WI: Malta size carriers

Don't know about your reading comprehension but I bolded and underlined the section relevant for you. Any two ships, not any three or four ships. Not more then two. And it doesn't say that any two ships converted may displace up to 33K tons and that you may convert more. It is two ships period, full stop.

Furious didn't count towards this limit because she was already converted. So if you want to finish two admiral-class battlecruisers as carriers, that means the admiralty is stuck with Glorious and Corageous as they are. They aren't even allowed to build replacements for them.

Eagle didn't count towards this limit because she had already begun to be converted.

Why else do you think that neither Japan or USA converted more of their ships on the slipway? Both had tonnage to spare (particulary the USA).
Only two conversions allowed. Full stop. Period. No ifs, no buts.

The conversion of Courageous and Glorious has absolutely nothing to do with the 33000 tonne conversions clause; even if you ignore the reading of the passage (where the clause referring to the number of conversions is clearly related to the 33000 tonne exception) neither Courageous or Glorious are listed in article II or the scrapping tables related to article II. The conversions clause is specifically limited to ships/hulls listed in those tables.

And those article II lists are exactly why the Japanese and Americans didn't try to convert anything else they had that possibly could have come in under 27000t - they had no suitable hulls not included in those lists.

As for Eagle and Furious they both come under article VIII, which makes no mentions of conversions, merely aircraft carriers "in existence or building".

Britain didn't take advantage of the 33000 ton clause for two main reasons - (1) They didn't actually have any ships that could be converted under the clause - the G3s may have been laid down but they were not advanced enough to make conversion financially viable, and (2) the 33000 ton clause was effectively a quid pro quo to Japan and the USA for allowing the Nelsons to be built.
 
Yes they are, why they aren't on the scrap list? I have no idea. They had large enough guns and displaced enough. No clue.
But so do some of the armoured cruisers & monitors and they defiantly don't count...

Tennessee-class cruisers 10" and 14,000t but kept till 1946
Erebus class under 10,000t but 15" guns kept till WWII
And many others...

So I really think if they are not named you can keep them as they are named "large light cruisers" so no different than the old AC apart from age and that's not an explicit criteria in the treaty. Yes it might piss people off but I think it would not break any rules or letter of the treaty's?
 

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The conversion of Courageous and Glorious has absolutely nothing to do with the 33000 tonne conversions clause; even if you ignore the reading of the passage (where the clause referring to the number of conversions is clearly related to the 33000 tonne exception) neither Courageous or Glorious are listed in article II or the scrapping tables related to article II. The conversions clause is specifically limited to ships/hulls listed in those tables.

That argument is flawed if you look at the Italian and French lists, they're very incomplete in both existing ships needed to be scrapped and ships needed to be cancelled. The French even converted a ship needed to be cancelled into a carrier. Hell the French were over their capital ship limit quite a bit with nearly 50K tons according to the retained ship list.
The lists only seems accurate when it comes to the Japanese and US navy. Every other navy is missing capital ships.

And those article II lists are exactly why the Japanese and Americans didn't try to convert anything else they had that possibly could have come in under 27000t - they had no suitable hulls not included in those lists.
Flat out wrong, the Japanese had two more hulls suitable for conversion; Amagi and Tosa.

As for Eagle and Furious they both come under article VIII, which makes no mentions of conversions, merely aircraft carriers "in existence or building".

And I said anything different?

Britain didn't take advantage of the 33000 ton clause for two main reasons - (1) They didn't actually have any ships that could be converted under the clause - the G3s may have been laid down but they were not advanced enough to make conversion financially viable, and (2) the 33000 ton clause was effectively a quid pro quo to Japan and the USA for allowing the Nelsons to be built.

The Japanese didn't invoke that clause so that argument makes no sense, the Japanese reported both Akagi and Kaga of 26.950 tons deplacement each.
The G3's weren't laid down. They were ordered but not laid down.


Do you think it's coincidence that the UK only did two conversions after the WNT?
Either the Glorious and Courageous falls under clause IX or it was an mutual understanding that they did.
 

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But so do some of the armoured cruisers & monitors and they defiantly don't count...

Tennessee-class cruisers 10" and 14,000t but kept till 1946
Erebus class under 10,000t but 15" guns kept till WWII
And many others...

So I really think if they are not named you can keep them as they are named "large light cruisers" so no different than the old AC apart from age and that's not an explicit criteria in the treaty. Yes it might piss people off but I think it would not break any rules or letter of the treaty's?

No, definitions part it says:
A capital ship, in the case of ships hereafter built, is defined as a vessel of war, not an aircraft carrier, whose displacement exceeds 10,000 tons (10,160 metric tons) standard displacement, or which carries a gun with a calibre exceeding 8 inches (203 millimetres).

Which the Glorious and Courageous falls under. So why the G&C isn't on the list is strange.
 
Yes that's the definition but the old armoured cruisers got grandfathered in for all the navy's as they are useful training/depot ships and really worthless as to slow and weak with only 4 guns over 8"...

But as the LLC are not explicitly named, I don't see any reason that RN could not have perfectly legitimately just assumed that they also got grandfathered in even if by accident on the part of USN/IJN. They are existing ships (and named as LLC not BB or BCs) so don't break the rules for laying down new larger ships and not named on the list as having to be scraped like all the old BB/BCs.

I agree its strange, but I assume that RN had talked about how useless they are to everybody during WWI and that they are starting to convert Furious to a CV and therefore nobody cared and all assumed that they are going to become CVs, but if its not written down then I don't see why it would not be perfectly legal not to convert them.
 
That argument is flawed if you look at the Italian and French lists, they're very incomplete in both existing ships needed to be scrapped and ships needed to be cancelled. The French even converted a ship needed to be cancelled into a carrier. Hell the French were over their capital ship limit quite a bit with nearly 50K tons according to the retained ship list.
The lists only seems accurate when it comes to the Japanese and US navy. Every other navy is missing capital ships.

The French were over their limits because they were allowed/forced by circumstance to include the surviving Dantons (called semi-dreadnoughts but actually pre-dreadnoughts.) They weren't classed as equivalent vessels to the Dreadnoughts. Italy was over by a lesser amount for the same reason.

You'll note that each retained 10 ships but that if they'd built their replacement tonnage to schedule they'd have theoretically been reduced to 5 each.

France and Italy have a much more generous replacement scheme than Britain, Japan and the USA (due to the disruption of WWI on their shipbuilding.)

As for Bearn the French had been considering converting her since 1920 if not earlier. The conversion's unrelated to the Treaty.

Flat out wrong, the Japanese had two more hulls suitable for conversion; Amagi and Tosa.

Amagi was scheduled to be converted to a carrier before she was too badly damaged by an Earthquake, which is why Kaga was substituted. Secondly, Tosa's on the article II list - from which you can only convert two ships.

I really think you need to frequent some of the warship enthusiasts sites out there if you're not already doing so.

And I said anything different?

Effectively, you did - you've stated, incorrectly, that no more than two conversions were allowed as an absolute limit (when that clause is actually limited specifically to article II ships) and that they got past this issue by being already under construction/conversion.

In which case, you've basically stated that they're governed by the conversions clause and article II, not the experimental warships clause.

The Japanese didn't invoke that clause so that argument makes no sense, the Japanese reported both Akagi and Kaga of 26.950 tons deplacement each.

They are article II listed ships, of which you can only convert two regardless of the tonnage - they invoked the clause to convert them. Otherwise they would have had to scrap them.

Glorious and Courageous are not covered under Article II - in fact, they're not directly covered by the Treaty at all. This was because most powers considered them to be "useless crap"; not worth the effort of arguing over. The same was true regarding the obsolete American Armoured cruisers that are also not directly covered by the Treaty.

[Indirectly the clauses regarding allowable improvements would have applied to them, as far as I am aware. Or, concerning conversions, the maximum allowable armament and tonnage clauses.]

With the benefit of hindsight I've seen several discussions on various Warship Enthusiasts forums as to whether or not the British should have left them unconverted as 8" cruiser killers.

The G3's weren't laid down. They were ordered but not laid down.

You're quite correct; I had it in my head that a couple of hundred tons of steel were actually laid down to prove they were "started" but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Do you think it's coincidence that the UK only did two conversions after the WNT?

List me the ships not covered under article II with suitable hulls that they didn't convert - or give me two ships listed under article II that they would have been willing to convert?

You're stretching the meaning of a clause from the Washington Treaty to explain British actions when it was actually due to a lack of opportunity and money.

Either the Glorious and Courageous falls under clause IX or it was an mutual understanding that they did.

And yet you can't quote one bit of source evidence that this is so. The Treaty, in fact, pretty blatantly contradicts you.

Again, if you're not already doing it, I suggest you have a browse around somewhere like the NavWeaps Discussion Boards. There's plenty of historical discussions of the Washington Treaty there.
 
No, definitions part it says:
A capital ship, in the case of ships hereafter built, is defined as a vessel of war, not an aircraft carrier, whose displacement exceeds 10,000 tons (10,160 metric tons) standard displacement, or which carries a gun with a calibre exceeding 8 inches (203 millimetres).

Which the Glorious and Courageous falls under. So why the G&C isn't on the list is strange.

The important words are "hereafter built". Glorious and Courageous (and the Japanese and American Armoured cruisers that no-one cared about either) were already built.

For ships built before the Treaty if you're not in the article II lists you're not a capital ship - regardless of tonnage and armament.
 
Gunboat diplomacy is a thing, having the military force available is a wonderful negotiating tactic, Britain having a navy notably inferior to the USN is going to put them at a disadvantage in negotiations compared to the US
True, but that's the new reality, and Britain would have been better to let the others race each other to build stuff.

Look at the Dutch, they gave up the naval race in the late 1700s, and still maintained one of the richest empires until the 1940s. France hadn't been much more than a regional naval power since the end of the Napoleonic War, but her empire was second only to Britain's, and in fact surpasses Britain's today.

french_overseas_territories.png


I don't want Britain to abandon its military, but there's no need to worry about the inevitability of the USN's surpassing the RN as global top naval power. As for the IJN, they're on track to bankrupt their economy through military spending, not something Britain should contemplate mirroring. What Britain needs is diplomatic willpower and prestige. To get this, Britain refuses to engage in talks of naval treaties, but instead unilaterally adjusts its own naval forces to suit its new economic realities. By 1930 when the Great Depression hits, Britain is the third (or fourth) naval power in the world, but with a sound economy, while the USN sits on a fleet of expensive and within 10-15 years technologically obsolete super dreadnoughts, and Japan has entirely exhausted its gold reserves and credit to build warships that can't match the USN and do nothing to drive its economic success or productivity. Certainly when war comes Britain will be ill prepared to face to the IJN, but that was OTL anyway.
 
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True, but that's the new reality, and Britain would have been better to let the others race each other to build stuff.

Look at the Dutch, they gave up the naval race in the late 1700s, and still maintained one of the richest empires until the 1940s. France hadn't been much more than a regional naval power since the end of the Napoleonic War, but her empire was second only to Britain's, and in fact surpasses Britain's today.

I don't want Britain to abandon its military, but there's no need to worry about the inevitability of the USN's surpassing the RN as global top naval power. As for the IJN, they're on track to bankrupt their economy through military spending, not something Britain should contemplate mirroring. What Britain needs is diplomatic willpower and prestige. To get this, Britain refuses to engage in talks of naval treaties, but instead unilaterally adjusts its own naval forces to suit its new economic realities. By 1930 when the Great Depression hits, Britain is the third (or fourth) naval power in the world, but with a sound economy, while the USN sits on a fleet of expensive and within 10-15 years technologically obsolete super dreadnoughts, and Japan has entirely exhausted its gold reserves and credit to build warships that can't match the USN and do nothing to drive its economic success or productivity. Certainly when war comes Britain will be ill prepared to face to the IJN, but that was OTL anyway.
France was the #2 Naval Power until about 1900 and spent most of the 1800's trying to one up the RN technologically, rather than in sheer size, which they knew they could not do. They didn't really give up trying to counter the RN until they were forced to choose between that and Revanche. They are a bad example for your point. The Dutch had stopped competing for the top spot way earlier than 1740, and still maintained a top 5 navy until the Napoleonic wars

There is something to worry, relations between the US and UK have had recent periods of extreme unfriendliness, there was almost a war in the mid 1890's, in early 1917 the US was nearly as angry with the UK over the blockade as it was with Germany, one of the strongest voting blocks in the US detested the UK, both countries had clashed at Treaty negotiations. Without hindsight war between the US and UK does not seem unlikely

Having a fleet at parity with the US would generate prestige. Being willing to work within the treaty system would generate diplomatic clout, and would bring good will. Not doing so would make them seem unwilling to conduct diplomacy when every other great power (absent the USSR and Germany, who are a pariah and forbidden anyways) is doing it, that hurts them not helps

The UK can't know without foresight that it would fight Germany, Japan and Italy at the same time (would seem unlikely given that Germany and Italy disliked each other until about 1935) without the French helping, remove any Axis Majors or add the intact Marine Nationale, and the OTL RN is actually more than sufficient for their needs
 
...... By 1930 when the Great Depression hits, Britain is the third (or fourth) naval power in the world, but with a sound economy, while the USN sits on a fleet of expensive and within 10-15 years technologically obsolete super dreadnoughts, and Japan has entirely exhausted its gold reserves and credit to build warships that can't match the USN and do nothing to drive its economic success or productivity. Certainly when war comes Britain will be ill prepared to face to the IJN, but that was OTL anyway.

I don't think its even that bad, any battleship race will end soon after the Kanto quake as Japan drops out bankrupt with the USN now having a clear lead over them. The RN will have by then started on the G3s and be slowly and conservatively building a fleet that while slightly smaller in numbers v the USN is massively more powerful than the IJN and will only be more useful as its speed makes it much better for WWII hunting raiders and escorting CVs.

Post Jutland fleets by late 20s,

USN 13 ships ? 4x Colorado 6x SD and maybe 3 Lex not turned into CVs (3) ?

IJN 8 ships ? N&M, T&K, 4x Amagies (maybe 2 Amagies to CV or would they just have Honsho when the money ran out ?)

RN 9 ships ? 1x Hood 4xG3 4xG3 batch II (still slowly building)

USN gets the prestige but I would suggest that RN is better able to deal with WWII if it goes as OTL, even without adding the numbers of older ships that would have survived in cheap reserve like in WWI (ie 13.5"/15" ships)
 
I would suggest that RN is better able to deal with WWII if it goes as OTL, even without adding the numbers of older ships that would have survived in cheap reserve like in WWI (ie 13.5"/15" ships)
Agreed.

However what the RN needs to succeed in WW2 is an ASW focus. Get the u-boat threat under control and Germany is lost.
 
Agreed.

However what the RN needs to succeed in WW2 is an ASW focus. Get the u-boat threat under control and Germany is lost.
The U-Boats were, with OTL measures essentially beaten by the end of 1941. Then the US joined in and U-Boats could now access the US Seaboard and you had a second Happy time until July when enough escorts were scraped together (would have been sooner, but many of the escorts the US allocated to this prewar were sold to the UK)

UK doesn't need much more if any at all than OTL

Edit:Comment to jsb void, Amagi would have been launched and not as vulnerable to earthquake if not paused to convert to a CV
 
So perhaps the RN follows the IJN example, building no battleships whatsoever, and builds four Admiral CVs?

By 1930 the RN has eight CVs Hood, Anson, Howe and Rodney, Furious, Eagle, Hermes and Argus. And, five QE battleships and two Renown battlecruisers. What of the Revenge class - are they sacrificed to free up cash for the four Admirals?

What does an Admiral carrier look like? Does it have two full length hangar? Or does it follow the Lexington example, more more avgas and bunker fuel, with a single hangar with deck parking? Deck parking is more challenging for fragile bi-planes in the North Atlantic.

In sort of an answer to the appearance question - the following were mocked up by Canis and posted over on Photobucket:-

Hood_CV.gif
 
had to post second image separately....

They are of course both fictitious.
I do think that at the time of 'conversion' that the 'Indomitable' layout might have been opted for

Indomitable_CV.gif
 
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Edit:Comment to jsb void, Amagi would have been launched and not as vulnerable to earthquake if not paused to convert to a CV
Doesn't that just mean something later, larger and more expensive is damaged ? I assumed in my list that the 4 Amagies got finished (or some to CVs) but that after that Japan was out of cash due to the massive damaged to Tokyo etc ?
 
Doesn't that just mean something later, larger and more expensive is damaged ? I assumed in my list that the 4 Amagies got finished (or some to CVs) but that after that Japan was out of cash due to the massive damaged to Tokyo etc ?
Number 13 (the 1st 18" design) was scheduled to be laid down after Amagi cleared the slip, she's much bigger and costlier and would have quite a bit of work done

I figure Owari and Kii would be launched at this point and too far along, they might get preserved for 5-10 years until money is there to finish them. No. 11 and 12 are not going to be as far along and may end up as the ships converted to CV's rather than the Amagi's, in the late 20's/early 30's after Japan recovers Edit: Now that I think about it No. 11 and 12 are too far along as well, Numbers 14-16 are not
 
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