Pre-Dreadnoughts vs Dreadnoughts

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 When new ships that or two size smaller have a fighting chance, the ship is obsolete.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.
 
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.


By the time the Germans went 150mm for their light cruisers, the RN had incresead elevation for the 12''Guns giving 20K yards. And the Nelson could shrug off 150mm shells, while a single 12'' hit would criple a light cruiser or sink it. No cruiser captain would risk it. If he had to, he would try a high speed aproach followed by torpedo attack and then get the hell out of range...

Allied PreDread had two roles, convoy escort and fire support. I agree that the main role of German Predreads would be as targets...
 

BlondieBC

Banned
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.


By the time the Germans went 150mm for their light cruisers, the RN had incresead elevation for the 12''Guns giving 20K yards. And the Nelson could shrug off 150mm shells, while a single 12'' hit would criple a light cruiser or sink it. No cruiser captain would risk it. If he had to, he would try a high speed aproach followed by torpedo attack and then get the hell out of range...

Allied PreDread had two roles, convoy escort and fire support. I agree that the main role of German Predreads would be as targets...

The plunging fire for 15cm would penetrate the Nelson armor. And a new 8 15cm light cruiser will have a much higher rate of fire than the Nelson, which has plunging protection issues. And even with you modified Nelson, it is not a given that the Nelson wins at range. The light cruiser is firing 72 rounds per minute, the Nelson is firing 6.

Which year do you have the Nelson being refitted to increase the range? Yes, a modified pre-dread can have its life extended, but the original Nelson was a ship struggling to find a role.

And yes, pre-dreads could do fire support and convoy escort adequately, but a monitor or light cruiser does the role better and cheaper. An monitor can operate in shallower water and often had bigger guns for fire support. A light cruiser is more than enough to stop AMC and use a lot fewer man. IMO, the UK would have been better off scrapping the pre-dreads at a much faster rate pre-WW1 and investing in other naval priorities. The same for the Germans.
 
The plunging fire for 15cm would penetrate the Nelson armor. And a new 8 15cm light cruiser will have a much higher rate of fire than the Nelson, which has plunging protection issues. And even with you modified Nelson, it is not a given that the Nelson wins at range. The light cruiser is firing 72 rounds per minute, the Nelson is firing 6.

Which year do you have the Nelson being refitted to increase the range? Yes, a modified pre-dread can have its life extended, but the original Nelson was a ship struggling to find a role.

And yes, pre-dreads could do fire support and convoy escort adequately, but a monitor or light cruiser does the role better and cheaper. An monitor can operate in shallower water and often had bigger guns for fire support. A light cruiser is more than enough to stop AMC and use a lot fewer man. IMO, the UK would have been better off scrapping the pre-dreads at a much faster rate
pre-WW1 and investing in other naval priorities. The same for the Germans.

the Nelsons were arguably the best protected of their kind. Even if a 150mm shell penetrates it's deck, it is not likely to cause much damage. And with a WW1 light cruiser, you're talking about at most six guns. Hitting a moving target at 20k yards from a cruiser is not likely. The 12'' guns would be firing at much flatter trajectories, at a target so unprotected even a near miss would cause damage. And the cruiser would have to be manoeuvring away from the Battleship to keep range wide, so it would often have trouble bringing guns to bear on the target. Listen, there is a prescribed method for killing a bear with a .22LR rifle. You blind it with eye shoots and keep firing until it dies from multiple superficial trauma, or lead poisoning. Know anyone who cares to try that in practice? (in the wild)
Remember big ships fire more accurately than small ones, and that all it takes is one hit.
 
Escort duties

Monitors escorting convoys in the Atlantic? They don't have the seakeeping for it.
A predreadnough gives you a choice of calibers, protection agains Coastal artillery, and was already there and paid for. They had only submarines to fear. In fact, the Dantons, with their high angle 240mm might have been the best fire support ships of their era. And with their long rang secondaries, they were great cruiser killers.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Monitors escorting convoys in the Atlantic? They don't have the seakeeping for it.
A predreadnough gives you a choice of calibers, protection agains Coastal artillery, and was already there and paid for. They had only submarines to fear. In fact, the Dantons, with their high angle 240mm might have been the best fire support ships of their era. And with their long rang secondaries, they were great cruiser killers.

Monitors for fire support, cruiser for escorts.

Dantons are not British Ships.

IMO, the UK would have been better off scrapping the pre-dreads at a much faster rate pre-WW1 and investing in other naval priorities. The same for the Germans.

I did not address France in my post.
 
Thanks...

...Monitors are intended purely for coastal bombardment, sometimes under counter-battery fire. A cheapo and more spread-out shallow-draught alternative to battleships. In essence, you need to kill only one battleship to knock out 8 heavy guns, so you need to kill four monitors for equivalent effect.

If you read my HMS Heligoland TL, Blondie, you'll have seen that I thought of gas attacks. However, attacking the Island requires (Great War) either monitors or shore-based heavy guns of greater dispersion. Long-duration sieges were allowed for and resupply arranged. As it came over as too gung-ho, I'm wondering how far I can downgrade the guns on the Island without losing the edge.

I apologise for discussing this matter in this TL; I had wondered if Admiral Graf Spee could have nailed HMS Canopus then destroyed Sturdee's squadron, or whether destruction of his force was a foregone conclusion. Dreads and predreads seemed a way to consider this. Is the Falklands relevant as a test battle?
 
I apologise for discussing this matter in this TL; I had wondered if Admiral Graf Spee could have nailed HMS Canopus then destroyed Sturdee's squadron, or whether destruction of his force was a foregone conclusion. Dreads and predreads seemed a way to consider this. Is the Falklands relevant as a test battle?

If von Spee had managed to hit Sturdee while he was coaling in Port Stanley, I think he could have taken out the British squadron (British battlecruisers, unable to maneuver and being hit by torpedoes and the gunnery of that squadron at point blank range...not pretty for Sturdee).

However taking out Canopus at that point would be really, really hard. It can't sink, it's grounded, and its backdrop would make it very hard to straddle it and get range figures (no waterspouts). Perhaps they can take out its turrets, but that would require phenomenal shooting even by von Spee's standards, and how close would Scharnhorst and Gneisenau have to be for the 8.2s to penetrate the armor? I don't know, but close enough that its 12in guns will hurt a lot.

I think it might be easier to have the Canopus break down before it can be turned into a coastal battery and have the visibility that day be its usual South Atlantic horrible. In those conditions, von Spee has a better chance of both approaching the harbor undetected and getting in. If he can turn it into a knife fight, he has a chance. In the open ocean, he's dead. In the long term he's dead; there's no way he can break into the North Sea (even though that would be awesome), but I think it's possible that he takes 2 battlecruisers before he goes.
 
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