How to modernize Espana class for WW2 relevance?

Most cost effective would be to do a "rebuild". Put the ships in a closed dock, remove the nameplate, remove turrets for modernization, disassemble ship, build new ship, put in the modernized turrets, attach nameplate. Voila, you have "modernized" the Espana class. No, of course it is not a new ship, why the paperwork right here says so, wink wink nudge nudge

Course that's only a legal fiction, but it could pass
 
Perhaps give her a Italian Style rebuild

Espana - after being heavily damaged by a bombing raid in Ibiza by Russian supplied bombers flown by 'Republican Pilots' and is sent to Italy where she is given a rebuild

Remove the off line middle turrets Rebore the fore and aft 12" to 12.6" increase the elevation and improve the directors and plotting tables etc

Strip super structure down and remove barbettes and 4" Guns - replace with 6 Twin 100mm DP guns (other automatic guns to follow)

Remove 2 prop shafts and replace machinary with 6 Yarrow Boilers and 2 Turbines (sticks finger in air - 50,000 SHP) - 28+ knots

Increase deck armour over vital locations - de-armour super structure - and utilise the puglise torpedo belt system

The ship is presented back to the Spanish Government in late 38 when the rebuilt ship within weeks engages and sinks her sister ship the Jamie I off of Santander
 
The problem with that is how long would it take? The first Italian rebuild lasted from October 1933 until June 1937 so not sure you can start them in the Spanish civil war and then get them out in time for its end?

That and removing the centre 4 guns makes you a pre-dreadnought and makes hitting anything at dreadnought ranges nearly imposable as you have tiny and slow salvoes....


Course that's only a legal fiction, but it could pass
Agreed its the only way I can see that works and Spain could actually built it herself so it would work.
Buy engines and armour steel for 2 CAs, send the turrets to be worked on without telling anybody they are for a new ship and then build a new hull for the guns in Spain.
You might need to buy everything from none treaty powers as I'm not sure Vickers would be willing to cheat for you? But Skoda or Bofors would probably do it....
 
No, the 12" guns would be going, so the internals would have to be fully rebuilt too.

I don't know if you can get 25 kts from the hull form, but the OP wanted a useful ship, one capable of dealing with a Deutschland, so it's just a case of identifying the requirements to achieve that and working back from there. That means 25 kts or so, at least 8" guns and decent armour.

Still it remains very doubtfull you can alter that much in an old 1st generation Dreadnought type hull, as what you suggest means building a new hull from scratch! Why not build a new ship of more modern design in the first place for much less cost? The only recycled items then would be the guns, as happened frequently in history, like HMS Vanguard of 1946. Still this ship is then a newly build cruiser of some sort, with cruiser scale protection and old pattern 12 inch guns. Since a cruiser cannot be protected that heavily, the alternative would be a much slower, coast defense ship, with much less speed to compensate the weight of the protection.
 
Still it remains very doubtfull you can alter that much in an old 1st generation Dreadnought type hull, as what you suggest means building a new hull from scratch! Why not build a new ship of more modern design in the first place for much less cost? The only recycled items then would be the guns, as happened frequently in history, like HMS Vanguard of 1946. Still this ship is then a newly build cruiser of some sort, with cruiser scale protection and old pattern 12 inch guns. Since a cruiser cannot be protected that heavily, the alternative would be a much slower, coast defense ship, with much less speed to compensate the weight of the protection.

Oh I agree. Given her age, design and hull form, it makes no sense to rebuild her, particularly for a mission to counter a friendly-ish nation's ship. Cheaper, better and easier to start anew, or to buy from abroad, or to just not bother because it's an unnecessary waste of money for a ravaged country. But the OP's requirements were quite specific...

The 12" are the only good part of the ship! Nothing else is rally worth keeping of the engines/hull/etc ?

If you don't want 12" you can just build a new 8" CA (Canarias class) and maybe 'accidentally' make it 4000t overweight to insure it should win a 1 on 1, nobody will really care as you are not a treaty player.

Agreed also. Regarding the 12" guns, it would be nice to keep them, certainly, but it may be necessary to lose them entirely to free up weight and volume for new engines to hit the required speed, given the, ah, suboptimal hull form. It's very likely that the en echelon turrets would have to go at the very least, and since that would leave you only four guns, you'd probably want to rip them out too and replace them with at least two triple turrets (or four doubles, but hull volume again...) , just to have the guns for efficient spotting.
 
The big problems here are that ripping out the beam turrets leaves the barbettes, lots of wasted space and weight. Plus the elevation of the existing turrets is low, fixing that will be a serious problem. And putting in triple turrets would be difficult unless you downsize the guns, which kinda defeats the purpose of the whole thing.

We all agree a new ship is a FAR better investment, but that's the OP's call...
 
Realistically new build is best. Too much cost, time, and out of date weaponry. For lower cost convert the ships to monitors, but they would need some work.
 
Spain actually wanted a "Littorio" but surprise, surprise, couldn't afford it. She also wanted to get the triple 11-inch turrets from "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisneau" when they were converted to twin 15-inch to build her own panzerschiff's. There was also an idea to reuse the "Espana's" turrets on new-built battlecruisers (3 turrets each; AB/Y). None of the plans came to fruition, mostly due to money woes...
 
But would they really want to reuse the outdated and armored turrets?
Many reasons to reuse the guns,
- nobody will sell you any, due to treaty's.
- nobody will deliver on time due to production bottlenecks in rearmament.
- reduced cost, refurbishment is going to be 1/4 of the price of new.
- 12" are sufficient to kill any CA why go for more ?
 
Fair enough, you make some good points. My biggest worry would be the under armored turrets. If the turret could be refurbished for extra elevation and armor, then the could hold up versus original build.
 
Fair enough, you make some good points. My biggest worry would be the under armored turrets. If the turret could be refurbished for extra elevation and armor, then the could hold up versus original build.

And as I mentioned, this was _hopefully_ planned if this construction had taken place...
 
And as I mentioned, this was _hopefully_ planned if this construction had taken place...

Reusing older pattern armaments is common in naval history as Weapons, especially wired riffles are difficult to produce and requireing a long time doing so. The pennalty for this is you will have to accept the older guns are slow and not equal to more recent ones. For a WW2 ship, the old 30.5 cm/50 (12") VSM Mark H guns were a 1910 design by Vickers and had a slow rate of fire even in their days. (About 1.5 RPM at best in most ideal conditions, in practice it was less than 1 RPM.) This indicates a ship unable to engage fast targets with these guns, as they lack the output of metal in a short time. This makes it not the weapon of choice for engaging cruisers and destroyers, but could perform the role of a deterrant against such fast ships, risking the change of a Lucky hit.

These guns were best suited for use in fixed fortifications and coastal batteries though, as they had good range and enough shellweight to make an opponent think twice to engage them. On a ship's hull it was a cumbersome and difficult to handle weapon, as the turrets it was mounted in were slow turning heavy steel things, making their usefullness less, when needing something to engage fast targets.

So the España class as such had little or no value as a front line ship in a WW2 scenario, but it still was Spain's most powerfully armed warship in service at the time. Spain on the other hand wanted more cruiser and destroyer type ships, and was to abbandon the battleship as a whole for now, considering it not necessary for its requirements. If insisting on maintaining one, or both these ships, if they theoretically had still been around at the time, they were most likely to have been rebuild as either gunnery training ships, or coast defense vessels, sicne they lacked a hull able of high seas services, due to their low freeboard and short hull design.
 
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