Deutschlands or Hippers better use of steel

If you are going to have 30kt battleships then you need to build the rest of the 30kt task force for some semblence of a balanced naval force. The PBs could never keep up with the Bismark and Tirpitz at sea so a 30kt cruiser design was needed, much like the situation with the USN and IJN the Germans went with 8 inch guns.
 
Fisher follies

Every time we talk about AH KM vessels lots of people argue for 20000tons+ ships with good speed, a small number of big guns, CA level of armour and long range. The funny thing is that when Fisher build two such ships, the courageous and glorious, everybody regarded them as the craziest ships ever built. Could it be that a german Courageous, with triple 11'' replacing the twin 15'', have really been a succeful ship?

rys-glorious.gif
 
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Fisher vindicated the Kreuzer P1

Compare the line drawing of the proposed Kreuzer P1 improved Deutschlands with the profile of Glorious above

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As far as I know the London Naval Treaty only regulated the 35:100 ratio between the RN and the Kriegsmarine. But even if considering the WNT they could afford having more Deutchlands classed as capital ships, as there were plenty of "free" tonnage.

And at the time of the later Hippers Germany could just ignore any treaty regulations, or if they would somehow need to follow it, "do a Mogami" and design them around bigger guns but fit them with smaller and then change when the time is right. A Deutchland with two (mock-up) quadruple 6'' turrets for example.

The Deutchlands had MAN diesel engines with a range of 10 000 nm at 20 knots by the way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-German_Naval_Agreement#The_Agreement

See section 2.d

Yes once the Germans drop the treaty, in 1939, they could do whatever they wanted to. Taking raiding cruisers out of capital ship tonnage would be a bad idea if you are planning to start the war in 1945 is all.

Michael
 
They did plan for a Alaska sized battlecruiser...

Which is a hoot. The Alaskas were built because the US feared these ships, which were never seriously contemplated, and to some extent the Japanese ships' design reflected what they learned abut the Alaskas. Neither ship made any sense, but at least the Alaskas were possibly the prettiest large US ships of the 1940's
 
five twins?

I know it was a off-topic... how do you think about upsize the Takao to battleship?:)

If you were talking about taking the general design and building a BB sized "sister" the five twin turrets would force the designers to incorporate a long belt. When BB design moved toward all or nothing designs compactness became higly desirable, and the less turrets the better. Thats why the French ships were very well protected for their size (both the Dunquerke and the richelieu classes) and the South Dakotas looked bulky. The long and pretty Iowas had very exposed unprotected long sections of their hulls. For protection triple or quad turrets were the way to go.
 
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