AHC: A Different USS Alaska
- Thread starter Driftless
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Driftless
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My thought on the POD was a post-Munich uptick in naval building by the US. At that point, they're likely still thinking as a killer of panzerschiffe/and other big raiders, plus being able to run alongside US Carriers - either as scouts (some admirals still thought that idea still had merit.), or as protective sidekicks.
Having several large fast warships (that are not uber expensive fast battle ships or battle cruisers) that are able to overwhelm CA's and CL's by gun fire would seem useful to me prior to WW2 demonstrating the power of air craft carriers.
IMHO the USN probably over built the Alaska class, and simply building more Iowa class BB's might have been better in hindsight, but the basic concept seems reasonable to me.
Yeah, maybe a modern 10" gun firing modern super heavy shells might have made more sense.
After the details of the Deutschlands came out, there was a proposal to rearm US heavy cruisers with twin 10" guns. Also I have read that the earliest proposals for what became the Alaska were armed with 10" guns.. I'm reading Friedman's US cruisers book again. Later in the Post-Treaty Generation chapter, he mentions the idea of what became the Baltimore of being armed with the triple 8" turrets, or twin 12" turrets. Twin or triple 10" turrets on a Baltimore or enlarged Baltimore seem attractive to me. But then I like the 10" gun.
B-65 Cruiser, 9x31cm guns, 33 knots, fairly similar. They were planned to begin in the mid forties but WW2 intervened. Apparently the US thought the Japanese were already building some.
The Alaska's were just about right. USN Intelligence falsely believed the Japanese were building a Super Cruiser that would outclass the new Baltimore Class CA's. A ship that outclassed a Baltimore, say a 20,000 ton ship, with 10" guns could only be countered directly by something about the size of the Alaska's. It's like the case of Jacky Fisher creating the Battlecruiser to kill Armored Cruisers. In this case there were no Japanese Super Cruisers, and the Japanese Cruiser Fleet was dealt with by their counterparts, and by Naval Air Power. The Alaska's were left to serve as AAA platforms, and shore bombardment.
The main problems with the Alaskas was their poor TDS and absolutely terrible turning circle both of which are solvable with a slightly different design
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The main problems with the Alaskas was there poor TDS and absolutely terrible turning circle both of which are solvable with a slightly different design
Correct the Alaska's weren't capital ships. They were the size of a ship like Scharnhorst, with better guns, but armor not much better then Renown. The USN would have tried to keep them out of a direct fight with an enemy battleship. Of course USN CA's had to be committed to combat against Japanese Battleships at 1st Guadalcanal, in November 1942. An Alaska would have mauled a Kongo. By the time the Alaska's joined the fight American Air Power was so dominate the surface fleet rarely had to fight in such desperate circumstances.
Correct the Alaska's weren't capital ships. They were the size of a ship like Scharnhorst, with better guns, but armor not much better then Renown. The USN would have tried to keep them out of a direct fight with an enemy battleship. Of course USN CA's had to be committed to combat against Japanese Battleships at 1st Guadalcanal, in November 1942. An Alaska would have mauled a Kongo. By the time the Alaska's joined the fight American Air Power was so dominate the surface fleet rarely had to fight in such desperate circumstances.
RamscoopRaider
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Not according to the actual research the USN did in the period that led to the Alaska. The USN did the research on effectiveness and concluded that 6 12" guns are better than 9 10" guns that are still better than 12 8" guns in the sort of fights they expected their heavy cruisers to get into. You would have to completely change their assumptions for how their heavy cruisers are going to fight for a 10" to make sense
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I like that with more than one rudder so it doesn't have a turn radius the size of Nebraska.
Yep they were and that's why every DD design the USN has ever built since the Fletchers has had twin rudders. Postwar they partially fixed the Fletcher class by fitting them with a bigger rudder
No, but the US Navy was very worried about mixed groups of cruiser, carriers, and Kongos making a run at their SLOCs. Hence why they built the Iowas. And with CAs needed for providing Battle Force firepower and escorting frontline carrier groups something like an Alaska would've been useful for the task.
Presumably a feature - one assumes that they didn’t design it with one rudder thinking ‘this baby is gonna corner on rails’ and then got it in the water and just thought ‘Ah’. A misguided attempt to save a tiny amount of money? How did the turning circle compare to the US and Japanese heavy cruisers at the time?