The German King George Vs are going to be far larger than 35000 tons. The Germans had missed out on 20 plus years of development of big ships and no design brilliance was going to fix that
As a bit of a thought exercise what if you took the most bloated battleship class of WWII, the Scharnhorsts, and the arguably least bloated design, the KGVs and swapped them. How big would a German designed KGV be? And how much more compact would a British built Scharnhorst be?
Note that by bloat I mean inefficiency in design which resulted in the most extra weight for least added capability.
I have seen argument that Bismarcks were more bloated than Scharnhorsts.
They did have something similar drawn up:And how much more compact would a British built Scharnhorst be?
The Large Cruiser:
The British Large Cruiser by Tzoli on DeviantArt
The design had these characteristics:
Dimensions: Unknown, I've chosen 213,36m(wl) x 26,12m x 7,62m
Displacement: 20.000tons (Standard)
Engines: Unknwon around 140-155.000shp Parsons Steam Turbines, 4 shafts
Speed: 59-61km/h (32-33knots)
Range: 18.500km at 28km/h (10000nm at 15knots)
Armour: 76mm Deck, 178mm Belt
Armaments:
3x2 12"/50 (305mm/50) BL Mk XIV Cannons
6x2 4,5"/45 (114mm/45) QF Mk III DP-AA Guns
4x8,6x1 40mm/39 QF Mark VIII Pom-Pom AA Guns
2x Floatplanes
Note:
In 1939 DNC (Director of Naval Constructions) asked for an Alaska like Large Cruiser based on the calculations of the previous year. DNC asked for six 12" cannons in twin turrets on 20.000tons with 7" belt and 3" deck armour. Not much serious work was done but the hull size was based on the 3x3 9,2" cruiser the previous February. Based on this limited data I've come up with this drawing showing a capital ship armed cruiser on relative light displacement but with traditional British styling. Using Springsharp to help with the calculations it isn't possible to construct such a ship on that hull. The 12" cannons were the new type designed in 1933 while the DP-AA turrets are the same used for the HMS Charybdis and HMS Scylla
Fecking hell, the technology now to get to the wrecks is amazing, at least she's too deep to be scavenged like other WW2 shipwrecks.They found the Samuel B Roberts
USS Samuel B Roberts: World's deepest shipwreck discovered
The US Navy ship "Sammy B" sank off the Philippines in a ferocious WWII battle with the Japanese.www.bbc.com
Yes, but mostly in 1942/1943, which is when their oil stores ran out.Would they be more operationally active?
Yes.Would they still be constrained by internal Fascist politics?
It would almost certainly prompt Italy to pay more attention to convoy defense and ASW - they got the hang of it OTL through bitter experience, but it would be nice to shorten the learning curve going in. As far as basing, much of Italy’s basing was already in the south to begin with, so if they can scrounge up the funds the main focus would be to expand Tripoli as a harbor, which would relax one of the Axis’ bigger logistical bottlenecks in the region.Does the reality of the oil being in Libya alter both basing and operational planning? (Do you need the Navy, or Army to play goalkeeper for the oil port?)
I'm not sure about air launched torpedoes but finns and propellers and the shape of the torpedoes were sufficiently different that British submarines and American submarines couldn't fire each other torpedoes.May I ask a technical question?
In WW1-WW2 time frame, what were the limitations on 21" torpedo tubes launching any 21" torpedo? And in the same vein, were there any special considerations with aircraft launching different 18" torpedoes? As an example did British torpedoes require a specific British Connection (Fire Control?) in its submarines and aircraft to launch their specific torpedo types? If so, what did that look like?
Thanks in advance, Matthew. 🍻
The implications for the colony's infrastructure would be quite significant.A different thought experiment. Hand wave the Italians into a sufficient supply of Libyan oil in by 1938. How might that affect the Italian Navy's operations in WW2?
- Would they be more operationally active?
- Would they still be constrained by internal Fascist politics?
- Does the reality of the oil being in Libya alter both basing and operational planning? (Do you need the Navy, or Army to play goalkeeper for the oil port?)
In WW1-WW2 time frame, what were the limitations on 21" torpedo tubes launching any 21" torpedo?
I think the thing is that I would prefer a a post ww1 light cruiser to a 1904 era armored cruisers and crew numbers are different enough to make the cost of an armored cruiser too much.In a different post First World War environment, is their any utility to retain the Armoured Cruiser longer? Britain has at least 8 surviving, all built around 1904 so still having 6 to 10 years of usable life before they likely require more money than they are worth to refit and retain. My notion is to use them as ersatz battle cruisers overseas or in the Fleet Unit schemes for the Dominion navies, not for long, but for maybe a decade at most.
(except Blucher which was a different beast entirely to any other armored cruiser).
Personally I like the 10" guns that went into the "coastal defense battleships" that were built for Chile and bought by the British. They allegedly had a very high rate of fire (though I'm not sure how much of that was marketing and how much was accurate).SMS Blücher is basically a proper "Dreadnought Armoured Cruiser" minus the turbines.
(Shame Invincibles had 12" rather than 9.2" guns)