The USN did the same. In the Nevada class, Nevada was built with geared turbines while Oklahoma was built with vertical triple expansion engines.
Which was a decision that the USN regreted for the rest of Oklahoma's service life, ironically if the US hasn't been dragged into WW2 when it was the Oklahoma would have been decommissioned in mid 1942 due to its engines being just about worn out.
 

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Which was a decision that the USN regreted for the rest of Oklahoma's service life, ironically if the US hasn't been dragged into WW2 when it was the Oklahoma would have been decommissioned in mid 1942 due to its engines being just about worn out.
Yeah, that was decision they wanted back almost as soon as they made it.

And I just realized I forgot to mention the New Mexico class. New Mexico got turbo-electric transmission where the turbines were used to power electric drive boxes while Mississippi and Idaho received standard geared turbines.
 
Yeah, that was decision they wanted back almost as soon as they made it.

And I just realized I forgot to mention the New Mexico class. New Mexico got turbo-electric transmission where the turbines were used to power electric drive boxes while Mississippi and Idaho received standard geared turbines.
If I recall that was later reversed in New Mexico's rebuild in order to save money via parts and maintaince commonality with her sisters.
 

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If I recall that was later reversed in New Mexico's rebuild in order to save money via parts and maintaince commonality with her sisters.
It was. The system was replaced during her 1931-33 refit. The turbo-electric system was overall successful though. It was used in the Tennessee, Colorado, South Dakota (1920) and Lexington class ships
 
It was. The system was replaced during her 1931-33 refit. The turbo-electric system was overall successful though. It was used in the Tennessee, Colorado, South Dakota (1920) and Lexington class ships

IIRC it was successful in that it worked and provided good resistance to battle damage because they could directly couple the electric engines to the shafts and do without reduction gears. The big problem was that it was significantly heavier than an equivalent geared steam turbine plant so it wasn't used in any of the later battleships (North Carolina and after).
 

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IIRC it was successful in that it worked and provided good resistance to battle damage because they could directly couple the electric engines to the shafts and do without reduction gears. The big problem was that it was significantly heavier than an equivalent geared steam turbine plant so it wasn't used in any of the later battleships (North Carolina and after).
Yeah, the weight was a major issue. The USN liked the simplicity of the system (fewer parts, no reversing gear) and the increased fuel efficiency over early geared turbines. Plus, at the time, American turbine quality lagged behind European turbines. By the time of the North Carolina class though, American turbines had surpassed European designs and were a better option than the earlier turbo-electric drive
 
IIRC it was successful in that it worked and provided good resistance to battle damage because they could directly couple the electric engines to the shafts and do without reduction gears. The big problem was that it was significantly heavier than an equivalent geared steam turbine plant so it wasn't used in any of the later battleships (North Carolina and after).
God help you if the turbo electric drive takes shock or water damage though, its the dockyard for said ship for several months
 
The USN did the same. In the Nevada class, Nevada was built with geared turbines while Oklahoma was built with vertical triple expansion engines.

Which was a decision that the USN regreted for the rest of Oklahoma's service life, ironically if the US hasn't been dragged into WW2 when it was the Oklahoma would have been decommissioned in mid 1942 due to its engines being just about worn out.

At least the RN messed about with these tests on cruisers and destroyers, not expensive battleships that they'd be stuck with for decades.
 

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At least the RN messed about with these tests on cruisers and destroyers, not expensive battleships that they'd be stuck with for decades.
Well, the USN had concerns about range with Pacific Fleet operations and pretty much had to test it in a battleship to get useable information. There whole point of the test was too determine which propulsion system would provide the better range as there were serious concerns about the fuel efficiency of early American turbines (and some reliability concerns as well).
 
God help you if the turbo electric drive takes shock or water damage though, its the dockyard for said ship for several months

Err, Navweaps would appear to disagree with you.

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-038.php

US turboelectric ships were battle damaged in 21 separate cases by 16 torpedoes, 13 bombs, 13 Kamikazes and more than 26 medium and light caliber shells. Of these incidents, only seven had the potential to effect the turboelectric drive in any way, and only three actually did. The torpedo hit on the Saratoga on 31 August 1942 succeeded in knocking the system off-line for less than five minutes before damage control measures restored power. The two torpedo hits on USS California (BB-44) at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 contaminated the fuel lines, causing the boiler fires to go out, thus producing a power loss. This would have produced a power loss in any steam-propelled ship and cannot be counted against the turboelectric drive components. The nine torpedo hits on USS West Virginia (BB-48), also at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, so overwhelmed the ship that immediate counterflooding was necessary to prevent capsizing. Between flooding from the torpedo damage and counterflooding, the machinery plant was knocked off line. As this would also have crippled any other steam-propelled ship, this incident, too, cannot be counted against the turboelectric powerplant.

Four other cases produced sufficiently violent shocks to have potentially effected the turboelectric drive, but all failed to do so. The two torpedo hits on USS Lexington (CV-2) at the Coral Sea battle, 8 May 1942, the torpedo hit on Saratoga on 11 January 1942, the torpedo hit in the extreme bow on Maryland off Saipan on 14 June 1944 and the kamikaze hit on Maryland off Leyte on 29 November 1944, all produced violent shocks, whipping of the hull and/or flooding. However, none of these hits caused any disruption to the turboelectric drive.

Thus, the system, while repeatedly proven reliable, has been damned for a five-minute failure due to a very lucky torpedo hit on Saratoga on 31 August 1942.
 
Err, Navweaps would appear to disagree with you.

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-038.php
I said if the drive takes heavy water damage not if the drive was potentially damaged. One of the reasons why it took so long to return California and West Virginia to active service post Pearl Harbor was the massive amounts of equipment and wiring that needed replacement/refurbishment in the drive systems
 
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Came late to this fascinating ATL, but Turkish neutrality has 'butterflied' the dire Dardanelles Campaign and 'Ghastly Gallipoli' unto a 'fevre dream'. Along with its hard-learned lessons about 'combined forces' etc...

IIRC, this also butterflies away some remarkable work by stealthy RN subs in 'Sea of Marmara'...
 
God help you if the turbo electric drive takes shock or water damage though, its the dockyard for said ship for several months

I said if the drive takes heavy water damage not if the drive was.potentially damaged. One of the reasons why it took so long to return California and West Virginia to active service post Pearl Harbor was the massive amounts of equipment and wiring that needed replacement/refurbishment in the drive systems

That is not quite what you said, but fair enough. I can see how replacing waterlogged turbo-electric components would be time-consuming, but they appear to be fairly resistant to shock damage, or at very least, easy to reset.

Was there a turbine ship sunk at Pearl Harbor for comparison? I don't know how long it would take to conduct equivalent repairs on a non-turbo-electric ship.
 
That is not quite what you said, but fair enough. I can see how replacing waterlogged turbo-electric components would be time-consuming, but they appear to be fairly resistant to shock damage, or at very least, easy to reset.

Was there a turbine ship sunk at Pearl Harbor for comparison? I don't know how long it would take to conduct equivalent repairs on a non-turbo-electric ship.
Not in a condition that would enable repair ie Arizona and Utah
 
At least the RN messed about with these tests on cruisers and destroyers, not expensive battleships that they'd be stuck with for decades.
Kind of hard to to test it with cruisers when you aren’t building any due to a combination of budget and tech issues.
 
IIRC it was successful in that it worked and provided good resistance to battle damage because they could directly couple the electric engines to the shafts and do without reduction gears. The big problem was that it was significantly heavier than an equivalent geared steam turbine plant so it wasn't used in any of the later battleships (North Carolina and after).
My understanding is that it wasn't so much the weight of the machinery itself - it was only slightly heavier than an equivalent reduction gear plant - but the size of the plant. In the treaty-limited world that meant bigger ships, which was just wasted tonnage. The turbo-electric drive seems to be one of those 'use what we have' solutions. Prior to the '20s, the US didn't have much turbine propulsion expertise, but it did have Westinghouse and GE, who were good at building electrical and generator plant.
Hood was a real kick up the you-know-what for the US designers when they were shown details during the war. Her machinery was lighter, smaller and more efficient at all speeds than any of the planned US plant.
 
Depends how far the modifications went. Just putting better engines in them wouldn't go far, bearing in mind they were a bit of a hotchpotch to start with (and grossly overweight due to the change to oil firing, variations on turrets vs engines etc...). Forcing one up to 28kts would require overloaded KGV (1936) levels of power. As you say, further increases in speed would have to go hand-in-hand with changes to the hull.
Given the time pressures, the number of changes and the overstretched DNC staff at the time, a complete redesign would be difficult to imagine.

However, a good idea of what a "fresh sheet QE" would be like would be Nagato.
The Japanese would have had extensive access to the QE design, and would have seen (and probably even been advised) what could/should have been done better; resulting in a slightly bigger ship, with modern engines and similar levels of armour, capable of 26.5kts.


As I understand it, after the war, Phillips Watts publicly made the claim that had small tube boilers and geared turbines been used for the Queen Elizabeth’s, then they would have been able to achieve speeds of 28.5 knots. The Admiralty Board asked d’Eyncourt for comment and he agreed with Watts assessment.
 
As I understand it, after the war, Phillips Watts publicly made the claim that had small tube boilers and geared turbines been used for the Queen Elizabeth’s, then they would have been able to achieve speeds of 28.5 knots. The Admiralty Board asked d’Eyncourt for comment and he agreed with Watts assessment.
Man would that have made the QEs dominate Jutland(no struggle to get into effective gun range of the German battlecruisers and running away from the HSF would have been far easier)and and due to the value their high speed I'm pretty sure all of them would have been rebuilt/rebuilding by the start of WW2
 
Man would that have made the QEs dominate Jutland(no struggle to get into effective gun range of the German battlecruisers and running away from the HSF would have been far easier)and and due to the value their high speed I'm pretty sure all of them would have been rebuilt/rebuilding by the start of WW2

Often wondered how much rebuilding would have been possible given replacing the old boilers etc saved a lot of space and weight, space and weight which is already saved.
 
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