Dread Nought but the Fury of the Seas

[Cryhavoc101]

Well hopefully @sts-200 will have someone in the Admiralty notice this but at least at this stage I suspect it's because Beatty is First Sea Lord and he really wants shiny new battlecruisers. Unfortunately he stayed First Sea Lord in OTL until 1927 so the odds of the RN getting the new battleships it needs rather than battlecruisers Beatty would prefer are low.

But he also really liked fast battleships and hoisted his flag in a QE as quickly as he could when took over the command of the Grand Fleet (reducing the fast wing 5th BS to effectively 3 QEs - as one was generally always expected to be in refit etc)

So I am not so sure

 

[CV12Hornet]

Yes, they are 4.7". Not a bad place to start, so long as they fix the mistakes in the next version.
At this time, the pompoms would be sextuple (the mount was never built OTL) - although again, the design is likely to be revised before any ships are built.

As you and other have said, plenty of room for improvements in due course (if the design is selected...?)

As opposed to making the same mistake over and over again like they did OTL. Seriously, is it really too hard to design a round that isn't too heavy to be manhandled?

 

[Merrick]

Disagree strongly, a ship like that is Alaska level pointless. The RN needs a County class stretched by 10-15 feet with an extra pair of boilers squeezed in taking them to 100,000 shp rather than 80,000 shp so they can do 33 knots rather than 31.5 out of the yard and more importantly can still comfortably do 30+ knots in 20 years time after they've been festooned with lots of heavy radars, fire control, AA etc.

We may have crossed wires - 8-12" was meant to mean "a main armament in the range 8"-12" calibre", not "a main armament of 8 x 12", which I agree would be excessive.
Stick to 8*-gunned CAs if you like, (but remember that with no WNT, other navies are under no requirement to stick to 8" on their CAs). Once you stretch the County-class and armour it against 6" QF (the early Treaty CAs were called "tinclads" for a reason and the Counties were some of the worst offenders) you're getting up around the 15,000-ton mark - for a ship that can do nothing in a clash of battlefleets other than stay away.

The British already have the best battlecruiser force in the world at this point with Furious, Hood and Howe and slightly slower but still dangerous Repulse and Renown . If enemy battlecruisers appear in the near future they will be seen off by the British battlecruisers. After all while the foreign ships have bigger guns they have so little armour the British 15" guns are adequate and as for Furious....

Lexington packs 16" guns and is faster than any RN BC bar Furious. Sure her protection is no better than Renown/Repulse (a Lexington vs Furious fight would be the ultimate in eggshells dueling with sledgehammers), but there remains the issue of getting to shooting range.
Amagi has a heavier gun armament than even Rodney and armour roughly equivalent to Hood. And at 30kt, no 26-27kt fast battleship is catching her.
The USN plans to build 6 Lexingtons. The IJN has ordered 4 Amagis. Barring a WNT or equivalent moratorium, "the best battlecruiser force in the world" is an advantage that's fading rather fast.

Now it's a fair argument that the RN's battleship force is older and they need up-to-date BBs to match the Nagatos and Colorados more than they need new BCs. (Or if you prefer, that given the limitations of 1920s design it's better to compromise on speed rather than armour in the ships they can afford to build). I suspect, though, that since for the forseeable future the bulk of the line will be 23kt ships, if they do decide to go for BBs they'll be 23kt N3s rather than 27kt proto-Lions,

 

[Thoresby]

But he also really liked fast battleships and hoisted his flag in a QE as quickly as he could when took over the command of the Grand Fleet (reducing the fast wing 5th BS to effectively 3 QEs - as one was generally always expected to be in refit etc)

I hope you're right

However, in design terms none of these massively powerful battleships were pursued so aggressively as their battlecruiser cousins, in part because of the influence of the wartime leaders Admirals Beatty and Jellicoe, who both regarded fast ships as more useful. By 1920, Beatty had reached the position of First Sea Lord, while Jellicoe’s 1919 report into Imperial Defence requirements supported his wartime observations that fast capital ships were more valuable than slow ones.

But don't think you are.

The USN plans to build 6 Lexingtons. The IJN has ordered 4 Amagis. Barring a WNT or equivalent moratorium, "the best battlecruiser force in the world" is an advantage that's fading rather fast.

Now it's a fair argument that the RN's battleship force is older and they need up-to-date BBs to match the Nagatos and Colorados more than they need new BCs. (Or if you prefer, that given the limitations of 1920s design it's better to compromise on speed rather than armour in the ships they can afford to build). I suspect, though, that since for the forseeable future the bulk of the line will be 23kt ships, if they do decide to go for BBs they'll be 23kt N3s rather than 27kt proto-Lions,

The days of the RN having the best battlecruiser force in the world are numbered but with only three Lex's on the stocks so far they've a while yet to run. The days of the RN having the best (rather than biggest) battleline are already past. With the pause in wartime construction the RN has skipped two generations and desperately need to catch up.

there remains the issue of getting to shooting range.

Despite the "lessons" of this tl's Dogger Bank pre radar fire control I'm extremely dubious about the practicalitity of dueling at over 30,000 yards, flight times are too long and the variables are too many so the fact that a Lex can theoretically use it's speed to sit at 34,000 yards and shoot at Hood while the Hood's shots fall 500 yards short is a useless advantage. If the Lex runs away then the Hood has won. If it runs past the Hood into the RN's "rear" then it's Captain is going to get a posthumous Darwin Award, the Lex is one of the most expensive ships in the world and is basically unarmoured. Sailing her into a position where she has enemies in front and behind her is incredibly stupid.

 

[CV12Hornet]

We may have crossed wires - 8-12" was meant to mean "a main armament in the range 8"-12" calibre", not "a main armament of 8 x 12", which I agree would be excessive.
Stick to 8*-gunned CAs if you like, (but remember that with no WNT, other navies are under no requirement to stick to 8" on their CAs). Once you stretch the County-class and armour it against 6" QF (the early Treaty CAs were called "tinclads" for a reason and the Counties were some of the worst offenders) you're getting up around the 15,000-ton mark - for a ship that can do nothing in a clash of battlefleets other than stay away.

Eh, for protection against 6" shells I don't think it needs to be that big. The US Navy drew up a 12,000-ton design with 8 8" guns in 1921 that had a 4.5" belt and 2.5" deck, albeit with a very short citadel. Cut the speed from the 35/36 knots planned and keep the raised forecastle hull, and you could probably extend that citadel far enough to actually cover the magazines. As well as add some decent turret/barbette protection.

Hell, against 6" shells the 2.5" deck is kind of overkill, so there's some more weight to save.

 

[sts-200]

I am guessing flash protection. The go to restriction (as opposed to fault) for inter war RN turrets.

I am leery about comments about high elevations for DP guns. High elevation was mainly for dive bombers. A slightly out of context problem which only really existed for 10 years. OTOH 50 degrees is enough to support other ships in your TF.
I think there is a lot of grass is greener, rapidly shifting goal posts, and a steep learning curve in WW2 AA which makes it hard to judge it fairly from hindsight.


Armour protects you. Guns protect your teammates. He who hits first hardest wins. That doesn't change. Beatty's battle cruisers may have blown up but we have seen plenty of arguments about that. But we keep forgetting Scheer was pummeled by ineffective shells at ranges where his own ships struggled to respond.
It is interesting to note the USN fast battleship favoured guns over armour.

Even 50-degrees is adequate for early glide and dive bombers with dive angle up to 45-degrees (a 4.7" gun at 50-deg can theoretically hit anything up to 45 degrees above the horizon out to about 6,000 horizontal yards).
What they didn't have was the ability to fuse the shells correctly - not that it is impossible, even with mechanical integrators (but it's difficult to sync everything to a stabilised sight and rangefinder, and no-one did it with a pre-radar system).

'Hit first, hit hard, and keep on hitting'

 

[sts-200]

12" belt?

I mean it's nice, but if the British can design the G3 with a 14" belt and a 8" deck, with 9 16. 5" guns.
Why can't the Royal navy do so here?
Plus side is the ability to put 2 18" guns in the same barbetts as the 3 16.5" guns.
And something noted by goodall, he was under the impression that the G3 would possibly be able to make 31.5 knots. Not 32 but close and still incredibly quick.
All on 48,400 long tons (normal displacement)

So yeah it's a knot slower.
But it's far better protected (even with the deficiency in protection) with very similar guns. And with the possibility of putting 18" guns in their place instead. Plus it had a a queen anne's mansions style superstructure. Which in general you can fit more in for a far smaller footprint.

Or is et supposed to be the K3 with with guns?

A 25-degree internal 12" belt is better than any British battleship currently has ... although it's certainly not 18" proof.
It's a bit of a hybrid of J3 and G3.
6 x 18" guns would be a rather nice alternative, and bridges and secondary armament would always be revisited in any final design.

At present, it's only one of many possible designs, and there are more to come in future installments.

 

[sts-200]

Have they experimented on the impact of 16 inch shellfire on the ability of a combatant armoured to 18inch to retain combat effectiveness?

I.e. can a battlecruiser be expected to effectively attrit but not sink the enemy and faster speed allows for multiple engagements?

Not directly, no.
But they do have experience of Stavanger (and other, smaller engagements), where lightly-gunned German BCs were able to inflict severe damage on lightly armoured British BCs, and where hits in non-critical areas rendered ships on both sides ineffective, even though their citadels were only lightly damaged.

They can also see that the 16" Mk.2 is nearly as good as the 18" Mk.1, so an 18" ship would have to be well balanced in order to be sure of resisting 16" fire.

I'd say the 'classic battlecruiser' role of supporting the battle-line is therefore still valid, subject to adequate magazine protection, and the acceptance that the battlecruiser can't stay in the fight for long if it is under heavy fire.

 

[admiral charles]

silly questions, up to this point what is the international status of the battlecruiser?, at least as a concept, will the british keep the difference between their battleships and battlecruisers? or will reclassify them all as battleships and drop the battlecruiser concept in the future?

 

[Trevayne]

silly questions, up to this point what is the international status of the battlecruiser?, at least as a concept, will the british keep the difference between their battleships and battlecruisers? or will reclassify them all as battleships and drop the battlecruiser concept in the future?

I think this is the crux of the discussion. Do fleets keep battlecruisers as a separate type comprising the fast wing or squadron of the battlefleet or do they just try to build only fast battleships in the future?

At this point, it looks like the definition of a battlecruiser is a capital ship with battleship guns, a speed at least 3-5 knots faster than the average for the country's battleships, and as much armor as they can manage while meeting the first two rules.

I suspect that if the British built 26-7 knot battleships with 15" or bigger guns and kept the I class battlecruisers, those ships would be reclassified as either second (maybe third) rate battleships or armored cruisers, since they would no longer have the speed or gunpower to be considered as battlecruisers.

 

[admiral charles]

I think this is the crux of the discussion. Do fleets keep battlecruisers as a separate type comprising the fast wing or squadron of the battlefleet or do they just try to build only fast battleships in the future?

I agree completely, the thing is that although now is possible to do such a thing, is worth the investment?, because if you restrict your whole battleline to a fixed speed, say 27/28 knts, it maybe faster than the envisioned enemies but if those same enemies build a faster fleet within the same principle, they will hold the tactical and strategic advantage, at least at the beginning. Which takes us the next best question for this case, how fast is fast compare with the enemy? or on the contrary, how fast should be fast for the battlecruisers in "hammer and anvil" binomial fleet?

At this point, it looks like the definition of a battlecruiser is a capital ship with battleship guns, a speed at least 3-5 knots faster than the average for the country's battleships, and as much armor as they can manage while meeting the first two rules.

Which is pretty much the otl RN definition for them: "Any capital ship with large calibre guns and faster than x knots(more than the average battleship)". And actually makes sense, as far as the battlecruiser functions had evolved from heavy scouts and commerce hunters to light battleships( speed wise, that is) and fast wing of the battleline, able to fight their own kind and even stand briefly to their bigger cousins.

I suspect that if the British built 26-7 knot battleships with 15 or bigger guns and kept the I class battlecruisers, those ships would be reclassified as either second (maybe third) rate battleships or armored cruisers, since they would no longer have the speed or gunpower to be considered as battlecruisers.

Well, to this point they are quite old and there has been reveal their weaknesses, and that they are hugely vulnerable to nearly everything but pre-dreadnoughts and smaller vessels, so yeah a reclassification as armoured cruisers, light battlecruisers or battle scouts makes sense, at least from a functional point of view.

 

[Thoresby]

I suspect that if the British built 26-7 knot battleships with 15" or bigger guns

When the British build that what do they call the Rodney, the 30+ knot Hood and Howe are clearly battle cruisers but what is the 28 1/2 Rodney with it's 16" guns and decent armour?

 

[admiral charles]

When the British build that what do they call the Rodney, the 30+ knot Hood and Howe are clearly battle cruisers but what is the 28 1/2 Rodney with it's 16" guns and decent armour?

I think that a fast battleship.
From my perspective, that is a good reason to better define the battlecruiser as a concept, because is hard to classify a ship like that, when it actually can't stand a serious fight against their own kind, it would be a misnomer.

To that effect a small amendment to the british definition would be fine, say number of guns or something sufficiently clear to make it different from the rest.

 

[Trevayne]

I suspect that if the British built 26-7 knot battleships with 15" or bigger guns and kept the I class battlecruisers, those ships would be reclassified as either second (maybe third) rate battleships or armored cruisers, since they would no longer have the speed or gunpower to be considered as battlecruisers.

When the British build that what do they call the Rodney, the 30+ knot Hood and Howe are clearly battle cruisers but what is the 28 1/2 Rodney with it's 16" guns and decent armour?

I think that a fast battleship.
From my perspective, that is a good reason to better define the battlecruiser as a concept, because is hard to classify a ship like that, when it actually can't stand a serious fight against their own kind, it would be a misnomer.

To that effect a small amendment to the british definition would be fine, say number of guns or something sufficiently clear to make it different from the rest.

I agree, if fast battleships are 26-27 knots, Rodney is a faster battleship. However, because it doesn't have that 3-5 knot superiority over the battleships, it should not be considered a battlecruiser anymore, it can't really perform that role.

IMHO ships should be classified by the role they can perform, and those roles can change. Every navy should be aware of this, since it has happened pretty dramatically over the last 20 years. The most obvious example is a ship like HMS King Edward VII, which was a first rate battleship when she was completed in 1905 and obsolete next year after HMS Dreadnought revolutionized the concept of a battleship.

 

[CV(N)-6]

I agree, if fast battleships are 26-27 knots, Rodney is a faster battleship. However, because it doesn't have that 3-5 knot superiority over the battleships, it should not be considered a battlecruiser anymore, it can't really perform that role.

IMHO ships should be classified by the role they can perform, and those roles can change. Every navy should be aware of this, since it has happened pretty dramatically over the last 20 years. The most obvious example is a ship like HMS King Edward VII, which was a first rate battleship when she was completed in 1905 and obsolete next year because after HMS Dreadnought revolutionized the concept of a battleship.

At the moment, the fastest BB's are 23-25 knots, so Rodney is a BC. Once 26-27 knot BB's complete, she's a BB IMO

 

[Spartan-G257]

A 25-degree internal 12" belt is better than any British battleship currently has ... although it's certainly not 18" proof.
It's a bit of a hybrid of J3 and G3.
6 x 18" guns would be a rather nice alternative, and bridges and secondary armament would always be revisited in any final design.

At present, it's only one of many possible designs, and there are more to come in future installments.

Is this a 25° inward slope or 25° outward slope?
Although I'm going to be fair, unless the ship is wide enough I can't imagine the belt being able to cover the ships core very well.

Potentially leaving a lot exposed. Especially depending on how short or long that belt is.

It's one of the problems I had with designs L through to M and K through to H

Although this is just in regards to what I see in my books, and this may not be corroborated by actual ship designers.

It is unfortunate but I can't upload the photos I have taken from pages 175 and 176 of the grand Fleet by DK Brown which... I have based my ideas on.

And I might add, it may be possible (though I wouldn't know how to go about finding out) that increasing the slope of the armour like that, whilst trying to keep the ship suitably protected, may actually increase the ships weight more than just putting more inches of armour for the equivilant protections.

I might add I think 18° might have been just slightly too much in the way of sloping too.
But it's not as bad as 25°

 

[admiral charles]

I agree, if fast battleships are 26-27 knots, Rodney is a faster battleship. However, because it doesn't have that 3-5 knot superiority over the battleships, it should not be considered a battlecruiser anymore, it can't really perform that role.

IMHO ships should be classified by the role they can perform, and those roles can change. Every navy should be aware of this, since it has happened pretty dramatically over the last 20 years. The most obvious example is a ship like HMS King Edward VII, which was a first rate battleship when she was completed in 1905 and obsolete next year because after HMS Dreadnought revolutionized the concept of a battleship.

At the moment, the fastest BB's are 23-25 knots, so Rodney is a BC. Once 26-27 knot BB's complete, she's a BB IMO

Yes, exactly, for the time being is still a battlecruiser, until the next generation touch the wate. For Rodney the thing would be if she could go faster in the future with a refit.

 

[Spencersj345.346]

Otl the RN classified anything that went over 25 knots a Battlecruiser albeit unofficially in the case of Vanguard and the KGVs

 

[Deleted member 94680]

Even 50-degrees is adequate for early glide and dive bombers with dive angle up to 45-degrees (a 4.7" gun at 50-deg can theoretically hit anything up to 45 degrees above the horizon out to about 6,000 horizontal yards).
What they didn't have was the ability to fuse the shells correctly - not that it is impossible, even with mechanical integrators (but it's difficult to sync everything to a stabilised sight and rangefinder, and no-one did it with a pre-radar system).

The original idea for AA fire was to disrupt the attack path of the aircraft, rather than hit the plane itself. Original anti-ship weapons (torpedoes, AP bombs) often required a long "run" to set up the attack. If the ship can get sufficient fire in and around the aircraft, the pilot was forced to take evasive maneuvers and "ruin" his attack run. Later, with better sights and more effective weapons, the "attack run" was shorter and hitting the aircraft became far more important.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

silly questions, up to this point what is the international status of the battlecruiser?, at least as a concept, will the british keep the difference between their battleships and battlecruisers? or will reclassify them all as battleships and drop the battlecruiser concept in the future?

At this point, it looks like the definition of a battlecruiser is a capital ship with battleship guns, a speed at least 3-5 knots faster than the average for the country's battleships, and as much armor as they can manage while meeting the first two rules.

I suspect that if the British built 26-7 knot battleships with 15" or bigger guns and kept the I class battlecruisers, those ships would be reclassified as either second (maybe third) rate battleships or armored cruisers, since they would no longer have the speed or gunpower to be considered as battlecruisers.

Which is pretty much the otl RN definition for them: "Any capital ship with large calibre guns and faster than x knots(more than the average battleship)". And actually makes sense, as far as the battlecruiser functions had evolved from heavy scouts and commerce hunters to light battleships( speed wise, that is) and fast wing of the battleline, able to fight their own kind and even stand briefly to their bigger cousins.

When the British build that what do they call the Rodney, the 30+ knot Hood and Howe are clearly battle cruisers but what is the 28 1/2 Rodney with it's 16" guns and decent armour?

I think that a fast battleship.

I agree, if fast battleships are 26-27 knots, Rodney is a faster battleship. However, because it doesn't have that 3-5 knot superiority over the battleships, it should not be considered a battlecruiser anymore, it can't really perform that role.

At the moment, the fastest BB's are 23-25 knots, so Rodney is a BC. Once 26-27 knot BB's complete, she's a BB IMO

Yes, exactly, for the time being is still a battlecruiser, until the next generation touch the wate. For Rodney the thing would be if she could go faster in the future with a refit.

Otl the RN classified anything that went over 25 knots a Battlecruiser albeit unofficially in the case of Vanguard and the KGVs

Going by wiki, which makes sense:
Improvements in armor design and propulsion created the 1930s "fast battleship" with the speed of a battlecruiser and armor of a battleship, making the battlecruiser in the traditional sense effectively an obsolete concept. Thus from the 1930s on, only the Royal Navy continued to use "battlecruiser" as a classification for the World War I–era capital ships that remained in the fleet; while Japan's battlecruisers remained in service, they had been significantly reconstructed and were re-rated as full-fledged fast battleships.
(One wonders how much that had to do with the continued presence of Beatty in the command structure of the Royal Navy post-War and the House of Lords post-retirement)

I think (in the post-WNT and Jutland world) reclassifying rebuilt battlecruisers as battleships was almost a case of "national ego". The battlecruiser as a concept had taken quite a battering (both intellectually and physically) and nations were keen to leave it behind. By bolting some plate onto the battlecruisers, countries (lumbered with WWI remains that they couldn't scrap and replace) could add "battleships" to their line. The resulting unbalanced nature of the designs were ignored, for the time being.

In this ATL world, where BCs aren't as discredited, I think battlecruisers will still have a role to play - both as a viable fleet unit and as a concept for future construction.