Best predreadnought for Craddock?

The best ACR's the RN had though were busy in the Med or as part of the Grand Fleet and were more valuable than the King Edwards,

But were hardly used in combat, were they?

And the Mediterranean?
Turks and A-H were a threat the French could have kept occupied, when the need to hunt down German raiding squadrons was right there
 
If the RN is going to send a first rate capital ship, by RN doctrine battlecruisers are the only sensible choice, not dreadnought battleships.
 
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Something else to consider is that some of the Grand Fleet newest ship had problems which badly effected them. I think it's mentioned in Castles of steel.
 
But were hardly used in combat, were they?

And the Mediterranean?
Turks and A-H were a threat the French could have kept occupied, when the need to hunt down German raiding squadrons was right there
If you check out their fates in Navypedia you'll probably find that ACR were the type of ship that suffered more in combat in the RN. Edit: a quick count gave 14 ACR of those that had entered service after 1900 lost in the war, which points more to risk taking than to caution.
In 1914 it was still not sure what Italy would do, and the RN had a stronger presence in the Med.
 
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MatthewB

Banned
If the RN is going to send a first rate capital ship, by RN doctrine battlecruisers are the only sensible choice, not dreadnought battleships.
IDK where this idea came from. We’re just seeking to give Craddock a better predreadnought.
 
If you really want to go nuts with a predreadnought, send a French one: Danton. 19 knots, but turbines, so she can probably do 19 knots until the bunkers have nothing but coal dust
 
If you really want to go nuts with a predreadnought,
If we are allowed any PD then why not go even batter,
IJN Aki Satsuma class 20.25 knots turbines and bigger secondary guns...
Ibuki would alos not be nice for S&G to fight....

Unless you are willing to call Kawachi class PDs? after all no main battery of the same guns.......
 
Unless you are willing to call Kawachi class PDs? after all no main battery of the same guns.......
And before people go foaming at the mouth, this is a legit line of discussion, plenty of books on the relevant topic has discussed this.

Also hot take: both the South Carolina class and the Nassau class are also barely on the line between the classifications due to their older (VTE) engines and lower top speed. This is why these days I keep the view that the whole dreadnought revolution was more of an evolution and its effects were overblown.
 
these days I keep the view that the whole dreadnought revolution was more of an evolution and its effects were overblown.
Yes and no, I agree with evolution but in the space of each class the speed of change was such that the older ships could not possibly hope to survive a fight, not just that they would lose 1 v1 but that a 1st rate ship only a couple of years newer could realistically fight and kill an entire class of older 1st rate ships.
 
This is why these days I keep the view that the whole dreadnought revolution was more of an evolution and its effects were overblown.

But with the launch of a single ship, started a building race for nothing but faster, all big gun battleships.
 
The Best Pre Dreadnoughts for Craddock to have are the newest and most heavily armed, so either a Lord Nelson or King Edward VII. You can be reasonably sure they'd be with Craddock when he met Von Spee and frighten him off. After that Von Spee is likely forced into a South American port to refuel, blockaded by Craddock while the Battlecruisers race to the scene and either interned or forced out into a fight he can't win.
 
The sea state at Coronel left the Good Hope & Monmouth unable to use their secondary batteries mounted in casemates. The same would apply to the Bacchantes. And I believe the German 8.3" had longer range than the British 9.2" (certainly the later model 9.2" is consistently described by one historian as "crapulent").

My understanding was that the 9.2 as a 'secondary' was considered poor as the shell splash was virtually indistinguishable from those of the larger Pre Dread 12"

The only issue that I am aware of was that firing a HV shell it wore barrels relatively quickly and this could impact accuracy - otherwise it was an accurate gun
 
The Best Pre Dreadnoughts for Craddock to have are the newest and most heavily armed, so either a Lord Nelson or King Edward VII. You can be reasonably sure they'd be with Craddock when he met Von Spee and frighten him off. After that Von Spee is likely forced into a South American port to refuel, blockaded by Craddock while the Battlecruisers race to the scene and either interned or forced out into a fight he can't win.
I don't recall seeing any sources of what von Spee's actual best speed was at Colonel. HMS Kent did run down the Nurnberg at The Falkland Islands, but Kent achieved 24 knots, a full knot faster than her paper top speed. I remember reading somewhere that all the the non-essential crew were standing on Kent's stern to get every last fraction of a knot. And then Nurnberg had a machinery casualty that took her down to 19 knots. This implies that von Spee was not much slower than his "clean" top speed right out of the dry dock, despite being at sea for so long.

This is important because von Spee is not going to accept combat with a battleship, and if he is able to control the range by being faster, the battle does not happen. Craddock will have to run away from his battleship or sit and watch von Spee get away.

So like you say, then the deciding factor really is how much coal von Spee has on board. If he needs to so to South America, then he may get bottled up as you say. If he can dodge out into the Pacific and meet with his colliers as historical, then he can coal at one of the remote pacific islands like he did.

I am stuck on the dull idea that too slow is too slow, and all the pre-dreadnoughts are too slow. Likewise a battleship is a battleship and the armour and 12" guns make them all so deadly and hard to kill for an armoured cruiser that they are interchangeable. I do agree that Canopus turned out to be a spectacularly bad choice, but I don't think there is a good choice.
 
I don't recall seeing any sources of what von Spee's actual best speed was at Colonel. HMS Kent did run down the Nurnberg at The Falkland Islands, but Kent achieved 24 knots, a full knot faster than her paper top speed. I remember reading somewhere that all the the non-essential crew were standing on Kent's stern to get every last fraction of a knot. And then Nurnberg had a machinery casualty that took her down to 19 knots. This implies that von Spee was not much slower than his "clean" top speed right out of the dry dock, despite being at sea for so long.

This is important because von Spee is not going to accept combat with a battleship, and if he is able to control the range by being faster, the battle does not happen. Craddock will have to run away from his battleship or sit and watch von Spee get away.

So like you say, then the deciding factor really is how much coal von Spee has on board. If he needs to so to South America, then he may get bottled up as you say. If he can dodge out into the Pacific and meet with his colliers as historical, then he can coal at one of the remote pacific islands like he did.

I am stuck on the dull idea that too slow is too slow, and all the pre-dreadnoughts are too slow. Likewise a battleship is a battleship and the armour and 12" guns make them all so deadly and hard to kill for an armoured cruiser that they are interchangeable. I do agree that Canopus turned out to be a spectacularly bad choice, but I don't think there is a good choice.

Craddocks force was limited to 16 knots - HMS Otranto - which happened to be HMS Canopus top speed as well (although she later had problems when returning to the Falklands how much of this was down to her chief engineer being quite quite mad????) - so the upshot here is that Craddocks force is not wiped out and Spree declines combat and heads North.

It is likely that he is intercepted by the Hunting group centered around HMS Australia - or they end up blockaded in a Neutral Port.

Regardless they will have drawn Entente Reinforcements to their position with the upshot that 2 obsolete cruisers are not sunk
 
But with the launch of a single ship, started a building race for nothing but faster, all big gun battleships.
It's evolutionary as in it was merely the logical next step that multiple countries have already seen it coming and were acting upon it.
 
My understanding was that the 9.2 as a 'secondary' was considered poor as the shell splash was virtually indistinguishable from those of the larger Pre Dread 12"

The only issue that I am aware of was that firing a HV shell it wore barrels relatively quickly and this could impact accuracy - otherwise it was an accurate gun
There is some conflicting data with different versions and roles.

On one hand either the last or 2nd last Mk was considered inaccurate and wore out quickly. OTOH the same guns served around the world in shore batteries for 50 years and was considered accurate falling in a ballistic sweet spot.

I don't know. 100 years of confused sources.
 
Triumph was the least one he needed. If Jerram had stuck to the preWar plan (and ignore Churchill’s orders) going to Tsingtao in August 1914 he would have taken Spees fleet train colliers and sunk Emden with Hampshire, Minotaur and Newcastle except he was ordered to concentrate at Hong Kong where Triumph was mobilising. With the loss of the coal, Spee won’t make South America.
 
i think one class of RN has been left out of consideration, the DUNCANs. These ships were designed to dealing with Russian fast battleships and had been reduced to the reserve only in early 1914. While still on 19 knot ships, they were in a much best material state than the CANOPUS and had a smaller proportion of reservists as part on the crew.

Gator
 
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