perisher course.
I think there was a noblewoman navy campaigner at about that time who was a political pain. Pay her off as figurehead for the recruitment campaign?
Once the 2LNT comes into play they no longer need to be converted to free up tonnage, but the programme continues to boost the number of longer range escorts, as the new build destroyers are providing all the required fleet destroyers.

That reads like a combination the 15 W-AIR (12 before the war and 3 during it) and the 21 wartime Long Range Escort rebuilds applied to the V&W class IOTL.

In my TL that isn't necessary because the 1LNT allowed the British Commonwealth 50,000 tons of extra destroyers and the British Government to build 18 new destroyers a year from 1930 to 1935 instead of the OTL average of 9. All but 20 of the 64 V&Ws on hand in 1929 were to be scrapped by the end of 1936 because they were overage according to the terms of the 1LNT and as already noted because the Treasury was prepared to pay for new destroyers to replace them.

Although the rebuild you suggest is relatively cheap, it would not be carried out. The money would have to be found by cutting sloops and destroyers from the new construction programme and that's the last thing that the Admiralty would want. Plus the Treasury will and say, "These refits extend the lives of the old destroyers by a least 5 years. Therefore, we can cut even more destroyers from the 1930-35 new construction programmes."

Also in my TL I decided to rearm the Bridgewater to Grimsby class sloops with six 4" guns in three twin HA mountings and a HACS to bring them up to the same standard as the Bittern, Egret and Black Swan classes. 32 of those twin mountings and 16 of the HACS were fitted to the leader Wallace and 15 V&W class destroyers IOTL.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

3. Instead of transferring all Kingfishers to Halcyons in 36 and 37, transfer most, but build 1 or 2 Flower class.
The rationale here is that the RN knew they would need a shed load of escorts in the event of a war, so it would make sense to build 1 or 2 and try them out, to uncover any problems.
Running them with dummy convoys for the perisher course (see V&W class above) leads to the River/Loch/Bay frigate design, and the Castle Corvette design.

AIUI the Halcyon could do the Flower's job just as well if not slightly better and it was about the same size as a Castle. AFAIK the Halcyon (and for that matter the Kingfisher) was as easy to build as a Flower of Castle so there isn't any point in building a few Flower prototypes.

IOTL construction of the Halcyon was stopped in favour of its diminutive the Bangor class because it was even easier to build. Unfortunately, they made a mistake by making it too small for the mine sweeping equipment it needed to carry, hence the change to the Algerine class which was shorter than the Halcyon class but beamier.

Therefore, I aught to have written ITTL the Halcyon design was adapted for mass production in merchant shipyards in wartime, in the same way that the Black Swan class was (via the River class frigate) adapted into the Loch class in the middle of the war IOTL and before the war ITTL. This would have been built instead of the Flower and Castle class corvettes in yards that weren't capable of building frigates because their slipways weren't long enough. Except ITTL that wasn't necessary because there were enough merchant shipyards with slipways that were long enough to accommodate a frigate because the Government had paid for them to be extended as part of the 1930s scrap and build scheme.

Also I've arrived at the River class frigate and its mass produced version the Loch/Bay by 1939 in my TL, but by a different route. That is they know that they can't build a large number of Black Swans in the number that would be required in wartime quickly enough and they wan't to reserve the warship yard capacity they do have for other "proper" warships. Therefore, they transform it into the River class that can be built in merchant shipyards using "normal" methods and the Loch class that can be built in merchant shipyards using mass production techniques.

 

[sonofpegasus]

The Halcyon class has one big advantage in that the first group were built with triple expansion reciprocating machinery, Turbine production was an OTL bottle neck, also merchant engineers were familiar with the reciprocating engines.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

@NOMISYRRUC not sure if you have already mentioned it but we have discussed in the past the advantages of building additional J,K and L class DD's instead of the Tribals would save resources and I personally think they had a better weapon and machinary layout.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

3. Is it feasible (or desirable) to replace all corvette construction with frigates?

• In OTL the Castle class was built because some slips weren't long enough for the Frigates.
• Would it be possible to replace all corvette production in TTL unless all short slips were replaced?
• In addition the production time on corvettes was slightly less, and they had smaller crews. Manpower shortage was a problem later in the war.
• I think replacing some, or even most, corvette production with frigates would be more achievable than all of them.
• And may even have been better in terms of resource and manpower usage.

It's definitely desirable.

• The frigates were better suited to North Atlantic conditions that the corvettes. They were more seaworthy, had greater endurance and more habitable. These attributes made them even better suited to operations in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, which may explain the RANs OTL switch from the Bathurst corvettes/minesweepers to their version of the River class frigate.
• They were 25% faster than the corvettes, which was of great advantage hunting U-boats on the surface and when they were submerged. Those are speeds under ideal conditions. I suspect that the frigates larger hulls made them even faster than the corvettes when operating in the North Atlantic. Therefore, more interceptions.
• The frigates carried more depth charges than the corvettes. They could also be fitted with 2 Squids when it became available. The Castle was fitted with one Squid and AFAIK the Flower wasn't big enough to take Squid. Therefore, more kills. Sinking more U-boats reduces merchant shipping losses and I won't spell out the consequences of that.
• The A/S frigates were armed with two single 4" guns and the corvettes only had one. That gave them a big advantage over the corvettes when they had to fight a surfaced U-boat. Furthermore, I suspect that the larger hull made the frigates a better gun platform which would have improved the accuracy of their guns.
• I suspect that the frigates were tougher than the corvettes. That is the larger hulls enabled them to absorb more damage. For example they would have had more watertight compartments which would have enabled a frigate to survive a torpedo hit that would have sunk a corvette due to greater buoyancy and more counter-flooding. Reduced losses saves men as well as ships and it means that fewer replacements have to be built, which releases shipyard capacity for other uses.

It's feasible in my TL as well.

IOTL the Australians, British and Canadians must have introduced the frigate for a good reason, which was that they were better than corvettes. AIUI they only continued building corvettes because there wasn't enough yard capacity to build frigates in the number required. That is (as you wrote) the British didn't have enough slipways that were long enough and the Canadian yards on the Great Lakes couldn't build them because the locks weren't long enough.

I wrote in the Building Capacity section of Post 608 that there were enough British slipways ITTL because a large number were lengthened in the 1930s in the TTL version of the scrap and build scheme. Furthermore, one of the reasons for building Lochs rather than Rivers instead of the Flowers was that a Loch could be built in two thirds of the time that it took to build a River so more hulls could be built on the same number of slipways. E.g. on that basis 85 Lochs could have been built in the same yards that built the 57 British built Rivers of OTL and in the same length of time.

Marriott also wrote that Loch/Bay building times would have been reduced had the war continued. ITTL the mass production programme starts in the middle of 1939 instead of the end of 1942, which is a head start of about 3½ years. This means that the British would be building frigates in 10-11 months by the end of 1941 or March 1942 depending upon whether Marriott war referring to the end of the end of the European War or the Pacific War. Building times would have been reduced from early 1942 ITTL.

Also the British Commonwealth had 44 extra AS escorts ITTL because there were 332 destroyers and sloops of all types available on 3rd September 1939 instead of 288. The Royal Navies were also going to receive 20 sloops of all types by the middle of 1940 instead of 7. That is the ships ordered before 31st March 1939. Therefore, they weren't as desperate for the ships ordered in the 1939-40 financial year.

Admittedly that's only applies to frigates built instead of corvettes in the UK.

I had the Canadians build more Rivers instead of their corvettes because I thought that Canadian shipyards were more efficient than British shipyards so there was less advantage in building Lochs instead of Rivers. This is why the shipyards that couldn't build Rivers instead of the Flowers that they built IOTL would build Halcyon class minesweepers, which were about the same size as a Castle class corvette and a knot faster.

The Australians built 66 extra Rivers instead of the 3 Tribal class destroyers and 60 Bathurst class corvettes/minesweepers that they built IOTL because I thought that a grand total of 78 frigates (that is including the 12 Rivers that they built IOTL) wasn't enough to justify building the mass production version, i.e. the Loch/Bay.

Regarding personnel a Flower had a crew of 85 according to Lenton and Colledge, but a Modified Flower had a crew of 109 and I guess that they're referring to the crews as designed and that in practice the Flowers also had a crew of 109. According to them a Castle with more sensors and more AA guns had a crew of 120. The same source lists the River class with a crew of 140 and the Loch class which had the heaviest armament of all and the most advanced electronics of all with a crew of 114. Therefore, my conclusion is that the increased personnel requirement of building frigates instead of the corvettes isn't prohibitive.

There's actually a personnel saving from building 35 Bay class frigates instead of 31 Black Swan class sloops. That is a Black Swan had a crew of 180 according to Lendon and Colledge, while a Modified Black Swan had a crew of 192 and a Bay had a crew of 157.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

@NOMISYRRUC not sure if you have already mentioned it but we have discussed in the past the advantages of building additional J,K and L class DD's instead of the Tribals would save resources and I personally think they had a better weapon and machinery layout.

I did.

18 destroyers of the I class were ordered in 1935-36 instead of the 9 I class and first 7 Tribal class. 16 Javelin class were ordered in 1936-37 instead of 8 Javelins and the second batch of 9 Tribal class. So 34 destroyers in the 2 financial years instead of the 33 ordered IOTL, but the cost was less ITTL.

The reason why I didn't build them was because they weren't needed.

IOTL the First London Naval Treaty and British Government allowed the British Commonwealth to have 50 cruisers when they wanted 70. The Treaty also allowed the British Commonwealth to have 13 destroyers displacing 1,850 tons and the Admiralty intended to fill 65% of the "cruiser gap" with 13 scout destroyers displacing 1,850 tons. That is 13 Tribal class destroyers. 7 were ordered in 1935-36 and 6 were to be ordered in 1936-37. However, the tonnage quota became a dead letter when the Second London Naval Treaty was signed in March 1936. That allowed the Admiralty to order 9 Tribals in 1936-37 so they could form them into 2 flotillas of 8 which would now be employed as fleet destroyers because the Admiralty was also allowed to have the 70 cruisers which voided the requirement for scout destroyers.

ITTL there wasn't a requirement for a scout destroyers because the First London Naval Treaty and British Government allowed the British Commonwealth to have the 70 cruisers that the Admiralty wanted. Therefore, all the destroyers ordered in the 1935-36 and 1936-37 Estimates were fleet destroyers.

I've also build more Javelins instead of the 16 Lightning class because they were cheaper and because there wasn't a requirement for a more heavily armed destroyer because more cruisers were available.

 

[dave_r_gilbert]

I haven't replaced the Black Swans with Hunts.

The 2 built under the OTL 1937-38 Estimates were still built ITTL. The 4 ordered for the UK and India in the 1939-40 financial year IOTL were ordered in the 1938-39 financial year ITTL and thus were completed in 1940 instead of 1941.

I've replaced the 31 Black Swans built during the war with 35 Bay class AA frigates. This was because Bays were quicker to build and because the Bays were built in merchant yards and the Black Swans were built in warship yards which increased the capacity of the warship yards to build other types of "proper" warship.

Having written that I did consider building 86 Black Swans instead of the 86 Hunts because my understanding of OTL is that the Admiralty ordered the 86th Hunt in 1940 but continued to build Black Swans in small numbers because it thought the latter was the better ship. Then I discarded that idea in favour of building 86 additional Bay class AA frigates because they could be built faster than Black Swans and and it released capacity in the warship yards that could be used to build more "proper" warships. Plus it would have increased the number of frigates ordered in the 1939-40 financial year from 120 to 180 which strengthened the argument for building the Loch class instead of the River class because the former was designed to be mass produced.

Replacing the OTL 86 Hunts with TTL 86 Black Swans was where I was going, as both were built using warship capacity rather than merchant yard capacity, and the Swans seemed more useful than the Hunts.
I hadn't looked at then replacing Black Swans with Bays, although that makes sense the way you have put it.

 

[ArtosStark]

I don't think this one has been mentioned before, though I may just have missed it. The stopgap 18/25 Pounder (or 25 pounder Mk1) could have been avoided entirely. It was effectively an 18 Pounder re-barreled to take a 25 pound shell, and with minor improvements to the gun carriage. It was mostly produced as a cost saving measure. It preformed somewhat disappointingly with a maximum tested range of 11,800 yards. The 25 Pounder that we all know and love (25 Pounder Mk 2) was actually being developed at the same time and was produced in the same factories that re-barreled the 18 Pounders. If it had been selected from the start, and the carriage allowed to develop along the same lines as it did for the Mk1, you could have the Mk 2 with its increased range and 360 degree box carriage in service for the Battle of France. It won't likely change much, but it will be there.

 

[jsb]

Replacing the OTL 86 Hunts with TTL 86 Black Swans was where I was going, as both were built using warship capacity rather than merchant yard capacity, and the Swans seemed more useful than the Hunts.

With hindsight how much do you save with Hunts or Black Swans over standard War Emergency Programme destroyers? They are smaller but have many of the same systems and not much smaller crew? Could a value engineered O/P class not be better?

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

I don't think this one has been mentioned before, though I may just have missed it. The stopgap 18/25 Pounder (or 25 pounder Mk1) could have been avoided entirely. It was effectively an 18 Pounder re-barreled to take a 25 pound shell, and with minor improvements to the gun carriage. It was mostly produced as a cost saving measure. It preformed somewhat disappointingly with a maximum tested range of 11,800 yards. The 25 Pounder that we all know and love (25 Pounder Mk 2) was actually being developed at the same time and was produced in the same factories that re-barrelled the 18 Pounders. If it had been selected from the start, and the carriage allowed to develop along the same lines as it did for the Mk1, you could have the Mk 2 with its increased range and 360 degree box carriage in service for the Battle of France. It won't likely change much, but it will be there.

I intended to write some posts about the armies and air forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth (BEC) to compliment what I've written about their navies. However, I'm not going to now because the naval posts took a huge amount of time to write.

Though with the British Army I was going to disappoint everyone by not spending a great deal of extra money on tanks. Most of the extra money was going to be spend on the Air Defence Troops (which became Anti-Aircraft Command), improving the AA defences of the defended ports abroad (particularly Singapore and Malta), starting the modernisation of the coast artillery at home and abroad, mechanising the field artillery by the middle of the 1930s and last (and least) modernising the field artillery.

The latter would start with bringing the 25pdr Mk 1 forward 5 years. Production of the 25pdr Mk 2 would begin sooner, but not until the entire stock of 18pdrs held by the BEC armies had been converted into to 18/25pdrs. This would be motivated by finance. The Mk 1 might not have performed as well as the Mk 2, but it was cheaper and rebuilding the 18pdrs would allow the money saved to be spent elsewhere. ITTL 4.5" and 5.5" guns would have begun replacing the existing medium artillery about 5 years earlier and replacement of the heavier artillery would have started around 1938.

IOTL the Army had spent time and money mounting the 18pdr guns on new carriages with pneumatic tyres before converting them into 18/25pdrs. Does anyone know if the new carriage for the 18pdr could accept the "all-new" version of the 25pdr gun? If it couldn't the cost of building new carriages would have been an additional factor against making more 25pdr Mk 2s and no 25pdr Mk 1s.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

With hindsight how much do you save with Hunts or Black Swans over standard War Emergency Programme destroyers? They are smaller but have many of the same systems and not much smaller crew? Could a value engineered O/P class not be better?

From an operational point of view, certainly. Especially if they were built with hulls with Javelin class dimensions that would have allowed a main armament of at lest six 4" guns in twin HA mountings. Then you've got the same AA armament plus 8 torpedoes and more speed.

However, I doubt that a one-to-one substitution would be possible, even with the larger naval shipbuilding capacity that's available in my TL.

In my TL 64 destroyers were ordered by the Admiralty in the 4 financial years 1936-37 to 1939-40 instead of 49 and 16 were ordered in the War Emergency Programme in both timelines. That's a grand total of 65 IOTL and 80 ITTL.

The 65 of OTL consisted of the last 9 Tribals, 24 Javelin class, 16 Lightning class and 16 O&P class with with a varied collection of main armaments. 25 of the 65 were completed before the end of 1939. The other 24 ordered to prewar programmes were completed between December 1940 and April 1943. The 16 O&P class which were ordered in September and October 1939 were completed between July 1941 and October 1942.

The 80 of my TL were all built as Javelin class. 32 of the 80 were completed before the end of 1939. I can't remember whether I wrote it in the posts, but the intention was to use the extra destroyer building capacity to complete the 48 ships ordered in 1938-39, 1939-40 and the WEP by the end of 1941. That is the 16 ships ordered in the 1938-39 estimates would be completed by the end of 1940 and the 32 ordered in the 1939-40 Estimates and War Emergency Programme would be completed in 1941. Second priority for the extra destroyer building capacity (if any remained after accelerating the completion of the fleet destroyers) would be to accelerate the completion of the escort destroyers.

The earlier completion of the fleet destroyers ordered before the war and in the War Emergency Programme would have had a knock-on effect on the destroyers built to later programmes. That is completing these ships sooner allows the later ships to be begun sooner. Which means that they are completed sooner and allows the third generation of ships to be begun sooner, and so on and so on.

 

[ArtosStark]

I intended to write some posts about the armies and air forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth (BEC) to compliment what I've written about their navies. However, I'm not going to now because the naval posts took a huge amount of time to write.

Though with the British Army I was going to disappoint everyone by not spending a great deal of extra money on tanks. Most of the extra money was going to be spend on the Air Defence Troops (which became Anti-Aircraft Command), improving the AA defences of the defended ports abroad (particularly Singapore and Malta), starting the modernisation of the coast artillery at home and abroad, mechanising the field artillery by the middle of the 1930s and last (and least) modernising the field artillery.

The latter would start with bringing the 25pdr Mk 1 forward 5 years. Production of the 25pdr Mk 2 would begin sooner, but not until the entire stock of 18pdrs held by the BEC armies had been converted into to 18/25pdrs. This would be motivated by finance. The Mk 1 might not have performed as well as the Mk 2, but it was cheaper and rebuilding the 18pdrs would allow the money saved to be spent elsewhere. ITTL 4.5" and 5.5" guns would have begun replacing the existing medium artillery about 5 years earlier and replacement of the heavier artillery would have started around 1938.

IOTL the Army had spent time and money mounting the 18pdr guns on new carriages with pneumatic tyres before converting them into 18/25pdrs. Does anyone know if the new carriage for the 18pdr could accept the "all-new" version of the 25pdr gun? If it couldn't the cost of building new carriages would have been an additional factor against making more 25pdr Mk 2s and no 25pdr Mk 1s.

AIUI, the carriage was developed through testing with the Mk 1 and was then ready to accept the Mk 2. It’s a little unclear in my sources, but I believe that is the case. Reading further, I may need to undermine my earlier argument by saying that the earlier disappointing results may have been down to the carriage more than the gun itself. When fitted with the standard carriage I believe the only difference between the Mk 1 and Mk2 was that the Mk 1 couldn’t take as high a charge. Having 5 extra years of development for the carriage could be helpful but I believe the ideas floated in the 1920’s were for 2 separate guns rather than the combined gun-howitzer.

While we are on artillery, there is the 4.5/5.5 issue that I believe we went through earlier in this thread. An earlier 5.5 inch gun, particularly if the later, longer ranged shell also comes earlier, could standardize Medium artillery the way the 25 pounder did for field artillery. Additionally, the 7.2 inch mortar was more or less a war time expedient solution to add range to old 8 inch howitzers by re-lining the barrel for 7.2 inch. If it was worked on interwar, they could have developed something similar to the US M1 203 mm, which was an improved version of the British 8 inch anyway. If they could develop something similar to the M1’s carriage (which they ended up using for the 7.2 anyway) that would also come in handy.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Hindsight tells us that the Royal Navy aught to have started its 50cm radar programme in 1933 instead of 1938 and @Sarthak Bikram Panta had included it in is A Better Decade timeline.

It would have been useful if the Admiralty had done the following between the end of World War One and the POD:

1. Developed welding to the point where all ships completed from 1930 onwards were fully welded. IIRC from one of DK Brown's books that's because they tried to save weight by using a lighter type of steel that turned out to be harder to weld;
2. Developed high pressure boilers to the point where all ships completed from 1930 onwards had high pressure boilers;
3. Developed alternating current electrical systems so that all ships completed from 1930 onwards used 440V AC three-phase at 60Hz with PVC insulated wiring instead of 220 volts DC with lead insulation for the wiring.

However, they're out of bounds because they're before the POD. Therefore, we'll have to settle for them doing this between the POD and the middle of the 1930s which is a period of 6 years and is a reasonable time to do it.

This gives us time for the Director of Naval Construction's Department to incorporate these features into the King George V class. That would save weight that could be used to build them with twelve 14" in three quadruple turrets or nine 15" in three triple turrets and possibly nine 16" in three triple turrets with the OTL standard of protection and still remain within the 35,000 ton limit.

These innovations might have enabled the designers of the Colony class cruiser to get it's displacement down to 8,000 tons and therefore not break the Second London Naval Treaty. However, I still think they would have been better off carrying forward the 10,000 ton limit for cruisers from the earlier treaties which would have allowed them to build more cruisers based on the Edinburgh class instead of the Colonies, Swiftsures and Tigers. An Edinburgh built with a welded hull, high-pressure machinery and an AC electrical system with PVC wiring might be able to take twelve 4.5" guns in Mk III UD mountings instead of the twelve 4" in twin HA mountings. Whether that improves their ability to survive air attacks is a different matter.

AIUI the Admiralty had a tachymetric anti-aircraft fire control system under development in the early 1930s but it was abandoned in favour of the HACS. I don't know why, but the plausible reasons are the extra cost, extra complexity, the extra weight which was important in the Treaty Era or they simply thought that the HACS was good enough. I've also read that the American fire control systems like the Mk 37 that were tachymetric weren't that much better than the HACS until the advent of gunnery radar and the proximity fuse.

ITTL we've started radar development 5 years earlier and there isn't as much of a weight problem due to the earlier introduction of welded hulls, high-pressure boilers and AC electrics.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

AIUI, the carriage was developed through testing with the Mk 1 and was then ready to accept the Mk 2. It’s a little unclear in my sources, but I believe that is the case. Reading further, I may need to undermine my earlier argument by saying that the earlier disappointing results may have been down to the carriage more than the gun itself. When fitted with the standard carriage I believe the only difference between the Mk 1 and Mk2 was that the Mk 1 couldn’t take as high a charge. Having 5 extra years of development for the carriage could be helpful but I believe the ideas floated in the 1920’s were for 2 separate guns rather than the combined gun-howitzer.

Going in reverse.

Development of a replacement for the 18pdr gun and 4.5" howitzer had been underway since the 1920s but even if the money to put a replacement weapon into production had been available it might not have been done because AIUI none of the prototype guns that had been tested were satisfactory. Another AIUI is that the 25pdr in its Mk I and II forms wasn't thought of until the middle of the 1930s so my idea of bringing it forward 5 years might have to resort to handwavium to have it ready to go into production 5 years earlier.

I'll have to go back to my source documents and see if the "new carriage" programme of OTL overlapped with my idea of bringing the "re-barrelling" forward 5 years earlier. If they do overlap that will allow the new carriages to be designed to make better use of the "new" gun. It would also void some of the cost advantage that the 18/25pdr gun had over the "all new" 25pdr gun IOTL.

I hadn't mentioned before, but the earlier replacement of the 18pdr gun and 4.5" howtizer would allow the earlier reorganisation of the field artillery.

Until 1938 the "accounting unit" of the Royal Regiment of Artillery was the battery. The brigades that they were organised into were analogous to brigades of cavalry and infantry. Before World War One a Royal Field Artillery brigade had been equipped with eighteen 18pdr guns or eighteen 4.5" howitzers organised into 3 batteries each with 6 guns or 6 howitzers. The split of the Royal Regiment of Artillery into Field, Garrison and Horse branches that took place in 1899 came to an end in 1924. At about the same time field batteries were reduced to 4 artillery pieces and re-organised into 4-battery brigades which usually had 3 gun and one howitzer battery.

In 1938 the brigades were replaced by regiments which replaced the batteries as the "accounting units" of the Royal Regiment of Artillery.

AIUI one of the reasons why this was done was to avoid the confusion between artillery brigades which were lieutenant-colonel's command being confused with other types of brigade which were a brigadier's command. For example, there was also the situation where there were anti-aircraft brigades commanded by brigadiers, which consisted of anti-aircraft brigades (with AA guns) commanded by lieutenant-colonels and anti-aircraft battalions (of searchlights which belonged to the Royal Engineers) commanded by lieutenant-colonels. However, the Royal Artillery was a regiment which is usually organised into battalions and a regiment organised into regiments sounds just as bad as an air defence brigade composed of several anti-aircraft brigades. It was the same situation within the Royal Armoured Corps. The Royal Tank Corps had been organised into battalions and independent companies. However, when the Royal Armoured Regiment was formed it was renamed the Royal Tank Regiment, with its battalions and companies becoming regiments and squadrons, presumably to conform with cavalry practice. However, the 1st Battalion, Royal Tank Corps was now the 1st Regiment, Royal Tank Regiment, which has never sounded right to me.

The field brigades with twelve 18pdrs guns and four 4.5" howtizers were replaced by field brigades with twenty-four 25pdr gun-howitzers in either of its two forms. The old brigades had four batteries with 4 guns or howitzers each and the new regiments had two batteries with twelve 25pdr weapons each with each battery being divided into two sub-batteries. AIUI the new organisation had better "tactical flexibility" (if that's the correct expression) and was cheaper to run because fewer administrative personnel were required.

Introducing a gun howitzer half-a-decade earlier would allow this reorganisation to be brought forward 5 years.

Another cost reduction was mechanisation which was undertaken at about this time. Mechanical Transport needed less maintenance than the Horse Transport which mean that fewer men were needed which in turn reduced the wages bill. MT only needed "feeding" when it was working while the HT needed to be "re-fuelled" regardless of whether it was working or not. MT units had a higher standard of operational efficiency than HT units because they had more time to train.

 

[Spencersj345.346]

Say assuming for some reason that the treasury forces the RN to build the Arethrusas for some reason is it a good idea to finish all six that were orginally planned in otl? A couple more cruisers really could have helped at various points.Also is it plausible that the RN would build all of the Leanders to the same design as the Amphion subclass

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Say assuming for some reason that the treasury forces the RN to build the Arethrusas for some reason is it a good idea to finish all six that were orginally planned in otl? A couple more cruisers really could have helped at various points.Also is it plausible that the RN would build all of the Leanders to the same design as the Amphion subclass.

I don't know. However, the plan for six Arethusas came about like this.

Article 20, Paragraph A of the First London Naval Treaty

(a) The "Frobisher" and "Effingham" (United Kingdom) may be disposed of during the year 1936. Apart from the cruisers under construction on 1 April 1930, the total replacement tonnage of cruisers to be completed, in the case of the British Commonwealth of Nations, prior to 31 December 1936, shall not exceed 91,000 tons (92,456 metric tons).

According to Morris in Cruisers of the British and Commonwealth Navies the plan was to build 14 Leanders from this allowance, but that must have been a typo for 13 as the Leanders and Amphions displaced about 7,000 tons and 14 times 7,000 equals 98,000 tons.

Then he says that this was altered to 9 Leanders and 6 Arethusas, which was presumably to get more hulls out of the available tonnage, but that comes to 94,500 tons if the Leanders displace 7,000 tons and the Arethusas displace 5,250 tons.

However, what actually happened was that 8 Leander/Amphion, 3 Arethusa and 2 Southampton class cruisers were ordered in the five financial years 1929-30 to 1933-34 and laid down between September 1930 and November 1934. The 14 ships had a combined standard displacement of 90,500 tons.

The four cruisers ordered in the 1934-35 financial years were Sheffield, Glasgow, Birmingham and Aurora. According to Friedman Aurora was built as the fourth Arethusa rather than the sixth Southampton because the First London Naval Treaty was still in force and there wasn't enough "replacement tonnage" available for four Southamptons, but there was enough for three Southamptons and an Arethusa.

So what we would have actually got was 9 Leander/Amphions, 7 Arethusas, 6 Southamptons and 2 Edinburghs, total 24 cruisers, instead of 8 Leander/Amphions, 4 Arethusas, 8 Southamptons and 2 Edinburghs, total 22 hulls. That's a net increase of 2 hulls.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Say assuming for some reason that the treasury forces the RN to build the Arethrusas for some reason is it a good idea to finish all six that were orginally planned in otl? A couple more cruisers really could have helped at various points.Also is it plausible that the RN would build all of the Leanders to the same design as the Amphion subclass

In addition to the Treasury limits on naval expenditure that limited the quality and quantity of the cruisers built for the Royal Navy. There was also the limitations of the First London Naval Treaty,

These are the parts of the Treaty that limited the quality and quantity of the British Commonwealth's cruisers.

Article 16 of the Treaty allowed the British Commonwealth of Nations to have:

146,800 tons (149,149 metric tons) of cruisers with guns of more than 6.1 inch (155 mm) calibre​

192,200 tons (195,275 metric tons) of cruisers with guns of 6.1 inch (155 mm) calibre or less​

That is, a grand total of 339,000 tons (344,424 metric tons) of cruisers.

Vessels that caused the total tonnage in any category to exceed the figures given in the foregoing table could be disposed of gradually during the period ending on 31 December 1936.

Article 19
Except as provided in Article 20, the tonnage laid down in any category subject to limitation in accordance with Article 16 shall not exceed the amount necessary to reach the maximum allowed tonnage of the category, or to replace vessels that become "over-age" before 31 December 1936. Nevertheless, replacement tonnage may be laid down for cruisers and submarines that become "over-age" in 1937, 1938 and 1939, and for destroyers that become "over-age" in 1937 and 1938.

Article 20
Notwithstanding the rules for replacement contained in Annex I to Part II:
(a) The "Frobisher" and "Effingham" (United Kingdom) may be disposed of during the year 1936. Apart from the cruisers under construction on 1 April 1930, the total replacement tonnage of cruisers to be completed, in the case of the British Commonwealth of Nations, prior to 31 December 1936, shall not exceed 91,000 tons (92,456 metric tons).

Article 13, Annex I, Section I, set the rules for replacement.

Except as provided in Section III of this Annex and Part III of the present Treaty, a vessel shall not be replaced before it becomes "over-age". A vessel shall be deemed to be "over-age" when the following number of years have elapsed since the date of its completion:

(a) For a surface vessel exceeding 3,000 tons (3,048 metric tons) but not exceeding 10,000 tons (10,160 metric tons) standard displacement:​

(i) If laid down before 1 January 1920: 16 years;​

(ii) If laid down after 31 December 1919: 20 years.​

​

The right of replacement was not lost by delay in laying down replacement tonnage.

I thought the Treaty said that surface vessels displacing more than 3,000 tons could be laid down no more than 3 years before the ship it was to replace became overage, but I couldn't find it when I was looking through the treaty.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Say assuming for some reason that the treasury forces the RN to build the Arethrusas for some reason is it a good idea to finish all six that were orginally planned in otl? A couple more cruisers really could have helped at various points.Also is it plausible that the RN would build all of the Leanders to the same design as the Amphion subclass.

At the end of 1929 the British Commonwealth of Nations had 15 cruisers armed with 8 inch guns completed or under construction that absorbed the 146,800 tons (149,149 metric tons) of cruisers with guns of more than 6.1 inch (155 mm) calibre.

There were also 44 cruisers armed with 7.5 and 6 inch guns with an aggregate standard displacement of 224,010 tons completed 1911-26. That is 31,810 tons more than the Treaty allowed.

Under the terms of the Treaty 37 of these cruisers (including Frobisher and Effingham) with an aggregate displacement of 184,940 tons would become overage by the end of 1936. However, 31,810 tons of them had to be scrapped without replacement by the end of 1936 to remain with in the tonnage quota and the Treaty limited the British Commonwealth could only complete 91,000 tons of new cruisers by the end of 1936. This meant that 23 cruisers of 122,080 tons had to be scrapped by the end of 1936.

This left.
62,860 tons (14 ships) overage at the end of 1936 that had not been replaced because of the 91,000 tons quota.
23,940 tons (5 ships) that would become overage between 1st January 1937 and 31st December 1938
15,130 tons (2 ships) that would become overage in 1942.

The first County class cruisers would not become overage until 1948.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Say assuming for some reason that the treasury forces the RN to build the Arethrusas for some reason is it a good idea to finish all six that were orginally planned in otl? A couple more cruisers really could have helped at various points.Also is it plausible that the RN would build all of the Leanders to the same design as the Amphion subclass.

The Treaty allowed the British Commonwealth to have 192,200 tons of cruisers armed with 6 inch guns or smaller.

It could lay down 177,070 tons of cruisers between 1st April 1930 and 31st December 1936. That is:

91,000 tons that could be competed by the end of 1936​

86,070 tons that could be completed between 1st January 1937 and the end of 1939 to replace the cruisers that became overage by the end of 1939.​

However, all but 2 of the existing light cruisers became overage by 31st August 1938. The other 2 were Emerald and Enterprise (with a combined displacement of 15,130 tons) that became overage in 1942.

The 13 cruisers ordered in the 1929-30 to 1933-34 Naval Estimates had a combined displacement of 90,500 tons. The other 9 ships that were laid down before the end of 1936 had a combined displacement of 80,770 tons. That's a grand total of 171,270 tons or 5,800 tons less than they were allowed by the Treaty.

AIUI Belfast and Edinburgh were built as 10,000 ton ships, rather than 9,400 tons like the previous Birmingham class to make use of the available replacement tonnage. But that only used 20,000 tons of the 25,800 tons that was available. It wasn't enough to build 3 Birminghams, but it would have allowed 4 Arethusas, or 3 Amphions or 2 Edinburghs and an Arethusa to be ordered in the 1936-37 Navy Estimates and be laid down before the end of 1936.

4 cruisers were ordered in the 1934-35 Navy Estimates. These were the final 3 Southamptons and the fourth Arethusa. Friedman says the fourth ship had to be an Arethuasa rather than another Southampton because there wasn't enough replacement tonnage available. However, my calculation is that 67,710 tons of replacement tonnage was available, that is there were 62,860 tons of cruisers that had become overage at the end of 1936 and HMS Durban displacing 4,850 tons would become overage in 1937. However, the 4 ships that were ordered displaced 32,570 tons.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Say assuming for some reason that the treasury forces the RN to build the Arethrusas for some reason is it a good idea to finish all six that were originally planned in otl? A couple more cruisers really could have helped at various points. Also is it plausible that the RN would build all of the Leanders to the same design as the Amphion subclass.

Now I've provided the background. I'll try to answer the questions.

The four Arethusas had an average standard displacement of 5,245 tons, which for the purposes of the answer will be rounded up to 5,250 tons.

I don't know if all of the Leanders could have been built as Amphions, but I'm going to assume that they could as it makes the arithmetic simpler. For the purposes of the answer I've rounded up the average displacement of an Amphion to 7,000 tons.

This is because, the five Leanders had an average standard displacement of 7,135 tons, which if it hadn't been for the above would have been rounded down to 7,100 tons. The three Amphions had an average standard displacement of 6,972 tons, which I have rounded up to 7,000 tons. The eight ships had an average standard displacement of 7,074 tons, which I would have rounded up to 7,100 tons. However, as already written, I've assumed that the OTL Leanders can be built as Amphions displacing an average of 7,000 tons.

AIUI the original 1933-34 Navy Estimates included one Amphion and 3 Arethusas displacing 22,810 tons. That would have brought the total ordered to date to 5 Leanders, 4 Amphions and 5 Arethusas. That is a total of 14 ships displacing 89,840 tons out of the 91,000 tons that could be completed by the end of 1936. The source for this is Warships of World War II by Lenton and Colledge.

It's Morris in Cruisers of the Royal and Commonwealth Navies that says the plan was to build 5 Leanders, 4 Amphions and 6 Arethusas by the end of 1936, but as I wrote in Post 636 that comes to a total of 94,500 tons, which is 3,500 tons more than the 91,000 tons allowed by the Treaty.

However, this was altered to 2 Southamptons and one Arethusa displacing 23,470 tons. That brought the total ordered to date to 5 Leanders, 3 Amphions, 3 Arethusas and 2 Southamtons. A total of 13 ships displacing 90,500 tons out of the 91,000 tons that could be completed by the end of 1936.

Had the Admiralty stuck to the original plan for 7,000 ton cruisers they would still have built 13 cruisers in the 1929-30 to 1933-34 Navy Estimates, but they would have been 5 Leander and 8 Amphion class. The switch to a mix of 7,000 ton and 5,250 ton cruisers only got one more hull out of the 91,000 ton allowance. Except, that they did not stick to that plan either, because a pair of 9,100 ton cruisers was built instead of one 7,000 ton and two 5,250 ton cruisers.

Had they built only 5,250 ton cruisers they could have built 17 Arethusas out of the 91,000 tons.

The 9 cruisers ordered in the 1934-35 to 1936-37 Navy Estimates and laid down before the end of 1936 IOTL displaced 80,770 tons out of the 86,570 tons that were available.

This would have been reduced to 86,070 tons had all the 91,000 tons been used to build 13 ships of the Leander and Amphion types. That would have been enough to build 12 Amphion class or 16 Arethusa class.

So instead of the 22 cruisers that were laid down between April 1930 and the end of 1936 the British Commonwealth could have laid down 25 Leanders and Amphions or 33 Arethusas. 25 Leanders and Amphions would have left 2,070 tons unused out of the 177,070 tons that could be built to the end of 1939. 33 Arethusas would have left 3,820 tons out of the 177,020 tons that could be built to the end of 1939.

A mix of 17 Leander/Amphions and 11 Arethusas (total 28 ships) would have left 320 tons out of the 177,020 tons that could be built to the end of 1939.

Conclusions

I'm not sure that what I've written answers the question. That's because it's not really finance that limits the number of ships that can be built, but the tonnage that can be built according to the terms of the First London Naval Treaty. IOTL all but 5,800 tons of the tonnage that was available was used.

Building only the Leander/Amphion type or only the Arethusa class or a mix of Leander/Amphion and Arethusa class cruiers would allow more ships to be built, but would the increase in quantity have offset the decrease in quality?