Royal Navy Alternate Cruiser designs post WW1

As far as auto loaders in the WW2 era for large cannon . ie 3 inch and up , what you find is very complicated autoloaders designed for aircraft applications with the gun not traversing or elevating . In a large calibre Naval gun the rate of fire is both theoretical and practical . IE the gun can return to loading position after firing in X seconds . then it takes Y seconds to set a fuse and load a shell . This creates a rate of fire the gunners try and achieve and in practice do not maintain the rate of fire for very long due to fatigue . If however you design an autoloader on the mount that sets the fuse , rams it immediately then fires and begins the cycle again .

One of the more interesting systems I remember reading about was one where the shells where placed on the loading tray and as the rammer engaged it would push to a certain position and rollers would set the fuse then the ramming would complete and shell fired . I think a similar system of loading (not the fuse setting part )was on the Soviet era 100 mm AA gun that was exported everywhere . This involved a tray that elevated with the gun upon which shells could be loaded by hand then gravity and some recoil operated system moved them sideways onto loading tray .
 
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The light fleets, with their larger elevators compared to the wartime armored deck carriers, should have been a place-holder for the RN until they could have gotten the financials together and built some CVAs in the 50s.

As for the cruisers, the wartime built hulls were just too d@mn small. They should have never been utilized, the three Swiftsures commissioned should have been the last of them. What they should have built to bridge the gap between conventional light cruisers and guided missiles was one of the Minotaur designs....

They would have provided the fleet with real AA firepower and large ships suitable for showing the flag on foreign stations and task force flagships. Let the light fleets and the CVAs focus on aviation; put the admirals on another ship so they can focus on fleet command.

But RN finances and decision making postwar is mostly a comedy of errors, poor decisions and good money thrown after bad, not something a financially strapped nation needed at the time.
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I simply think they should have cancelled everything in mid/late 1944 (after D day secure to focus on the land war....at least publicly)......really to focus on civilian ships and home economy as USN will dominate anyway and USSR doesn't have anything worth calling a fleet....

So,
CV no Centaur (not laid down), Audacious (scraped on slips), Majestic (scraped on slips) class......
BB Vanguard (scraped on slip)....
CL Minotaur (stopped after the 3 already lunched, ie no Tigers/Neptune etc)
DD C (cut to 16) Battle (cut to 16) Weapon (not started) G-class (not started!)
etc......
 
I simply think they should have cancelled everything in mid/late 1944 (after D day secure to focus on the land war....at least publicly)......really to focus on civilian ships and home economy as USN will dominate anyway and USSR doesn't have anything worth calling a fleet....

So,
CV no Centaur (not laid down), Audacious (scraped on slips), Majestic (scraped on slips) class......
BB Vanguard (scraped on slip)....
CL Minotaur (stopped after the 3 already lunched, ie no Tigers/Neptune etc)
DD C (cut to 16) Battle (cut to 16) Weapon (not started) G-class (not started!)
etc......

I would wager the RN would argue that, even with troops on the continent, there were still convoys crossing the Atlantic that needed protected, and Japan still needed defeating. And postwar, there a Commonwealth whose sea lines of communication need defending.

I'd say Vanguard was too far along, and without the Lions was the RN's only hope of a capital ship incorporating the lessons of the war. The same could be said of Audacious, though her sisters probably weren't at the 'too far along' stage yet, and could reasonably be scrapped. The Light Fleets come forward as they have elevators large enough for growing postwar aircraft, while the armored deck carriers will need expensive rebuilds to operate them.

I've commented on the cruisers, but cutting the destroyers I don't think is a bad idea. There are still enough to keep yards busy, though part of me does wonder if the RN was trying to keep skilled shipbuilders employed.

Ships were going to have to go to the Pacific and other ships needed retired upon cessation of the war in Europe. Rodney for example, was very tired, and served as a static flagship of the Home Fleet. but the last of the wartime construction were the building blocks of the future, postwar fleet. Take the Audacious, a truly modern carrier, Vanguard, with one of the best AA suites ever put on a capital ship, the Swiftsures and the Battles for escort, and there is a thoroughly modern squadron capable of dealing with most, if not all, postwar era threats.

I might have to take a look at the postwar programs and see if I can't come up with my own alternative, trying not to use hindsight....

Regards,
 
What made no sense was putting the already obsolete Corvettes into mothballs for 12 - 15 years. Cost a fortune for no purpose.
 
I might have to take a look at the postwar programs and see if I can't come up with my own alternative, trying not to use hindsight....
The British were still planning for a multi-year commitment of naval and amphibious forces to the Pacific theater for the final offensive against Japan.
I don't think its really hindsight its pride,

Even if you forget about USN then by mid/late 1944 the RN will not have to fight anybody significant...

Treaty navy's,
IJN - will be killed off by USN, RN token support is nice to have....(and support ships are more needed than more warships)
RM - destroyed
KM - destroyed (mostly apart from a few U boats)
NM - rebuilding but smashed so will be at least a decade to finish any new ships and France is in no position to do so....

Others,
Soviets - week fleet a few cruisers, DDs, subs and an R class we lent them.....
RCN - yes actually a large navy by 1944-45......
RAN - .......
.....who else actually counts......??

RN has,
4 good BBs KVG and a few rebuilds in different states
6 I class CV (some damaged) and a numbers of escort/light fleets
Plenty of CLs
Plenty of new DDs
Plenty of SSs

Nobody apart from USN can fight them......its just Pride and not being willing to accept 2nd place
 
What made no sense was putting the already obsolete Corvettes into mothballs for 12 - 15 years. Cost a fortune for no purpose.
How much was actually spend on them? storing ships should be cheap if you don't care about preservation much?
 
Remember in WWI they gave up wartime construction around 1916 after deciding that nothing would be finished in time. How did that work out for them? ;)
 
Remember in WWI they gave up wartime construction around 1916 after deciding that nothing would be finished in time. How did that work out for them? ;)
With hindsight would RN not have been better of with stopping even earlier.....ie even just after QEs or Rs?

It saves money to win WWI (ASW escorts & tanks/army guns) and come 1919 RN would have been allowed at least 4 new BC/FBBs, ie min J3 max G3......

Instead they got R&R, LLCx3 and Hood and a three slow CVs (what's the problem of just limiting to Argus?) and a bunch of semi questionable cruisers E&H......

If RN has not built anything post QE/R they simply refuse the building holiday at WNT or ask USN to scrap Colorados and IJN N&M......
 
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It saves money to win WWI and come 1919 RN would have been allowed at least 4 new BC/FBBs, ie min J3 max G3......
Not in 1919 they wouldn't, and the RN was fighting a war so had assume there would be losses. R & R made fine replacements for Invincible and Indefatigable while Hood replaced Queen Mary. They could have used Hood's cancelled sister ships as well. Lion, Princess Royal and Tiger were clapped out.
 
Gutting your military-industrial complex in an uncertain strategic environment is not a good idea.

The Washington treaties were about defusing China and getting the US reengaged with the world. Everyone signed up for a global security pact underpinned by the US dollar. There was something minor about ships but the architect of the system said that it was unraveling by 1925 with California’s laws against Japanese.

By 1945, GB was looking forward to being the worlds 3rd super power...
 
I simply think they should have cancelled everything in mid/late 1944 (after D day secure to focus on the land war....at least publicly)......really to focus on civilian ships and home economy as USN will dominate anyway and USSR doesn't have anything worth calling a fleet....

So,
CV no Centaur (not laid down), Audacious (scraped on slips), Majestic (scraped on slips) class......
BB Vanguard (scraped on slip)....
CL Minotaur (stopped after the 3 already lunched, ie no Tigers/Neptune etc)
DD C (cut to 16) Battle (cut to 16) Weapon (not started) G-class (not started!)
etc......

Go full Thatcher mode?

With hindsight I agree - not sure if their lordships would then however
 
And they really should have by 1925 as aircraft performance was rapidly improving
On the other hand in 1925 the RAFs brand new bombers were the Vickers Virginia and Hawker Horsley. 175kph for the first and 200kph for the latter, compared with over 200kph for the WW1 DH.10. He111, SM79 etc are over 400kph.
Honestly, for anything built in 1925 to be useful against 1939 aircraft is a minor miracle, especially when you factor in that for building in 1925 you are probably looking at 1923 or so as the design date.
 
In peacetime aircraft designs had a service life of about 5 years. In WW1 it was about a year. You could also miss badly with timing. The BE2 was a 1914 fighter so stable it could land itself without the assistance of the crew who were already dead. They built 5000.
 
An interesting idea would be to stick to the 7.5 inch gun. With only 10,000 tons to work with under the treaty it was impossible to properly armor a heavy cruiser. By sticking with a 7.5 inch gun weight is saved which could be put towards better armor.
The end result being the 7.5 inch gunned cruiser would be able to damage the 8 inch gunned cruiser before it could be damaged.
 
Plenty of ship not under armour, even if you go 7.5". It is well worth remembering that most of the Treaty cruiser armour was a waste of time and never got tested against cruiser weapons.
 
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