You can't always get what you want. The German navy was a very low priority and that cruiser being cheap and being able to fight against probably superior numbers for a short time is probably the best they could hope for.
At 29Kn & 8 150mm guns (6 side) Emden is far more capable than the older 6 Gazelle class class with 21kn and 10x 105mm guns (5/6 side) and they have been already disarmed in 1916 so really only ready for scrapyard, the PD are far to slow to catch anything that doesn't want to at less than 18Kn.
Emden is perfectly capable of fighting the majority of cruiser built before the WNT CAs started to appear she also starts the process of rebuilding the fleet and insures that its not simply given up.
I will add that a Gazelle could realistically lose to a few WWI DDs and KM did not know in 21 just how many super new cruisers would be built due to WNT/LNT.
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Which was well to simply put it lacking in maintaince, trained officers,parts, fuel,experienced sailors,ammo, time at sea, and pretty much every other thing you need for an operational navy during the 20s and a solid third of the 30s
Some of the small ships were probably a threat. Like minelayers
McPherson
Banned
"Look, Hans, it is the Russian navy! We are doomed, They brought minelayers."
Boom x 25 or 30.
"They should have brought mine sweepers, Wolfgang."
A succeeding ship would, not Emden herself as that was a must have ship for the building up of the new postwar navy. Waiting would mean becoming even more handicapped later on with delays and so on in building up a new core of especially trained personel. The ship as such was not that much of an issue, the personel was.
Theoretically Emden could have been drasticaly reconstructed later on, when more cruiser sized ships were available to take on her training ship role, but the ship as such would never be a good frontline ship anyway, just as the other light cruisers never were good ships for the sort of warfare Germany had in mind for the navy. (The majority remained active as trainingships most of their active careers, even the ones lost early on.)
McPherson
Banned
Training personnel?
a, officers need practical ship handling and crew management.
b. crew need operating ship systems and battle drill.
c. the "training" ship needs to be cheap enough to perform a. and b.
That ship is a cadet cruiser designed to serve as a headquarters ship for an IJN area fleet. She failed both missions. Why? Overbuilt.
How a good navy does it.
The USN constantly modernized the Reina Mercedes. Good ship. Good object lesson for her cadet crews.
The Kriegsmarine of the 1920s had a long way to go. Versailles had stripped it of real power ans the rules of Weimar Germany werent in a rush. Heck I could see the ship being built to defend the Baltic and train cadets because they were too cheap to get two separate ships. Especially after the Ruhr crisis of 1923 which nearly collapsed Weimar
McPherson
Banned
Not really. The Katoris are too modern to direct compare to Emden. Besides HIJMS Nagara was the ship where "Braindead" Takeo Takagi learned his incompetent command style (1933-34). That other loser, Sadamichi Kajioka, (1935-1936), followed him as captain and repeated the errors.
Some definitions: What is a trainingship specification?
Answer: Depending on what sort of training is intended, the following:
- General Seamanship training vessel: Any sort of basic ship would suffice, especially sailing ships. Basic needs, Accomodation. (Georg Fock in german Navy)
- Naval personel military training ship: Any sort of basical large volume vessel with large Accomodation and some standard equipment like weapons and navigational instruments. (Which was Emden's purpose in this topic)
- Advanced engineering training ship: A modern ship, (not necessarily a naval ship), with state of the art engines and powerplant and a large internal accomodation.
- Gunnery training ship: A cruiser sized ship with large internal volume and accomodation prefered, though especially advanced gunnery training equipment and gunnery control. Any old cruiser or battleship would do, as long as the rangefinding and firecontrol were updated to modern standards. (Germany used the old Pre-Dreadnought Schliessen for this purpose as well as the purpose build Brummer.)
Just for the record, my design for an alternative Emden is built in ATL where the Reichmarine hasn't been completely stripped of any ships of military value - they still have 3 Nassau class Battleships and a couple of more modern Light Cruisers. By the same measure, the Allies are adopting a slightly softer touch towards the Germans, so they have been able to use twin mounts and machinery from Battlecruisers scrapped on the slipway - the ship is also laid down 1-2 years than the Emden.
Just an observation: Why having the remnants of the former Imperial Navy retain three Nassau class Dreadnoughts and a number of latest build light cruisers? This was a far cry from the goals of the Allies in the great War, unless the final outcome of that war is altered as well. The Reichsmarine succeeding the Kaiserliche Marine already was stretched to the limits of what was allowed only on the goodwill of especially the UK and USA, as France even wanted going as abolishing all armed forces in a postwar Germany. remember it is not just ships, that were restricted in numbers, but size of the number of men allowed for as well. Maintaining Dreadnougths was not going to help as these were very crew intensive.
Very true - with the 15,000 men allowed by the ToV, they were already struggling to keep just 3-4 of the pre-dreadnoughts in service. This goes some way to explaining the unreliability of the later high-pressure steam systems: given their experience with a severe lack of personnel, the KM tried to automate as many functions as possible. Which was reaching rather too far given the state-of-the-art. Pushing steam pressure beyond 80 atmospheres on the Hippers for example just made things worse...
This is the thickness of the last bulkhead coming in towards the centreline. You need and inch and a half (38mm) to stop splinters from the hull, other bulkheads or the actual torpedo. Since your cruisers only have seven and a half foot between this bulkhead and the side hull, you may as well save the weight and not bother. Given the all or nothing nature of torpedo attack, the defence should be all or nothing. Twelve to fifteen foot a side of spaced armour compartments (four to five) with 38mm of anti-spall backed plate or leave it out.
I've got to say though, that designing a decent light cruiser in those restrctions is really hard. I think you have done really well.
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Probably not the most plausible turn of events, I agree. However, the Nassau class ships aren't modern Dreadnoughts - they are slow with VTE and can't present all their (12 in) guns as a broadside - hardly threatening to the Royal Navy, and the French. The 'modern' light cruisers are Kolberg and Magdeburg class ships - which might be somewhat effective at commerce raiding but would have been obsolete by the 1920s.
I was, and kinda still am writing a timeline based on no scuttling at Scapa Flow, and the Germans being allowed to retain more ships.