Dread Nought but the Fury of the Seas
- Thread starter sts-200
- Start date
I haven't seen that one, but I can believe it, given that Watts would have been speaking with 20:20 hindsight, and quite possible covering himself against post-war criticism.
Drop 24 Champion-type boilers & uprated turbines into a QE (they would fit - just) and you would have 120,000shp - equivalent to an overloaded '30s KGV. By my calculations, that would give 28.5 knots at 31,000 tons.
Trouble was, that machinery didn't exist when QE was designed.
USN - they don't have any!
... but we're talking post-war there, a lot of water to flow under the keel first.
Not to mention according to Congress the USN already had a lot of cruisers albeit old mostly and out of date but hey politicians. Also the USN rightly figured that it could build destroyers and cruisers in a hurry far faster than battleships so they focused what money congress was forking over on the battle line
The Navweaps article suggested it was more of a weight and cost issue. The more advanced geared turbines from the Hood and later US designs were cheaper and weighed less for equivalent shaft horsepower. They did pay a significant penalty in damage resistance though. The turboelectric drive also offered some maneuvering advantages in that a propeller shaft could be switched from full ahead to full astern just by reversing the motor. Doing this with a geared turbine would strip the gears.
again from Navweaps
The matters of cost and weight led to the demise of the turboelectric drive under Washington Treaty tonnage limitations and Depression Era fiscal stringency. Reduction geared turbines were lighter and less expensive for the horsepower generated.
...
In compartmentation, the turboelectric drive was typically twice as segregated as a direct drive plant and four times as segregated as later reduction geared turbine plants in US service. The machinery in the direct drive turbine USS Idaho (BB-42) was divided into eight main spaces, while the machinery in the turboelectric USS Tennessee (BB-43) was divided into fifteen main spaces. This increase in compartmentalization meant that there would be less flooding in the ship in case of battle damage such as from a torpedo. The later reduction geared USS North Carolina (BB-55) had only four main spaces and required each propeller shaft to be led progressively farther forward in the hull.
...
Turboelectric machinery also permitted more rapid development of accelerating and decelerating power on the shafts. It made the last ditch maneuver of "twisting" a ship out of a torpedo's path by backing down one side's shafts while running the opposite side full ahead and applying full rudder toward the backing side more effective. It also permitted extended periods of backing. After suffering a torpedo hit in the extreme bow while at anchor off Saipan in 1944, USS Maryland (BB-46) backed to Pearl Harbor at 10 knots so as not to strain the collision bulkhead forward.
The same ship also escaped two collisions in a matter of minutes during a close order fleet maneuvering exercise between the wars. When USS Oklahoma (BB-37) sheered out of column to avoid running down an errant destroyer, she intruded on the next column of ships, crossing the Maryland's bow. The Maryland performed an immediate "crash back" to avoid the Oklahoma, decelerating and letting the other battleship pass ahead, only to be confronted with the direct drive turbine USS Arizona (BB-39) vainly trying to back down behind her. Maryland's electric motors were immediately thrown back to flank speed ahead and the turboelectric ship accelerated ahead of the less responsive Arizona.
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-038.php
Designed in a Week, Built in a Year
Designed in a Week, Built in a Year
Admiral Fisher had returned to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord soon after the outbreak of war, following public setbacks for the Navy and political skullduggery in Whitehall. Within weeks of his return, he began to press for the overturn of the ban on building capital ships, and wanted to use existing contracts to build more fast battlecruisers.
The humiliation of the escape of the Goeben through the English Channel played a part in the removal of Fisher's predecessor as First Sea Lord, and he used the tactical circumstances as an argument to support the construction of new battlecruisers; had one or two of these fast ships been in the Channel, they could have outpaced Goeben and sunk her.
The widespread use and success of battlecruisers across the globe also showed the value of these ships. Following the Battle of the Heligoland Bight, the interception of the Breslau and the actions of Invincible in the South Atlantic, Admirals Jellicoe and Beatty (no doubt prompted by Fisher) indicated their desire for fast ships, which had to be capable of catching future German battlecruisers, not just the existing versions, which were believed to be capable of 25-26 knots. Jellicoe's fleet of 21-knot dreadnoughts would be increased by the arrival of ten new 15" gunned, 25-knot ships by the end of 1916, but there were no fast battlecruisers under construction.
This support allowed Admiral Fisher to persuade the government that existing authorisations should be used to build more fast ships. By using existing contracts and stockpiled materials from the suspended ‘Royals’, Fisher planned to replicate the speed of construction of HMS Dreadnought. Reports that he assured the Cabinet that ‘we’ll build them in a year’ are undoubtedly apocryphal, but the haste surrounding the ships was very real.
By the start of December 1914, the Admiral had an agreement to modify the battleships already under construction. These modifications would be fairly extensive; armament would be halved to four 15" guns, belt armour reduced from 12" to 6”, and machinery power increased by 80%. The ships would be 70' longer and 10' narrower than the Royals, with an estimated speed of 32 knots at 18,500 tons displacement. The design concept was completed on 7th December, but Fisher’s support for it lasted just a few days. By the 11th, he wanted to add an additional pair of 15" guns, and after the weekend, no doubt having carefully considered all the tactical and strategic merits of building the world's largest and most powerful warships, he decided that an armament of eight 15" guns would be even better.
The first ship, HMS Repulse, was laid down on 28th December 1914. Technically, she would not be authorised for another month, but Admiralty paperwork was far, far slower than a Fisher-driven battlecruiser.
Even with the world's largest and most efficient yards and a tradition of building new and innovative warships with amazing speed, detailed design of a large ship could not be completed in two weeks. The new ships would therefore draw heavily on earlier designs, most notably the RN's last battlecruiser, HMS Panther, the design of which dated from 1911. In turn, she and her sister Queen Mary had been based on the preceding ships of the "Lion" class, with minor improvements to the armour and machinery. The five "Splendid Cats" (so called because the lead ship was named Lion, with the others being Princess Royal, Australia, Queen Mary and Panther) were the largest ships in the fleet. All were armed with eight 13.5" guns and were built for 28 knots, with Queen Mary and Panther equipped to fire heavier shells and with slightly more powerful engines which allowed them to achieve this speed with relative ease. On her trials in 1913, Queen Mary had achieved 28.7 knots at 27,310 tons (essentially "load" displacement) with 88,110shp. Perhaps more importantly, on special trials in January 1914, she achieved 28.41knots with 91,260shp at 29,550 tons; a displacement that more closely matched a typical wartime load.
Design studies for battlecruisers had not stopped with HMS Panther in 1911, and an improved version "Tiger" had been proposed in 1912, equipped with the same 13.5" Mk.V(H) guns, but with all the boilers grouped together, leaving Q and X turrets separated only by the engine rooms. Tiger would have had a nominal 85,000shp for 28 knots, with 105,000 shp and 30 knots hoped for.
With rumours that 28-knot or even 30-knot German battlecruisers were under construction, Fisher wanted his new ships to achieve 32 knots, even with their heavy armament. Fortunately, his designers had an advantage in the form of the change to oil firing, which allowed for more efficient furnaces. The boilers would be taken straight from the cancelled Royals and doubled in numbers, with each ship having forty-two boilers grouped together in five boiler rooms, without the centreline bulkhead that had been fitted to previous battlecruisers. New turbines would deliver 100,000shp without forcing, or at least 125,000shp with it.
Fisher had originally called his concept "HMS Rhadamanthus", while in a letter written some months later, Admiral Beatty referred to them as "Sabre-Tooth Tigers". These fanciful names aside, they would be commissioned as the Renown class.
At 28,475 tons load displacement, they would be only slightly heavier than their predecessors, but otherwise HMS Renown and her sister HMS Repulse would be much enlarged versions of the Tiger design. Eight 15" guns would be mounted in the usual twin turrets, the forward pair superfiring, with Q and X separated by the engine rooms, giving Q the ability to fire directly astern. The engine rooms would be larger than Tiger, while the need to accommodate the greater width of the 15" turrets and their larger magazines prompted an innovative internal solution in order to retain the same hull form aft. Some of the secondary machinery (a Dynamo Room and Pump Room) was relocated aft of the turret, resulting in a long quarterdeck that helped to make the ships rather pleasing to the eye. Following favourable opinions of the bows of the British-built Turkish battleship Reshadieh, the traditional "ram" was to be replaced with a "plough" bow.
Government restrictions and the need for speedy construction meant that material ordered for the 1914 Royals had to be used, including their armour. The Royal-class battleships had a 12" un-tapered lower belt, with a 6" upper belt extending up to the secondary battery. Installing heavy 12" armour on a battlecruiser didn’t fit in with Fisher's thinking, so the Renowns had to make do with a 6" armour belt. However, using almost all of the 6" plates ordered for the Royals on just two ships allowed this belt to be quite extensive, and it would stretch from forward of A turret to aft of X turret and would cover a height of 13' of the ships' side from 3' below the LWL. 6" end bulkheads closed the belt and an 8' wide strip of 4" armour projected forward near the waterline. A 3" deck and slope protected the engine rooms, with a 2” slope and a 1" lower deck running over the rest of the length of the belt. The structural Foc'sle and upper decks were built out of HT steel, and consequently were counted as both structure and armour, with thicknesses of 1" on each.
Cross section of armour layout
All this suited Fisher's view that speed was more important than armour, and it avoided the need to order new plates, but it did mean that the ships would be less well armoured than the ‘Lions’. The 6” belt was marginally capable of resisting the German 11" at long ranges (then regarded as over 12,000 yards) for oblique impacts, but it was inadequate in the face of the 12" guns known to be fitted to SMS Derfflinger, and would be hopelessly outmatched by the 14" weapons that the Admiralty believed were being fitted to the next German battlecruiser, the Lutzow.
Nonetheless, they would be impressive ships. At 795' in length with a beam of 91', yet again a British battlecruiser would be largest warship in the world.
Renown as completed
Admiral Fisher had returned to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord soon after the outbreak of war, following public setbacks for the Navy and political skullduggery in Whitehall. Within weeks of his return, he began to press for the overturn of the ban on building capital ships, and wanted to use existing contracts to build more fast battlecruisers.
The humiliation of the escape of the Goeben through the English Channel played a part in the removal of Fisher's predecessor as First Sea Lord, and he used the tactical circumstances as an argument to support the construction of new battlecruisers; had one or two of these fast ships been in the Channel, they could have outpaced Goeben and sunk her.
The widespread use and success of battlecruisers across the globe also showed the value of these ships. Following the Battle of the Heligoland Bight, the interception of the Breslau and the actions of Invincible in the South Atlantic, Admirals Jellicoe and Beatty (no doubt prompted by Fisher) indicated their desire for fast ships, which had to be capable of catching future German battlecruisers, not just the existing versions, which were believed to be capable of 25-26 knots. Jellicoe's fleet of 21-knot dreadnoughts would be increased by the arrival of ten new 15" gunned, 25-knot ships by the end of 1916, but there were no fast battlecruisers under construction.
This support allowed Admiral Fisher to persuade the government that existing authorisations should be used to build more fast ships. By using existing contracts and stockpiled materials from the suspended ‘Royals’, Fisher planned to replicate the speed of construction of HMS Dreadnought. Reports that he assured the Cabinet that ‘we’ll build them in a year’ are undoubtedly apocryphal, but the haste surrounding the ships was very real.
By the start of December 1914, the Admiral had an agreement to modify the battleships already under construction. These modifications would be fairly extensive; armament would be halved to four 15" guns, belt armour reduced from 12" to 6”, and machinery power increased by 80%. The ships would be 70' longer and 10' narrower than the Royals, with an estimated speed of 32 knots at 18,500 tons displacement. The design concept was completed on 7th December, but Fisher’s support for it lasted just a few days. By the 11th, he wanted to add an additional pair of 15" guns, and after the weekend, no doubt having carefully considered all the tactical and strategic merits of building the world's largest and most powerful warships, he decided that an armament of eight 15" guns would be even better.
The first ship, HMS Repulse, was laid down on 28th December 1914. Technically, she would not be authorised for another month, but Admiralty paperwork was far, far slower than a Fisher-driven battlecruiser.
Even with the world's largest and most efficient yards and a tradition of building new and innovative warships with amazing speed, detailed design of a large ship could not be completed in two weeks. The new ships would therefore draw heavily on earlier designs, most notably the RN's last battlecruiser, HMS Panther, the design of which dated from 1911. In turn, she and her sister Queen Mary had been based on the preceding ships of the "Lion" class, with minor improvements to the armour and machinery. The five "Splendid Cats" (so called because the lead ship was named Lion, with the others being Princess Royal, Australia, Queen Mary and Panther) were the largest ships in the fleet. All were armed with eight 13.5" guns and were built for 28 knots, with Queen Mary and Panther equipped to fire heavier shells and with slightly more powerful engines which allowed them to achieve this speed with relative ease. On her trials in 1913, Queen Mary had achieved 28.7 knots at 27,310 tons (essentially "load" displacement) with 88,110shp. Perhaps more importantly, on special trials in January 1914, she achieved 28.41knots with 91,260shp at 29,550 tons; a displacement that more closely matched a typical wartime load.
Design studies for battlecruisers had not stopped with HMS Panther in 1911, and an improved version "Tiger" had been proposed in 1912, equipped with the same 13.5" Mk.V(H) guns, but with all the boilers grouped together, leaving Q and X turrets separated only by the engine rooms. Tiger would have had a nominal 85,000shp for 28 knots, with 105,000 shp and 30 knots hoped for.
With rumours that 28-knot or even 30-knot German battlecruisers were under construction, Fisher wanted his new ships to achieve 32 knots, even with their heavy armament. Fortunately, his designers had an advantage in the form of the change to oil firing, which allowed for more efficient furnaces. The boilers would be taken straight from the cancelled Royals and doubled in numbers, with each ship having forty-two boilers grouped together in five boiler rooms, without the centreline bulkhead that had been fitted to previous battlecruisers. New turbines would deliver 100,000shp without forcing, or at least 125,000shp with it.
Fisher had originally called his concept "HMS Rhadamanthus", while in a letter written some months later, Admiral Beatty referred to them as "Sabre-Tooth Tigers". These fanciful names aside, they would be commissioned as the Renown class.
At 28,475 tons load displacement, they would be only slightly heavier than their predecessors, but otherwise HMS Renown and her sister HMS Repulse would be much enlarged versions of the Tiger design. Eight 15" guns would be mounted in the usual twin turrets, the forward pair superfiring, with Q and X separated by the engine rooms, giving Q the ability to fire directly astern. The engine rooms would be larger than Tiger, while the need to accommodate the greater width of the 15" turrets and their larger magazines prompted an innovative internal solution in order to retain the same hull form aft. Some of the secondary machinery (a Dynamo Room and Pump Room) was relocated aft of the turret, resulting in a long quarterdeck that helped to make the ships rather pleasing to the eye. Following favourable opinions of the bows of the British-built Turkish battleship Reshadieh, the traditional "ram" was to be replaced with a "plough" bow.
Government restrictions and the need for speedy construction meant that material ordered for the 1914 Royals had to be used, including their armour. The Royal-class battleships had a 12" un-tapered lower belt, with a 6" upper belt extending up to the secondary battery. Installing heavy 12" armour on a battlecruiser didn’t fit in with Fisher's thinking, so the Renowns had to make do with a 6" armour belt. However, using almost all of the 6" plates ordered for the Royals on just two ships allowed this belt to be quite extensive, and it would stretch from forward of A turret to aft of X turret and would cover a height of 13' of the ships' side from 3' below the LWL. 6" end bulkheads closed the belt and an 8' wide strip of 4" armour projected forward near the waterline. A 3" deck and slope protected the engine rooms, with a 2” slope and a 1" lower deck running over the rest of the length of the belt. The structural Foc'sle and upper decks were built out of HT steel, and consequently were counted as both structure and armour, with thicknesses of 1" on each.
Cross section of armour layout
Nonetheless, they would be impressive ships. At 795' in length with a beam of 91', yet again a British battlecruiser would be largest warship in the world.
Renown as completed
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You know I wonder why design y for the R class wasn't used instead . it had a 11" belt with 8 15" inch guns and a top speed of 30 knots. And that's without small tube boilers or geared turbines add those and she's easily doing at least 31 knots. Plus the design already exists
I've never really seen much information I believe about that ship, other than the fact that D'Eyncourt mentioned a sketch design.
In reality, as a companion battlecruiser to the 1914 Royal Sovereigns and a development of Tiger, it would make some sense, but would be an expensive ship, which rather misses the point of the R-class.
In this story, they are even less likely to be built, as the R-class haven't been built, and Tiger only made it to outline design stage.
Instead, the story's "Royals" are fast battleships in their own right, with a follow-on order made for more of them for the 1914 ships (and then suspended due to the war, as OTL). I don't doubt there would be plenty of sketch ideas going around, but to a man in a hurry, there would be appeal in simply expanding on an existing design - at least for these ships (hint, hint).
These things make use of as many "Royal" class orders as possible, including the boilers, so there's no question of anything more than large-tube and direct-drive.
Also, don't forget: Speed is Everything
Building a mere 28/30-knot ship? ... Pahh! ... You may as well jump overboard and start pushing!
Of course not ... Speed is armour, and in any case, everyone knows shells break up when they hit 6" armour obliquely.
Will it be Beatty or some other admiral commenting about how something seems to be wrong with our bloody ships today?
At this stage, I will only say that different lessons will be learned ... but not necessarily correctly, and the real-world trigger for Fisher's resignation obviously can't apply.
Hey I just realized a positive of the new Renown class the Lexington class design will almost certainly be up armored if one of them blows up at the equivalent to Jutland
It'd make an interesting WNT at the very least. You've got the RN with a bunch of modern, fast ships... but half of them are known death traps.