Post-Revolution Battleships of the WFRN
Name: Monitor-class
Operators: Workers' and Farmers' Red Navy
Preceded by: Comintern-class (ex-
South Dakota-class)
Succeeded by: Wat Tyler-class
Built: 1934-1938
In commission: 1936-1951
Planned: 5
Completed: 5
Type: Fast battleship
Displacement: 40,220 tonnes (standard)
49,500 tonnes (full load)
225.1 meters
Beam: 33 meters
Draft: 10.8 meters (full load)
Installed power: 105,000 kW (140,000 shp)
Propulsion: four geared steam turbines, four shafts, 8 boilers
Speed: 54.6 km/h (29.5 kts)
Range: 24,000 km at 28 km/hr
Armament:
3 x 3 – 41 cm/50 caliber Mark 6 guns
10 x 2 – 125 mm/40 caliber Mark 18 guns
10 x 2 – 37 mm L/60 MG-37-NS1 AA guns
25 – 20 mm MG-20-A1 AA guns
Armor:
Belt: 325 mm on 25 mm STS, inclined 19 degrees
Barbette: 295-435 mm
Conning tower: 75 mm
Turret: 178-410 mm
Deck: 178-210 mm total
Bulkheads: 290 mm
Ships
Monitor (BB-57)
Ulysses (BB-58)
Gaius Marius (BB-59)
Sons of Liberty (BB-60)
Minuteman (BB-61)
Planning for what would eventually become the
Monitor-class began years before the revolution. The General Board of the US Navy, the de facto general staff of the pre-revolution navy, ordered preliminary design work for a successor to the
South Dakota-class in the fall of 1925. Two preliminary studies, A and B, were prepared to the exacting specifications of the Washington Naval Treaty, armed with sixteen 14-inch and twelve 16-inch guns respectively. Though the 14-inch Mark 4 gun had fallen out of favor with the Navy brass, it was considered prudent to prepare for the outcome of an expected London Naval Conference, where the British would undoubtedly push again for a 14-inch armament restriction.
Both designs continued the philosophy of their predecessors, a modest 23 knot top speed while focusing design efforts towards high survivability in a heavy “all-or-nothing” armor configuration. There was little urgency to this work, as all of the Great Powers had adhered to the dictates of the Treaty, and discontent over ship ratios had not yet overcome the reluctance of peacetime post-war governments to engage in large new arms expenditures.
The next phase in the design progress began in 1929, when the General Board ordered a feasibility study on a “heavy battlecruiser” to address the perceived inadequacies of the Lexington-class battlecruisers. The large and very expensive battlecruisers would be forced to serve as a fast wing in any hypothetical fleet engagement (usually assumed to be the Royal Navy or the Imperial Japanese Navy), and many captains had severe reservations about their survivability in this role.
Two further designs, C and D, were developed, shedding a gun turret from the previous designs to gain more machinery space. Study C was lengthened by twenty meters. The longer, finer hull profile, coupled with newer, more efficient boilers and lighter geared steam turbines, gave the design additional 5 knots of top speed with only a minor reduction in belt armor. Study D was more radical, adopting the all-forward turret layout of the British
Revenge-class battlecruiser and slightly thinner armor to further reduce weight. Study D devoted weight savings to longer hull profile, and more machinery, enabling a 33 knot tops speed.
Ultimately Study C was placed on hold. Study D would be ordered as the
United States-class battlecruiser in 1930, slated to replace the
Nevada and
Pennsylvania-class battleships now that the Treaty mandated shipbuilding moratorium had expired. While many in the Navy considered it a flawed compromise, the battlecruiser advocates had the ear of President Hoover. With the onset of the Great Depression, construction on the United States and her sister ships continued in fits and starts as controversial make-work programs, while the Navy’s budget for repair and refit dwindled.
Study C would be revived thanks to the Civil War. With the loss of so many ships either to defection, scuttling or battle damage, the newly forged Workers and Farmers Revolutionary Navy would need reinforcement to defend the revolution. The Provisional Government revived capital ship planning in November 1933, while fighting was still winding down but the new regime beginning to assert itself.
The Naval Operations Committee, the successor to the General Board, selected Study C for modernization due to its 1) adherence to Treaty limits 2) advanced state of development. Three new variants, C1 through C3, were developed to study new strategies for weight reduction. C3 was the most radical, adopting all welded construction and using part of the ship’s armor as a structural member, untested ideas unsuited for a ship the Navy wanted laid down as soon as possible.
The more intensive design study revealed that previous studies had been too generous with their weight assumptions. C had used the 16-inch/50 caliber Mark 2 of its predecessors, and the earlier design had been too optimistic about how small of a turret and barbette would be needed to mount the very large and heavy guns. The finalized design for the BB-57-class was able to fit within Treaty mandated standard displacement (albeit with some creative accounting) thanks to the efforts of the Bureau of Ordnance developing a lighter, more modern replacement for the 16-inch Mark 2.
The final design, approved by the Naval Operations Committee, and accepted by Defense Secretary Abern, would be ordered on 2 November 1934. The lead ship of the class,
Monitor, was laid down at the Brooklyn Naval Shipyard in a highly publicized ceremony on Christmas Eve. The next four ships of the class would be laid down over the next year. The name
Monitor was selected by Navy Commissioner-General(1) Harry Bridges both in homage to the Navy’s first ironclad warship, and for its archaic meaning: “one who admonishes and corrects wrongdoers.”
The
Monitor-class would be the first and only class of capital ship that America would complete to the limits of the Naval Treaties. Even the
Toledo-class (ex-
United States), which were completed concurrently with the Monitor-class, were secretly modified while under construction to abrogation of the terms of the treaties, a fact that would not be disclosed until after the Foster government repudiated the Treaty in 1936.
The
Monitor-class was a well-rounded design, fast enough for operations with the detached wing of the fleet, but sturdy enough to survive in the line-of-battle against her toughest contemporaries. She mounted nine of the 41cm/50 caliber Mark 6 guns(2) that would serve as the backbone of modern fleet in three turrets, two forward and one aft. Their 1250kg shells, the “super heavy” AP Mark 8 shells, designed in light of the experience gained in the Battle of the Straits of Florida, would be the gold-standard for capital ship weapons for the next decade. Able to penetrate 440mm of belt armor and 130mm of deck armor at 22km, few extant capital ships would have any immune zone at all against the Monitor.
Monitor’s own armor was excellent though limited against weaponry equivalent to her own. The armored belt, 325mm thick backed by 25mm of Special Treatment Steel, was inclined outward 19 degrees from the keel, tapered down as it connected to the double bottom and torpedo protection arrangements. The internal inclined belt saved a significant amount of weight, and provided protection equivalent to 480mm of vertical armor. Multiple armored decks protected the ship against long range plunging fire and armor piercing bombs; a 40mm STS weather deck to arm fuzes and yaw penetrating shells to increase their penetration angle, a combined 150mm of Class B armor and STS to stop shells or resist detonation, and a further 20mm STS splinter deck to catch shell splinters and spalling.
Combined, this would give the
Monitor a zone of immunity against her own guns between 21 and 32 kilometers. Underwater protection was advanced; two tanks outside the belt armor, separated by bulkheads, and filled with water or fuel oil, to absorb the force of torpedo detonation and prevent any splinters from piercing into the armored raft section. In practice, the torpedo defense system would prove less effective than prior systems and would need overhaul in later classes.
At commission,
Monitor’s anti-aircraft weaponry was considered almost excessive. A secondary battery of twenty 125mm dual purpose guns, mounted in ten twin turrets, provided long-range anti-aircraft fire (as well as defense against small surface combatants). Twenty 37mm autocannons in ten twin mountings provided a mid-range protection envelope, supplemented by twenty-five 20mm machine guns for point defense. This protection would be further augmented in wartime refits with additional 37mm and 20mm mounts.
(1) Senior civilian administrator of the Navy, direct subordinate of the People’s Secretary for Defense, and thus analogous to the modern US Secretary of the Navy.
(2) Though the bore is slightly larger (16.14-inches), the Navy considers 16-inch and 41cm guns to be part of the same series. During refit and modernization, older battleships would have their guns relined to a 41cm bore to ensure shell commonality.
