BlondieBC
Banned
On the dreadnoughts v. Predreadnoughts, it wasn't just the gun arrangement. There were big improvements in rate of fire of guns, size of guns, strength of armor, AP shells, fire control, engines, etc. To a large extent, the RN had a huge lead in the last half of the 1800's, and under invested in its Navy. Over these 50 years, huge improvements were made metallurgy, ship yards, chemicals, etc. Once the large building programs begin in the naval race, there were rapid, across the board improvements.
I have looked a lot at the German Navy for my ATL, and the pre-dreads are not very useful. They had such a low value in the war as used, the German probably would have been better scrapping them and using the saved funds on newer ships. At the start of the war, at least half the German pre-dreads were in naval reserve, and most of these reserve ships were scrapped before the end of the war. IMO, it was the political issues of admitting that these ships were largely wasted funds that kept them in service. You will also see the UK converted a lot of these ships into other purposes, and they probably were also a waste of resources.
Even by 1912, all but the most modern pre-dreads were an obsolete ships kept alive for political reasons, looking for a mission. Most of them need major refits to be effect in the possible niche missions. The guns need higher elevations, they need new engines, and they needed new fire control. Or they need to be completely convert to something like a seaplane carrier or troop transport. These conversions would likely be 20-40% of the cost of building a new pre-dread.
For example, look at the gun ranges. Nelson 16K yards. The German 15 cm could do 20K yards with high elevation mount. A new light cruiser under a skilled captain in open waters has a reasonable chance of crippling a Nelson. When new ships that or two size smaller have a fighting chance, the ship is obsolete.
Again I have looked at the ships from the German perspective, but probably the best use of the early German predreads after scrapping is as merchant raiders, and they really need a major rebuilt to even do that. If you started them out in German colonial ports, 6-10 predread would have given the RN fits for a few months as they were hunted down. The question would be about is the 10K-15K lost German sailors for merchant shipping really a good use of resources? No, not really, but this shows how obsolete the ships were.
I have looked a lot at the German Navy for my ATL, and the pre-dreads are not very useful. They had such a low value in the war as used, the German probably would have been better scrapping them and using the saved funds on newer ships. At the start of the war, at least half the German pre-dreads were in naval reserve, and most of these reserve ships were scrapped before the end of the war. IMO, it was the political issues of admitting that these ships were largely wasted funds that kept them in service. You will also see the UK converted a lot of these ships into other purposes, and they probably were also a waste of resources.
Even by 1912, all but the most modern pre-dreads were an obsolete ships kept alive for political reasons, looking for a mission. Most of them need major refits to be effect in the possible niche missions. The guns need higher elevations, they need new engines, and they needed new fire control. Or they need to be completely convert to something like a seaplane carrier or troop transport. These conversions would likely be 20-40% of the cost of building a new pre-dread.
For example, look at the gun ranges. Nelson 16K yards. The German 15 cm could do 20K yards with high elevation mount. A new light cruiser under a skilled captain in open waters has a reasonable chance of crippling a Nelson. When new ships that or two size smaller have a fighting chance, the ship is obsolete.
Again I have looked at the ships from the German perspective, but probably the best use of the early German predreads after scrapping is as merchant raiders, and they really need a major rebuilt to even do that. If you started them out in German colonial ports, 6-10 predread would have given the RN fits for a few months as they were hunted down. The question would be about is the 10K-15K lost German sailors for merchant shipping really a good use of resources? No, not really, but this shows how obsolete the ships were.