Another alternate WNT

Regarding the 4 Admirals - they were stopped after the loss of the 3 BCs at Jutland and the subsequent need for resources to combat USW - with only Hood's construction restarted despite the concerns regarding the design as it was feared that Germany was building larger BCs (as it was they 'were' but their construction was glacial and never finished).

And if the Japanese are building the Amagi's and Tosa's then the British are building the G3s and the Americans are building at least some of the Lexington BCs as these new Japanese vessels outmatch pretty much everything the rest of the world has except arguably the Hood.
 
Well, yes, but I'm not sure why the US would revert. This is after the Nevada, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico class would already be ordered (ignoring the alt!California class), and the board has already made the design change over from the New York style. What are the advantages of the center turret vs the designs with the two triples and two double turrets vs the one with the extended turret? It's a bit of a regression over previous designs, extends the ship by 36 feet (comparing spring style to spring style) and increases weight by 3700 tons for a less advantageous arrangement.

It's not that I disagree that the 16" could be done on an earlier class (though, I'm not sure the guns are ready, but I suppose they're being accelerated). My main point of contention is that the 5x2 gun turret style was passed over because of its disadvantages.

And point about getting the construction staring early enough to avoid the freeze on capital ships. Depending on how many are constructed, though, and if they're seen as capable enough, would it be enough to avert the need later on for increased speed, and simply have the US continue with a new breed of battlecruisers later and continue with slower super dreadnoughts. Or might it make it easier to argue that your eventual South Dakotas should be even faster than OTL? Just my wonder.
The advantage would be that you could start building them quicker, reuse the turret design from the Colorados and much of the rest of design so you could lay the class down in early 1917. Same reason why 4 Colorados and 6 SoDaks were ordered rather than just 10 SoDaks

OP wants no SoDaks, so none of those, so the US needs some fast Capital ships
 
Something i was pondering regarding ways Japan can cheat the hell out of it. How practicable and costly would it have been for them to bore the guns on their cruisers and BBs during modernization? The italians did that with their old battleships, they bored 305mm guns to 320mm. How much could a 14in/356mm or 16 inch/406mm gun be bored? Can you make them say 380mm and 420mm respectively? How about cruiser guns, can you make a 220mm out of an 8inch/203mm?

Separately, i was playing with the idea of having the Fusos and Ise rebuilt in the thirties in a different way i.e. by removing one of the mid turrets and installing more powerful machinery for more speed, so that they are much more useful. In this scenario they will have only 10 guns, but if possible bored to 380mm. Could extra machinery for say 50% more power be installed instead of one of the middle turrets?
 
Something i was pondering regarding ways Japan can cheat the hell out of it. How practicable and costly would it have been for them to bore the guns on their cruisers and BBs during modernization? The italians did that with their old battleships, they bored 305mm guns to 320mm. How much could a 14in/356mm or 16 inch/406mm gun be bored? Can you make them say 380mm and 420mm respectively? How about cruiser guns, can you make a 220mm out of an 8inch/203mm?

Separately, i was playing with the idea of having the Fusos and Ise rebuilt in the thirties in a different way i.e. by removing one of the mid turrets and installing more powerful machinery for more speed, so that they are much more useful. In this scenario they will have only 10 guns, but if possible bored to 380mm. Could extra machinery for say 50% more power be installed instead of one of the middle turrets?
The Italians and French had specific exemptions to do that, Japan does not, so it is banned by the treaty. So they would need to be extra careful to keep that a secret, which would be suspicious as hell in the interwar climate if nobody could visit their major warships and examine the guns

420mm from 406mm is possible, from 356mm, more likely 370 or 375mm, 380mm might be a bridge too far without making velocity compromises. Of course boring out increases droop and reduces accuracy. Just designing a new more modern 16" and 14" to fit the same cradle would probably give similar results for similar costs, and while still illegal, much easier to conceal without looking suspicious
 
Question: wasn't the US intentionally avoiding turrets on the midbody after the New York/Texas, partially because it did not contribute to end on firepower (still a driver of US Naval Doctrine pre-Jutland) and it made the routing of the internal mechanisms much more complicated. The third turret of the New York did have a lot of issues with heating of the ammunition storage due to the lines running around its barbette. looking through the Spring Styles (Albeit briefly) nothing seems to avoid that.

Perhaps the one design which is essentially an upscaled Nevada class would be the more likely choice for a Colorado successor: 2x2 & 2x3 16" guns.

Only other problem is getting the entire Battleship design cycle moved up, as with foreign battleships getting faster, BuShps is going to be forced into a newer design for faster battleships

I'm not sure the 1912 battlecruiser would avert that, either; its guns are smaller than Hood, and speed comparable. What of its armor scheme?

Well, yes, but I'm not sure why the US would revert. This is after the Nevada, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico class would already be ordered (ignoring the alt!California class), and the board has already made the design change over from the New York style. What are the advantages of the center turret vs the designs with the two triples and two double turrets vs the one with the extended turret? It's a bit of a regression over previous designs, extends the ship by 36 feet (comparing spring style to spring style) and increases weight by 3700 tons for a less advantageous arrangement.

It's not that I disagree that the 16" could be done on an earlier class (though, I'm not sure the guns are ready, but I suppose they're being accelerated). My main point of contention is that the 5x2 gun turret style was passed over because of its disadvantages.

And point about getting the construction staring early enough to avoid the freeze on capital ships. Depending on how many are constructed, though, and if they're seen as capable enough, would it be enough to avert the need later on for increased speed, and simply have the US continue with a new breed of battlecruisers later and continue with slower super dreadnoughts. Or might it make it easier to argue that your eventual South Dakotas should be even faster than OTL? Just my wonder.
The Colorado design studies did include a 3223 turret layout, and it was the lightest of the 10 16” layouts. However, the US Navy preferred five twins with three of the twins aft (for reasons I cannot say off the top of my head), either clear of the machinery entirely or running around the electric half of the drive. However, Josephus Daniels intervened to stop a size increase and we got the OTL Colorados.
 
The Colorado design studies did include a 3223 turret layout, and it was the lightest of the 10 16” layouts. However, the US Navy preferred five twins with three of the twins aft (for reasons I cannot say off the top of my head), either clear of the machinery entirely or running around the electric half of the drive. However, Josephus Daniels intervened to stop a size increase and we got the OTL Colorados.

Curious. I have to wonder why. And I understand the Navy preferring twins, especially considering a triple without widening the beam could potentially cause stability issues (spitballing right there, though).

I did see one design with three twins forward, but not one with three aft; I'll have to doublecheck later.
 
Curious. I have to wonder why. And I understand the Navy preferring twins, especially considering a triple without widening the beam could potentially cause stability issues (spitballing right there, though).

I did see one design with three twins forward, but not one with three aft; I'll have to doublecheck later.
So here's the 3-2-2-3 design. The reasons given for not going with it (unproven triple 16" turret) jibe with what I remember of Friedman. The one with the standard midships turret was considered the "least desirable" for exactly the reasons you gave. This is the three-aft design I mentioned; looking at the sketch, it appears that yes, the fifth turret would be between the steam plant and the electric motors, and that's probably why it was described as "least-risky". The catch would be increased length of the propeller shafts. Another design had three turrets forward, but it was the heaviest design and so was passed over. And here's one with an amidships turret placed forward of the machinery, which was also rejected for weight. Essentially, the three-aft arrangement avoided having steam lines run around the magazine, avoided an unproven triple turret, and was the lightest of the five-turret designs.

On a related note, both the ten-gun New Mexico designs had the fifth turret smack in the middle of the machinery.
 
The Italians and French had specific exemptions to do that, Japan does not, so it is banned by the treaty. So they would need to be extra careful to keep that a secret, which would be suspicious as hell in the interwar climate if nobody could visit their major warships and examine the guns

420mm from 406mm is possible, from 356mm, more likely 370 or 375mm, 380mm might be a bridge too far without making velocity compromises. Of course boring out increases droop and reduces accuracy. Just designing a new more modern 16" and 14" to fit the same cradle would probably give similar results for similar costs, and while still illegal, much easier to conceal without looking suspicious

Thanks for the input. I'm thinking though replacing all those guns with and L/50 14 inch or a 16 inch would be very expensive and wasteful, they need at least 40 new guns while being left with 40 older guns- they can still be used for shore defences and such, but still looks very wasteful to me. In OTL, of course, the japanese did that with the Mogamis, and in the pdf earlier the authors suggest building some modern super-Kongos with the guns from the Fusos and Ises, which i guess it's a possibility. I recall some plans for either the B65 battlecruisers or their successors to be equipped with six such 14 inch guns instead of the nine 12 inch.
 
Thanks for the input. I'm thinking though replacing all those guns with and L/50 14 inch or a 16 inch would be very expensive and wasteful, they need at least 40 new guns while being left with 40 older guns- they can still be used for shore defences and such, but still looks very wasteful to me. In OTL, of course, the japanese did that with the Mogamis, and in the pdf earlier the authors suggest building some modern super-Kongos with the guns from the Fusos and Ises, which i guess it's a possibility. I recall some plans for either the B65 battlecruisers or their successors to be equipped with six such 14 inch guns instead of the nine 12 inch.
Assuming Tosa, Kaga, Akagi, N&M, 4 Kongos and Ises and Fusos, that's 46 16" and 80 14". Now you could one supposes rebuild Ise and Fuso with 10 or 8 guns, for 72 and 64 14" respectively with 10 you probably end up at 26-27 knots, OTL they were 25 for Ises, 24.5 for Fusos, Nagatos made 25, Yamatos 27. IMO it would cost too much if you screwed around with removing the Barbettes on the Ises and Fusos, probably add another year and drive up the costs more, when they could basically operate with the battle line with OTL rebuild. If no LNT you could better use that money replacing the Kongos with 16" armed fast battleships, or 14" armed super battlecruisers
 
Thanks for the input. I'm thinking though replacing all those guns with and L/50 14 inch or a 16 inch would be very expensive and wasteful, they need at least 40 new guns while being left with 40 older guns- they can still be used for shore defences and such, but still looks very wasteful to me. In OTL, of course, the japanese did that with the Mogamis, and in the pdf earlier the authors suggest building some modern super-Kongos with the guns from the Fusos and Ises, which i guess it's a possibility. I recall some plans for either the B65 battlecruisers or their successors to be equipped with six such 14 inch guns instead of the nine 12 inch.
Ah, but the 6.1" mounts removed from the Mogamis were sufficiently modern in that case to be reused on the Yamato and Ooyodo classes. The old 14" and 16" guns... aren't.
 
The old 14" and 16" guns... aren't.
The 16" are the same generation as on Nagato and Mustu that are the core of the IJN battle fleet why would they not be fine, after all they mostly only spent the 20s/30s sat as coastal defence mounts?
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Something i was pondering regarding ways Japan can cheat the hell out of it. How practicable and costly would it have been for them to bore the guns on their cruisers and BBs during modernization? The italians did that with their old battleships, they bored 305mm guns to 320mm. How much could a 14in/356mm or 16 inch/406mm gun be bored? Can you make them say 380mm and 420mm respectively? How about cruiser guns, can you make a 220mm out of an 8inch/203mm?

Separately, i was playing with the idea of having the Fusos and Ise rebuilt in the thirties in a different way i.e. by removing one of the mid turrets and installing more powerful machinery for more speed, so that they are much more useful. In this scenario they will have only 10 guns, but if possible bored to 380mm. Could extra machinery for say 50% more power be installed instead of one of the middle turrets?

You tend to get inaccurate guns. Not worth doing, IMO. I have looked at a lot of theoritical and real ships rebuilds. Normally, you are better off spending the money on new ships.
 
Thanks all for the input. Upon thinking of this, perhaps i'll just forget about fiddling with things trying to avoid some SDs and/or Lexington BCs being commissioned, let them have some, after all they can always be sunk in port at Pearl Harbour!

Perhaps then the WNT limit might be set 40,000 tons (with some exclusions for a few ships over that), so the british might have some reduced (but not by that much) G3s being built, or alternatively reduced N3s with ten or even twelve 16 inch, that kind of stuff. Chances are the limit might still be lowered to 35,000 tons either in 1930 or 1936, but even if if not and the limit is still 40,000 tons that might mean a KGV with twelve 14 inch guns (or nine 16 inch), and North Carolinas with ten 16 inch guns, Bismarck with nine 380mm guns, and so on.

While not really related to WNT, wasn't sure about making a separate topic for it or not, but now i was toying with getting the japanese flak more effective, as you know in OTL they relied wholly on the Type 96 25mm, but i was exploring various 37 or 40mm and 20 mm guns they could aquire instead in the thirties. Wonder how were their relations with Sweden, i was considering the Bofors 40mm L/43 or the later L/60. For a 20mm the Oerlikon should be good enough.
 
..Perhaps then the WNT limit might be set 40,000 tons (with some exclusions for a few ships over that), ..

japanese flak more effective, as you know in OTL they relied wholly on the Type 96 25mm, ....

I think 43,000t is more likely due to, fitting Hood, SD, Lex, Tosa & Amagi classes, this then allows RN to build cut down G3s (some speed and protection cut as they would not face 18" guns).

The problem with Flak is when its adopted as aircraft threat changes so much, this is the same as the RN 2pdr was great when developed but then to low velocity as speeds increased.
The Japanese problem is they stuck with a export gun they tested in 1935 but that's probably as much due to not being able to afford to change due to limited manufacturing capability as anything else?
 
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