Optimize the RN for WWII

[NOMISYRRUC]

Link to Post 179.

This is the Costs of Warships in 1938 from the above in a comprehensible format:

(a) Maintenance covers the pay, victualling and miscellaneous expenses of the personnel, naval stores, fuel and armament stores consumed, and the cost of annual docking and repair.
(b) The figure for aircraft covers cost of replacing equipment (assumed life-5 years) plus annual cost of maintenance of personnel and material chargeable to Vote 4. It has been assumed that Capital Ships would carry 3 aircraft and Cruisers 2 aircraft. [The annual cost of one aircraft is £11,500.]
(c) This figure represents the capital cost of building the ship divided by its ‘life’. The lives assumed are:-

Capital Ships 26 years​

Carriers 20 years​

Cruisers 23½ years​

Destroyers 22 years​

Submarines 14 years​

(d) Large repairs take place about the ninth year of the ship’s life. In the case of a Capital Ship, a second large repair takes place about the eighteenth year. The figure taken for this column represents the aggregate cost of large repair(s) divided by the vessel’s life as scheduled under (c). The actual cost of large repair is, for the most part, conjectural as little or no experience has been gained of these vessels.
(e) Submarines are not subjected to ‘Large Repairs’. The average annual cost of all repairs and of periodic renewal of batteries is reflected in column (a).

GENERAL The ‘Maintenance Costs’ make no allowance for the non-effective liability of the personnel borne, which does not mature until years later. But if, as should be the case, it may be assumed that the reduction of any particular vessel enables a consequent reduction to be made in Vote A, there would be an eventual saving to the non-effective votes.

EDIT

I've calculated the total replacement cost by multiplying the ships "life" by the annual replacement cost as follows:

Based on that:

• An aircraft carrier (36 aircraft) costs 25% more to build than an aircraft carrier (15 aircraft) but it can carry 140% more aircraft.
  • The building cost of an Aircraft Carrier (36 aircraft) is £112,500 per aircraft.
  • The building cost of an Aircraft Carrier (15 aircraft) is £216.667 per aircraft.
• The cruiser "life" of 23½ years fits the requirements for 70 cruisers (of which 10 could be over-age) in the One-Power Standard Fleet and 100 cruisers (of which 15 could be over age) in the Two-Power Standard Fleet. Under the 1LNT a cruiser became over-age 20 years after its date of completion.
  • 70 divided by 23½ equals a building rate of 3 ships a year with 60 under-age and 10 over-age ships.
  • 100 divided by 23½ equals a building rate of 4¼ ships a year with 85 under-age and 15 over-age ships. IIRC the Admiralty wanted a building rate of 4 ships a year plus a 5th ship every leap year which is an average of 4¼ ships a year.
• The destroyer "life"of 22 years fits the requirement for 22 destroyer flotillas (of which 6 could be over-age) in the Two Power Standard Fleet. Under the 1LNT a destroyer became over-age 16 years after its date of completion.
  • 22 divided by 22 years equals a building rate of one flotilla a year with 16 under age and 6 over-age flotillas.
  • The total building cost of one J Class destroyer was £499,950.
• The destroyer "life"of 14 years fits the requirement for 82 submarines under the Two Power Standard Fleet (of which 7 could be over-age). Under the 1LNT a submarine became overage 13 years after its date of completion.
  • 82 by 14 years produces an annual building rate of 6 boats a year with 78 under-age and 4 over-age boats.

 

[Dorknought]

Fully develop the CVE design pre-war. It could be done and conversions could be pre-selected.

Sure the maintenance in terms of air crew and the ships crew themselves is expensive but in war the expense is justified.

Build a convoy strategy around the CVE and escorts rather than using fleet carriers on search and destroy missions as noted earlier.

Perhaps subsidize the Imperial Airways flyingboats with 'support ships' that can move from port to port depending on demand and can catapult large aircraft. Diesel powered, no armour and no armament, not an auxiliary, not even a warship ; )

 

[Dorknought]

Costs for a KGV (1938)
The origin of the King George V class began in 1935 when the DNC and his staff were working on a series of designs for battleships and battlecruisers mounting 14in guns in quadruple turrets. These designs ranged from small battleships of 22,000 to 24,000 tons displacement and battleships and battlecruisers up to the maximum size permitted of 35,000 tons. Design 14P, subsequently to become the King George V class, was considered to be closest to requirements and by July 1936 a cost had been worked out as follows:
Machinery £825,000
Hull £2,050,000
Armour £1,425,000
Gun mountings £1,500,000
Air conditioning £14,000
Guns£ 580,000
Ammunition £805,000
Aircraft equipment £66,500
Power boats £20,000
Dockyard labour & materials £156,000
Incidental charges £27,000
TOTAL £7,468,500

Source: Buxton, Ian; Johnston, Ian. The Battleship Builders Constructing and Arming British Capital Ships (Kindle Locations 1151-1163). Seaforth Publishing. Kindle Edition.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Could any of this money go towards Canada or Australia ? Maybe get them a few ships for Canada that could be used towards the war in the Atlantic and for Australia to maybe protect the Pacific etc better. I'm thinking a modern heavy cruiser each and a couple light cruisers and destroyers ?

Maybe, but I suspect that the Australian and Canadian government's would cut their naval spending accordingly in the period between the POD and the middle 1930s.

IOTL the Australians bought 2 County class cruisers. The seaplane carrier Albatross was swapped for the 3 Amphion class cruisers. The RAN transferred their O class submarines to the RN and the RN transferred 5 old destroyers to the RAN but that wasn't a swap.

IOTL the Canadians bought 2 A-I type destroyers and the RN transferred another 5 to the RCN. There was also a plan to swap British built Tribal class destroyers for Canadian built Flower class corvettes but it didn't come to fruition because they couldn't negotiate an exchange rate. Canada did order 4 Tribals from British yards though.

Would be great if you could keep all this and get them each one more cruiser but don't know how that could be done.

The flippant answer is the governments of the Dominions follow suit with the Mother Country and increase spending on their navies by 10-15%. We've not been given a plausible POD for HMG to spend more on the RN ITTL it's effectively "reasons" so Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa to spend more on the RAN, RCN, NZ Division and SANF respectively. @Spencersj345.346 is that fine by you?

• The RAN also had the WWI Town class cruiser Adelaide which was completed in 1922 and under the terms of the 1LNT became overage in 1938. If more Leander & Amphion type cruisers were built for the RN ITTL one of them could be transferred to the RAN. Then the RAN would have had 6 modern cruisers instead of 5 plus one cruiser that was obsolete in design if not in years. It would also have been better if a full-strength flotilla of 9 A-I class destroyers had been transferred to the RAN instead of a half-flotilla of 5 old destroyers (Stuart & 4 V&W class). There's probably enough extra money to do both, but if it's one-or-the-other I think it should be the destroyers.
• The RCN would be better off with a full-strength flotilla of A-I type destroyers. That is 9 ships instead of 7. Bearing in mind how small the RCN was between the wars that's probably the best that can be done with a 10-15% increase in funding
• IOTL the NZ Division was probably as good as it could have been in peacetime given New Zealand's small population with 2 Leander class light cruisers.
• The SANF was so small that a 10-15% increase of virtually nothing is still virtually nothing.

 

[Riain]

Something I'd like is a couple of hundred extra tons in the T class subs to give them a few extra knots on the surface, that would be handy in the Pacific.

 

[sonofpegasus]

Does anyone have easy access to the RN interwar budget for Armed Merchant Cruisers? Keeping these relatively modern/fast ships available for fast convoys and trooping whilst using the budget for designing and subsidising the construction of CVE's would I think be advantageous.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Link to Post 54 in which development of Naval Radar begins in 1931-32 instead of 1935-36.

@steamboy has suggested a plausible way to bring tachymetric directors into service with the RN sooner.

Is there a plausible way to bring proximity fuses into service sooner? Preferably so that the RN and Army have large quantities of them at the end of March 1940.

 

[Driftless]

Now we need to bring the Beaufighter forward a year or find an equally effective substitute which can be in large scale service by June 1940.

A bit of a tangent, but how about using the Martin Maryland in the nightfighter role till the Beau's are fully ready? You'd need for the British to usurp the original French order for the Martin 167 (Maryland in British service). OTL, it only came into French service at the beginning of 1940, but that's a few months ahead of the Beau. It was a reasonably fast light bomber for the era, and should have the available space for AI radars. It would be a stop-gap, but one available before the Blitz.

 

[steamboy]

@steamboy has suggested a plausible way to bring tachymetric directors into service with the RN sooner.

Is there a plausible way to bring proximity fuses into service sooner? Preferably so that the RN and Army have large quantities of them at the end of March 1940.

Probably not, the Proximity fuse project was a hugely expensive and very involved thing, perhaps you could speed the development of radar as it was first looked at in 1931 but the guys working on it were told to basically stop wasting theirs and everyone elses time and do something else and so it wasn't until 37 that it was picked up again.

 

[steamboy]

A bit of a tangent, but how about using the Martin Maryland in the nightfighter role till the Beau's are fully ready? You'd need for the British to usurp the original French order for the Martin 167 (Maryland in British service). OTL, it only came into French service at the beginning of 1940, but that's a few months ahead of the Beau. It was a reasonably fast light bomber for the era, and should have the available space for AI radars. It would be a stop-gap, but one available before the Blitz.

Good idea, its considerably faster than the Blenheim too.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

A bit of a tangent, but how about using the Martin Maryland in the nightfighter role till the Beau's are fully ready? You'd need for the British to usurp the original French order for the Martin 167 (Maryland in British service). OTL, it only came into French service at the beginning of 1940, but that's a few months ahead of the Beau. It was a reasonably fast light bomber for the era, and should have the available space for AI radars. It would be a stop-gap, but one available before the Blitz.

It might be possible to put the Douglas Havoc the RAF's night fighter version of the Boston into service sooner too.

 

[ArtosStark]

Hmmm. On another note I wonder if keeping any yards that closed open will be possible with the increased funds

Possibly. Palmers at Jarrow is probably going to go down eventually. It’s infrastructure needed work soon, it’s management was mediocre, it’s location wasn’t ideal anymore and it’s building times and costs were consistently a little higher than it’s competition for the last years of its life. But since it basically is the town of Jarrow it would be a politically attractive place to support and with support could maybe stagger on long enough to be useful in wartime.

On the other hand, you have Beardmore. Very large, very modern yard in prime location (right beside John Brown) in a group with armour and gun manufacturers (though they only did small calibres since they were part owned by Vickers). They also played with modular construction on aircraft carriers during WW1 (islands build separately and installed as an assembly) so there is at least some history of innovation there. The problem was at the company level. William Beardmore set out to duplicate Vickers success but he did it later (when the market was already starting to get crowded) on a green site (which was great for building but meant the yard had no established commercial customers) and borrowed heavily to do it (making them less resilient when the post we downturn and depression came along). In some ways a less attractive target for government money but probably a more useful option to save.

Other than that most military builders were still around. Scott’s had been downgraded to building Cruisers or smaller. Armstrong and Vickers had merged, and specialized their yards. And the Royal Dockyards had stopped expansion to meet new ship dimensions, meaning their construction capacity was now also limited to cruisers.

Wasn't there a fair level of union resistance back then to the idea that welders would replace riveters? Both from a skills learned and lost, and work time for a task?

To get an earlier jumpstart on welding as a mainstay, wouldn't you need some kind of incentive for the union to jump on board?

Not so much resistance to welding, but resistance to welding as a new trade. The boilermakers unions were very well paid and did not want welding, which was a lower skilled job, to be unregulated. And they were unwilling to allow for lower wages if it was regulated. There was some effort by the shipyards to negotiate as a group but IIRC one of them ended up caving and the rest were beaten down by the union one at a time. Had they negotiated together it is possible that welding rates would have been established more reasonably and most shipyards probably would have invested in welding. As it was, it was only really more profitable for military orders.

 

[Spencersj345.346]

hmmm if nothing else probably could get the royal dockyards to keep tinkering with welding

 

[ArtosStark]

hmmm if nothing else probably could get the royal dockyards to keep tinkering with welding

That’s easier. The Dockyards had the shipwrights union as dominant, not the boilermakers as was the case in the North. Part of the problem is that the Dockyards were never huge builders. They would generally have one capital ship at a time and sometimes some smaller ships. Their building facilities were the size of a small private yard, just with BB side docks as well. The bulk of their space was devoted to repair facilities.

 

[CaptainCalvert]

Fully develop the CVE design pre-war. It could be done and conversions could be pre-selected.

Sure the maintenance in terms of air crew and the ships crew themselves is expensive but in war the expense is justified.

Build a convoy strategy around the CVE and escorts rather than using fleet carriers on search and destroy missions as noted earlier.

Given the importance of convoys on sea trade in WW1, this would make a lot of sense.
Even without our hindsight, developments that allow fleet carriers to focus on their main job and that help sustain trade links would surely look like a good idea.

 

[sparky42]

The would have been very useful for convoy protection purposes, even if facilities had to be built up in the lead up to or even after the start of the war.

That requires something beyond the Royal Navy though, even if you change the Admiralty’s resistance to investing in the Ports, you still need to change the Anglo-Irish relation to reduce the hostile nature, otherwise the RN/RAF is not getting the land banks they need for any of those upgrades (remember the garrisons are only in the Pre WW1 fortifications which are tiny), nor would you have a local labour force willing (or trusted) to support those upgrades.

 

[Jellico]

Something I'd like is a couple of hundred extra tons in the T class subs to give them a few extra knots on the surface, that would be handy in the Pacific.

The RAN is after trade lane protection. So the little cruiser force is handy and slips right into RN requirements.

I have often considered a submarine heavy RAN (Sloops and Subs as I like to think of it). It is basically a targeted "fuck you" to Japan. Pretty much the same as a pre-war U-boat program is to the UK. On one hand it would be fascinating to watch the swarm. Classic smaller power trade denial. On the other. What the heck do you do with a fleet of Pacific boats if you aren't targeting Japan? Look what the RAN got up to pre-1942. All those T-class equivalents are as useful as tits on a bull.
if it was going to happen it would require some kind of agreement with the UK, or a total mistrust in the value of Singapore.

 

[CaptainCalvert]

That requires something beyond the Royal Navy though, even if you change the Admiralty’s resistance to investing in the Ports, you still need to change the Anglo-Irish relation to reduce the hostile nature, otherwise the RN/RAF is not getting the land banks they need for any of those upgrades (remember the garrisons are only in the Pre WW1 fortifications which are tiny), nor would you have a local labour force willing (or trusted) to support those upgrades.

I don't think the trusted status would be a big deal as there were people from the Republic fighting in the British army OTL, and ITTL retaining access to bases would suggest a slightly better relationship than OTL.

 

[marathag]

US theory for 14,000 ton Flight Deck Cruiser
slight angled deck

use as a supersize Destroyer Leader with 24 aircraft for escorting convoys

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

These hybrids were a terrible idea and the proposals were quite rightly consigned to the nearest bin. (With the exception of the Soviet Kiev class of the 1970's, also a terrible idea)