no battlecruisers - a different path

[Archibald]

Beside the space program I have a growing fascination for battleships and cruisers, fueled by many threads on this board.
The "ideal" battleship
- 30 knots
- 8 or 9 15-inch or 16-inch guns
- armoured against his own shells
This is (more or less) the Iowa
But
This couldn't be build with WWI naval state-of-the-art
Battleships sacrificed speed - 21 or 23 knots at best
Then Beatty decided he wanted 30 knots but broadside should be the same, hence the battlecruiser was born - armor was sacrificed, with Jutland and Hood poor results. Hood had the speed and guns of late battleships from the 30's, but, being 15 years older, it lacked armor.

I wondered about a different path

So you want a 30 knot speed - how about keeping armour but sacrificing some guns and turrets - 6 guns only ?
The issue of course is weight of the broadside,but could 6*18 inch guns fill the gap ?
Such ships could be build byGreat Britain instead of that silliness
They could be alternatives to the G3 and N3 ships.

 

[Archibald]

broadside

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_broadsides_of_major_World_War_II_ships

With nine guns Yamato throwed 13 000 kg.
Then, 13 000 / 9 = 1444 kg per gun.

Then, six guns: 1444 * 6 = 8666 kg, far below Iowa / North Carolina / South Dakota (11 000 kg) but still a match for everything else including Nelson and Tennessee (8360 kg)

 

[Derek Pullem]

Beside the space program I have a growing fascination for battleships and cruisers, fueled by many threads on this board.
The "ideal" battleship
- 30 knots
- 8 or 9 15-inch or 16-inch guns
- armoured against his own shells
This is (more or less) the Iowa
But
This couldn't be build with WWI naval state-of-the-art
Battleships sacrificed speed - 21 or 23 knots at best
Then Beatty decided he wanted 30 knots but broadside should be the same, hence the battlecruiser was born - armor was sacrificed, with Jutland and Hood poor results. Hood had the speed and guns of late battleships from the 30's, but, being 15 years older, it lacked armor.

I wondered about a different path

So you want a 30 knot speed - how about keeping armour but sacrificing some guns and turrets - 6 guns only ?
The issue of course is weight of the broadside,but could 6*18 inch guns fill the gap ?
Such ships could be build byGreat Britain instead of that silliness
They could be alternatives to the G3 and N3 ships.

You have to ask yourself what the limiting factor was. In my opinion the super battleships (G3 / N3) could have been built for WW1 but each would have tied up an inordinate amount of resources - so you get a fast gun line with a smaller weight of broadside.

The RN didn't need to build bigger / faster ships if the Germans weren't. Even the Bayerns were only 21 kns. So if you already have more guns and the same speed why waste resources building less guns at a faster speed.

The fault wasn't really building battlecruisers but pretending battlecruisers could fight in the gun line.

 

[Scotty]

Beside the space program I have a growing fascination for battleships and cruisers, fueled by many threads on this board.
The "ideal" battleship
- 30 knots
- 8 or 9 15-inch or 16-inch guns
- armoured against his own shells
This is (more or less) the Iowa
But
This couldn't be build with WWI naval state-of-the-art
Battleships sacrificed speed - 21 or 23 knots at best
Then Beatty decided he wanted 30 knots but broadside should be the same, hence the battlecruiser was born - armor was sacrificed, with Jutland and Hood poor results. Hood had the speed and guns of late battleships from the 30's, but, being 15 years older, it lacked armor.

I wondered about a different path

So you want a 30 knot speed - how about keeping armour but sacrificing some guns and turrets - 6 guns only ?
The issue of course is weight of the broadside,but could 6*18 inch guns fill the gap ?
Such ships could be build byGreat Britain instead of that silliness
They could be alternatives to the G3 and N3 ships.

you dont need your ideal battleship in ww1 as the battleline speed was in the whole 21 knots (with a couple of ship class exceptions)

has anyone SS'd a tiger/kongo/whatever that is say 28 knots and armoured against its own guns

in ww2 just go the fast BB route (KGV, Bis, etc) or if you're the US do as historical (NC, SD, Iowa's)

 

[RodentRevolution]

Cruisers?

What you need to think about more than battleships let alone perfect battleships is what kind of cruiser killer or killer cruiser you are going to introduce in place of armoured cruisers?

The battlecruiser essentially was the next evolutionary step of the armoured cruiser which was supposed to combine both a cruising role...that is to say commerce protection and interdiction and long range policing...with a battle scouting role and perhaps even a fast wing of the battleline role. It was readily apparent that it could not do all those jobs. Jackie Fisher hoped the solution was putting battleship sized guns on what was essentially an armoured cruiser hull would do the job.

Now the issue with a fast battleship was that it cost a lot of money and unless you have a lot of speed it cannot do the battle scouting role. Speed costs money, speed on top of big guns and serious armour costs lots and lots of money and at least some navies are going to ask would not two slower cheaper battleships be a better way to spend that money?

You also still need a cruiser.

Now while there is no need to go straight to the 'perfect' battleship...something better than anyone else has got will do to start with, you will also need to ask what do you slot into the battle/armoured-cruiser role because battleships while shiny are not the be all and end all of a navy, in fact their job might be in regarded in some ways as simply being to keep the other navies off the backs of the little ships so they can do their jobs...the jobs like transporting troops, stopping the other guy transporting troops, protecting trade, stopping the other guy's trade...that actually win wars.

 

[Saphroneth]

A powerful fast battleship is arguably impossible in the 1905-1915 period - ships weren't being built large enough, docks weren't big enough and so on.


If you're building a ship with 25 knots speed in 1908 and having it as heavily armed and armoured as one of the 13.5" gunned British DNs of the time, you're looking at a 30,000 ton ship.

Now, it should be noted that a minimum number of guns on broadside for a sensible battleship (not battlecruiser) is eight - you need this for salvo ranging. Eight 12" guns on 30 knots in 1908 is possible, technically speaking, but it'll be one of:



33,000 tonnes (which is enormous for 1908, it's enormous for 1916!)
700 feet long and 34,000 tonnes (ouch)

It'll also be undergunned compared to what could be done.


Let's try instead an 8 15" gun ship going for 30 knots, this time in 1912. This is basically a faster QE, and it can use oil firing (since the RN was adopting it at this point).


The result is, if you'll forgive the obscenity, a f*cking monster. 700 feet long, 90 wide, 36,000 tonnes - it may not actually be possible to build with the technology of the time, the QEs were a bit of a leap in the dark and were only 27,000 tonnes standard.
(The engines also weigh 6,000 tonnes, nearly three times that of the QE and five times that of a more normal battleship, but that's neither here nor there.)

 

[Riain]

The right combination of propulsion and construction technology didn't exist until after the war to build the ultimate battlecruiser. With small tube boilers of higher pressure came the ability to fit a small but powerful and fuel efficient power plant into a reasonbly sized ship. Similarly thinngs like welded construction, built up guns and other construction techniques and technologies made for more efficient construction and better use of tonnage for weapons and protection. This is why the KGV class is 5 knots faster than the Nelsons on similar displacement and more or less similar protection. But before WW1 if you wanted speed you needed machinery that took up a lot of space and tonnage, which is why BCs had bugger-all armour and one less gun turret than BBs.

 

[Saphroneth]

Something else it's worth considering - even if you have super-BBs, you will still need scouting forces for a fleet clash.


Let's imagine that the RN has built some armoured cruisers (updated versions of Minotaur with a 28 knot speed) for scouting instead of battlecruisers, and the Germans have built their historical BCs. The ACRs are cheaper, so we can assume a little more than historical british BC count (say about ten present). (Any more money goes to super-BBs.)




This Updated Minotaur has 4 9.2" guns and 5 7.5" guns per broadside, with an 8" main belt, a speed of 28 knots and 8" turret armour as well as a 2" deck. They're your scouting force.

The German scouting force consists of ships as fast or faster, but:

Vonn der Tann 8 11", 9.8" belt and 9" turret
Moltke 10 11", 11" belt and 9" turret
Seydlitz 10 11", 12" belt and 9.8" turret
Derfflinger 8 12", 11.8" belt and 11" turret
Lutzow 8 12", 11.8" belt and 11" turret
Hindenburg 8 12", 11.8" belt and 11" turret


Now, I think the result of this is that the Updated Minotaurs are going to get slaughtered. The result of that is that the British super-BBs are operating with much less intel about their enemies - that or you use them in the scouting force.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

When I saw the thread title I thought you were going to propose that instead of the Invincible class as built, they mounted eight 9.2" and armoured against ships with 9.2" guns. Or even ten 9.2" mounted on the centreline in A, B, Q, X and Y positions.

Then continue the Selbourne Programme of 3 battleships and 4 armoured cruisers per year, instead of the Cawdor programme of 4 capital ships per year.

 

[RLBH]

When I saw the thread title I thought you were going to propose that instead of the Invincible class as built, they mounted eight 9.2" and armoured against ships with 9.2" guns. Or even ten 9.2" mounted on the centreline in A, B, Q, X and Y positions.

Then continue the Selbourne Programme of 3 battleships and 4 armoured cruisers per year, instead of the Cawdor programme of 4 capital ships per year.

Such armoured cruisers are clearly outclassed by the VON DER TANN, so the 1909 Programme ships (LION) will be increased in proportion to match. Probably 12-inch guns and similar armour to LION.

Incidentally, this almost requires that Fisher is shunted off out of the way. He saw 9.2-inch cruisers as markedly inferior to 12-inch cruisers which cost only slightly more - the expense was in the hull and machinery, not the guns.

 

[Saphroneth]

I think the Battlecruiser concept was fundamentally right - not the Follies, but everything before that at least. The key is that you can't have a fast, armoured battle line until the technology has developed enough, so before then you need to compromise - and of the three choices, "heavily armoured, fast, crap guns" is the least workable choice.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Such armoured cruisers are clearly outclassed by the VON DER TANN, so the 1909 Programme ships (LION) will be increased in proportion to match. Probably 12-inch guns and similar armour to LION.

Incidentally, this almost requires that Fisher is shunted off out of the way. He saw 9.2-inch cruisers as markedly inferior to 12-inch cruisers which cost only slightly more - the expense was in the hull and machinery, not the guns.

But the Germans would not have built Von Der Tann if the British had built more armoured cruisers instead of battle cruisers. They would have built better Bluchers.

 

[RLBH]

I think the Battlecruiser concept was fundamentally right - not the Follies, but everything before that at least.

Even they weren't bad ships, just misunderstood. Though a lot was riding on Fisher's novel approach to gunnery to make the 4-gun main battery work, and he doesn't appear to have properly explained it to anybody.

Arguably, the battlecruiser supplanted the battleship, with the aircraft carrier as the ultimate implementation of the battlecruiser....

 

[Derek Pullem]

Let's try instead an 8 15" gun ship going for 30 knots, this time in 1912. This is basically a faster QE, and it can use oil firing (since the RN was adopting it at this point).


The result is, if you'll forgive the obscenity, a f*cking monster. 700 feet long, 90 wide, 36,000 tonnes - it may not actually be possible to build with the technology of the time, the QEs were a bit of a leap in the dark and were only 27,000 tonnes standard.
(The engines also weigh 6,000 tonnes, nearly three times that of the QE and five times that of a more normal battleship, but that's neither here nor there.)

I give you the RMS Titanic

Tonnage: 46,328 GRT
Displacement: 52,310 tons
Length: 882 ft 9 in (269.1 m)
Beam: 92 ft 0 in (28.0 m)
Height: 175 ft (53.3 m) (keel to top of funnels)
Draught: 34 ft 7 in (10.5 m)
Depth: 64 ft 6 in (19.7 m)

Building the hull isn't the issue - outfitting the engines is a challenge but small tube boilers were well understood and the Admiralty design of the 1920's is basically an evolutionary one.

If the Admiralty had really wanted a 30 kn monster fast battleship they could probably have built one for late war service - just that there was no need

 

[Cryhavoc101]

X4 Dreadnoughts

After the construction of Dreadnought in 1906 and the first of the Battle cruisers (Invincible class) there was a plan to build Fast Dreadnoughts - the so called X4 plan.

This envisaged building fast Battleships instead of a mix of Dreadnoughts and Battle cruisers

The down side of this was that the RN would end up with fewer ships over all but with a main battle line that was 4 -5 knots faster than anyone else's and of course there would be a capability gap if other nations built Battle Cruisers.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

(Posted too soon)

The X4 was supposed to give Britain a 25 knot Dreadnought design but at a greater cost and tonnage - £2.2 million verses 1.8 IIRC


Follow this through to its logical conclusion and by the time we reach the Queen Elizabeth class with its all Oil fired boilers then its possible that the speed will have increased to something like 27+ knots

By this point any Battle Cruiser is totally obsolete (if it was not before)

If Britain had done this then perhaps at the expense of most of the later battle Cruisers they could have had a battle line of Fast Battleships by 1914

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

I thought the X4 came about because the Treasury could not afford the Selbourne Programme for 3 BB and 4 CA annually. I.e.

1903-04 The last 3 King Edward VII class BB and 4 Warrior class CA
1904-05 Only 2 Lord Nelson class BB and 3 Minotaur class CA because the 2 Centurion class second class BB had been purchased from Chile to stop the Russians buying them in the Russo Japanese War.

As France and Russia were still considered to be the main enemies and as the Russian Navy had been thrashed by the IJN (and for financial reasons) it was thought safe to drop 2 BB and 1 CA from the 1905-06 programme. Otherwise...

1905-06 would have been 3 Dreadnought and 4 Invincible class instead of one Dreadnought and 3 Invincible class. Plus 12 Invincibles at the rate of 4 per year 1906-07 to 1908-09 and 2 extra battleships in 1908-09. But we wouldn't have had the "We want eight! We Won't Wait!" in 1909-10

 

[Redbeard]

I don’t think the fast battleship (+27 knots) became obsolescent because it was less cost-efficient than a slow battleship (typically 20-21 knots). The slow battleship was the last type of ship built for a traditional line of battle – basically HMS Victory with engines. Jutland was the last battle of the lines and showed how difficult it had become to force battle on an opposing battle line – with engines. After that slow battleships IMHO were among the most cost-inefficient warships ever in service.

The fast battleships cost much more than the slow, but at least had a much better chance of forcing action on more enemies (more enemies would be slower than a fast battleship compared to a slow battleship…).

In WWII the slow battleships played a very limited role and not in proportion to their cost (not at least manning). Fast battleships in contrast were on short demand, not just as the late war Pacific carrier escorts but much more important to balance the relatively large number of Axis fast battleships in the Atlantic and Med.

What put the fast battleship out of the market was naval aviation by late WWII doing the same job much better for a comparable cost. Naval aviation simply was superb in forcing decisive action on an enemy and in that way you can say that Fisher’s original dream for the battlecruiser met its climax in the Essex carrier!

But back to (the much more interesting) question of possible developments of the fast battleship. I have often “fantasized” about a 35.000 ton, 30+ knot ship with only 6 40-41cm main guns, but mounted in two superfiring triple turrets mounted forward. Such a ship doesn’t need to turn broadside to utilize its power but can fire all guns in the decisive initial minutes of a battle when you approach the enemy. Not at least it can concentrate its armour vs. fire coming from ahead – ie. very thick forward bulkhead but a moderate belt. Decks, turrets and barbettes same as other ships.

If built for the RN (instead of the Nelsons and KGVs) such ships would ideally operate in pairs and be able to catch and defeat any Axis ship. We could place them at the Denmark Strait vs. Bismarck or in the Med. when trying to catch the Italian battlefleet.

 

[Derek Pullem]

I don’t think the fast battleship (+27 knots) became obsolescent because it was less cost-efficient than a slow battleship (typically 20-21 knots). The slow battleship was the last type of ship built for a traditional line of battle – basically HMS Victory with engines. Jutland was the last battle of the lines and showed how difficult it had become to force battle on an opposing battle line – with engines. After that slow battleships IMHO were among the most cost-inefficient warships ever in service.

The fast battleships cost much more than the slow, but at least had a much better chance of forcing action on more enemies (more enemies would be slower than a fast battleship compared to a slow battleship…).

In WWII the slow battleships played a very limited role and not in proportion to their cost (not at least manning). Fast battleships in contrast were on short demand, not just as the late war Pacific carrier escorts but much more important to balance the relatively large number of Axis fast battleships in the Atlantic and Med.

What put the fast battleship out of the market was naval aviation by late WWII doing the same job much better for a comparable cost. Naval aviation simply was superb in forcing decisive action on an enemy and in that way you can say that Fisher’s original dream for the battlecruiser met its climax in the Essex carrier!

But back to (the much more interesting) question of possible developments of the fast battleship. I have often “fantasized” about a 35.000 ton, 30+ knot ship with only 6 40-41cm main guns, but mounted in two superfiring triple turrets mounted forward. Such a ship doesn’t need to turn broadside to utilize its power but can fire all guns in the decisive initial minutes of a battle when you approach the enemy. Not at least it can concentrate its armour vs. fire coming from ahead – ie. very thick forward bulkhead but a moderate belt. Decks, turrets and barbettes same as other ships.

If built for the RN (instead of the Nelsons and KGVs) such ships would ideally operate in pairs and be able to catch and defeat any Axis ship. We could place them at the Denmark Strait vs. Bismarck or in the Med. when trying to catch the Italian battlefleet.

Your fantasies were too tame for the Admiralty - in the run up to the G3 design they looked at the H3a design.

http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=5705

52,000 tonnes, 33kns and 2 x 3 18" / 45cm guns in forward superfiring mode.

 

[Simon]

Such ships could be build by Great Britain instead of that silliness.

Well from previous threads there was the 1904 boiler commission which could have pointed the Royal Navy towards using small-tube boilers combined with using oil instead of coal for fuel I've seen estimates that it would have boosted the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships up to 26 knots. Lengthen the hull and re-design the bow and that could potentially go up to 28 knots effectively giving you a proper fast battleship with a top speed roughly equivalent to cruisers of the time. Granted that's still 3 to 4 knots slower than the battlecruisers but I'd say that the trade-off was probably worth it. Unfortunately I don't think geared turbines could be advance much.