WI: No Pocket Battleships?

sharlin

Banned
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about the "sillyness" of big ships, look at the american battleships and their input, it is nil - in tonnage sunk
but if you look what they achieved, it is much

[/QUOTE]


The Japanese squadron at the 2nd battle of Guadacanal and the one that sailed into the Surago straight want to have a word with you, they strongly disagree about the input of american battleships in terms of surface ships sunk.
 
OK, this is the original question:

"125,000 tonnes, with a maximum tonnage of 33,000 tonnes each, would have allowed 4 ships of about 31,000 tonnes. Careful design, and construction similar to that used in the Deutschlands could have produced some impressive ships - any ideas on specifications?

What would have been the effect of these ships when WW2 broke out? They would probably remove the need for the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and maybe even the Bismarck and Tirpitz - or maybe the Kriegsmarine would see them as the foundation of a balanced fleet and concentrate more on the surface navy?"


Assuming for the sake of argument that the Wikipedia article is even correct that these negotiations occured, this would not have "removed the need" for the Scharnhorst class, it would have created something like them earlier. Perhaps the Germans might have gone with guns instead of armor or speed (six to eight 15' guns on something like a slow Renown), but given German predilection for staying power, together with the realization that any fleet limited to this ratio vs the other main navies would never be a real "battle fleet", they'd probably end up with something not dissimilar to OTL's Scharnhorst. Any British and French "responses" to these ships would be scaled up accordingly beyond what they built or reconstructed to counter the pocket battleships. France would go directly to something a lot more like Richelieu, and the British might expedite the modernization of Hood, Queen Elizabeths, and the Renowns, any of which were already the equal of what the Germans would be building in terms of speed and offensive power.

This might have an effect on "Treaty" heavy cruisers more than capital ships. Leaving the Japanese out of the equation for a minute - who had their own reason for building the biggest crusiers they could get away with - the fear of the pocket battleships made most other navies try to squeeze so much into 10,000 ton ships that it resulted in over armed heavy cruisers that were unbalanced. Perhaps in this scenario, fewer "heavy cruisers" would be built, with the tonnage going to more smaller and faster scout cruisers.
 

sharlin

Banned
Or if treaty cruisers grew as the treaty was steadily abandoned, you could see a return to the older armoured cruiser concept, larger than a CL but smaller by far than Battleships. I know the RN had the idea of a new 'super heavy cruiser' armed with I think 6 x 9.4 inch guns or was it 9 of them on about 15000 tonnes if not more.
 
Yes, if there were essentially no "heavy cruisers" (say 10,000-12,000 tons with eight to ten 8" in guns built during the treaty, that would create a pretty big gap between scout crusiers displacing 5,000-8,000 tons and the new fast battleships starting at over 40,000 tons and getting huger fast. While one might imagine that this gap should be filled by something intermediate like the US Alaskas or slightly smaller ships armed with guns in the 8" to 12" range, what actual purpose do they serve? They would be no faster than most modern fast battleships, far less well protected, far less well armed, and way too expensive for the value they give you. Part of the reason ships in this range were designed or built OTL was the existance of the pocket battleships and the belief in a number of navies that their potential enemies were also building "pocket battleship" type ships.

In this TL scenario there are no "pocket battleship" sized commerce raiders, only fast scout/raiders that can be coutered by other fast scouts, or slow old BBs in close convot escort duty. You'd almost need to had 5-6 major naval powers decide at the same time to build 15,000-20,000 ton super cruisers and super-cruiser killers for no clear reason. Not completely impossible give the mindset of many admiralties, but not too likely.
 

sharlin

Banned
Lets look at this possible timeline, the German's don't make any Pocket Battleships but cruiser size continues to escalate when information about the german plans for their new long range raiders is obtained/released.

Politically its not desirable to build new capital ships such as battleships or battlecruisers but getting a cruiser built is more politically acceptable. Also the rising strength and size of Japanese cruisers compaired to the cruisers built by the RN in the 1920's (County Class) leads to the development of two new cruiser classes and the reintroduction of two gun calibers after the London Naval Treaty falls apart.

The first is the Black Prince class of 'Cruiser' weighing in at 16000 tonnes armed with 9 x 9.2 inch guns of a new caliber and design from the ones of the early 1900's as well as 16 x 4 inch guns for AA protection. The class looks like a much scaled down KGV class. Four were to be laid down and completed by 1938

The second was a variation of the Town Class cruiser, still called a light cruiser the new Dauntless class shipped 9 x 7.5 inch guns and 12 x 6 inch AA guns on 12000 tonnes, sacrificing a turret for the larger guns.

The Black Princes were built at yards that could not build a bigger vessel and were built to accompany the KGV class as well as act as convoy escorts. Their firepower, although inferior to the Nazi's Lutzow class (the name i'm giving the OP's ships) they were superior to any heavy cruiser and had the firepower to damage the rather thinly protected German ships.
 
about the "sillyness" of big ships, look at the american battleships and their input, it is nil - in tonnage sunk
but if you look what they achieved, it is much

[/QUOTE]


The Japanese squadron at the 2nd battle of Guadacanal and the one that sailed into the Surago straight want to have a word with you, they strongly disagree about the input of american battleships in terms of surface ships sunk.[/QUOTE]


no - you did not understand (or you accept the succsess of scharnhorst/geneisenau (sinking a carrier), or the bismarck (hood BOOOM)

my point was - battleships could be counted USELESS compared to the energy, money, time and men to build em...

at guadalcanar, how much better had been 10 more cruisers and two carriers? nah?

i spoke about the sucsesses - but i still think the battleships had enormous inpact, cause if you have some, your enemy never can be sure that he do not hit you between the legs...

but - counting i numbers, the american build so many battleships and sink so little enemies ...

same is true for tirpitz, but still it was propably the most sucsessfull battleship of all times... its existenz binded so many allied ships... but it sunk no single ton of a ship.

hope you understand ;)
 
OK, this is the original question:

"125,000 tonnes, with a maximum tonnage of 33,000 tonnes each, would have allowed 4 ships of about 31,000 tonnes. Careful design, and construction similar to that used in the Deutschlands could have produced some impressive ships - any ideas on specifications?

What would have been the effect of these ships when WW2 broke out? They would probably remove the need for the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and maybe even the Bismarck and Tirpitz - or maybe the Kriegsmarine would see them as the foundation of a balanced fleet and concentrate more on the surface navy?"

Assuming for the sake of argument that the Wikipedia article is even correct that these negotiations occured, this would not have "removed the need" for the Scharnhorst class, it would have created something like them earlier. Perhaps the Germans might have gone with guns instead of armor or speed (six to eight 15' guns on something like a slow Renown), but given German predilection for staying power, together with the realization that any fleet limited to this ratio vs the other main navies would never be a real "battle fleet", they'd probably end up with something not dissimilar to OTL's Scharnhorst. Any British and French "responses" to these ships would be scaled up accordingly beyond what they built or reconstructed to counter the pocket battleships. France would go directly to something a lot more like Richelieu, and the British might expedite the modernization of Hood, Queen Elizabeths, and the Renowns, any of which were already the equal of what the Germans would be building in terms of speed and offensive power.

This might have an effect on "Treaty" heavy cruisers more than capital ships. Leaving the Japanese out of the equation for a minute - who had their own reason for building the biggest crusiers they could get away with - the fear of the pocket battleships made most other navies try to squeeze so much into 10,000 ton ships that it resulted in over armed heavy cruisers that were unbalanced. Perhaps in this scenarish fewer "heavy cruisers" would be built, with the tonnage going to more smaller and faster scout cruisers.

why on earth should the germans build such ships?
the german navy before hitler knew exactly what kind of ship they need...
fast? yes - fast enough to run away from superior ships
long ranged? yes - so diesel is important
armor? no - any ship with enough armor to protect itself against large calibres is to heavy and expensive...
weapons? yes - but politically no. a german ship with a big calibre gun will have to disadvantages for them
a.) political stress
b.) costs.. in money and space/shipsize

they knew exactly that an enlargen pocketbattleship is perfect
they even thought about diesels on the scharnhorsts...

in this scenario they COULD build ships with only two turrets (2x3) and 28cm guns (for money, time and political things) but long range and better armour. They would build the pbs with more armor, but couldn´t... they had been out of the legal size, with more armor they had been fully out of the scale

so if they make this deal, a ship with 2x3 28cm guns and long range and high speed but cruiserproven armor is the logical ship

maybe they do not need 25/29000ts... maybe they can build it with 20.000ts (full deplacement around 26000ts, the 25/29000ts would be full displaced aroound 34/35000ts)

sure, some would like to build later (if they are liberated from versailles) to build "better" and stronger ships, with more punch, but they will run out of time and money... could some plans exist (or ships even been layed down?) yes... maybe something like bismarck, with more protection (cause the allied reactions (known in the late 30ties) will let the germans build the H-class with more armor and range even earlier...

honestly, the germans tried to reach range with the conventional engines, but they ignored completly that such engines could not be worked at economical level (with this the scharnhorst had an enormous range - but in reality it was only 30% of this, same is true for heavy cruisers and destroyers... )
 
Lets look at this possible timeline, the German's don't make any Pocket Battleships but cruiser size continues to escalate when information about the german plans for their new long range raiders is obtained/released.

Politically its not desirable to build new capital ships such as battleships or battlecruisers but getting a cruiser built is more politically acceptable. Also the rising strength and size of Japanese cruisers compaired to the cruisers built by the RN in the 1920's (County Class) leads to the development of two new cruiser classes and the reintroduction of two gun calibers after the London Naval Treaty falls apart.

The first is the Black Prince class of 'Cruiser' weighing in at 16000 tonnes armed with 9 x 9.2 inch guns of a new caliber and design from the ones of the early 1900's as well as 16 x 4 inch guns for AA protection. The class looks like a much scaled down KGV class. Four were to be laid down and completed by 1938

The second was a variation of the Town Class cruiser, still called a light cruiser the new Dauntless class shipped 9 x 7.5 inch guns and 12 x 6 inch AA guns on 12000 tonnes, sacrificing a turret for the larger guns.

The Black Princes were built at yards that could not build a bigger vessel and were built to accompany the KGV class as well as act as convoy escorts. Their firepower, although inferior to the Nazi's Lutzow class (the name i'm giving the OP's ships) they were superior to any heavy cruiser and had the firepower to damage the rather thinly protected German ships.

witch german cruisers?
you do not need any stronger cruiser to beat german light cruisers, for the heavies, the germans cannot or will not build much of them (i think, none)
why? it is no need for them in the german navy...

the "lützows" show superior capability to kill any ship below battleship size, why should they change something?

they will - it is an mistake - go for bigger ships, like the H-class, ultrastrong, ultraarmored and completly useless... cause if they are build they are just targets (or - better - sitting in norway and bind allied ships is fine, but for that these monsters are to expensive, if lützows can do the same... )

no - accidentally these ships are the best solution for the germans - their enemies cannot react rightly...

like german jets earlier as bomberkillers... your enemy cannot counter this in time, (i just want to make clear that some developments cause situations you cannot change fast, similar to the nukes, in late 1945 the USA is the ONLY one with nukes, even if everybody try to build its own programm... similar to this are these ships. you know you are at disadvantage but you have not the capability to counter... you have to accept that you are at disadvantage.
here - even better - if you try to correct this (building fast large battleships) you make another mistake

ASBish "carriers are the weapon"-hindsight left away, at last in early 1931...
 

sharlin

Banned
With the german ships you don't have to kill them to basically kill them. A ship once it takes damage is in essence mission killed. The hits to the Bismark from the PoW saw her heading for port due to loss of fuel in her forward bunkers.

If for example one of these super raiders of yours is built, and engages a convoy thats got cruiser escort, its most likely it will sink the cruiser but at the risk of taking damage itself. I'm not talking guns disabled, but a 6 inch round could take out a gunnery director, cause flooding in unprotected parts of the hull etc. Now imagine being hit by a 9.2 inch shell or a number of them.

Once forced to disengage or even after running the convy down in a damaged state the ship would be forced to turn home due to ammo expenditure and damage, right into the arms of the Royal Navy if they were lucky.

And PS apart from sinking the Hood the bismark did feck all to alter the strategic situation. She sank one ship, and had lots chasing her, she sunk no convoys, didn't even disrupt their sailings which would have had a greater effect.

And the german cruisers I was speaking of were your ones.
 
Politically its not desirable to build new capital ships such as battleships or battlecruisers but getting a cruiser built is more politically acceptable. Also the rising strength and size of Japanese cruisers compaired to the cruisers built by the RN in the 1920's (County Class) leads to the development of two new cruiser classes and the reintroduction of two gun calibers after the London Naval Treaty falls apart.

The first is the Black Prince class of 'Cruiser' weighing in at 16000 tonnes armed with 9 x 9.2 inch guns of a new caliber and design from the ones of the early 1900's as well as 16 x 4 inch guns for AA protection. The class looks like a much scaled down KGV class. Four were to be laid down and completed by 1938

The second was a variation of the Town Class cruiser, still called a light cruiser the new Dauntless class shipped 9 x 7.5 inch guns and 12 x 6 inch AA guns on 12000 tonnes, sacrificing a turret for the larger guns.

The problem here is that the 'Heavy' and 'Light' cruisers already came into existence because of the Washington Naval Treaty. The Black Prince class should carry 8in guns since I can't see the Royal Navy reintroducing a gun caliber the existing fleet doesn't have.
 

sharlin

Banned
Aye true, but a new caliber could be made, and I recall reading in Nelson to Vanguard that there was an idea to reintroduce the 9.2 on a British Alaska esque equivalent, all be it smaller and cheaper.
 
This is some version of Germany rejoins the family of nations idea. Most likely Rathenau or rather someone like him pulls off a massive diplomatic coup and Hans Zenker is able to see his dream of a reborn fleet realized. I guess all TL get one rather impossible thing and everything else follows.

Only way I see this flying is Germany is allowed to join the Washington Naval Treaty. I don't see what leverage there is for this but again it happens. With that assumption I assume Germany is allowed upto 35K ships but there is the 125K max tonnage limitation in effect France / UK are trying to lure Germany into building smaller ships. Also I expect that UK and others will want to have Germany wait so nothing built for them till 1927 or so.

In any event the SPD isn't going to be very thrilled with the idea of spending cash and would be happy to wait.

With reluctance German Government lays down a pair of treaty BB's one in 1927 and one in 1929. Scharnhorst analogs 35K standard tons, 30+ knot speed and 3x2 15" guns. (recall all signers were allowed to build up to two 16" gunned ships that didn't have them. This is were the Nelsons came from. I expect the Germans would go with their historic 15" guns.)

France has no choice but to reply and lays down two BB's of its own. This forces Italy to respond also. Expect both nations to build less CA's as a result of this.

In the mean time Germany doesn't build the defective light cruisers they did build, as they aren't bound by ToV displacement limits. SPD would want to spend as little as possible and doesn't build very many cruisers.

Still the net effect is fast BB race is on in the late 1920's. I don't know what if any effect this has on 1930 London Treaty. It might kill it or the British might feel they have little to worry about from Germany.

What Germany does with the remaining 55K ton is open to debate. My money is they push things and go commerce warfare to the hilt. Three 18,333 ton ships, 3x3 240mm guns with 150mm secondaries and 30+ knot speed. Get laid down in the early 1930's. Cruiser Killers, designed to take out treaty cruisers. UK and France freaks out when design details get to them

Early - mid 30's Treaty System collapses and France, UK, etc building new ships to counter the German designs. Ships that got rebuilt historically don't get rebuilt and new ships are built instead. So before Hitler is in power the world is already arming again.

I don't see how this helps the Germans in anyway to be honest and a good case that with earlier re-armament on navies spills over into other areas. So this is over all a rather large negative for Germany. One of the reasons Germany was able to do what it did was that Germany had a head start on re-armament over everyone else.

Michael
 
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