Why was the KGV over complicated?

Recently I was taking a look at the history of the HMS Vanguard and a thought struck. Why did the Royal Navy not use the 15 inch barrels to make a reliable turret early? For one it would drive down the cost and two it would ensure the ships were ready early which given the darkening situation in Europe and Asia would have been better
 
By the time the treaty system collapsed, allowing the escalator clause--with guns bigger than 14"--the ships were too far along.
 
Recently I was taking a look at the history of the HMS Vanguard and a thought struck. Why did the Royal Navy not use the 15 inch barrels to make a reliable turret early? For one it would drive down the cost and two it would ensure the ships were ready early which given the darkening situation in Europe and Asia would have been better

Whatever calibre the British chose the turret was going to be 'Jutland Proofed' as much as possible and there would be issues regardless.

It was the interlocks and anti flash systems that made it complicated - but not that complicated - not the calibre.

When we drill down to it and investigate other heavy engagements involving multiple battleships engagements.....well outside of the RN there are not that many....we find much more limited data and that those engagements resulted in far fewer salvos while for the British we know an incredible amount of information almost down to individual salvos fired at what time, with the effectiveness and what guns failed etc.

At Suguro for example the old battlewagons fired very few salvos - certainly less than the 30 or so KGV fired at Bismarck before experiencing issues - West Virginia fired the most - 93 main gun rounds which = 93/8 = just under 12 salvos or very much more likely more than 12 partial salvos.

I could not find any information on Washington's main gun reliability while being the big bad wolf at Guadalcanal or how many main gun rounds/salvos she fired only the suspected number of hits etc

So why we can form an 'informed opinion' on British 14" Turret reliability (and other British guns systems for that matter) due to the very readily available data on them but cannot do the same for those gun systems of other nations.
 
A lot of KGV's 14" issues on both the twin and quad turret were less due to the commonly spouted over aggressive flash protection and more rushed incompetence. The British did not really finalize the design of KGV until well after construction had commenced while they were extremely short staffed in naval engineers because the previous decades of naval stagnation. The armament for KGV had a very sloppy and rushed design process multiple times, once when they switched from the 15" to 14", then again when they went from 12 guns to 10 guns.
 
Recently I was taking a look at the history of the HMS Vanguard and a thought struck. Why did the Royal Navy not use the 15 inch barrels to make a reliable turret early? For one it would drive down the cost and two it would ensure the ships were ready early which given the darkening situation in Europe and Asia would have been better
All other considerations aside, there weren't enough barrels, and the guns were obsolescent. There were six mounts available - two fitted to the Roberts-class monitors, and four fitted to Vanguard - for twelve guns. Not nearly enough for the number of battleships the British thought they needed, or in fact did end up needing. As well, even with new shells and higher elevation the guns compare poorly too more modern 15" weapons, and honestly compare unfavorably to KGV's 14" guns.
 
The RN also had simlar issues with the Nelrod's turrets, they were not satisfactory until the outbreak of the war.
 
With the Counties it was the over ambitious requirements for high angle fire that made them complex and troublesome. There was also very extensive anti-flash protection. The Nelson's turning gear IIRC was underpowered and needed to be changed and they also had very very complicated anti-flash and loading systems.
 
A lot of KGV's 14" issues on both the twin and quad turret were less due to the commonly spouted over aggressive flash protection and more rushed incompetence. The British did not really finalize the design of KGV until well after construction had commenced while they were extremely short staffed in naval engineers because the previous decades of naval stagnation. The armament for KGV had a very sloppy and rushed design process multiple times, once when they switched from the 15" to 14", then again when they went from 12 guns to 10 guns.
Rushed yes, sloppy I'm not sure you can blame the RN for wanting the ships as fast as possible.....after all POW had to go into battle with building crew still working on her......

I think a lot of it was a deliberate decision to rush them as fast as possible no matter the risks as compromises that entailed ie 14"/35k rather than delay for the escalator decision.....

they took 10 'peace time' years to get right

Now what did they all have in common????
Money? Is most if it not due to peacetime savings and lack of spending v USN/IJN/etc in 30s especially early 30s?
 
Recently I was taking a look at the history of the HMS Vanguard and a thought struck. Why did the Royal Navy not use the 15 inch barrels to make a reliable turret early? For one it would drive down the cost and two it would ensure the ships were ready early which given the darkening situation in Europe and Asia would have been better
Politics.

National policy was to seek an extension of the naval treaty system that limited battleships to a 14 inch/35000 ton limit for a variety of reasons. National policy post-1935 was for the RN to build up quickly and get ahead of their block obsolescence problem and potential war problem. That meant getting a ship on the ways as soon as legally possible with a good enough armament. National intelligence projections and diplomatic hopes was that the treaty system could be salvaged at 14 inch/35,000 tons and that the UK would not be the first nation to invoke the escalator clauses. The Lions were to be the minimally constrained ships while the KGVs were the "solve the lack of modern warships and replace the R's" solution.
 
Actually, the RN had eight twin 15" turrets available, one each in HMS EREBUS, HMS TERROR and HMS MARSHAL SOULT (removed and mounted later in HMS ROBERTS), the four turrets removed from HMS COURAGEOUS and HMS GLORIOUS and the spare originally built for HMS FURIOUS (later mounted in HMS ABERCROMBIE.)

Gator
 
Given that the RN had issues with the Nelrod turrets, but were in the process of fixing these, might a better bet have been three triples with 14" guns?

Edit to add a quick mash-up of a KGV with Nelson turrets - all from Shipbucket (see credits)

BB King George V.png


A little longer to accommodate a triple B turret - might have to lose some weight elsewhere. Perhaps downgrade the secondaries to twin 4.5's?
 
Last edited:
Given that the RN had issues with the Nelrod turrets, but were in the process of fixing these, might a better bet have been three triples with 14" guns?
The problem is they through they could do 12x14" (3xquad) on 35k only later did it drop to 10x14" (2xquad+1twin), I'm not sure why when they also thought that 9x16" (3xtriple) was to heavy for a fast 35kt ship?

They also disliked the nelson triple and the quad is very different......

With hindsight I would simply go for 8x14" gun 2xquad and save a mount per ship (and also go for the earlier designed 4.5" to prevent 5.25" delays) to save time and build them faster......
 
Three different & separate issues are being raised here
1. Gun calibre: 14inch versus 15inch which was driven by cost. The British preferred more but smaller battleships, which was sensible if others also followed suit. The problem was that nobody followed suit and this was predictable. The difference between these two calibres does not affect complexity.
2. quadruples versus triples versus twins. The more guns in a turret the greater the complexity but the smaller & cheaper the ship can be for a given combination of guns, speed and protection. There's a trade off here, 4x2x15inch guns would need a bigger ship than the KGVs which wasn't allowed. As has been said before the best compromise might have been 3x3x15inch or 3x3x14inch but these might have been more prone to breakdown than the vanguard's armament, especially at first, and would have needed new designs. An interesting option might have been 3x2x15inch (like Renown etc), this could have been a bit faster than the KGVs too. Unfortunately due to limits on armour production capacity she probably wouldn't have been ready any earlier so losing the main apparent gain while getting a ship that apparently was inferior to other modern BBs.
3. Flash protection between turret and magazine. After Jutland there is no way the RN is skimping on this even if it increases complexity.
 
Top