Redbeard
Banned
If any in early 20th century dared to follow new ideas in naval warfare it IMHO was the RN. They introduced Dreadnought at a time when they had absolute superiority in the pre-dreadnought which was made obsolete by Dreadnought. Next they were initiaters of naval airpower and leader in technology and doctrine for decades. That a person like Fisher could advance to the top of the RN is alone a very good indication that the RN was capable of deleting stereotypic thinking - even if it meant the obsolescence of most of existing ships and doctrines. Probably because naval power was so all important for the British Empire - you simply couldn't take the risk of being left behind - no matter what.
When Fisher took over first time as First Lord his basic challenge was that Britain couldn't afford to build enough pre-dreadnought to be sure to be superior in numbers anywhere anytime. This gave birth to the BC and the Dreadnought which through their superior firepower and speed (Dreadnought also was much faster at sustainable speed than traditional pre-dreadnoughts) had a chance of establishing local superior and not at least force a decisive action on the enemy.
Initially this made sense and it was possible for the pre WWI Britain to actually outbuild everybody else in the (super)dreadnought race. If WWI doesn't happen the decision makes will first of all be confronted by the exponentially rising costs of building big guns ships better than those of the enemy. In OTL Fisher ordered some studies made in how the "ultimate BC" should look; I don't have the details here, but in short the ships was so big and expensive, but still obviously vulnerable, that it in itself was prohibitive. But not at least it was obvious that the big gun ship design literally had reached the horizon. Until now you had been able to outreach your enemy by mounting ever bigger guns, but even if the proposed 20" guns could fire a shell longer than a 16" or 18" it really wouldn't hit anything at the extra range, and if the ship had the speed needed to enforce an action it couldn't have the necessary armour to protect it against much smaller guns. IOW you were back to the original dilemma of either building more of the same or think out of the box.
If WWI hadn't happened I'm sure the decision makers would have reached that conclusion very soon and that naval airpower would be a very good bid for a game changer - and much cheaper than just building more superdreadnoughts similar to those of the potential enemies.
Seen from a Fisher'ist point of view the ideal ship to ensure you could force a decisive and successful action upon the enemy by the 1910s was the BC and the Dreadnought. By the 1920s it was the aircraft carrier.
Extract from an Admiralty discussion: "We entered and won the BC/Dreadnought race, not let's enter and win the aircraft carrier race!"
When Fisher took over first time as First Lord his basic challenge was that Britain couldn't afford to build enough pre-dreadnought to be sure to be superior in numbers anywhere anytime. This gave birth to the BC and the Dreadnought which through their superior firepower and speed (Dreadnought also was much faster at sustainable speed than traditional pre-dreadnoughts) had a chance of establishing local superior and not at least force a decisive action on the enemy.
Initially this made sense and it was possible for the pre WWI Britain to actually outbuild everybody else in the (super)dreadnought race. If WWI doesn't happen the decision makes will first of all be confronted by the exponentially rising costs of building big guns ships better than those of the enemy. In OTL Fisher ordered some studies made in how the "ultimate BC" should look; I don't have the details here, but in short the ships was so big and expensive, but still obviously vulnerable, that it in itself was prohibitive. But not at least it was obvious that the big gun ship design literally had reached the horizon. Until now you had been able to outreach your enemy by mounting ever bigger guns, but even if the proposed 20" guns could fire a shell longer than a 16" or 18" it really wouldn't hit anything at the extra range, and if the ship had the speed needed to enforce an action it couldn't have the necessary armour to protect it against much smaller guns. IOW you were back to the original dilemma of either building more of the same or think out of the box.
If WWI hadn't happened I'm sure the decision makers would have reached that conclusion very soon and that naval airpower would be a very good bid for a game changer - and much cheaper than just building more superdreadnoughts similar to those of the potential enemies.
Seen from a Fisher'ist point of view the ideal ship to ensure you could force a decisive and successful action upon the enemy by the 1910s was the BC and the Dreadnought. By the 1920s it was the aircraft carrier.
Extract from an Admiralty discussion: "We entered and won the BC/Dreadnought race, not let's enter and win the aircraft carrier race!"