Best British battlefleet for ww1

Triple turrets were obviously risky but nonetheless would've been a hybrid between a battlecruiser and battleship, a proto fast battleship. Obviously problems involved in getting fast battleshipsto work that early on too.
If i'm allowed triples then 3x3 (ABX) like most last generation BB looks very good if not 4x2 like QE/R/H would be fine, why with the massive advantage of hindsight would we want to invent something new?
 
Australia was 590ft overall, whereas lion was 700ft over all, Perhaps this had a bearing on whether Australia and New Zealand by Indefatigable clones or Lions. I am not sure that there were any graving docks that size in the far east. Further can the slipways at John Brown and Fairfield take the extra 110 ft required. IIRC the triple 12" turrets for the Italian battleship Dante Alighieri were designed by Armstrong and she was laid down in June 1909. Therefore I suggest a battle cruiser the size of an Indefatigable but with three triple 12" centerline turrets and more armour would be a better ship for the colonies. think of these as Orion with Three ripple 12" (optional three twin 13.5" turrets) and without Q and X turrets enough room for at leas 40,000 shp!
 

MatthewB

Banned
Carriers built and sooner
Agreed. Now, keeping in mind this thread specifically asked us for the ideal battlefleet, not carriers, submarines, etc. any added non-dreadnought ships should be related to the battlefleet.

So, carriers, and sooner to support the battle fleet. At Jutland, HMS Furious launches recon to find the HSF.
 
If Britain is going into WWI with a carrier it will be this one. I don't think it will help much.

GBWBCV1912.png
 
I think that the smaller ships could actually dock in AUS might also help?

The numbers look questionable....how do you make a ship with 12" and 18,800 t normal cost the same as one with 13.5" and 26,690 t just the steel should add a lot?
(the earlier I class cost 1.7M on Wiki?)
That would be a valid reason imo. Though I would investigate seeing if you could get the Australians and New Zealanders to buy Indefactigible or an Invincible class second hand and using the funds to buy 13.5 inch gun armed ships in Britain.

I would agree with you here that the costs don't look right.

There's multiple sources listed for the cost of £2,000,000 on Wiki. I can't find anything listing a lower cost.

I would expect that HMAS Australia should be much cheaper than the other ships of the same class as it was one of the last ships with 12 inch guns (12 inch gun pits couldn't necessarily build 13.5 inch guns so there should be a discount from gun makers who were being faced with going out of business or retooling) and the engines were ordered from the makers of the engines for a previous Indefactigible so there should be benefits of scale.
 
If Britain is going into WWI with a carrier it will be this one. I don't think it will help much.
Yes I would not doubt it,
A- even this thing would scout better than OTL and that could be decisive at some points....
B- if this has trailed pre war then Argus and sister probably get speeded faster than OTL....

On the other hand they could just learn how well carries burn off Gallipoli.....
 

MatthewB

Banned
Let's go to 12" triples, without wing turrets from Dreadnought onwards, akin to the Italian battleship Dante Alighieri. Followed by move to super firing turrets asap without ASB.
 
That would be a valid reason imo. Though I would investigate seeing if you could get the Australians and New Zealanders to buy Indefactigible or an Invincible class second hand and using the funds to buy 13.5 inch gun armed ships in Britain.

I would agree with you here that the costs don't look right.

There's multiple sources listed for the cost of £2,000,000 on Wiki. I can't find anything listing a lower cost.

I would expect that HMAS Australia should be much cheaper than the other ships of the same class as it was one of the last ships with 12 inch guns (12 inch gun pits couldn't necessarily build 13.5 inch guns so there should be a discount from gun makers who were being faced with going out of business or retooling) and the engines were ordered from the makers of the engines for a previous Indefactigible so there should be benefits of scale.

It may be her cost includes armament as a lot of the listed costs for British warships do not.
 

SsgtC

Banned
Let's go to 12" triples, without wing turrets from Dreadnought onwards, akin to the Italian battleship Dante Alighieri. Followed by move to super firing turrets asap without ASB.
South Carolina was laid down in the same time frame as Dreadnaught and she was superfiring from the start. The challenge is getting the Royal Navy to adopt it even after the USN has proved it works
 
Even when the Royal Navy had turrets that look superfiring, IIRC, the superimposed turret wasn't intended to fire over the lower one; it was a method to save length only. I think the Royal Navy would accept superfiring sooner than triple turrets.

At the time, the Royal Navy fired salvos--often one gun from each turret. Mixing triples and twins would require revising fire control techniques. If you had all triples, then it would be practical to fire salvos of one gun per turret--but the salvos would be smaller.
 
The UK killed a lot of sheep trying to get superfiring to work. The issue was the position of the sighting hoods. Stupidly easy fix but not immediately obvious.

Then there are topweight issues. The Lion/Kongo differences happened for a reason. It would be interesting to know why.

I can't really fault them on the triples. Slow rate of fire and dispersal problems. The space advantage only becomes an issue when trying to cram 50,000 ton ships into existing infrastructure.

Carriers are a case of an idea that everyone knows is coming but the tech has to get there. Are the aircraft up to it? How do you overcome the attraction of sea planes?

Anyway. My big change would be to push centerline director fire out to the cruisers as fast as possible.

I would be looking at capital ship superfiring as soon as I could get a spy to the US. The need to redesign turrets makes it the 13.5 ships that gain the advantage.


Seriously I am struggling here. So many ships so fast. There is no time for testing good stuff like directors or underwater protection before it can be installed earlier.
 
To be honest though the only real avoidable fault with the British Battlefleet that I can see is the choice for the Revenge class to be smaller and slower that the preceding Queen Elizabeth Class. If they needed to save money scrap the ancient Majestics. Other than that really ramp up training.
 
Australia and NZ were £1.7m ea while the Lions and Kongo were £2-£2.4m. The RAN was a nation building exercise with 8 BC envisaged. It was quite affordable by prewar standards. The Indefatigables were for the Pacific but Churchill reneged. The Lions were a direct reply to Moltke and Goeben.
 
So... you’re saying more QEs?

Good idea.

I think I am detecting a theme here

That said I came across, somewhere so treat with caution, the notion that the RN might have built 9 QEs in total rather than going on the Revenges.

Would folks here considering trading 9 QEs instead of 5 QEs plus 5 Rs as of OTL?
 
For the Queen Elizabeths, what if instead of deciding that a 25kn top speed was good enough, the Royal Navy decided to try making their battleships faster, but also hedging their bets by building a battlecruiser as well? Thus, build 3x Queen Elizabeths, (QE, Warspite, Valiant), plus a fourth funded by Malaya (Malaya) and instead of Barham, a scaled up Tiger (Leopard) armed with 8 x 15" and a 30 kn top speed. She'd without a doubt be a big girl, something like 31 000 t standard, and around 800' long, but using all oil firing, she'd still be able to make her speed on direct-drive turbines with steam supplied by large-tube boilers.

ETA: And, instead of the Revenges, a repeat of the above, another 3x Queen Elizabeths and 1x Leopard.
 

Deleted member 94680

I think I am detecting a theme here

Sorry. I'm being slightly transparent in my fanboy admiration.

That said I came across, somewhere so treat with caution, the notion that the RN might have built 9 QEs in total rather than going on the Revenges.

Would folks here considering trading 9 QEs instead of 5 QEs plus 5 Rs as of OTL?

Well, if the Rs were built as smaller and cheaper QEs, a distinct possibility of the Rs not being built as OTL would be QE repeats with minor improvements.

I believe 9 QEs in service, modernised, in place for the outbreak of WWII would be a much better outcome for the RN.
 
In general though I would look at seeing if I could sell Indefactigible or an invincible to Australia and New Zealand and use that to fund the construction of a new Lion class making of the difference elsewhere if need be.

Have Vickers build Kongos for OZ and NZ in 13.5"
Better armor, Guns, and not that much more money, and Vickers is all set to build more
 
I think I am detecting a theme here

That said I came across, somewhere so treat with caution, the notion that the RN might have built 9 QEs in total rather than going on the Revenges.

Would folks here considering trading 9 QEs instead of 5 QEs plus 5 Rs as of OTL?
Yes I would make that trade.

I don't know how much of that is hindsight of knowing how much more useful the QE class was in ww2 than the Revenges.

It didn't happen historically because the Queen Elizabeth class was considered too slow for the Battlecruisers and other independent action so their speed was worthless.

I believe that we saw in ww1 with the QE class operating with the bcf at Jutland that the speed of the QE class was justified for ww1.

Of course I am also a supporter of the fast Iron Duke design that was proposed and the repeat of the Queen Elizabeth class instead of Revenge classes but I do understand why these werent done this way.

I made this suggestion earlier. Giving it some thought I do wonder if we would see an engagement between the fast Iron Duke and the QEs and the Battlecruisers against the entire hsf.

12 Battleships and 9 battelcruisers against 5 Battlecruisers 16 Dreadnoughts and 8 preadreadnoughts. On the surface it appears to be a dream fight for the Germans with a part of the Royal Navy separate from the rest. On the other hand they are up against a sufficiently fast force that they can't away and are facing the best of the British forces.

On the British side their thoughts would be that they are outnumbered in Battleships and that they are missing half their fleet. Assuming the rest of the fleet is somewhat fray adjacent I guess they would feel a need

The result would depend on ammunition quality (which fluctuated massive though the war) and gunnery condition (which also fluctuated massively throughout the war.
 
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