Smaller but more Modern Royal Navy WW2

What if in 1935 the Admiralty looked at the world suitation .

The rise of Nazi Germany,Facist Italy and The Expanding Empire of Japan
who were all in the process of building large,fast well armed battleships.

The Admiralty looked at the Captial Ships in service wimodh the Royal Navy and decided that they were not fit for modern warfare and decided on the fiollowing.

scrap the Iron Duke Class,Royal Soveriegn Class (keep the 15" guns)

modernise the Queen Elizabeth class,the Hood,Renown and Repulse and upgrade the Nelson and Rodney.

Build the KGV class with 9 x 15" guns in triple turrets instead of 14" guns in quad turrets . This would be quicker than designing new guns and turrets.

Start of WW2

5 x Queen Elizabeth Battleships (moderized)
2 Rodney Class Battleships (upgraded)
3 Battlecruisers (modernised and up-armoured)

5 x KGV battleships under construction and near to completion.

What affect would this cause

ie engagement with the Bismarc etc

all thoughts wellcome
 
Not much. Air power still sinks the Bismarck, Japan still runs roughshod over the British Asiatic Fleet and the Royal Navy still enjoys complete superiority in the North and Mediterranian Seas.
 
Not much. Air power still sinks the Bismarck, Japan still runs roughshod over the British Asiatic Fleet and the Royal Navy still enjoys complete superiority in the North and Mediterranian Seas.

X2, pouring money into battleships rathar than carriers is going to make them look pretty foolish later on.
 
1935 is very late to do anything you are suggesting. The changes have to be done earlier. The Iron Duke is basically just held onto as a depot/administration ship at Scapa Flow. Its of no fighting value.

Scrapping the Royal Sovereigns is a good idea, that would open up funds to modernize the Barham and Malaya of the Queen Elizabeth class which weren't as updated as their sister ships.

The KGV and the Prince of Wales should just be completed with the quadruple 14in turrets.

It is the Duke of York, Anson and Howe that should be completed with 9-16in guns.

The Nelsons can only be modernized to a certain degree, but any work will increase their value.
 

perfectgeneral

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If Battleships were to greatly influence the course of the war, this would be a good way to go. Hindsight tells us that extra money on battleships is wasteful, but in 1935 only those with great foresight (plug) could know that aircraft carriers would be the capital ships to build. What they should have realised is that Germany would attack the merchant fleet with U-boats. Many more modern destroyers would have been a better use of the shipbuilding industry (rather than the KGV class). The Tribal class could have been 50 instead of 27 of class at £520,000 per ship.
 
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Hyperion

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As a number of Britains first carriers, particularly the Courageous and Glorious, where ships that where rebuilds of different types of ships, might a reduction in the number of British battleships/battlecruisers allow one or two additional aircraft carriers to be built?

Maybe Ark Royal has a twin?

Or maybe one or two of the decommissioned battleships are allowed to remain in service and they rebuild it as a carrier, and set up an airgroup of 20-30 planes aboard?
 

CalBear

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As a number of Britains first carriers, particularly the Courageous and Glorious, where ships that where rebuilds of different types of ships, might a reduction in the number of British battleships/battlecruisers allow one or two additional aircraft carriers to be built?

Maybe Ark Royal has a twin?

Or maybe one or two of the decommissioned battleships are allowed to remain in service and they rebuild it as a carrier, and set up an airgroup of 20-30 planes aboard?

You can't really do any of this until the London Treaty expires. You now need to find the money, which was VERY tight at the time.

The old BB would be very marginal as carriers due to speed. Now if you had a half dozen 30 knot BC hulls just lying around...
 

perfectgeneral

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Cruisers were limited to fifty by the treaty. So you are unlikely to have many to spare. Always a good idea to increase the size of a few dry docks though. I like the logical argument of Panamax dry docks. Cheaper to do than build a destroyer.
 
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As a number of Britains first carriers, particularly the Courageous and Glorious, where ships that where rebuilds of different types of ships, might a reduction in the number of British battleships/battlecruisers allow one or two additional aircraft carriers to be built?

Maybe Ark Royal has a twin?

Or maybe one or two of the decommissioned battleships are allowed to remain in service and they rebuild it as a carrier, and set up an airgroup of 20-30 planes aboard?

Frankly, what the British really needed was fewer carriers like the Courageous, Glorious, Furious, Eagle and Hermes. Because of financial limitations they were stuck with older carriers that hampered their continued development of naval aviation. Aircraft are getting larger and heavier and the older converted hulls can only handle fewer and fewer aircraft.

The Ark Royal, IIRC, was a product of treaty negotation and was probably the best design available with compromises. Possibly without the Eagle Hermes and the Royal Sovereign class the Royal Navy will be able to free up tonnage and money to build more capable carriers.
 
Not to mention the German and Italian Navies pretty much suffered from the same problem. For that matter the US's fleet wasn't "up to date" by any means.

The only powers that could seriously challenge the Royal Navy were the US, which was friendly, and Japan, who the British just plain didn't take seriously.

It's not like the Royal Navy performed poorly during the war anyways. Sure Japan had thrashed them pretty bad in the Pacific, but that was more because Britain was busier closer to home than because of naval inferiority.
 
Naval Aircraft in 1935 were slow, bi planes and could not carry any significant bomb load and were not deemed a serious threat to the battlefleet only with the advent of better aircraft would this change and very few admirals in any navy could foresee this.

So in 1935 the battleship was still the master of the seas. and that is the premise the thread is based on.

Does anyone have any info when the first torpedo bombers were tested successfully on a ship target.?
 
Does anyone have any info when the first torpedo bombers were tested successfully on a ship target.?

I'm going to hazard a guess that the first successful carrier base torpedo bomber attack/text was carried out in the early 1920s. The Royal Navy was preparing for an aerial strike against Wilhelmshaven during the closing days of the Great War.
 
While its percieved wisdom that carriers should have been built pre-war instead of battleships, I'm not so sure.

Especially in the northern european waters that were the area of prime interest to the RN. This area has long spells of weather that make carrier operations (and deck parks!) not a good idea (especialy with 1940-era carriers). The seas and weather in that area opten make ops with modern 100,000 ton US supercarriers iffy.

And its not as if the RN was ignoring the carrier - they had more carriers on order than battleships, despite the desperate need for modern battleships.

What they could have done was to simplify matters. Build the KGV's as the Lions, with 3 triple turrets - either 15" or 16". That saves 6 months by only having to design one type of turret. They could also have saved a little time by pre-ordering more equipment than they did.
Second, build a modern design using the turrets from the R-class (they also had 4 in storage). The 15" gun, while old, was still one of the best heavy guns in the world.
Or perhaps even build them as a modern Repulse - 6x15" would have been adequate against anything except bismark or some of the Japanese ships (and you can gang up on them...), and allow a smaller, faster ship that would still have good armour - a pocket battleship/raider killer. Or build them full size a la Vanguard

The 2 problems to solve are the money and the building slips - even in the UK, there wernt that many slips that could take battleship-sized craft.
 
I'm going to hazard a guess that the first successful carrier base torpedo bomber attack/text was carried out in the early 1920s. The Royal Navy was preparing for an aerial strike against Wilhelmshaven during the closing days of the Great War.

Historically RN made a daring motor torpedo boat raid on Kronstadt in June 1919, sinking cruiser Oleg. Now, what if the raid was made by carrier aircraft instead? This would make a powerful precedent.
 
Historically RN made a daring motor torpedo boat raid on Kronstadt in June 1919, sinking cruiser Oleg. Now, what if the raid was made by carrier aircraft instead? This would make a powerful precedent.


Jukra,

You're forgetting that it would have to be a successful raid to set a precedent.

The RNAS tried bombing zeppelin sheds with seaplanes as early as 1914 in what was optimistically called the "Cuxhaven Raid". The only precedent set by that raid was that airplanes weren't good bombers and aircrews didn't know how to navigate.

End up with a laughing stock like Cuxhaven, a non-result like other raids, or a disaster in which the carriers were lost and you might actually set a precedent opposite of the one you're looking for.


Bill
 
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Replacing ships and the treaty

Some of the Royal Navy's carriers could be replaced at any time, since under the treaty, they counted as "experimental" because they were built before a certain cutoff date in the treaty.

As for the King George V's with 15" guns, you need to change the treaty structure for that to happen--or delay the completion significantly, which the British can't afford to do.

The treaty doesn't allow swapping battleships for carriers,or vice-versa--once again, change the treaties if that's what you want.

Incidently, in the enviroment the Royal Navy was expecting to fight...the North Sea, among other places..aircraft can't fly a lot of the time, especially in the winter.
 
With the exception of Iron Duke which had been semi demilitarised relegated to training, the Iron Duke class had been scrapped.

The Battle of the Denmark straight might have gone differentkly if the Hood had been modernised with strengthened armour abnd no rocket ammunition and if the Prince of Wales had 15" guns. The war in the far east would have go ne much the same. What the navy ntereeded was more air power in particular modern aircraft
 

perfectgeneral

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The Henley had better performance, range and bomb load than the Douglass Dauntless
What a pity it wasn't navalised, it would have given the RN a very good dive (or torpedo) bomber for the first part of the war.
The Hurricane was navalised successfully, so it probably wouldn't have been too hard.

Come to that, a combination of Sea Hurricane and Sea Henley would have given the FAA modern air groups that would have been as good or better as anyones until 1942 in the pacific. With much commonality of engines and equipment.

But carrier aircraft are not the only issue here. A 'smaller, but more modern RN' would have less escorts and destroyers, not more. A mistake that the modern treasury is repeating. Yes, get rid of the older battleships (reuse the steel and guns). You still need 50x 10,000t light cruisers with 6" DP guns and untold bofors 40mm AA, as many destroyers as you are allowed (limited to 1,500t?) and to update your experimental aircraft carriers to a modern, uniform class (With the Hawker aircraft in mind).

All slips and docks should be able to build/repair 500t minesweepers. All steel working slips and docks should be able to build/repair 2,500t destroyers. Many slips should be capable of building 25,000t heavy cruisers and quite a few should be panamax capable slips and docks. The further away from continental Europe, the better. New panamax docks at Burrard (Vancouver, Canada), Halifax (Can), St.John (New Brunswick, Can), Bombay (India), Trincomolee (Ceylon), Kembla (Australia), Newcastle (Aus), Barrow, Port of Glasgow, Milford Haven (additional to Pembroke), Newcastle, Sunderland, Rosyth and Faslane. Generally the commonwealth could gear up early on steel production facilities, machine tools and machinery without appearing aggressive.

Earlier industrial development of the commonwealth might have kept us all closer together post-war and less reliant on the americans.

Money. Money spent on defence is spent (during peacetime) to deter war. The world wars cost the british empire...the British Empire. How expensive is that? There were those advocating more defence spending at the time. Indeed other countries were far quicker to ramp/gear up military spending and industry ahead of WW2. We would not be starting anything and we didn't slow anyone, but ourselves.
 
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