Modify it for extra range and different armament, and the gunboat might make for a decent ASW escort in a pinch.
Modify it for extra range and different armament, and the gunboat might make for a decent ASW escort in a pinch.
Royal Fleet Auxiliary Dedalus. Commissioned in 1937 as an aircraft transport and fleet oiler. The first of 24 such ships the majority of which are built in the years 1940 - 1944.
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The last WWII ship in service with the Royal Navy HMS Troutbridge commissioned in 1943 decommissioned as the guardship of the crown colony of Boonsy in the 2010 defence cuts.
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Although I always pictured her as a frigate rather than a destroyer... I see the stamp on the top left appears to say Troutbridge? Is this added on - What is the original ships name?
It's the T Class Destroyer HMS Troubridge, and was later converted into a Type 15 Frigate. This is the ship Troutbridge was named for, note the ships crest.
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Would the RN need 24 of them? Are they also serving as escort carriers too? What is the actual ship pictured here?
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Regarding the crest. Was that actually the ship's crest or a joke the crew worked up?
I think the one on the right is a joke since the image with the ship shows the crest with an intact structure in it.
The one on the right is for the fictional HMS Troutbridge, star of the radio comedy "The Navy Lark". The ship and crest is the real HMS Troubridge.
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The RN used more than 40 escort carriers either built by them or in the US. There were also the many Merchant Aircraft Carriers.
Perhaps they build a handful of 'Imperial Aircraft transports' pre-war and then seeing how useful they are spam them out?
That's what I thought, maybe 2 or 3 prewar as that's what they could get past the treasury and then once the Germans walk into the rump of Czechoslovakia set up a war emergency building program.
I was reading something recently about the speed endurance of coal fueled ships being very limited due to the fact that you can only go at max speed as long as your stoker's can keep the speed. For most ships this allows about 6 to 8 hours at maximum speed.
The Big Battleship by Richard Hough speaks about the stoker's aboard Goeben fainting from the heat (with 2 dieing from heatstroke) at 24 knots in the Mediterranean.
While this is a very sensible thought it isn't obvious to most people and indeed many authors forget about this.
An oil burning ship does not need to worry about their stoker's health while going at maximum speed and can (with sufficient fuel on board) go at maximum speed for much longer.
While Indomitable did a 3 day spell with an average speed above 25 knots this was not doable in war time. They had 300 extra stoker's aboard above the wartime compliment and had cut spaces into walls to make the passage of coal from the bunkers to the boilers more efficient.
Admiral Fisher was a big supporter of oil however he did not manage to convince anyone to convert capital ships to oil firing at any stage. Churchill (with the gleeful encouragement of Fisher was the first to order oil firing capital ships).
Another advantage of oil is that it needs much less crew as stoker's. HMS Lion a ship with a complement of 1000 had an engine room complement of around 600. HMS Hood an oil firing battlecruiser with a crew of around 1500 had an engine room complement of 306). Let us say that a coal burning battlecruiser had an engine room complement of 60% of the crew while an oil burning battlecruiser had an engine room compliment of 20% of the crew.
From this we can estimate that the stoker's were 40% of the crew of a battlecruiser.
Oil also has a much higher calorific value than coal (roughly 30% higher for the same weight). This means that the same weight in oil will bring you further faster.
Let's say Fisher manages to convince someone that oil fired battlecruisers is a good idea as the higher speed and speed endurance would make it much better for running down cruisers on the high seas. This isn't unreasonable. Around 1900 many major fleet bases had stocks of oil. A large number of ships had oil sprayed on coal.
If Fisher kept the argument for oil centred on high value ships where speed (and speed endurance) is key he might have been able to have success.
Let's look at the Invincible class Battlecruiser with a peacetime compliment of 700 and wartime complement of 1000.
We can say an oil burning Invincible might be around 400 crew in peacetime and 600 in war time.
Design speed of the invincibles class was 25 knots but all 3 ships made 26 knots during trials (with handpicked stoker's). Without changing the engine layout we can guess that an oil fired ship would be able to make 26 knots on a more consistent basis. We could also add an extra boiler (I always felt 31 boilers in 4 rooms was an odd choice. Let's bring it to 32 boilers in 4 rooms) due to additional space (from not needing large stoker crews) bringing shp to around 50k and speed to around 27 knots.
If we keep bunkerage consistent with a total of 3725 long tonnes of fuel and taking into account the higher calorific value of fuel oil as opposed to coal I would estimate that range at 10 knots would increase from 3000 nautical miles to 3700 nautical miles.
OK so quiet a lot of text here.
TLDR
Oil Firing Invincible Class Battlecruisers
Armanent (as historical)
Armour (as historical)
Speed 27 knots 50k shp
Does this change the German reaction at all?
The historical reaction to the Invincible class, SMS Von Der Tann had a design speed of 24 knots (41k shp) but did 27 knots on trials and 28 knots during a high speed cruise between Tenerife and Germany. The most common explanation of the extent of this difference is that the design speed and power is based on typical German coal while the highest speed performances were performed with Welsh coal (which was a much superior grade).
While Von Der Tann (if as historical) can compete in speed with the oil fired invincible she will not be able to match her in terms of speed endurance.
Perhaps the most reasonable reaction from the Germans would be to establish storage facilities for a supply of Welsh coal at Wilhelmshaven to guarantee security of supply and allow Von Der Tann and other German ships to compete in speed.
The Big Battleship by Richard Hough speaks about the stoker's aboard Goeben fainting from the heat (with 2 dieing from heatstroke) at 24 knots in the Mediterranean.
While this is a very sensible thought it isn't obvious to most people and indeed many authors forget about this.
An oil burning ship does not need to worry about their stoker's health while going at maximum speed and can (with sufficient fuel on board) go at maximum speed for much longer.
While Indomitable did a 3 day spell with an average speed above 25 knots this was not doable in war time. They had 300 extra stoker's aboard above the wartime compliment and had cut spaces into walls to make the passage of coal from the bunkers to the boilers more efficient.
Admiral Fisher was a big supporter of oil however he did not manage to convince anyone to convert capital ships to oil firing at any stage. Churchill (with the gleeful encouragement of Fisher was the first to order oil firing capital ships).
Another advantage of oil is that it needs much less crew as stoker's. HMS Lion a ship with a complement of 1000 had an engine room complement of around 600. HMS Hood an oil firing battlecruiser with a crew of around 1500 had an engine room complement of 306). Let us say that a coal burning battlecruiser had an engine room complement of 60% of the crew while an oil burning battlecruiser had an engine room compliment of 20% of the crew.
From this we can estimate that the stoker's were 40% of the crew of a battlecruiser.
Oil also has a much higher calorific value than coal (roughly 30% higher for the same weight). This means that the same weight in oil will bring you further faster.
Let's say Fisher manages to convince someone that oil fired battlecruisers is a good idea as the higher speed and speed endurance would make it much better for running down cruisers on the high seas. This isn't unreasonable. Around 1900 many major fleet bases had stocks of oil. A large number of ships had oil sprayed on coal.
If Fisher kept the argument for oil centred on high value ships where speed (and speed endurance) is key he might have been able to have success.
Let's look at the Invincible class Battlecruiser with a peacetime compliment of 700 and wartime complement of 1000.
We can say an oil burning Invincible might be around 400 crew in peacetime and 600 in war time.
Design speed of the invincibles class was 25 knots but all 3 ships made 26 knots during trials (with handpicked stoker's). Without changing the engine layout we can guess that an oil fired ship would be able to make 26 knots on a more consistent basis. We could also add an extra boiler (I always felt 31 boilers in 4 rooms was an odd choice. Let's bring it to 32 boilers in 4 rooms) due to additional space (from not needing large stoker crews) bringing shp to around 50k and speed to around 27 knots.
If we keep bunkerage consistent with a total of 3725 long tonnes of fuel and taking into account the higher calorific value of fuel oil as opposed to coal I would estimate that range at 10 knots would increase from 3000 nautical miles to 3700 nautical miles.
OK so quiet a lot of text here.
TLDR
Oil Firing Invincible Class Battlecruisers
Armanent (as historical)
Armour (as historical)
Speed 27 knots 50k shp
Does this change the German reaction at all?
The historical reaction to the Invincible class, SMS Von Der Tann had a design speed of 24 knots (41k shp) but did 27 knots on trials and 28 knots during a high speed cruise between Tenerife and Germany. The most common explanation of the extent of this difference is that the design speed and power is based on typical German coal while the highest speed performances were performed with Welsh coal (which was a much superior grade).
While Von Der Tann (if as historical) can compete in speed with the oil fired invincible she will not be able to match her in terms of speed endurance.
Perhaps the most reasonable reaction from the Germans would be to establish storage facilities for a supply of Welsh coal at Wilhelmshaven to guarantee security of supply and allow Von Der Tann and other German ships to compete in speed.
I always thought the South Carolina class would be better for Greece than the Mississippi's
The US was in this little thing called an arms race, the South Carolina's were dreadnoughts by some standards and pre-dreads by others, but were better than any other pre-dreads, they aren't for sale, unless Greece wants to waaaaaaaaaaay overpay.
The other issue with coal fired ships was the boilers required more TLC when ran at max power for sustained periods
Lets see
Steam turbines are a late 1890s thing with Turbina and Oil fired was first done in HMS Spiteful (Built in 1899 converted in 1904)
So perhaps have Dreadnought have another new technology added - oil fired boilers and then have the Admiralty go all in and have all of the Battlecruisers also equipped with Oil fired boilers from the get go and do the same with the following Dreadnoughts
The argument could be that they were intended to hunt down cruisers 'worrying the trade lanes' and that oil fired boilers allowed a faster sustained speed and greater range (Invincible had a range of 3000 NM at 10 knots!)
One of the issues was the concern with having enough oil as most of it was from the USA at the time.
If that concern can be addressed then from a technological stand point - why not!
After the war they could probably have been bought for scrap value, most of which could be recouped by selling the Mississippi's for scrap.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
Assuming the US is willing to sell at the time yes, but remember the context, when they bought them the Greeks needed battleships NOW to have something that can sort of fight the Ottoman Dreadnought Battleships until the Greeks own Dreadnoughts are delivered, or at least can ambush the Ottoman Dreadnoughts before they are worked up and combat ready. Since nobody is selling used Dreadnoughts at the time, that leaves Pre-Dreadnoughts, of which most people are willing to sell are 20 years old or older, while the US Mississippis are only 10 years old, the US is willing to get rid of them because they are slower, shorter ranged, less well armed and much less seaworthy than the Connecticut class which preceded them, courtesy of being 3,000 tons smaller because of Mahan's obsession with the idea of a modern Third Rate. Given the US needs they would rather keep older, less well armed/armored battleships that are still more seaworthy and longer ranged for the secondary roles than the Mississippis, while Greece is only going to operate them close to home in the relatively calm Mediterranean
In 1919 they don't need battleships anymore, if they wanted they could buy better ships than the South Carolinas from the British, for the irony imagine them buying Erin and Agincourt since the RN doesn't want those non-standardized ships, that are still rather better, Erin especially so