Fill in the blanks ATL dreadnoughts.

Ok, lets talk about an ATL Germany that decides to embark upon a one-ups-manship naval arms race with the UK with the POD being 1906 and the all big gun HMS Dreadnought.

ITTL, Germany suspends any and all work on OTL pre-dreadnoughts and dreadnoughts, and instead takes the time to plan out classes of 'Super-Dreadnoughts", that are to out-gun all existing RN battleships built or building at the time they are laid down.

So as a starting point;
HMS Dreadnought, 10x12" guns, 20,000 tons, 21kts, 1906.

Germany needs some time to set things up, and therefore doesn't lay down any new battleships till early 1908, but these ships are a far cry from the OTL German ships;

Nassau class, 8x15" guns, 36,000 tons, 24kts, 1912.
Helgoland class, 12x15" guns, 50,000 tons, 24kts, 1912

Germany plans to keep up-gunning, and increasing speed on each new class after this, with 1.5" incremental increase in main armament, as well as a corresponding 1.5kt incremental increase in speed.

So, the idea is to play leapfrog with the RN. In OTL, the UK is starting to build the Orion and King George V classes, with 10x13.5" guns, so Germany building 15" guns is 1 increment better than the new ships, and two increments better in speed.

Now, Germany is looking to take this way beyond anything that they actually plan to build, as the point is not to spend themselves into
Bankruptcy, but rather to force the UK into negotiated consessions once Germany has made all of the RN battleships obsolete a time or two.
To this end, what should the tonnages be for the bigger and bigger ships?
12x15" + 24kts = 50,000 tons or so (and if not, tell me what instead?)
12x16.5" + 25.5kts = ???
12x18.0" + 27.0kts = ???
12x19.5" + 28.5kts = ???
12x21.0" + 30.0kts = ???
12x22.5" + 31.5kts = ???
12x24.0" + 33.0kts = ???

So basically, just tell me what the tonnages of these monsters would nave to be to have balanced firepower/protection, and the speed listed. The idea here is that Germany is going to one-up the RN each time the British make a qualitative improvement on their battleships, thus forcing ever more expensive ships to be built, and eventually making the issue of who could build more ships based upon shipbuilding capacity moot, as now each side is more limited by how many they can afford to build.
Any thoughts?
 
Last edited:
Any thoughts? Yes, this is totally ridiculous.

Your tonnage is going to be high since at some point one's necessary horsepower to get higher speeds results in larger and heavier boiler and engine rooms, yet speed itself increases in fractions. Your spiralling tonnage will force the Germans to start dredging ports and waterways, not to mention the Kiel Canal, to permit larger ships.

Anything larger than an 18in gun, and including the 18in gun, just causes additional problems. Aboard the Yamato all of the AA batteries had to be placed behind blast shields to protect the crews from the shockwave created by the firing of the main armament.

Your scenario is more an exercise in getting Germany to bankrupt itself building very expensive ships. The amount of ships that the Germans can lay down are set by the Naval Laws, also they were falling behind in the number of ships built because of, basically, German overengineering. It would appear that the easiest thing of the British to do would be to outbuild the Germans by the number of ships that they build per class - again pretty much what they did historically - they out built the Germans.

The British still win.
 
Any thoughts? Yes, this is totally ridiculous.
That doesn't tell me anything.:)

Your tonnage is going to be high since at some point one's necessary horsepower to get higher speeds results in larger and heavier boiler and engine rooms, yet speed itself increases in fractions. Your spiralling tonnage will force the Germans to start dredging ports and waterways, not to mention the Kiel Canal, to permit larger ships.
I have in mind three possible points of construction that were in use OTL, and do not force the Germans to enlarge the Kiel canal. This doesn't mean that the Germans don't have to do some work on infrastructure and geographical limitations, but without spending in these areas, they cannot really do much other than what they did OTL.

The amount of ships that the Germans can lay down are set by the Naval Laws.
GNL = revised upon advent of HMS Dreadnought. Should have made that plain I guess.;) The Germans would pass an ammendment to their naval laws, making the construction of 'inferior ships' illeagle, and mandating the improvements listed above.

Your scenario is more an exercise in getting Germany to bankrupt itself building very expensive ships. It would appear that the easiest thing of the British to do would be to outbuild the Germans by the number of ships that they build per class - again pretty much what they did historically - they out built the Germans.
I have to ask, do you think that the British are going to just simply go for a quantitative advantage, building more ships just like the ones Germany is building? Or are they more likely to try for both a more and better fleet mentality? We know what they did OTL, and I see no reason that they wouldn't try this ITTL as well.
Even if they could restrain themselves from trying to go one better, we both agree that they are going to build more ships than the Germans (which is of course the whole point of the exercise), and this will inevitably cost them more than it costs Germany, and when Germany once again turns up the heat, Britain will respond in the same way again. Rinse and repeat.
So basically, Britain will go bankrupt before Germany, as they are going to be building more of these very expensive ships, and as long as Britain is compelled to build more, then Germnay is going to either drive them into bankruptcy, or bring them to the negoiations table.
 
That doesn't tell me anything
Perhaps an illustration would help to show how ridiculous it is. Here are your statistics for the ships you think the Germans are capable and willing to lay down in 1908, compared to the one they were capable and willing of laying down immediately before the outbreak of a world war:
Helgoland class, 12x15" guns, 50,000 tons, 24kts, 1912
Bayern class, 8x15" guns, 32,200 tons, 22kts, 1914

Your Helgoland class is basically the Queen Elizabeth class, which took the Royal Navy four more years of dreadnought building experience to design. Your design achieves 24kts despite not having turbines or oil firing, something which the Germans were unable to introduce historically until 1909. More accurately, they introduced dual firing (because Germany has no secure supply of oil) and bought turbines from the British (because they didn't have anywhere capable of producing them at the time).

In terms of guns, you have the Germans leap 4 inches, and continue to accomplish a 1.5in leap for each successive class. The 1.5in jump to the Queen Elizabeth's 15in guns was a massive leap in the dark, accomplished only by skipping protoype stages for the guns. It's not as if a 4in leap makes sense anyway, because the Germans are expecting to fight in the North sea with poor visibility and consequent short-range engagements- hence why they clung to the 11in and 12in guns for so long.

The Germans don't unlock a magical money tree by deciding to build bigger battleships. Either they build fewer of them, or they take money from other projects such as the army, or they raise taxes overall- none of which you have proposed here.

I have in mind three possible points of construction that were in use OTL, and do not force the Germans to enlarge the Kiel canal.
Let me guess- Imperial Shipyards (Wilhemshaven), Blohm and Voss (Hamburg) and Weser (Bremen). That's the Weser yard which took four years to build the 12,000 ton armoured cruiser Gneisenau, and had to attach pontoons to float out both the Thuringen and the Westfalen because the river depth was so low.

Moreover, because Blohm and Voss was the only yard building battlecruisers, the High Seas Fleet now has a scout line composed only of cruisers. In the event of a clash, the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron will eat them alive (just like the Battle of the Falkland Isles), and the Germans will be completely blind.

This doesn't mean that the Germans don't have to do some work on infrastructure and geographical limitations, but without spending in these areas, they cannot really do much other than what they did OTL.
You don't seem to understand how much bigger these ships are than the ones Germany would build historically, so I'll illustrate. Here are the dimensions of the Nassau class, which required all of Germany's shipyards to build new installations or extend existing ones:
Nassau class: 18,750 tons, 146m long x 27m beam x 9m draught

Here are the largest battleships and cruisers the Germans built in the war:
Bayern-class: 32,200 tons, 180m x 30m beam x 10m draught
Mackensen-class: 31,000 tons, 223m x 30m beam x 8m draught

And here are some battleships in the sort of dimensions of your Helgoland-class:
H39-class: 56,444 tons, 277.8m long x 37m beam x 10m draught
Lion-class: 42,550 tons, 242m long x 33m beam x 10m draught
Iowa-class: 45,000 tons, 263m long x 36m beam x 11m draught
Sovietsky Soyuz-class: 59,150 tons, 269m long x 39m beam x 10m draught.

All in all, this is about as realistic as having the Royal Air Force respond to the introduction of the ME109 by building the F4 Phantom.

EDIT: From reading a bit more, it seems like this may stem from a lack of experience with naval design in general. In which case, you may find the Springsharp program helpful in allowing you to understand some of the trade-offs which are involved in building a ship.
 
Last edited:
GNL = revised upon advent of HMS Dreadnought. Should have made that plain I guess.;) The Germans would pass an ammendment to their naval laws, making the construction of 'inferior ships' illeagle, and mandating the improvements listed above.


I have to ask, do you think that the British are going to just simply go for a quantitative advantage, building more ships just like the ones Germany is building? Or are they more likely to try for both a more and better fleet mentality? We know what they did OTL, and I see no reason that they wouldn't try this ITTL as well.
Even if they could restrain themselves from trying to go one better, we both agree that they are going to build more ships than the Germans (which is of course the whole point of the exercise), and this will inevitably cost them more than it costs Germany, and when Germany once again turns up the heat, Britain will respond in the same way again. Rinse and repeat.
So basically, Britain will go bankrupt before Germany, as they are going to be building more of these very expensive ships, and as long as Britain is compelled to build more, then Germnay is going to either drive them into bankruptcy, or bring them to the negoiations table.

Who or what is setting the bar for 'inferior ships'?

One of the crucial lynch pins of the German Naval Laws is that the size of the High Seas Fleet is legislatively set. There are a set number of capital ships that the Reichstag has decreed. The British, and rest of the world, know how large the German fleet is going to be - unless something changes, which would be challenged by the German Army.

The British can fund and cancel funds for warships as they want on an annual basis. Also the British have a tradition of trying to find the most cost effective way of doing things, so its entirely likely that they will find another means of counteracting any huge German naval expansion. Fisher introduced the HMS Dreadnought as a means to provide a ship would be prohibitively expensive that the Royal Navy would look to alternative means to maintain supremacy.

This is very similar to a discussion about the US Navy replying to the Dreadnought by launching its first all big gun battleship with eight 14in guns. Leaps like this are expensive to do once, and only increase in cost with more leaps.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Can't be done. Technology simply isn't there. You would, fairly quickly, reach a point that the size of the vessels overwhelms any possible engine power.

As a really simple example of the weights involved.

RN gun weight (one tube, with breech)

12"/45 Mark X = 129,348 pounds (58,626 kg)
13.5"/45 Mark VI =171,584 pounds (77,829 kg)
15"/42 Mark I = 224,000 pounds (101,605 kg)
16"/45 Mark 1 = 216,000 pounds (98,181 kg) Note that there were improvements in metallurgy which permitted a slight decrease in weight, even with the larger caliber
18"/45 Mark II = 356,160 pounds (161,553 kg)

The RN never even toyed with larger bore sizes. To see even examples of larger tubes you need to look at other countries.

Germany constructed an experimental 21"/52 which weighed in at an astounding 658,000 pounds (299,090 kg). It is unlikely that this was ever a serious weapon design for a warship, however the remarkable weight is useful as a comparative (the 16" weapon designed for the "H" class came in at a relatively svelte 352,000 pounds). The Japanese also designed a 20.1"/45 (510mm) gun that came in at ~446,000 pounds, although I can find no evidence that such a tube was ever test fired (the Yamato's 18.1" (460mm) came in at 363,000 pounds (164,564 kg). The experimental American 18"/48 Mark 47 weighed in at 354,000 pounds. Assuming a 50% weight increase for each ensuing 2" increase in bore that gives a 22" a weight of 675,000 pounds and a 24" a remarkable 1,000,000 pounds PER TUBE.


Now let's look at the weight of the just the main battery for each vessel

12x15" =1,344 tons
12x16" =1602 tons (U.S. Mark 7)
12x18" = 2136 tons
12x20" = 2678 tons (Japanese 510mm)
12x21" = 3948 tons (German experimental)
12x22" = 4050 tons (estimated)
12x24" = 6000 tons (estimated)

Note that these weights are just for the gun tubes and breeches. Each gun MOUNT will come in at least 1,700 tons per mount (U.S. 16"x3 mount) while the Yamato's 18"x2 mount was 2730 tons. It would not be unreasonable to expect the twin mount for a 24" weapon to come in at 4-5,000 tons each or a total of 24-30,000 TONS just for the guns/mount of the main battery. This is the displacement of the Alaska class battle cruiser and we haven't even built the hull yet.

Can't be done. Not even with nuclear powered ships, much less coal or oil.
 

Delta Force

Banned
The Germans would clearly cross a red line with the British if they started constructing such large battleships because their only purpose is to fight the Royal Navy in Europe, especially since Germany now has no new armored cruisers or battlecruisers. It is likely that the British will carry out a preemptive strike on the Kaiserliche Marine to destroy the navy and the new ships before they can be completed. If the British decide to try to deter the Germans the Fisherite school is probably going to become more entrenched because it will be near impossible to defend against such massive shells. The dreadnoughts and any super-dreadnoughts in service will be obsolete and the Royal Navy will instead build a battlecruiser fleet along the lines of the Incomparable class. Ultimately the arms race is an exercise in futility, as the guns are so powerful they can penetrate any armor, which means ships will carry little to no armor, which means the ships return to more practical cannon designs and armor configurations.

This entire debate also depends on countries responding in kind to the construction of such large battleships and battlecruisers. You could build a factory and construct several dozen torpedo boats, destroyers, minelayers, torpedo cruisers, etc. each year for the cost of a single very large battleship, and I imagine 120 torpedo boats would easily destroy the solitary German battleship that would be the result of the proposed naval program. The torpedo battleship might actually be built in such a timeline as well, as torpedoes are much lighter than the large batteries of heavy guns proposed.
 
The Royal Navy would not build anything near HMS Incomparable, that was just Fisher at his typical grandstanding - but not that much different to what he was saying back in 1905. Incomparable, like the Yamato, and I would say, the American 'Tillman Battleships' represent the 'end of the line' for an escalating naval arms race.

The 'torpedo battleship' reminds me of the arsenal ship that the US contemplated a few years ago. However, if one was built and armed it would carry more cruise missiles, or torpedoes, than the national arsenal had built at the time.
 

Delta Force

Banned
The Royal Navy would not build anything near HMS Incomparable, that was just Fisher at his typical grandstanding - but not that much different to what he was saying back in 1905. Incomparable, like the Yamato, and I would say, the American 'Tillman Battleships' represent the 'end of the line' for an escalating naval arms race.

The 'torpedo battleship' reminds me of the arsenal ship that the US contemplated a few years ago. However, if one was built and armed it would carry more cruise missiles, or torpedoes, than the national arsenal had built at the time.

Incomparable made little sense in our timeline, but in a world with massive battleships with massive guns it would be an excellent ship. There are three areas you can focus on when constructing a ship: armor, armament, and speed. You would need a lot of armor to stop the 20 inch projectiles the proposed German ships would be using (I consider 20 inch to be the maximum feasible armament), so all or nothing would be an attractive option. It doesn't even have to be an extreme all or nothing, you can armor a ship to withstand first generation super-dreadnought guns (14 inch and lighter) and still have a lot of tonnage to play with. At that point your best bet is to go with high speed, since you can keep the super-dreadnoughts and super-battlecruisers far enough away for their armament to be impotent, with each 20 inch shell essentially guaranteed to cause devastation wherever it hits.

I'm not sure how optimistic Incomparable is, but it certainly would have been able to threaten battleships of the post-war era with its high speed (and superior positionkeeping) and heavy main battery. The Incomparable and N3 would have been on relatively even terms in a gun duel, but the Incomparable would have been able to take great tactical advantage of its high speed in other situations as well.
 
Now, Germany is looking to take this way beyond anything that they actually plan to build, as the point is not to spend themselves into Bankruptcy, but rather to force the UK into negotiated concessions once Germany has made all of the RN battleships obsolete a time or two.

The Royal Navy would not build anything near HMS Incomparable, that was just Fisher at his typical grandstanding - but not that much different to what he was saying back in 1905. Incomparable, like the Yamato, and I would say, the American 'Tillman Battleships' represent the 'end of the line' for an escalating naval arms race.

I did say, right in the OP, that I didn't expect Germany to be building these 'Maximum Battleships, right? From all the talk of ridiculous I have to assume that I didn’t make clear that ITTL, Germany is open to negotiated settlement of relative battle fleet strengths with the UK, and will not actually be building 24” gunned battleships unless the RN has a 22.5” gunned ship building.

Ok, let me start off by saying thanks for the info/input.
I made this thread as a kind of fact finding mission, so I could get info for my posts in another thread where the OP asks: “Is it possible to get a world where the UK has battleships and Germany has carriers”? My thinking is that the Germans force a naval treaty, in which, in exchange for agreeing to a smaller number of battleships than the RN has, Germany gains concessions in other areas, in this case scouting/carriers. Not that Germany has some master plan (as my first posts posited – very unrealistically I now realize), but rather as something that happens as a side effect from other considerations. So basically, what I am trying to do is come up with an end result that gives us what the OP in the other thread is looking for, and at the same time doesn’t clutter up that thread with our discussion.
Perhaps an illustration would help to show how ridiculous it is. Here are your statistics for the ships you think the Germans are capable and willing to lay down in 1908, compared to the ones they were capable and willing of laying down immediately before the outbreak of a world war:
Helgoland class, 12x15" guns, 50,000 tons, 24kts, 1912
Bayern class, 8x15" guns, 32,200 tons, 22kts, 1914

Your Helgoland class is basically the Queen Elizabeth class, which took the Royal Navy four more years of dreadnought building experience to design.

Actually, I think that you really meant to say “Your Nassau class is basically the Queen Elizabeth class” which in fact it is. My Helgoland class is much more than the QE class.

Nassau class, 8x15” guns, 36,000 tons, 24kts, 1912
Helgoland class, 12x15" guns, 50,000 tons, 24kts, 1912
Bayern class, 8x15" guns, 32,200 tons, 22kts, 1914

Also, your point (which does have merit) would tend to make one think that Germany cannot build these ships for a whole two more years compared to OTL (for whatever reasons), but ignores the fact that ITTL, the old Nassau class is not being built, nor any of the other historical classes. And ITTL, Germany is throwing away the adherence to the 11” gun, and wants to make RN ships obsolete, so as to return the favor done the rest of the world by the RN ala HSM Dreadnought.

If we assume that the OTL Bayern class took a standard 4 years for ‘laid down to commissioned’, then they were laid down just two years later than my POD, and this despite all the ships that were historically built that will not be built ITTL.


Your design achieves 24kts despite not having turbines or oil firing, something which the Germans were unable to introduce historically until 1909. More accurately, they introduced dual firing (because Germany has no secure supply of oil) and bought turbines from the British (because they didn't have anywhere capable of producing them at the time).
This is the kind of info that makes writing these threads so rewarding, as I knew of none of this beforehand, and so I learned something. Thanks.

In terms of guns, you have the Germans leap 4 inches, and continue to accomplish a 1.5in leap for each successive class. The 1.5in jump to the Queen Elizabeth's 15in guns was a massive leap in the dark, accomplished only by skipping prototype stages for the guns. It's not as if a 4in leap makes sense anyway, because the Germans are expecting to fight in the North sea with poor visibility and consequent short-range engagements- hence why they clung to the 11in and 12in guns for so long.
First, let’s do some looking at OTL. While Germany is building 11”gunned ships, the RN is fine with the 12” gun, but when Germany goes to the 12” gun, the RN ups the ante by building the Orion class, with 13.5” guns. So it seems that up gunning is historically accurate (which is why I posited it the way I did), and there seems no reason to suppose that the Germans would not plan accordingly.
Now, as far as the 4” leap, from the 11” to the 15”, the first part of this is that, Germany historically went from the 12” to the 15” just a few years later anyway, and the rest is that in this time line, Germany tosses aside the 11” gun immediately rather than building one more class with them, and then advancing to the 12” gun thereafter, only to see the RN ships equipped with 13.5” the very next year.
So to my thinking, if Germany had halted all battleship construction in 1906, and taken a good, long look at what the RN had historically been doing with upping gun sizes for decades, it is definitely not hard to picture what would happen to the gun size of RN battleships if Germany were to attempt to merely match the existing RN ships, and thus decides to force the issue upon Britain by skipping the whole ‘we go to 12” guns, and then Britain goes to the 13.5” gun’ and instead goes directly to the 15” gun themselves.
This has the additional benefit of making all ten of the RN Dreadnoughts dangerously obsolete just after they have been built, and serves as a clear indication of where things are going to go if no negotiations nip this in the bud.

The Germans don't unlock a magical money tree by deciding to build bigger battleships. Either they build fewer of them, or they take money from other projects such as the army, or they raise taxes overall- none of which you have proposed here.
Don’t need to, as all the historical ships are still being funded, but those funds are not allowed to be spent till Germany comes up with better ships, and builds them instead. I am only proposing that Germany build the six ships I have outlined already (three of each of the first two classes), and that then the UK takes to the negotiating table before guns grow beyond historical limits.

Let me guess- Imperial Shipyards (Wilhemshaven), Blohm and Voss (Hamburg) and Weser (Bremen). That's the Weser yard which took four years to build the 12,000 ton armoured cruiser Gneisenau, and had to attach pontoons to float out both the Thuringen and the Westfalen because the river depth was so low.
More good info, and again my thanks. Any idea where I can read up on the sizes of ships the various shipyards could accommodate, in this time frame?

Moreover, because Blohm and Voss was the only yard building battlecruisers, the High Seas Fleet now has a scout line composed only of cruisers. In the event of a clash, the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron will eat them alive (just like the Battle of the Falkland Isles), and the Germans will be completely blind.
Don’t get me started on Battlecruisers!
ITTL, Germany goes another way, and never builds any of these sorry ass ships. <grin>

You don't seem to understand how much bigger these ships are than the ones Germany would build historically, so I'll illustrate. Here are the dimensions of the Nassau class, which required all of Germany's shipyards to build new installations or extend existing ones:
Nassau class: 18,750 tons, 146m long x 27m beam x 9m draught

Here are the largest battleships and cruisers the Germans built in the war:
Bayern-class: 32,200 tons, 180m x 30m beam x 10m draught
Mackensen-class: 31,000 tons, 223m x 30m beam x 8m draught

And here are some battleships in the sort of dimensions of your Helgoland-class:
H39-class: 56,444 tons, 277.8m long x 37m beam x 10m draught
Lion-class: 42,550 tons, 242m long x 33m beam x 10m draught
Iowa-class: 45,000 tons, 263m long x 36m beam x 11m draught
Sovietsky Soyuz-class: 59,150 tons, 269m long x 39m beam x 10m draught.

All in all, this is about as realistic as having the Royal Air Force respond to the introduction of the ME109 by building the F4 Phantom.
I’ll ignore the last line, as I suspect it is aimed more at the ships beyond historical size, and not the ones I am actually wanting Germany to build (as opposed to draw up plans for).
So, would I be right to assume that a dry-dock capable of handling a hull 300mx45mx15m would be sufficient to handle not only the two classes I have proposed, but perhaps even the giants I outlined? Keep in mind, I am not saying Germany is going to even have to build a 24” gunned battleship. What I am saying is that they want to have the capability of having the needed capacity and infrastructure to do so.

EDIT: From reading a bit more, it seems like this may stem from a lack of experience with naval design in general. In which case, you may find the
Springsharp program helpful in allowing you to understand some of the trade-offs which are involved in building a ship.
Yes totally, and I thank you for the link. I have no education along the lines of naval design, and am a complete armature hobbyist along these lines.

Who or what is setting the bar for 'inferior ships'?
Me.

One of the crucial lynch pins of the German Naval Laws is that the size of the High Seas Fleet is legislatively set. There are a set number of capital ships that the Reichstag has decreed. The British, and rest of the world, know how large the German fleet is going to be - unless something changes, which would be challenged by the German Army.
I am aware of this. The first step in the process is that, no new ships could actually be laid down (this still slows the funding to remain unchanged), until the new ships are equal to or greater than anything the RN has in commission or building.

The British can fund and cancel funds for warships as they want on an annual basis. Also the British have a tradition of trying to find the most cost effective way of doing things, so it’s entirely likely that they will find another means of counteracting any huge German naval expansion. Fisher introduced the HMS Dreadnought as a means to provide a ship would be prohibitively expensive that the Royal Navy would look to alternative means to maintain supremacy.
Say what?

This is very similar to a discussion about the US Navy replying to the Dreadnought by launching its first all big gun battleship with eight 14in guns. Leaps like this are expensive to do once, and only increase in cost with more leaps.
The USA already had the South Carolinas in the works IIRC, and unlike HMS Dreadnought, it was their all-on-the-centerline main armament layout that was the lasting legacy of these early all-big-gun ships.

Can't be done. Technology simply isn't there. You would, fairly quickly, reach a point that the size of the vessels overwhelms any possible engine power.

As a really simple example of the weights involved.

RN gun weight (one tube, with breech)

12"/45 Mark X = 129,348 pounds (58,626 kg)
13.5"/45 Mark VI =171,584 pounds (77,829 kg)
15"/42 Mark I = 224,000 pounds (101,605 kg)
16"/45 Mark 1 = 216,000 pounds (98,181 kg) Note that there were improvements in metallurgy which permitted a slight decrease in weight, even with the larger caliber
18"/45 Mark II = 356,160 pounds (161,553 kg)

The RN never even toyed with larger bore sizes. To see even examples of larger tubes you need to look at other countries.

Germany constructed an experimental 21"/52 which weighed in at an astounding 658,000 pounds (299,090 kg). It is unlikely that this was ever a serious weapon design for a warship, however the remarkable weight is useful as a comparative (the 16" weapon designed for the "H" class came in at a relatively svelte 352,000 pounds). The Japanese also designed a 20.1"/45 (510mm) gun that came in at ~446,000 pounds, although I can find no evidence that such a tube was ever test fired (the Yamato's 18.1" (460mm) came in at 363,000 pounds (164,564 kg). The experimental American 18"/48 Mark 47 weighed in at 354,000 pounds. Assuming a 50% weight increase for each ensuing 2" increase in bore that gives a 22" a weight of 675,000 pounds and a 24" a remarkable 1,000,000 pounds PER TUBE.

Now let's look at the weight of the just the main battery for each vessel

12x15" =1,344 tons
12x16" =1602 tons (U.S. Mark 7)
12x18" = 2136 tons
12x20" = 2678 tons (Japanese 510mm)
12x21" = 3948 tons (German experimental)
12x22" = 4050 tons (estimated)
12x24" = 6000 tons (estimated)

Note that these weights are just for the gun tubes and breeches. Each gun MOUNT will come in at least 1,700 tons per mount (U.S. 16"x3 mount) while the Yamato's 18"x2 mount was 2730 tons. It would not be unreasonable to expect the twin mount for a 24" weapon to come in at 4-5,000 tons each or a total of 24-30,000 TONS just for the guns/mount of the main battery. This is the displacement of the Alaska class battle cruiser and we haven't even built the hull yet.

Can't be done. Not even with nuclear powered ships, much less coal or oil.
I have to thank you for the good info provided. Sources I can read up on myself would also be most welcome.

That said, I guess I once again didn’t make things properly clear in theOP.
Germany in TTL, is not going to out build Britain, nor even achieve parity with the RN battleships. Instead, they are going to up the ante on the RN, and force Britain to waste all the work they are/have just done, by building a class that surpasses anything the RN has built or building.

The first of the two classes I mentioned are to make everything before OTL QE class dangerously obsolete, and the second class are to make the QE obsolete.
 
Last edited:
Actually, I think that you really meant to say “Your Nassau class is basically the Queen Elizabeth class” which in fact it is. My Helgoland class is much more than the QE class.
What I meant is that you were introducing the innovations of the Queen Elizabeth class- the concept of the 15in fast battleship. It never occurred to me that you would take a ship which the Royal Navy could only design after seven years and twenty-two dreadnoughts, and give it to the German navy from the start.

If we assume that the OTL Bayern class took a standard 4 years for ‘laid down to commissioned’, then they were laid down just two years later than my POD, and this despite all the ships that were historically built that will not be built ITTL.
Bayern is laid down five years after your point of departure, not two: Wikipedia would have told you this.

So it seems that up gunning is historically accurate (which is why I posited it the way I did), and there seems no reason to suppose that the Germans would not plan accordingly.
How many of those examples of up-gunning are on the part of the German navy? None: even the jump to 15in is to match, not to better, the Royal Navy. That is because, as I said, the Germans are planning to fight in the North Sea where engagement ranges are limited. Hence the larger number of smaller weapons, and also the prioritisation of heavier armour over larger guns when comparing their designs to the Royal Navy.

To design the gun concurrently with the design of the ship means the ship will have to fit a gun whose weight, size, and characteristics you don’t know. This is not an easy undertaking, as the turret will have to fit perfectly into the ship without leaking and cope with the bending and flexing forces put on the ship by the North Sea. Rear Admiral Archibald Moore had to stake his professional existence on the success of the 15in gun in the Queen Elizabeth-class, and that design could draw heavily on that of the 13.5in gun. You are expecting the Germans to scale as well as they did historically, from a gun an inch smaller and with seven fewer years of designing and building naval ordnance under their belts.

what the RN had historically been doing with upping gun sizes for decades
Can you say which ships you feel represent this trend? The first Royal Navy battleship to carry a 12in BL gun was HMS Colossus in 1882. Between her and Dreadnought, only 3 of the 118 battleships built by the Royal Navy have anything larger than a 13.5in gun, and all three were laid down in the early 1880s. There doesn’t seem to be anything that would justify a German leap to 15in guns.

all the historical ships are still being funded

I don’t think you have actually done the calculations on this point. There’s an argument over the extent to which the cost of battleships is proportionate to displacement, but the rule broadly holds true: let’s see how your proposed construction matches to what Germany could actually afford.

Nassau class: 4x 18,750 tons = 75,000 tons
Helgoland class: 4x 22,808 tons= 91,232 tons
Alt-Nassau: 3x 36,000 tons = 108,000 tons
Alt-Helgoland: 3x 50,000 tons = 150,000 tons

You have a shortfall of 91,768 tons to fund, or the equivalent of another four Helgoland class ships. Holding over construction in the way you suggest means you would only have funds to lay down your Alt-Nassaus at the end of 1908 and the Alt-Helgolands at the end of 1910, not “early 1908” as you suggest. Of course, that’s excluding the additional costs of developing a 15in gun, and those of building docks large enough to hold these ships.

As you have decided not to dredge the Kiel canal to save money, these ships can only reach the Baltic by sailing North around Denmark and passing through the narrow Kattegat. This makes them more vulnerable to torpedo, mine or aerial attack, allows the Russian navy a free hand to shell East Prussia until the fleet arrives (and the French fleet a free hand in the North Sea after it does), and renders the German Navy dependent on the goodwill of Denmark not to close the straits.

Any idea where I can read up on the sizes of ships the various shipyards could accommodate, in this time frame?

Hallman, Die Anfänge des deutschen Dreadnought-Baues 1905-08 (1938)

Don’t get me started on Battlecruisers!
You can’t avoid building a battlecruiser if the opponent has them. Let me describe the scout units of two forces:
Force A: 4 ships, each capable of reaching 24kts, with 10 4.1in guns in hand-worked mounts and a 3in armoured deck.
Force B: 3 ships, each making 25kts, with 8 12in guns in hydraulic mounts, a 1.5in armoured deck and a belt of between 4 and 9 inches.

What do you think the likely outcome of these two meeting might be? When used for their intended purposes, battlecruisers are successful. The mistake is trying to use battlecruisers to fight battleships, a role for which they were not designed. Even so, had the British not chosen to increase the rate of fire by storing open cordite charges in the turret at Jutland, they would have much fewer issues with survivability.

I suspect it is aimed more at the ships beyond historical size, and not the ones I am actually wanting Germany to build
The classes I listed were designed (not built, just designed) in 1937, 1938, 1938, and 1935, or between 30 and 27 years from your point of departure. The ME-109 first flew in 1935 and the F4 Phantom in 1958, which makes 23 years difference. The RAF constructing the F4 Phantom, therefore, makes marginally more sense than building your Helgoland-class battleship.

they want to have the capability of having the needed capacity and infrastructure to do so.
The Reichstag is not going to support funding huge docks on the off-chance that they might be used, all the more because they have recently been asked to fund such expansion. The enlargement of Wilhelmshaven began in 1901 and involved enlarging a slipway, building three new dry docks and constructing a new lock. Unfortunately, the new lock can only accept ships 250m in length, so will have to be completely rebuilt.

this still slows the funding to remain unchanged
I don’t think you know how the German Naval Laws work. Every year, a certain number of ships would come up for renewal and the Reichstag would vote money to build new ships to replace them. There wasn’t an annual stipend which the RMA could hold over to build ships later. To achieve what you’re suggesting, the entire Naval Law would have to be rewritten rather than just amended.

unlike HMS Dreadnought, it was their all-on-the-centerline main armament layout that was the lasting legacy of these early all-big-gun ships.
Just to illustrate that battleship design must flow from intended tactics, and that one style of armament is not automatically better than another, let’s posit a battle between two equally sized fleets of South Carolinas and Dreadnoughts. The two fleets turn into line of battle and begin firing. Both lines have exactly the same number of guns firing at one another, as each ship has 8 12in guns. If the Royal Navy are getting the best of the engagement, the South Carolinas will turn away to disengage. However, each American ship now only has four guns with rear arcs, compared to the Dreadnought’s six guns with forward arcs. Furthermore, the Dreadnought’s three knot speed advantage means that even if the US Navy turn away, they cannot escape.

I thank you for the link. I have no education along the lines of naval design, and am a complete armature hobbyist along these lines.
To properly simulate the work of a naval designer, try and build the best battleship you can on a strict 50,000 tons limit. Then throw the design away and try and construct one on Washington Treaty rules. Then imagine it serving twenty years later, in circumstances you could have never envisaged when designing it, fighting newer and larger ships. Then imagine people seventy years later criticising your design on the basis of hindsight.

What you’re basically implying with your premise is that the Germans learned absolutely nothing about building battleships from their first four classes of dreadnoughts. In fact, you suggest that they were perfectly capable of building a Queen Elizabeth at any stage but were simply too foolish to do so. The overwhelming question, however, is why the Germans would deliberately build the ships they did if they had the ability to build one of the quality you suggest. The German naval designers had years of experience in the construction of warships, guns, armour and engines. They dealt on a day-to-day basis with the limitations placed on them, and built the best ships that were possible.

Your premise is teleology of the worst sort. Rather than looking at what Germany could afford, or even physically build, you are asking “what battleship gives me the outcome I want” and then attempting to invent a way for the Germans to have that battleship even though, as has been conclusively demonstrated, it is neither physically possible nor logically comprehensible for them to do so.
 
well if the outcome of this thread was to get the british to agree to a naval treaty limiting the german fleet to a smaller size than the british one you are going about it in the wrong way.
In otl it was Churchill(first lord)who proposed treaty limits on several occasions to the Kaiser who rejected the idea.Seems you are attempting to convert the converted.:confused::confused:
 

Delta Force

Banned
There is no need for a battleship to have its main armament exceed 20 inches, and in any case such ships aren't going to be feasible before the 1920s, even without World War I. The Super Yamatos were laid out similar to a late generation dreadnought and would have been built in the mid-1940s and even then would have weighed in at around 70,000 tons. When you consider that 1920s engine technology, metallurgy, and gun casting is not as advanced you are easily going to add several thousand tons to simply get a dreadnought (nonetheless a battlecruiser).

If you want the ships to be armored against anything larger than a 15 inch gun your going to have to construct a factory that basically constructs nothing but extremely thick battleplate, and even then you may have issues with preventing internal defects when casting and rolling plate that thick. You can produce a laminated armor which can be produced in existing armor factories for lower cost and greater quality control, but you will lose effectiveness because it is difficult to get a strong bond between the plates. They got better at casting thicker armor and bonding laminate armor in the 1930s and 1940s, but that's not going to help you in the 1920s and earlier.

Propulsion systems are going to be another issue. I wouldn't even bother trying to propel a massive ship with coal fired boilers. Even with oil fired boilers you are going to have propulsion issues as the turbines of the era were all direct drive with great losses to efficiency. The technology to cut gears is quite rare at this time, and while it would give you greater efficiency you would have to establish yet another factory dedicated to producing gears for your dreadnoughts. Electro drive is yet another option, but good luck implementing it for the first time with engine power over 100,000 horsepower. If you want greater efficiency with more easily available technologies you can always go for triple expansion engines, but ships had (literally) hull cracking levels of torque with less output than you would need to propel a 50,000+ ton ship at battlecruiser speeds.

Lastly, at 50,000 tons your dreadnoughts will be at the upper size limit of commercial ships, so you are likely going to have to build your own shipyard just to build the ship (in addition to your armor and likely propulsion factories). Historically warships tend to be 60% the size of the largest commercial ships of their era, which would put you at the 30,000 ton ships actually built during the 1910s. Basically you are going to be pushing the limit of all maritime technologies and practices to build the ships. Since ships become more efficient as they increase in size (volume grows faster than physical size, which makes cargo and propulsion more efficient) it is likely the commercial ships built were actually near those limits and the limit will be very difficult to push, if it can be done at all.
 
Top