WI: Hood sisters built as 8x18 inch naval guns

Thomas1195

Banned
OK.

I'm skeptical of the I3's as designed, as the armor belt isn't thick enough; you'd need to considerably upscale the engines (and thus dimensions, displacement) to give it adequate protection. But it's hard to say what such an I3 design might have looked like in the end.

Whatever it ended up being, it still would have been of less value than the same resources devoted to fleet carriers in 1939-45. Not that this was immediately evident in 1920-22.
Do you have detail armour of I3 for comparison with G3?
 

Thomas1195

Banned
I think you need to be a bit more clear about what situation we are in especially what happened in WWI or the rest is very much wild guess work as changes to the conclusion to WWI change everything later massively.....
I think you can blame him equally but not sure more than the later two as he finished in 35, by 35 AH hasn't really done anything really bad or gone much beyond what every sane German government would want to do. So MacDonald started GB on a bad track and put it into a difficult situation but the other two had 4 years to really react far to slowly later when it was a far more obvious threat.
At least no MacDonald in 1929 might butterfly away LNT. Well, more capital ships being built earlier would have allowed Britain to enforce international rules on Italy in 1935. Also, KGV with potentially more reliable 9x15 would be built, not 10x14 like OTL.

Through capital ship orders (for example, demanding more welding to save weight), Britain could have intervened in shipyards earlier in a more forceful way to modernize them.
 
Do you have detail armour of I3 for comparison with G3?
I3 looks like a 12" belt 7-8" Mags 4"-5" BR/ERs deck
G3 14"/12" Mags/Engines Belt and 9"-8" mags 2"-3" (later 3-4") engines deck

more capital ships being built earlier would have allowed Britain to enforce international rules on Italy in 1935.
She had at least 10 more than Italy in OTL why would it change anything, RN could easily have won if GB was willing to start a war and lose the potential for peace and an ally against Germany over somebody colonizing part of Africa!
 

Thomas1195

Banned
I3 looks like a 12" belt 7-8" Mags 4"-5" BR/ERs deck
G3 14"/12" Mags/Engines Belt and 9"-8" mags 2"-3" (later 3-4") engines deck
Increase armour and reduce speed of I3 to only 29-30 knots, weight would go down to 50k ton, size would also reduce.
 
In a desperate effort to save Hood, what if Jutland was worse for the British, and the Germans were more aggressive post Jutland?( sortieing into the North Sea,etc)
Might justify the means
 

Thomas1195

Banned
She had at least 10 more than Italy in OTL why would it change anything, RN could easily have won if GB was willing to start a war and lose the potential for peace and an ally against Germany over somebody colonizing part of Africa!
Incomparable was going to Have 20' guns, not 18.
She probably would have broken her back when she fired
After Jutland even Fisher would have scrapped it. But with him, he would push very hard for wholly oil fired BBs with all small tubes, thus give rise to true fast BBs.
 
After Jutland even Fisher would have scrapped it. But with him, he would push very hard for wholly oil fired BBs with all small tubes, thus give rise to true fast BBs.
Definitely, she would have been the most expensive useless, white elephant glass jaw ever!
Fisher had some good ideas and some bad ones. Hit or miss
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Definitely, she would have been the most expensive useless, white elephant glass jaw ever!
Fisher had some good ideas and some bad ones. Hit or miss
Fisher as FSL would never let RN spending over 3 years from late 1918 to 1921 only running around with paper designs.
 
Fisher as FSL would never let RN spending over 3 years from late 1918 to 1921 only running around with paper designs.
Why not? Anything you lay down in 1919 will be far worse than a 1921 ship, due to the lack of experimental data.
In 1919 you are far to busy with dealing with demobilizing to spend much money and time on new ships.
In 1919 the RN would win any immediate war, due to numbers and experience and the next 4 (+?) biggest navy's are your allies.
The government has just told you that you are not going to have a war for the next 10+ years, so can plan accordingly...

Not laying down ships makes very good sense unless you have hindsight of the treaty's coming and even then with hindsight you should probably just negotiate batter rather than spend on ships...
 
Why not? Anything you lay down in 1919 will be far worse than a 1921 ship, due to the lack of experimental data.

Yeah. Anything laid down in 1919 is going to be more of a modestly up-armored battlecruiser.

But protection schemes rapidly improved on designs into the early 20's, as more reflection was given to the lessons of Jutland, and torpedo vulnerability. The way of the future was the (oil-fueled), all-or-nothing (which the Nelsons first adopted) armored fast battleship, to the extent dreadnoughts had any future at all.

I get the urge to grandfather as much new tonnage as possible before WNT is negotiated. But Britain had a pretty massive advantage in capital ships for the moment (even over the US), and its designers really needed time to adapt to the lessons of the war, and new technologies.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Why not? Anything you lay down in 1919 will be far worse than a 1921 ship, due to the lack of experimental data.
In 1919 you are far to busy with dealing with demobilizing to spend much money and time on new ships.
In 1919 the RN would win any immediate war, due to numbers and experience and the next 4 (+?) biggest navy's are your allies.
The government has just told you that you are not going to have a war for the next 10+ years, so can plan accordingly...

Not laying down ships makes very good sense unless you have hindsight of the treaty's coming and even then with hindsight you should probably just negotiate batter rather than spend on ships...
I mean he would press them (you notice that overall the progress was always faster under Fisher's leadership) to study new designs faster, maybe not too many paper designs like OTL as 18 inch guns had been selected.
 
I get the urge to grandfather as much new tonnage as possible before WNT is negotiated.
With absolute hindsight the only real changes I would make are cancelling Hood and the LLCs to help the war effort (More ASW escorts and complete HMS Argus & Eagal much earlier ready for Jutland?), then lay down 6G3 hulls 1 months before the WNT.

You then ask and receive,
3x 16" post Jutland ships (cut down G3s/enlarged Nelsons by the addition of 3,000t as they are existing ships :p)
3x CV conversions of G3 so basically a blend of Lex and OTL RN C&G&F ships. (I think if RN has 3 hulls to convert everybody agrees as USN/IJN had more spare hulls than used in OTL)

Then they would produce more aircraft :))
They where not full in 1939 so not sure anything changes.
I mean he would press them (you notice that overall the progress was always faster under Fisher's leadership) to study new designs faster, maybe not too many paper designs like OTL as 18 inch guns had been selected.
Paper designs are very cheap, not many (if any) of them are full designs with the details actually calculated beyond just using rules of thumb as to what can be fitted. I think you are talking about a handful of draftsmens work for a few weeks?
 
In any case, Fisher is really too old to serve at that point - his health was in decline, and his wife died in '18. He really wouldn't have the stamina to handle the job, let alone ride herd over RN naval architects.
 
With absolute hindsight the only real changes I would make are cancelling Hood and the LLCs to help the war effort (More ASW escorts and complete HMS Argus & Eagal much earlier ready for Jutland?), then lay down 6G3 hulls 1 months before the WNT.

You then ask and receive,
3x 16" post Jutland ships (cut down G3s/enlarged Nelsons by the addition of 3,000t as they are existing ships :p)
3x CV conversions of G3 so basically a blend of Lex and OTL RN C&G&F ships. (I think if RN has 3 hulls to convert everybody agrees as USN/IJN had more spare hulls than used in OTL)

This is an even better idea. I would even sacrifice Iron Dukes to obtain this.

But if these three modified 16" G3s are exceptions to the 35K ton limit, what do you have to give to the Japanese and the Americans in compensation? Three 35,000t+ ships (South Dakotas or Lexingtons, I'd guess) for the US and two for the IJN (Tosas or Amagis, obviously). How much are you cutting down the G3s here? And how? Sacrificing speed?
 
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