The 13.5" battlecruisers based out of Singapore would be good counters to the new Dutch ships based in the east indies.

Quite true, but also a deterrent to any possible Japanese intentions.

With regard to the treaty, I think that the establish limit of tonnage for each nation should be based upon the current tonnage that everyone has to date ( counting launched hulls as well), and that further construction should be the mention yearly allowance, within the size limits agreed.
 
With regard to the treaty, I think that the establish limit of tonnage for each nation should be based upon the current tonnage that everyone has to date ( counting launched hulls as well), and that further construction should be the mention yearly allowance, within the size limits agreed.
RN potentially with G3's... oh boy
 
...
With regard to the treaty, I think that the establish limit of tonnage for each nation should be based upon the current tonnage that everyone has to date ( counting launched hulls as well), and that further construction should be the mention yearly allowance, within the size limits agreed.
Trouble is, no-one's going to sign a treaty like that (other than the British), as it would lock in RN dominance.

The Americans might not be desperate for an all-out naval race, but they're not going to accept being permanently 60% of the RN (which is about where they'd be in 1921/2).
The Japanese also have clear expansion plans, which may not be entirely practical, but they're not going to like being forced to remain at about 50% of the USN.
 
The White Elephant in the Room
The White Elephant in the Room

‘Is this accurate, or just an intelligence man with an active imagination?’, said the bluff, straight-talking Admiral, whose job would soon to be to supervise the construction of the US Navy’s latest battleships and cruisers.
‘No Sir, this is correct information. We’ve had rumours for some time, but the photographs and now this first-hand evidence all point to the same conclusion; the battlecruiser Furious has 18-inch guns.’
There was a muffled expletive from the end of the table, at which the Admiral glanced sharply around. He wouldn’t tolerate swearing in his command … except when he did it himself.
Mr Kramer, the representative of the Ordnance Department continued,
‘We also have suggestions that both Britain and Japan are working on 19-inch or 20-inch guns.’
‘Those are only speculative’, interrupted another voice, ‘let’s stick to the facts.’
‘OK…’, Kramer hesitated before continuing, ‘Furious has 18-inch guns, and we have obtained photographs of their newest battleship, still under construction, which seem to show the barbettes are the same size. Definitely bigger than their 15-inch, so it seems more than likely that she’ll have 18-inch when they finish her next year.’
‘How sure are you of this – I mean, you guys were wrong about Hood. You reckoned she’d have 16.5”, and yet the plans showed she had the same 15-inch gun they’d been using for years. Now you’re claiming an older ship has bigger guns…?’.
There were a series of sceptical murmurs from around the room.
‘There’s no doubt’, replied Kramer, ‘although it was blind luck. One of our Ordnance guys was liaising with their Navy, and he saw it clear as day; labelled 18-inch shells being loaded at Rosyth. They were taller than him, so I regret there’s no doubt, gentlemen.’

From his place at the head of the table, Admiral Taylor, the current Chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair had been observing and listening thoughtfully.
‘So there we have it gentlemen’, he intoned slowly, ‘however unpleasant the truth may be.’
He paused to look around the room.
‘The British have a capital ship with 18-inch guns, and probably another about to complete. We have yet to complete our first ship with 16-inch.’
Several men clearly wanted to speak, but Taylor waved them aside.
‘Yes, yes, gentlemen, I know what you’re going to say. The South Dakota will have twelve of our new 16-inch Mark 2, but I say again; they have this ship in service, South Dakota has only just been laid down.’

Admiral Taylor’s soon-to-be replacement would have felt sorry for his predecessor, if he hadn’t sensed the opportunity before him. Taylor had supervised the construction of most of the Navy’s current battlefleet; tough, well-armed ships, with enough speed to match most of their foreign contemporaries. Now however, if the US needed a new Navy, he would be the man to build it.

‘So, Sir, you believe we’ve been “Dreadnoughted” again? Everything we have will soon be obsolete?’
‘I don’t believe that’s the case. We have a solid, modern fleet; more modern than the British. It’s a question of we do next – what you will do, where you’re in this chair, John.
Furious is clearly a one-off, a prototype, and our C&R engineers have calculated she must have very light armour. If we assume she’s about 40,000 tons, they can’t see how she can have more than 9” armour; which fits, given what we know about Hood. We also know the British still favour layers of deck plating – wrongly, in my view – but their hull forms are excellent. I’d believe Furious was good for 32 knots, probably more.’
He paused thoughtfully, and to make sure everyone in the room was paying close attention.
‘Yes, ahh … The greater threat, to my mind, is this new ship, ahh… Rodney, they call her. She appears to be similar to Hood, but with a more compact citadel and larger guns. We had plenty of hints when they were over here during the war that they wanted to move towards heavier armour, and if they’ve sacrificed speed for firepower as well, then Rodney could be quite a ship.
Our people have taken what they know about Hood and worked on it. Worst case, Rodney could have 18-inch guns, armour about as good as South Dakota, and still make 25 or 26 knots.’

Taylor was well aware that there were several politically minded men in the room today, who might have their own angles to play. As if on cue, one of them chose this moment to speak,
‘So you’re saying the ships you’re laying down now are already obsolete, and you don’t know what the British will have by the time we finish them…’
Such a black interpretation of the facts had to be stamped on; it was the sort of dumb summary that could easily resonate in Washington, where it could do untold damage to the Navy’s reputation.

‘No, I am most definitely not saying that!’, Taylor said firmly,
‘We at C&R have already studied more powerful ships, including an improved South Dakota; we can build better scouts and we can match their latest destroyers.’
Nodding towards Mr Kramer, he added, ‘Ordnance are already working on an 18-inch gun… But, at two battleships or battlecruisers a year, we will always be in second place.’

He could see his words were having an effect, so he drove them home,
‘If the United States wants the greatest fleet in the world, we can deliver, but it will take ten years and Congress has got to start paying for it.’
 
The thing no-one's talking about in all this, of course, is money. The war has not been as economically ruinous to Britain as OTL, but it sure hasn't been cheap (particularly when the Russians default on their debts, if they haven't already) and there are lots of other things fighting for space in a very overstretched budget. The Treasury is not going to look favourably on any proposals to start replacing 12" and 13.5" battleships (many of them less than ten years old) with new and more expensive ones, especially as there is no obvious enemy in sight. The High Seas Fleet is gone, the Russians are busy, the French, Americans, Italians and Japanese are all allies. Counter the Dutch? What exactly are the Dutch expected to do that needs countering? Or the Americans for that matter?

Finger in the air, I'd guess that the budget might run to 5-6 new capital ships in the 1920s (rather than 2 as OTL). But ambitions for 2 a year are fantasy - even if the US does go for an all-out naval race. Put another way. pre-war the key fact behind the naval balance was that the British could always outbuild anyone else. Post-war it's that the Americans can always outspend everyone else.
 
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It shouldn't be too difficult to design a South Dakota follow-on that goes from 12 x 16-inch to 8 x 18-inch in the same way that Colorado exchanged Tennessee's 12 x 14-inch for 8 x 16-inch. South Dakota's triples weigh about 1,400 tons, the 18"/48 Mark 1 twins weigh about 1,600 tons. The twin 16"/45 turrets and the triple 14"/50 turrets both weighed about 900 tons, so this South Dakota follow-on is going to need about 800 tons of extra displacement where Colorado basically didn't need anything. I think the change would be within the realm of increasing the box coefficient of the bulges fore and aft around the barbettes, which would have the added benefit of increasing protection at the cost of hydrodynamic efficiency; engines a few years newer could probably give you a few thousand extra horsepower to compensate.

As far as the money angle for the US: the twelve capital ships of the Lexington and South Dakota classes had been fully funded and all were under construction in seven different yards when they were canceled in accordance with the Washington Treaty. They may not have been the best designs, but they would have practically doubled the size of the US Navy's fleet of superdreadnought battleships and battlecruisers practically overnight.
 
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RN potentially with G3's... oh boy

Well, it depends, were there ever laid?

Trouble is, no-one's going to sign a treaty like that (other than the British), as it would lock in RN dominance.

The Americans might not be desperate for an all-out naval race, but they're not going to accept being permanently 60% of the RN (which is about where they'd be in 1921/2).
The Japanese also have clear expansion plans, which may not be entirely practical, but they're not going to like being forced to remain at about 50% of the USN.

I understand, but that would be really unfair if the pre-dreadnoughts vessels were not counted and also I doubt that the british government would be keen on using all their tonnage, but in any case I don't think that those terms were insulting or even unfair because it gives the same chances to everyone, and without undermining further planning for each nation just specifying the dimensions, from there is up to the designers. Is my perspective.

Anyway keep the excellent job!.
 
One way for the British to 'Dreadnought' the other navies is to focus a few more resources on carriers while bemoaning a lack of funds that is preventing them from building enough proper, modern battleships to replace the older ones. That the carriers are just a way to keep shipyards such as Jarrow operational until the government decides they can fund the full battleship programme again. Chances are that, with most navies & politicians being 'gun nuts' at this time, this may even be taken at face value, especially if it offers the chance to overtake the Royal Navy in the battleship count.
At the same time, the Brits could develop more efficient construction technology (such as welding) & retrain their workforce.
 
Carriers then are like pilotless aircraft today. Coming soon, with lots of creative ideas on how they might be used. But they are not there yet and the pros know it.

The point about more efficient construction technology is good but not dependent upon carriers. For starters the technology is matured in the civilian yards, not the military yards. That said there are a few interesting PoDs here. The OTL end of the war saw the German merchant fleet dumped on the market. Then an overbuilt American merchant fleet was dumped on the market. Then the Depression. The end result was that there was never any need or ability for the British builders to move away from rivets and triple expansion, like say the Norwegians did. It didn't make economic sense.
I imagine the Germans kept their merchants in this OTL, and goodness knows what the Americans did. That's 10 years in a market not flooded with cheap merchant hulls before the Depression (its probably hard coded in economically by this point). It is worth experimenting in that environment.

It shouldn't be too difficult to design a South Dakota follow-on that goes from 12 x 16-inch to 8 x 18-inch in the same way that Colorado exchanged Tennessee's 12 x 14-inch for 8 x 16-inch. South Dakota's triples weigh about 1,400 tons, the 18"/48 Mark 1 twins weigh about 1,600 tons. The twin 16"/45 turrets and the triple 14"/50 turrets both weighed about 900 tons, so this South Dakota follow-on is going to need about 800 tons of extra displacement where Colorado basically didn't need anything. I think the change would be within the realm of increasing the box coefficient of the bulges fore and aft around the barbettes, which would have the added benefit of increasing protection at the cost of hydrodynamic efficiency; engines a few years newer could probably give you a few thousand extra horsepower to compensate.
Armor is going to kill them. The SoDaks were really tight to begin with and their deck armor wasn't up to spec in an 18" world. They are basically trying to squeeze that last drop of blood out of the Standards so they don't have room to grow. A brand new design would be better, and at least they haven't been laid down yet. The cost is time.

The thing no-one's talking about in all this, of course, is money. The war has not been as economically ruinous to Britain as OTL, but it sure hasn't been cheap (particularly when the Russians default on their debts, if they haven't already) and there are lots of other things fighting for space in a very overstretched budget. The Treasury is not going to look favourably on any proposals to start replacing 12" and 13.5" battleships (many of them less than ten years old) with new and more expensive ones, especially as there is no obvious enemy in sight. The High Seas Fleet is gone, the Russians are busy, the French, Americans, Italians and Japanese are all allies. Counter the Dutch? What exactly are the Dutch expected to do that needs countering? Or the Americans for that matter?
Well the Treasury did look at replacing the 12" and 13.5 ships OTL. That is the point of the G3s (and Dreadnought before them). Replace half a dozen battleships (and crews) with one. I forget the exact classes but each of the G3s was replacing 4 existing ships.
The Americans make things more interesting, but it depends on how much the RN feels its ships have an advantage over the American ships. Even then the rules are "don't pick a fight with the US". Objectively the Brits don't care how many ships the US builds. Emotionally, different story, and that is a problem in a democracy.
 
The thing no-one's talking about in all this, of course, is money. The war has not been as economically ruinous to Britain as OTL, but it sure hasn't been cheap (particularly when the Russians default on their debts, if they haven't already) and there are lots of other things fighting for space in a very overstretched budget. The Treasury is not going to look favourably on any proposals to start replacing 12" and 13.5" battleships (many of them less than ten years old) with new and more expensive ones, especially as there is no obvious enemy in sight. The High Seas Fleet is gone, the Russians are busy, the French, Americans, Italians and Japanese are all allies. Counter the Dutch? What exactly are the Dutch expected to do that needs countering? Or the Americans for that matter?
Quite right, and even though we know Britain is better off, the men of the story wouldn't; as far as they know, they have just finished the most costly war anyone had ever imagined.
However, nostalgia is still going to be powerful, so returning to the 'good old pre-war days' is going to be the default way of thinking for many.

I'm wary of putting actual numbers on it, but in broad strokes (for the UK):
-British debts to the USA are ~$2Bn lower.
-Overall British government debt is likely to be about 90-100% of GDP (it was about 130% at end of the real war).
-France, and to a lesser degree Italy, are still going to struggle paying anything back to Britain, other than what they extract from Germany (which isn't as much as OTL).
-Russia isn't going to be paying anything for years - irrespective of who wins the civil war.
-Inflation is less of a problem than OTL (although it's still been far higher than anyone in the story has seen in their lives), due to the shorter war and less successful U-boat campaign.
-About 150,000 fewer war deaths, and therefore about twice that number fewer injuries - more working men available, and lower expenditure on war pensions/disability.
-Likely fewer deaths from Spanish 'flu, due to a slightly healthier population at the end of 1918.

Overall, I'd guess that the British economy could be about 3% bigger (simply due to there being more people and productive workers) in 1920 than OTL. With less interruption to trade, it might be larger. That feeds into tax revenues for a government that has slightly fewer liabilities.
I'd therefore say that extra single-digit millions for the Navy could be fairly reasonable in years to come.
Low double-digit would be possible, but as you say, they'd need a better reason than 'we want to outbuild the Americans'.
For comparision, Hood cost a little over £5M, and in the story with lower inflation, that's probably more like £4.5M.


Finger in the air, I'd guess that the budget might run to 5-6 new capital ships in the 1920s (rather than 2 as OTL). But ambitions for 2 a year are fantasy - even if the US does go for an all-out naval race. Put another way. pre-war the key fact behind the naval balance was that the British could always outbuild anyone else. Post-war it's that the Americans can always outspend everyone else.
Well put.
Certainly British capital ship construction at the pre-war rate (i.e. 100-125,000 tons per year) can't continue.
 
One way for the British to 'Dreadnought' the other navies is to focus a few more resources on carriers while bemoaning a lack of funds that is preventing them from building enough proper, modern battleships to replace the older ones. That the carriers are just a way to keep shipyards such as Jarrow operational until the government decides they can fund the full battleship programme again. Chances are that, with most navies & politicians being 'gun nuts' at this time, this may even be taken at face value, especially if it offers the chance to overtake the Royal Navy in the battleship count.
At the same time, the Brits could develop more efficient construction technology (such as welding) & retrain their workforce.
As Jellico says, we're still too early for carriers to be the good bet they seemed by the late 30s (and it wasn't until 1942 that they actually demonstrated they could command the sea without assistance from battleships).
That said, shipyards are going to be busier than in reality, so there's more scope for continued improvements in technology.
 
Well the Treasury did look at replacing the 12" and 13.5 ships OTL. That is the point of the G3s (and Dreadnought before them). Replace half a dozen battleships (and crews) with one. I forget the exact classes but each of the G3s was replacing 4 existing ships.
The Americans make things more interesting, but it depends on how much the RN feels its ships have an advantage over the American ships. Even then the rules are "don't pick a fight with the US". Objectively the Brits don't care how many ships the US builds. Emotionally, different story, and that is a problem in a democracy.
I agree that if the plan is to replace 20+ older ships with 5-6 G3/N3/whatever then the Treasury is far more likely to agree - if nothing else because it hugely decreases the manning costs. But that implies a reduction in the battle fleet from 40-ish units to 20-25, which hands numerical superiority to the Americans without the latter having to hugely expand their building program.

On the 10-year horizon, the British battleline looks like this: 14-15 BB (5 QE, 4 Royal, 5-6 new builds), 6 BC (3 Admiral, 2 Renown, Furious), maybe with some older 13.5" BB or BC in second-line roles. If the Americans have been building at 2 ships a year, they will have 20 ships with 16" guns or larger, plus whatever they decide to keep from their WW1 construction. And the British cannot afford to match that construction rate.

Bottom line, if the Americans decide they want the world's largest battle fleet, they are going to have it. Which, as you say, should make no objective difference to British thinking, but it does mean that the days of counting battleships at Spithead are over. Ironically, this might spur carrier development, since it's easier to justify spending money on adding new capabilities than upgrading the battle fleet from "second to the US, but hugely stronger than anyone else" to "hugely stronger than anyone else, but still second to the US".
 
Carriers then are like pilotless aircraft today. Coming soon, with lots of creative ideas on how they might be used. But they are not there yet and the pros know it.

The point about more efficient construction technology is good but not dependent upon carriers. For starters the technology is matured in the civilian yards, not the military yards. That said there are a few interesting PoDs here. The OTL end of the war saw the German merchant fleet dumped on the market. Then an overbuilt American merchant fleet was dumped on the market. Then the Depression. The end result was that there was never any need or ability for the British builders to move away from rivets and triple expansion, like say the Norwegians did. It didn't make economic sense.
I imagine the Germans kept their merchants in this OTL, and goodness knows what the Americans did. That's 10 years in a market not flooded with cheap merchant hulls before the Depression (its probably hard coded in economically by this point). It is worth experimenting in that environment.
The Germans have kept a decent chunk of their merchant fleet (bearing in mind some of it was seized in British/American ports when war was declared). Making up the difference will keep German yards busy for a while.
The US merchant fleet isn't quite as big going into the 20s - there are still re-registrations and ex-German ships, but their wartime construction programme never really got going before the war ended and the money tap was turned off. The US merchant fleet is therefore likely to be less oversupplied than in reality.

There will be a depression, or at least a major downturn - as you say, I suspect pretty much inevitable after a war boom, then an uneven post-war boom.
 
Bottom line, if the Americans decide they want the world's largest battle fleet, they are going to have it. Which, as you say, should make no objective difference to British thinking, but it does mean that the days of counting battleships at Spithead are over. Ironically, this might spur carrier development, since it's easier to justify spending money on adding new capabilities than upgrading the battle fleet from "second to the US, but hugely stronger than anyone else" to "hugely stronger than anyone else, but still second to the US".
Why would they want the worlds biggest fleet? The US is a continental power. They make their bread and butter at home. The tragedy of the commons means the RN polices the sea for free. The US public isn't ready to step up to be the world police yet.
A big USN is a vanity project as much as a bigger RN. Will the public pay for it?
 
It shouldn't be too difficult to design a South Dakota follow-on that goes from 12 x 16-inch to 8 x 18-inch in the same way that Colorado exchanged Tennessee's 12 x 14-inch for 8 x 16-inch. South Dakota's triples weigh about 1,400 tons, the 18"/48 Mark 1 twins weigh about 1,600 tons. The twin 16"/45 turrets and the triple 14"/50 turrets both weighed about 900 tons, so this South Dakota follow-on is going to need about 800 tons of extra displacement where Colorado basically didn't need anything. I think the change would be within the realm of increasing the box coefficient of the bulges fore and aft around the barbettes, which would have the added benefit of increasing protection at the cost of hydrodynamic efficiency; engines a few years newer could probably give you a few thousand extra horsepower to compensate.

As far as the money angle for the US: the twelve capital ships of the Lexington and South Dakota classes had been fully funded and all were under construction in seven different yards when they were canceled in accordance with the Washington Treaty. They may not have been the best designs, but they would have practically doubled the size of the US Navy's fleet of superdreadnought battleships and battlecruisers practically overnight.

I'd agree a 18" swap on the South Dakotas is within the realms of possibility, but you'd be sacrificing something - even if only magazine capacity.
With fixed design rules re armoured volumes making the ship bigger, or thickening armour, very quickly butterflies out into far greater displacement.

For an American designer, the problem is a South Dakota doesn't have any immune zone against any plausible 18" gun, whereas they can see that Rodney could have one, even against the American 16" Mk.2.

In fact, she does - although with layered decks, it's hard to specify exactly (and she's vulnerable to internal 'wrecking' like Bismarck was). However, her magazines are immune beyond about 19,000 yards, and a shell won't reach the machinery except at extreme ranges - probably about 25,000yds.
 
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