While I agree that Britain doesn't want a world full of large cruisers, it'll be much more concerned about German builds rather than Japanese, and certainly American. designs.
Dread Nought but the Fury of the Seas
- Thread starter sts-200
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Don’t quote me on this but it was probably driven by the United States. They wanted 8” guns on their cruisers and design studies in 1921 indicated 10,000 tons was the sweet spot between cost and capability.
The RN wanted to keep the Hawkins class, which was just under 10,000 tons, and 10,000 is a nice number vs say 9,500. The other countries wanted a caliber almost everyone used, like 8", not 7.5", so 8" was chosen
Understandable, agree on the displacement because is sufficient tonnage for a decent protection, but stupid on the caliber (after the facts personal opinion), better the 7" to that effect, not so powerful but sufficient to put the numbers.
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The scout cruiser designs the US was looking at that time frame were basically Omaha-class light cruisers with 8-inch guns, so high speed (~34 kts) would have been gained at the expense of light armor (2 - 3 inch belt). The Japanese had cruisers of a similar size designed expressly to defeat the Omaha class. It looks like the weight was chosen to give room for engines, not armor. I don't know what the British, French, or Italians thought about the weight limit at the time. It looks like the British were experimenting with both the Emerald class light cruisers and the Hawkins class heavy cruisers, so they may have accepted the higher limit not fully aware of the consequences and certainly not able to do anything about it, considering the US financial position.
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SsgtC
Banned
7" isn't enough of an improvement over 6". Plus for the US, they already had an 8" gun in service. And I have to correct myself. Japan actually had a 10" gun in use as secondary batteries on the Satsuma and Katori classes of battleship.
Yeah, it seems like a rushing decision to place the 10,000 ton and 8" caliber as the limit, obviously the financial situation has more to do but also was the need to equip with a relatively powerful armament the cruiser
Ok granted, but the equilibrium of the elements is important to have some kind of decent asset on the important places.
Well, you're all right, the treaty specify the limits of what you can do, not were you could start... 
The Japanese also had a 7.9" gun building for some of their 1920 & 22 cruisers (Furutaka and Aoba classes). They were designed to counter Hawkins and Omaha, so they didn't want to give them up.
As others have said, 10,000 tons and 8" guns were regarded as necessary for the Pacific.
With the Hawkins in service, Britain couldn't object to the displacement or calibre, and had already concluded that a new 7.5" gun and turret would be needed if that were to be the limit - so developing an 8" wasn't really an extra cost.
I suspect the US would have preferred 11 or 12,000t, but they weren't set on it and were happy for everyone to accept a lower limit (it was an arms limitation treaty, after all!)
Ok, but given that the general panoramic is different, is not possible to agree in the limit to be 12k ton?, am just saying that in any case everyone is going to break one way or another the treaty limits.
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Let's face it, everyone is going to be regretted with the 10k ton limit afterwards...
There's no naval arms limitation treaties in place yet.
Maybe there won't be.
This isn't the same environment as OTL where it was a group of notional allies making an agreement with each other after throttling their enemies with peace treaties. Germany isn't necessarily going to be neutered by whatever peace comes along here.
Maybe there won't be.
This isn't the same environment as OTL where it was a group of notional allies making an agreement with each other after throttling their enemies with peace treaties. Germany isn't necessarily going to be neutered by whatever peace comes along here.
SsgtC
Banned
In OTL even before WWI there were discussions about instituting a Naval arms limitation treaty. It was actually a campaign plank for Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. That desire will still be there
Deleted member 94680
Was it? I didn’t know that. What kind of thing did propose? Building towards a Conference to hash it out or limiting American building to “set the way” for others to follow?
Deleted member 94680
Interesting. I wouldn’t have pegged TR for a limitations guy
I got the impression that the main reason for the 10,000 ton and 8" limit was the desire to have a broad gap between cruisers and battleships. Battleships were 25,000-35,000 ton ships with 12-16" guns. They didn't want to deal with trying to limit intermediate ships like a 20,000 ton "cruiser" with 6 x 10"-12".
The German designers in Weimar saw the opening and stuck the panzerschiffe/pocket battleships right in there, being specifically designed to outgun any treaty cruiser with their 11" guns and outrun any battleship with their 26-knot speed. The Washington Treaty was specifically designed to prohibit such ships, but the Germans were under Versailles and were not invited to or signatories of the WNT.
As for the choice of 8", IIRC the British had 7.5" guns than could be either mounted in a powered turret with powered loading or on a pedestal mount with manual loading (Hawkins class). Supposedly the Japanese had doubts about being able to use the weapon in a pedestal configuration so pushed for the 8" so that everybody would use powered turrets and power loading.
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A quibble, the US also had a 10" in service, the 10"/40 mk3 on the Tennessee class armored cruisers built in 1903-1906. They would have probably wanted a new design in 45 or 50 cal, but it was a starting place.
