That was the idea behind the Tillmans, to stop with the incrementalism and just get to the biggest practical ships. Their only limits were fitting into the Panama canal, IIRC.
Dread Nought but the Fury of the Seas
- Thread starter sts-200
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That was the idea behind the Tillmans, to stop with the incrementalism and just get to the biggest practical ships. Their only limits were fitting into the Panama canal, IIRC.
The US can handle 100k ton warships alongside at New York, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Mayport, Bremerton, Alameda, San Diego, and Pearl. The US did have a 60k-70k limit for warship hulls (as opposed to more bulky merchant hulls) in the old Panama Canal locks, but the expansion planned in the 1930s and only just recently completed would have probably allowed warship hulls up to about 120k tons.
Deleted member 94680
It’s a battlecruiser in comparison to the N3 class. The Ns were the “next generation battleships” and that made the G3s the next generation battlecruisers.
I could have sworn that the deck armor was up to 8" thick. Also the 14" belt was partially paid for by being a little less tall than the standards of the day(with coverage below the waterline in particular being a little skimpy)and by only covering 259' of the armor belt's total length of 522' with the balance being 12" thick. Still give the design a decent modernization in the 30s(ie give it modern engines and use the saved weight to improve its fire control, AA,improve the TDS,and extend the belt,etc)and it would still be a very capable frontline unit. Heck even without a decent modernization it would still be a pretty good ship especially as compared to what the British had otl
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I think it was, but when you are talking about fighting 50,000 ton monsters whether you (are reported to) have 7 or 8 inch belt armor doesn’t really matter in terms of propaganda.
I wonder how the naval part of WWII would have shaped out if the UK was by some feat of brillant negotiation able to build 2 G3s instead of the Nelsons because everyone thought they would be very thin skinned and figured hey let's let the British waste money on death traps
The truth would have gotten out eventually and it would have caused, to put it politely, a diplomatic shitfit. The UK would have breeched a treaty in a most flagrant way and would have pissed the US and Japan off.
Just about the only way I could see the UK getting away with it would be the USN getting Washington and the IJN Tosa(or possibly keeping Hiei in active service or possibly both depending on the terms)as compensation in exchange for a clause that let's the G3s displace their planned 48,000 ish tons and even then I imagine that the UK is probably going to also have to get rid of a couple of the Iron Dukes a few years earlier than otl. Mind you everyone would assume that the UK was going need for speed ala the Lexingtons since they wouldn't know the details of the plans when they agreed and they know that the UK just ordered a bunch of 8" armor plate. Oh boy would they be surprised but hey the UK wouldn't be violating either the letter or spirit of the treaties
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I have been thinking about Furious recently… (yes I know but hey! I'm really eager to see this restart!) and I just wanted to put down my two cents on what might be comming for her interwar refits.
First, what are her drawbacks? sts-200 mentionned it, Furious is a highly stressed ship, meaning the room for changes is very limited, any modifications made to her design will have to affect her structure as little as possible. There is also the protection. Although Furious belt is 12-in thick (a reasonable thickness in 1916), it is also very narrow and lacks the support of an upper belt. This already limited side protection is also completely useless when the ship is fully loaded as the main belt will be mostly submerged. Deck protection isn't good either but at the time of her construction this is pretty much standard.
Are these faults making Furious a glass cannon? I don't think so. This ship has at lest some things going for her: at 878 feet, she is offering the necessary space to accomodate multiple new technologies without overcrowding the ship, potentially helping reducing topweight in her later carreer. Also there's the speed, 35 knots… what else to say? At that speed, she can even afford to loose some of it and remain one very fast capital ship, capable of catching up and running away from whatever targets her captain wants (in the later case assuming she doesn't get blown-up before turning away of course). I think Furious' speed and machinery, are the elements that could help improve her the most. Let me explain.
In my humble opinion, the key to her rebuild are her engines. If we make a quick comparison with OTL Renown which had 42 boilers as build and only eight after her refit, saving around 2 800 tons and two boiler rooms we can see the potential Furious has here. If Fisher's 'very large cruiser' goes in drydock around 1935 or 1936, the technology will be there to replace her 32 boilers and turbines with less and lighter equipment. If they want to be bold, DNC could even afford to reduce the power output and go for a 32-33 knots ship that would still be very useful. I'm no specialist in the matter but I'd guess that when talking about ship of this size, the power output needed to gain even only a few knots is quite exponetial.
Because of the design, we cannot afford a lot of changes in the ship displacement, but the couple thousands tons clawed back in the machinery could be used to improve the armour protection. Let's say we estimate the followings: current (as build) armour weight at 9 500 t; weight saved by the machinery upgrade 2 700 t, of this amount let's allocate 75 percent (2 000 t) to more armour. That would represent a 20 percent increase of the ship's current armour weight, without (theoretically) increasing it's displacement, and that is not counting the possible savings when switching the old secondary armament with a dual-purpose battery. Because the main armament is already well protected, the saved weight could go into the belt (read: upper belt) and the decks. Now one more knowledgable individual than me would need to say if the main belt could be raised and/or widened a little without compromising the ship but if so, it would also represent a major improvement. The goal is simple, Furious will never be a battleship, her protection will always be on the lower end of the scale, but given decent protection again cruiser and battlecruiser fire, she can be improved into decent fast capital ship. I don't think it is too far-fetched to think the Royal Navy yould want to get the most out of Furious, her gund and her speed make her a true -if somewhat fragile- asset in the fleet and not having Hood-like reputation will (I hope) allow her to get the drydock time she need.
That's only me having fun with numbers though! I'm not claiming to be an expert in naval engineering, I just wanted to add something I though was interesting to the conversation. If there's anyone out there ready to correct me, I'd be pleased to hear about it.
Cheers
First, what are her drawbacks? sts-200 mentionned it, Furious is a highly stressed ship, meaning the room for changes is very limited, any modifications made to her design will have to affect her structure as little as possible. There is also the protection. Although Furious belt is 12-in thick (a reasonable thickness in 1916), it is also very narrow and lacks the support of an upper belt. This already limited side protection is also completely useless when the ship is fully loaded as the main belt will be mostly submerged. Deck protection isn't good either but at the time of her construction this is pretty much standard.
Are these faults making Furious a glass cannon? I don't think so. This ship has at lest some things going for her: at 878 feet, she is offering the necessary space to accomodate multiple new technologies without overcrowding the ship, potentially helping reducing topweight in her later carreer. Also there's the speed, 35 knots… what else to say? At that speed, she can even afford to loose some of it and remain one very fast capital ship, capable of catching up and running away from whatever targets her captain wants (in the later case assuming she doesn't get blown-up before turning away of course). I think Furious' speed and machinery, are the elements that could help improve her the most. Let me explain.
In my humble opinion, the key to her rebuild are her engines. If we make a quick comparison with OTL Renown which had 42 boilers as build and only eight after her refit, saving around 2 800 tons and two boiler rooms we can see the potential Furious has here. If Fisher's 'very large cruiser' goes in drydock around 1935 or 1936, the technology will be there to replace her 32 boilers and turbines with less and lighter equipment. If they want to be bold, DNC could even afford to reduce the power output and go for a 32-33 knots ship that would still be very useful. I'm no specialist in the matter but I'd guess that when talking about ship of this size, the power output needed to gain even only a few knots is quite exponetial.
Because of the design, we cannot afford a lot of changes in the ship displacement, but the couple thousands tons clawed back in the machinery could be used to improve the armour protection. Let's say we estimate the followings: current (as build) armour weight at 9 500 t; weight saved by the machinery upgrade 2 700 t, of this amount let's allocate 75 percent (2 000 t) to more armour. That would represent a 20 percent increase of the ship's current armour weight, without (theoretically) increasing it's displacement, and that is not counting the possible savings when switching the old secondary armament with a dual-purpose battery. Because the main armament is already well protected, the saved weight could go into the belt (read: upper belt) and the decks. Now one more knowledgable individual than me would need to say if the main belt could be raised and/or widened a little without compromising the ship but if so, it would also represent a major improvement. The goal is simple, Furious will never be a battleship, her protection will always be on the lower end of the scale, but given decent protection again cruiser and battlecruiser fire, she can be improved into decent fast capital ship. I don't think it is too far-fetched to think the Royal Navy yould want to get the most out of Furious, her gund and her speed make her a true -if somewhat fragile- asset in the fleet and not having Hood-like reputation will (I hope) allow her to get the drydock time she need.
That's only me having fun with numbers though! I'm not claiming to be an expert in naval engineering, I just wanted to add something I though was interesting to the conversation. If there's anyone out there ready to correct me, I'd be pleased to hear about it.
Cheers
Great to see this again, one thing you could do is rip out that absurdly narrow 12-inch strip as its bascally useless and replace it with a broader and uniform 9-inch thick strip that covers more of the hull and put any surviving weight into the deck armour. Remove any secondaries and any torpedo tubes and replace them with dual 4-inch or single 4.7-inch weapons and LOTS of Pom-Pom's The advantage of being so huge is that she's got a LOT of deckspace for AA guns.
And she'll need the AA defences, with her great length, she's probably not going to handle well so her best defence against an air attack will be her AA guns.
Add some TDS or even some bulges, sure you loose speed but you've got 35 knots, even if you drop it to 32 knots she's still going to be faster than anything afloat that can hurt her, and with those big 18-inchers she can outgun anything that can catch her. IIRC the USN is building a Lexington type ship with 8 x 16-inch guns and a 7 inch belt? That would be meat on a platter for the Furious. An 8-9-inch thick belt will keep out cruiser shells which are the only things that can catch her.
Update her fire control too, so she does not suffer the same issue as OTL's Hood, having to keep her old 1920's gunnery systems.
And she'll need the AA defences, with her great length, she's probably not going to handle well so her best defence against an air attack will be her AA guns.
Add some TDS or even some bulges, sure you loose speed but you've got 35 knots, even if you drop it to 32 knots she's still going to be faster than anything afloat that can hurt her, and with those big 18-inchers she can outgun anything that can catch her. IIRC the USN is building a Lexington type ship with 8 x 16-inch guns and a 7 inch belt? That would be meat on a platter for the Furious. An 8-9-inch thick belt will keep out cruiser shells which are the only things that can catch her.
Update her fire control too, so she does not suffer the same issue as OTL's Hood, having to keep her old 1920's gunnery systems.
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I think the big question is whether the Brits want Furious to be a cruiser catcher (seems like those shouldn't be big, expensive leviathans) or a part of the battlecruiser squadrons, like she was when the story left off iirc. A lot will depend on if there is a building holiday in the thirties or not (are there a lot of newer, faster ships or will the British have the money for some deep rebuilds).
Damn, can't Believe I forgot to mention the bulges! Yes I completely agree here, she'll need to be bulged at some point. Although I think 9 inches all over might be a little thin -and I hope Sts has something else planned- if that is the price to pay to at least have protection upper on the hull so be it. I mean… like that she wouldn't be endangered by light cruisers!
I was under the impression that some kind of slow down in constructions was comming, that's why I'm thinking about the refits. The Royals and the QEs of TTL are even better suited for this than their OTL counterparts. If the British can modernize half of them the RN is goign to be fearsome in WW2.
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