More V&W class destroyers

At least 38 units of this class were cancelled . What consequences would the completion of a significant number of these have had. Say 16 extra destroyers for the Royal Navy and 4 units sold to the French Navy with the possibility of extra units sold to allied and friendly powers.
 
My question is how many get scraped due to LNT (1930), OTL last S class scraped in 1936 ?

11 of the S class lasted till WW2 so you get at least that number of extra V&Ws more in your time line, with the V&W ships being better than the S class maybe more effort will be spent to slow scrapings till 37 after that they will not happen.
 
My question is how many get scraped due to LNT (1930), OTL last S class scraped in 1936 ?

11 of the S class lasted till WW2 so you get at least that number of extra V&Ws more in your time line, with the V&W ships being better than the S class maybe more effort will be spent to slow scrapings till 37 after that they will not happen.

IOTL the Americans didn't start building new destroyers until about 5 years after the British because they had large numbers of brand new Flush decker type destroyers.

None of the 4 Leaders and 40 V&W class cancelled in November 1918 will be laid down before the beginning of 1919 at the earliest and they would probably be built at a slow rate so that they don't complete until 1924.

IOTL the 9 A class were ordered in 1927-28 and it is probable that no new destroyers would be built until 1932-33 or so. Firstly Parliament would not pass the estimates and secondly the Admiralty would probably want more cruisers or battleship modernisations instead.

A flotilla of A to I type destroyers cost about £2.9 milllion or enough to buy 1½ County class cruisers or twoish Yorks or Leanders. Therefore I think 5-8 extra cruisers would be ordered in the 1927-31 programmes instead of destroyer flotillas A to E.

Though if you want more V&W class destroyers just build more of them instead of the S class by saying that the Admiralty did not decide to design a destroyer for operations in the southern North Sea.
 
IOTL the Americans didn't start building new destroyers until about 5 years after the British because they had large numbers of brand new Flush decker type destroyers.
And these new ships were generally superior in comparison with regards to their boilers. Now in an ideal world the extra gap from the V&W destroyers would give the Royal Navy the time to notice what was going on at roughly the same time on the other side of the Atlantic and take on-board the improvements, but considering how badly they did during the inter-war period I wouldn't hold out hope.
 
Second best to keeping the S and V&W destroyers would be to recover the turbines from the scrapped late war vessels. It wouldnt have cost a great deal to refurbish them and put them in dry storage. Come the clouds of war in 1937 then 50 plus sets of relatively new turbines able to be dropped into new build convoy escorts could be a potential game changer in the Atlantic.
 
IOTL the Americans didn't start building new destroyers until about 5 years after the British because they had large numbers of brand new Flush decker type destroyers.

None of the 4 Leaders and 40 V&W class cancelled in November 1918 will be laid down before the beginning of 1919 at the earliest and they would probably be built at a slow rate so that they don't complete until 1924.

IOTL the 9 A class were ordered in 1927-28 and it is probable that no new destroyers would be built until 1932-33 or so. Firstly Parliament would not pass the estimates and secondly the Admiralty would probably want more cruisers or battleship modernisations instead.

A flotilla of A to I type destroyers cost about £2.9 milllion or enough to buy 1½ County class cruisers or twoish Yorks or Leanders. Therefore I think 5-8 extra cruisers would be ordered in the 1927-31 programmes instead of destroyer flotillas A to E.

Though if you want more V&W class destroyers just build more of them instead of the S class by saying that the Admiralty did not decide to design a destroyer for operations in the southern North Sea.

When I wrote that I forgot about the tonnage quotas of the 1st LNT. If more cruisers are built instead of the first 5 flotillas of A to I class more of the older cruisers have to be scrapped so the RN might end up with fewer cruisers in September 1939.

The only way to achieve a one-to-one replacement of cruiser hulls would be to build Arethusas, which has the bonus as they are just cheap enough for 2 to be built instead of a destroyer flotilla. Therefore the RN could buy 10 Arethusas 1927-31 in place of destroyer flotillas A to E.

The 10 Arethusas would displace 10 C class cruisers. In the real world some of the C class were converted to AA cruisers. ITTL the money spent on them would be used to convert an equal number of D class cruisers in their place or more AIR refits of V&W class destroyers.

BUT

Not building the A to E classes saves about £15 million over 5 years. That money would have been better spent on building aircraft carriers to replace Argus, Eagle and Hermes, which was allowed under the Washington Naval Treaty.

The Admiralty did prepare a plan to order fleet carriers in 1924, 1928, 1931 and 1934. Only one was ordered, which became the Ark Royal.

Therefore I think the money should be spent on 3 Ark Royal class carriers to be ordered in 1927, 1929 and 1931. That would absorb £12 million. The ships they replaced had smaller crews and air groups so the remaining £3 million would be needed to pay for the extra men and aircraft.
 
And these new ships were generally superior in comparison with regards to their boilers. Now in an ideal world the extra gap from the V&W destroyers would give the Royal Navy the time to notice what was going on at roughly the same time on the other side of the Atlantic and take on-board the improvements, but considering how badly they did during the inter-war period I wouldn't hold out hope.

Not building the 5 flotillas 1927-31 might mean that less destroyer turbine cutting capacity was available when destroyer construction did resume in 1932 and that the British shipyards lost out on export contracts in the 1927-31 period to the French and Italians because British prices might be higher.

This loss of shipbuilding capacity might make the overloading of the armaments industry even worse when Rearmament began.
 
Who was driving force behind the destroyer tonnage limitations. If the British had more would they have tried for greater tonnage in the LNT.
 
Who was driving force behind the destroyer tonnage limitations. If the British had more would they have tried for greater tonnage in the LNT.

IIRC they asked for 60,000 tons more on the grounds that they had a much bigger merchant navy than anyone else and they also tried to get a larger tonnage quota for cruisers for the same reason.

But the Americans wouldn't concede because they wanted parity.

However, the LNT did include a clause that allowed unlimited construction of sloop type vessels provided they did not exceed the following parameters:

1) Displacement no greater than 2,000 tons.
2) Speed must not exceed 20 knots.
3) No torpedoes.
4) Gun armament must not be greater than four 6" guns or IIRC eight 5"

Remove the torpedoes and some of the machinery from a V class destroyer and you have a sloop. They did this later on with the V class Long Range Escort.
 
IIRC they asked for 60,000 tons more on the grounds that they had a much bigger merchant navy than anyone else and they also tried to get a larger tonnage quota for cruisers for the same reason.

But the Americans wouldn't concede because they wanted parity.

However, the LNT did include a clause that allowed unlimited construction of sloop type vessels provided they did not exceed the following parameters:

1) Displacement no greater than 2,000 tons.
2) Speed must not exceed 20 knots.
3) No torpedoes.
4) Gun armament must not be greater than four 6" guns or IIRC eight 5"

Remove the torpedoes and some of the machinery from a V class destroyer and you have a sloop. They did this later on with the V class Long Range Escort.

could they have done the 'fitted for, but not with' trick?
 
That's an interesting theory . A couple of flotilla s of extra escorts would make a big difference.

Now the French almost bought 2 of the ship's in real life . What difference would a few extra have made to French navy

Maybe Verdun, Vauban, Valmy and Voltigeur
 
could they have done the 'fitted for, but not with' trick?

Its a good idea - but the British agonised over the slightest deviation to the spirit of the treaty let alone the wording of it.

It was in Britain's interest to keep the treaty going for as long as possible and part of that included Britain being seen as an honest broker when it came to the treaty.

So why its a good idea, and we from the sage heights of 2015, know that they probably should have, but back then it would not have been viewed as such and I don't see the British going for it.
 
Not building the A to E classes saves about £15 million over 5 years. That money would have been better spent on building aircraft carriers to replace Argus, Eagle and Hermes, which was allowed under the Washington Naval Treaty.
Or the Treasury simply claws the money back because the Admiralty 'obviously' doesn't need it now.
 
Scotty said:
could they have done the 'fitted for, but not with' trick?
I'm thinking, if you take existing V&Ws & pull the as-built TTs to convert them into "treaty sloops"...

I'm seeing two problems, tho. One, Admiralty thinking (AIUI) was, escorts would be built after hostilities started...

Two, if you've got more V&Ws, don't you just see more S-class being scrapped? Don't you risk ending up with fewer DDs than OTL?:eek:
 
Maybe they'd have ended up with the Australian and Canadians instead of the S class which they scrapped in 1937 and might have survived.
 
tigercat said:
Maybe they'd have ended up with the Australian and Canadians instead of the S class which they scrapped in 1937 and might have survived.
That could be good for RCN, anyhow.:cool: It would take some time to get trained crews (of which RCN OTL had exactly none by 1939:eek::rolleyes:). If RCN does get those, tho, it's possible their DDs get detailed to fast convoys in WW2, instead of slow only (thanks to RCN only being able to operate Flowers), which probably reduces convoy losses a bit. (Difficult to say how much; a couple of weeks off the end of the war? A month earlier victory in Italy?)

Another thought: if RN has more DDs in service (or newer DDs, but more is the biggie), does that butterfly the DDs for Bases deal? Or does RN ask for more DDs? Say, 100? And if FDR agrees (given he's still PotUS), does that encourage USN building of more newer DDs (Fletchers?)? (Does that have any influence on USN preparedness in '41?)

Or, with more DDs in RN service, does it mean the deal never happens at all?:eek:
 
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