different admiral class bc

Hello all, new to this.
Something i have been pondering over for a while, what if, after jutland the admiralty instead of modifing hood and her sisters multiple times, completly redesign her to an early K2 design(looks like Hood but with 18 inch guns and better armour) I know 18 inch guns seem a bit radical, but considering fisher managed to get 18 inch guns on furious..
finished in, lets say early 1921, with her sisters cancelled as per OTL what effects might she have?
WNT is obviously different..

According to Friedman, 3 of the preliminary designs from March 1916 (Designs 4,5 and 6 with 4x, 6x and 8x18inch guns respectively) for Hood were designed with 18inch guns.

As an aside: It never ceases to amaze me that the RN would have built a 48,000 warship, named it after a flag officer who died on a BC at Jutland because of poor protective design, and only gave her a MAX of 3" of deck armor. It is almost murder.
According to Friedman Hood seems to have been named so form early in the design process. It is therefore likely that her namesake was Samuel Hood 1st Viscount Hood, an 18th Century Admiral.

In regards to the 3 inch Deck Armour, the designer did not envision the advent of plunging fire after the First World War. In 1918 however the Admiralty produced designs with thicker upper belt and deck armour but to do so would reduce the protected area. Only an extra inch would be added to the deck armour anyway.
 

CalBear

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According to Friedman, 3 of the preliminary designs from March 1916 (Designs 4,5 and 6 with 4x, 6x and 8x18inch guns respectively) for Hood were designed with 18inch guns.


According to Friedman Hood seems to have been named so form early in the design process. It is therefore likely that her namesake was Samuel Hood 1st Viscount Hood, an 18th Century Admiral.

In regards to the 3 inch Deck Armour, the designer did not envision the advent of plunging fire after the First World War. In 1918 however the Admiralty produced designs with thicker upper belt and deck armour but to do so would reduce the protected area. Only an extra inch would be added to the deck armour anyway.
Interesting on the ship's namesake. Given the proximity in time I had, apparently in error, made a leap in logic.

Regarding the protection issue: The battle cruiser concept was, literally, blown out of the water at Jutland. There was still time to conduct a redesign that would have addressed the glaring defect in the design. Even a reduction to 6x15" would have allowed for an additional 1,100 tons of topside armor without altering the ships reserved topside weight.

The Hood, of course, was also doomed simply because it had that very potent 15" gun battery. It was too heavily armed not to be used as capital ship, even though it had no more business going to to toe with a true battleship than a U.S. Baltimore class CA (2,25" deck armor) did. The armament, and the appearance of the vessel was an invitation to disaster (the same can be said for the U.S. Atlanta class CLAA, everyone saw cruiser, and failed to recall that the ships were big destroyers stuffed with ammunition, and stuck them into combat as if they were a Cleveland or Brooklyn class true cruiser, with the obvious results).
 
I don't get it. The defect of the battlecruisers at Jutland wasn't deck armour. Hood had the armour of a 1920s battleship - her problem was that she hadn't been rebuilt in the 1930s.
 
Interesting on the ship's namesake. Given the proximity in time I had, apparently in error, made a leap in logic.

Regarding the protection issue: The battle cruiser concept was, literally, blown out of the water at Jutland. There was still time to conduct a redesign that would have addressed the glaring defect in the design. Even a reduction to 6x15" would have allowed for an additional 1,100 tons of topside armor without altering the ships reserved topside weight.

The Hood, of course, was also doomed simply because it had that very potent 15" gun battery. It was too heavily armed not to be used as capital ship, even though it had no more business going to to toe with a true battleship than a U.S. Baltimore class CA (2,25" deck armor) did. The armament, and the appearance of the vessel was an invitation to disaster (the same can be said for the U.S. Atlanta class CLAA, everyone saw cruiser, and failed to recall that the ships were big destroyers stuffed with ammunition, and stuck them into combat as if they were a Cleveland or Brooklyn class true cruiser, with the obvious results).
The Hood killed at Jutland was Samuel Hood's grandson anyway
 

CalBear

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I don't get it. The defect of the battlecruisers at Jutland wasn't deck armour. Hood had the armour of a 1920s battleship - her problem was that she hadn't been rebuilt in the 1930s.
Actually Hood shows a surprising, perhaps even shocking, lack of improvement to the overall armor scheme, especially considering all the RN losses at Justland were not the result of belt penetration

HMS Lion

Belt: 4-9"
Barbette: 8-9"
Bulkheads: 4-5"
Deck: 2.5"
Turrets: 9"
Conning Tower: 10"

HMS Hood

Belt: 11-15"
Barbette: 5-12"
Bulkheads: 4"
Deck: 0.5-3"
Turrets: 11-15"
Conning Tower: 9-11"

The worst part is that the Admiralty KNEW that the deck armor was too weak, even had plans to reinforce it (not to the degree necessary, but improved nonetheless) and never pulled the trigger. You are correct that they had failed to give her a mid life refit, making her more a disaster waiting to happen than anything else, but, once again, the Admiralty knew of all her deficiencies. They then proceeded to send her out against a ship that scared the ever living hell out of the same fools who sent her to her grave.

Murder.
 
(the same can be said for the U.S. Atlanta class CLAA, everyone saw cruiser, and failed to recall that the ships were big destroyers stuffed with ammunition, and stuck them into combat as if they were a Cleveland or Brooklyn class true cruiser, with the obvious results).

Using that logic, we never should've sent actual destroyers into surface combat either.
 
...
Regarding the protection issue: The battle cruiser concept was, literally, blown out of the water at Jutland. There was still time to conduct a redesign that would have addressed the glaring defect in the design. Even a reduction to 6x15" would have allowed for an additional 1,100 tons of topside armor without altering the ships reserved topside weight.
...

(my emphasis)
That would be looking it through RN gogles. Germans have had no major problems with protection of their battlecruisers.
 
No, sorry, I still think the criticism is unfair. Hood was a pre-Jutland design, launched in 1918. I know she was modified during construction, but she wasn't a proper post-Jutland ship like Nelson and Rodney, which also benefited from the tests on the survivors of the HSF following its surrender.

Not intercepting Bismarck was not an option. You go with what you have.

All that's left then is the failure to rebuild her in the 1930s.
 

CalBear

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Using that logic, we never should've sent actual destroyers into surface combat either.
Not at all, but the CLAA should have been treated like what it was, and AAA asset, and not a cruiser. If anything it would have been far better to have kept the CLAA with the carriers, even if you had to detach a cruiser from a TF to send into a surface combat operation such as existed in the Solomons.

The San Francisco survived a pounding by a 14" gunned "battleship", Chicago ate a Long Lance and survived, Houston sank, but only after taking four Type 93 and managing to get around 1/3 of her crew off, even with IJN destroyers firing up the deck positions with heavy mg fire, Minneapolis took two Type 93 and survived, Portland took a Long Lance and survived. Indianapolis sank after two hits, but 800 of her crew made it into the water (in their case, a small comfort). U.S heavy cruisers were capable of surviving incredible damage and surviving. They were the ships that should have been sent into surface engagements, along with the Brooklyn and Cleveland class CL. TF 17 had two CA in her screen, after Santa Cruz island, what ship was detached for surface combat conditions? Juneau.

Juneau
went down with 573 men, with an additional 90 dying in the water before they were eventually found and ten survivors rescued.

Destroyers are designed to be "5 minute ships". That is why it sucks to be on a destroyers in a surface action. They also carry a crew around 1/3 the size of a CLAA and cost about 55% less. That is an asset that can be reluctantly expended. A CLAA with 700 crewmen, the AAA capacity of two CA or CL, and magazines stuffed with 7,200 5" and 16,000 1.1" rounds isn't.
 
Actually Hood shows a surprising, perhaps even shocking, lack of improvement to the overall armor scheme, especially considering all the RN losses at Justland were not the result of belt penetration

HMS Lion

Belt: 4-9"
Barbette: 8-9"
Bulkheads: 4-5"
Deck: 2.5"
Turrets: 9"
Conning Tower: 10"

HMS Hood

Belt: 11-15"
Barbette: 5-12"
Bulkheads: 4"
Deck: 0.5-3"
Turrets: 11-15"
Conning Tower: 9-11"

The worst part is that the Admiralty KNEW that the deck armor was too weak, even had plans to reinforce it (not to the degree necessary, but improved nonetheless) and never pulled the trigger. You are correct that they had failed to give her a mid life refit, making her more a disaster waiting to happen than anything else, but, once again, the Admiralty knew of all her deficiencies. They then proceeded to send her out against a ship that scared the ever living hell out of the same fools who sent her to her grave.

Murder.

The problem is that the RN had 5 Capital Ships capable of keeping up with Bismarck and the Twins and having a fighting chance of defeating them

KGV
POW
Hood
Repulse
Renown was with Force H in Gib and therefore not available for the Denmark Strait battle

Holland knew the weaknesses of his ship and ideally should have waited for Tovey to turn up with the fully worked up KGV

However something that I rarely see discussed is the fact that Hood was totally knackered by May 41 despite a short refit (Jan - March 41) that did little more than paper over the cracks (for example she had stripped turbine blades trying to chase Strasbourg after the French ship managed to slip out of Mers El Kábir - therefore despite these issues being 'fixed' I think that she was unlikely to reach her design speed - in fact I recall reading somewhere that this was the case) - so had Hood and POW settled into a stern chase Bismarck and Prinz Eugen could have left them behind (or at least they could have left Hood behind and the British had always planned to fight with a 2 to one advantage!)

So faced with the alternative of allowing the German ships to break out into the North Atlantic before the KGV could arrive and the chaos she would have potentially caused - I don't believe that Holland really had a choice in the matter!

She should have been given a deep 'Warspite' style refit which would have seen her deck armour doubled over the vital spaces to 6" and her guns broughts to MK1'N' standard and her secondaries improved - and I lay the blame on the Government of the day (mid 30s) not letting go of the purse strings earlier than they did.
 

hipper

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Why would the British go with an armored flight deck so early? IOTL the armored-deck design for the Illustrious-class and its successors came about because the FAA's fighter aircraft were inferior to almost everything else being fielded by the navies and air forces of the time.

That's a common Misconception But Illustrious commissioned in late 1940 and had an fighter squadron of Fulmars which were 8 gun fighters with armour and folding wings the USN at the time was mostly flying biplane fighters with one squadron of Brewster buffalo's which were theoretically better carrier fighters than the Fulmar but in practice weren't .

The IJN in 1940 were mostly flying A5M with a similar top speed to the Fulmar but without folding wings or retractable undercarriage. They did introduce the Zero in the second half of 1940 but that was the highest performance naval fighter untill mid 1942.

the armoured deck concept came about because the admiralty thought that it would be impossible to prevent a carrier being hit by bombs.
Which they were right about.

Higher American carrier compliments came about due to some truly remarkable time and motion studies and large deck crews.

Regards Hipper.
 

CalBear

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The problem is that the RN had 5 Capital Ships capable of keeping up with Bismarck and the Twins and having a fighting chance of defeating them

KGV
POW
Hood
Repulse
Renown was with Force H in Gib and therefore not available for the Denmark Strait battle

Holland knew the weaknesses of his ship and ideally should have waited for Tovey to turn up with the fully worked up KGV

However something that I rarely see discussed is the fact that Hood was totally knackered by May 41 despite a short refit (Jan - March 41) that did little more than paper over the cracks (for example she had stripped turbine blades trying to chase Strasbourg after the French ship managed to slip out of Mers El Kábir - therefore despite these issues being 'fixed' I think that she was unlikely to reach her design speed - in fact I recall reading somewhere that this was the case) - so had Hood and POW settled into a stern chase Bismarck and Prinz Eugen could have left them behind (or at least they could have left Hood behind and the British had always planned to fight with a 2 to one advantage!)

So faced with the alternative of allowing the German ships to break out into the North Atlantic before the KGV could arrive and the chaos she would have potentially caused - I don't believe that Holland really had a choice in the matter!

She should have been given a deep 'Warspite' style refit which would have seen her deck armour doubled over the vital spaces to 6" and her guns broughts to MK1'N' standard and her secondaries improved - and I lay the blame on the Government of the day (mid 30s) not letting go of the purse strings earlier than they did.
Hood was, by all accounts, slowly falling apart. Her condensers were pretty much shot so she couldn't make anywhere close to designed speed. The steam pipes throughout the ship were mainly held together by the coats of paint. She was such an impressive ship (she had the highest displacement of any RN ship prior to Vanguard, and not by a small amount, running a solid 5,000 tons over the KGV class) that the British seemed always use her to show the flag. Problem of course being that ships live in salt water and steel and salt water are not friends.

The Admiralty had a chance to at least get some more deck armor on her during the 1929-31 refit (as I noted, reducing her by one turret would have allowed at least 1,100 additional tone of deck armor. 1,100 tons (using the standard 40 pounds per sq. ft. for armor) would have allowed the ~40,000 sq. ft of deck that needed to be reinforced to have received an additional FIVE INCHES of Armor thickness, without compromising topside weight. Even if you reduce the added armor by 20% to ensure stability, the ship winds up with seven inches of deck armor where she sustained her killing hit. The German 38cm/52 could not penetrate seven inches of deck armor at ANY Range. The British 15"/42 carried by the Hood could penetrate Bismarck's deck, albeit at exceptionally long range. As was, Hood was actually borderline vulnerable to 8" AP.

By failing, while they had the ship in hand, to refit her with proper armor, the Admiralty went from having what would have been the first true "fast battleship" (assuming that the RN actually addressed her condenser/feed water issues) to having a disaster waiting to happen
 
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Hood was, by all accounts, slowly falling apart. Her condensers were pretty much shot so she couldn't make anywhere close to designed speed. The steam pipes throughout the ship were mainly held together by the coats of paint. She was such an impressive ship (she had the highest displacement of any RN ship prior to Vanguard, and not by a small amount, running a solid 5,000 tons over the KGV class) that the British seemed always use her to show the flag. Problem of course being that ships live in salt water and steel and salt water are not friends.

The Admiralty had a chance to at least get some more deck armor on her during the 1929-31 refit (as I noted, reducing her by one turret would have allowed at least 1,100 additional tone of deck armor. 1,100 tons (using the standard 40 pounds per sq. ft. for armor) would have allowed the ~40,000 sq. ft of deck that needed to be reinforced to have received an additional FIVE INCHES of Armor thickness, without compromising topside weight. Even if you reduce the added armor by 20% to ensure stability, the ship winds up with seven inches of deck armor where she sustained her killing hit. The German 38cm/52 could not penetrate seven inches of deck armor at ANY Range. The British 15"/42 carried by the Hood could penetrate Bismarck's deck, albeit at exceptionally long range. As was, Hood was actually borderline vulnerable to 8" AP.

By failing, while they had the ship in hand, to refit her with proper armor, the Admiralty went from having what would have been the first true "fast battleship" (assuming that the RN actually addressed her condenser/feed water issues) to having a disaster waiting to happen
Hood wasn't actually killed by deck penetration in all likelihood. While I agree the weak deck armor was a stunning liability, her engagement with Bismarck happened at too short of a range for deck penetration to be likely. They were only ~15km apart when the fatal shell struck. At that range, the shells would have struck the deck at a very shallow angle, something like 14 degrees, making deflection pretty much certain. At that range, the Bismarck's guns were capable of penetrating Hood's 12-inch belt armor
 
Hood wasn't actually killed by deck penetration in all likelihood. While I agree the weak deck armor was a stunning liability, her engagement with Bismarck happened at too short of a range for deck penetration to be likely. They were only ~15km apart when the fatal shell struck. At that range, the shells would have struck the deck at a very shallow angle, something like 14 degrees, making deflection pretty much certain. At that range, the Bismarck's guns were capable of penetrating Hood's 12-inch belt armor

Actually, I've heard from several sources that the fatal shell actually struck Hood below her waterline.
 
Actually, I've heard from several sources that the fatal shell actually struck Hood below her waterline.

Isn't pretty much a "few" theories as to what was the killing blow? I've heard the deck penetration one, the secondary fire one and the waterline one from memory.
 
Hood was, by all accounts, slowly falling apart. Her condensers were pretty much shot so she couldn't make anywhere close to designed speed. The steam pipes throughout the ship were mainly held together by the coats of paint. She was such an impressive ship (she had the highest displacement of any RN ship prior to Vanguard, and not by a small amount, running a solid 5,000 tons over the KGV class) that the British seemed always use her to show the flag. Problem of course being that ships live in salt water and steel and salt water are not friends.

The Admiralty had a chance to at least get some more deck armor on her during the 1929-31 refit (as I noted, reducing her by one turret would have allowed at least 1,100 additional tone of deck armor. 1,100 tons (using the standard 40 pounds per sq. ft. for armor) would have allowed the ~40,000 sq. ft of deck that needed to be reinforced to have received an additional FIVE INCHES of Armor thickness, without compromising topside weight. Even if you reduce the added armor by 20% to ensure stability, the ship winds up with seven inches of deck armor where she sustained her killing hit. The German 38cm/52 could not penetrate seven inches of deck armor at ANY Range. The British 15"/42 carried by the Hood could penetrate Bismarck's deck, albeit at exceptionally long range. As was, Hood was actually borderline vulnerable to 8" AP.

By failing, while they had the ship in hand, to refit her with proper armor, the Admiralty went from having what would have been the first true "fast battleship" (assuming that the RN actually addressed her condenser/feed water issues) to having a disaster waiting to happen

My understanding is that the weight saving from a proper deep refit would come from

Small Tube Boilers and other modern lighter machinery replacing existing '1916' Machinery - Warspite for example saved 1,500 Tons alone on changing the Machinery allowing 1100 Tons of extra armour to be fitted - given that Hood had more Machinery than Warspite - I would expect that weight saving to be higher

Rebuilding the superstructure in par with the KGVs and other rebuilds - ie relatively lightly armoured superstructure = reduce top weight

Torpedo's removed

The weight saved would go into

Thicker Deck Armour - not everywhere - just where it mattered
Hanger facilities + Catapult
Revised and Modernised secondary weapon fit + improved and modernised AAA

The plans that exist regarding the proposed 1942 refit was not as far as I can tell going to upgrade the Turrets to MK1 'N' standard (ie reverse the powder to the bottom and the shell room above them) - however had the refit taken place when it should - ie some time in the 30s then this no doubt would have been done
 
Isn't pretty much a "few" theories as to what was the killing blow? I've heard the deck penetration one, the secondary fire one and the waterline one from memory.

Yeah, it's not entirely clear what happened. Under the belt is possible, despite the short range, as POW showed against Bismarck in the same engagement. Through the thin upper belt and then down into a magazine is I think the classic theory. But a clean penetration of the main belt also seems possible.
 
One thing i have noticed about Hood is that everyone considered her deck armour insufficient, and, although it was everyone seems to ignore that(prior rebuild) the QEs had virtually the same armour scheme.

I think there was another theory about the shell passing through the upper belt.

If Hood had survived the bismarck engagement, she would have gotten a rebuild, but just what was really needed ie.improved Fire control, better deck armour reversing the shell rooms and powder mags and maybe newer lighter machinery
oh and better AA( get rid of those useless UP launchers!) and maybe a better secondary armament. They could strip the armour from the conning tower, that would take off 400-500 tons of weight
She would have looked pretty much the same externally.
when Hood was commissioned in 1920, she weighed 42000 tons. By May 41 she weighed 48,000 tons
thats some serious stress for a 20 year old ship to put up with..
 
Likely fewer than the US Lexington class, assuming the RN goes with the British standard armored flight deck. At a guess 45-50, Saratoga was embarking 90 in 1943.

I can't see a Hood A/C having an armored flight deck, none of the carrier until the Illustrious did and that was largely down to Admiral Henderson who would not be in a position to push the armor at this time. A Hood A/C might actually have a potential capacity close to the Lexingtons if the double hanger is used which would make up a bit for not having a deck park.
 
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