WI the RN had build the Lion Class instead of the KGV Class

From what I've read is that the KGV class, KGV and POW, were to be the only ships mounting the 14in guns - 12 in three quadruple turrets. The following class, the Duke of York, were to have 16in guns. Various delays, IIRC first with the 14in gun and then the twin turret design, took so much time that the Duke of York, Anson and Howe were completed as KGVs to same time.

The RN would then have two KGVs with 10-12 14in guns and three Dukes of York with 9-16in guns.
 
Do you have citation for the claim that the development and construction times for the Mark VII 14" and Mark II 16" guns would be the same? (All the data I am citing is from the Navweapons site as it pretty accurate and I am too lazy to look elsewhere, such as in my books.)

Given that the Mark II 16" was about 50 % heavier than the Mark VII, and the forging for Mark II 16" was the largest ever made in Britain at the time. I would think that the 16" would be more time consuming to construct.

Further, while the design for the 16" was basically a scaled up 14", I also would the the actual designing of the larger weapon would be more complicated. The design for the Mk VII 14" gun was completed a year earlier, 1937, than the design for the Mk II 16" gun and two years earlier than the improved Mark III 16" design.

Of course, the Lion class ships themselves probably would take longer to construct just because they were larger than the KG Vs.

All these factors tend to suggest that a Lion type battleship armed with 16" guns, particularly the equivalent of the Mark III gun, would not be ready at the same time as the KG Vs were in OTL.

The experience in building the prior Mk I 16" guns was not really relevant to the construction of the Mk II 16" guns. The Mk I was a wire wound gun design while the Mk II/III were an entirely different and more modern design, similar to the Mark VII. The RN spent considerable time making sure that these guns were a solid design to avoid repeating the failure that was the Mk I 16" gun that armed the Rodney and Nelson. This work yielded a gun with performance superior to the performance of the Mk I in the Rodney and Nelson. Penetration performance was similar to the Mk 8 16" guns carried on the US Colorado class but well behind the performance of the Mark 6 16" guns in the North Carolina South Dakota classes, let alone that of the Mark 7 carried in New Jerseys. (The inadequacies of RN Mk I 16" guns carried on the Nel/Rod guns were in many dimension. Among its flaws were that it was generally less accurate than its predecessor, had a short barrel life, and was not as effective in penetrating armor as purportedly lesser guns. For example, penetration performance the RN's Mk I 16" gun was actually worse than the US Mk 11 14" guns.)

Also, I would not be so fast to dismiss turret problems occurring in the Lions. The Lions' turret design, according to Navweapons, was based on the problem-prone quad turret of KG V class. Given the poor track record of the RN in designing three and four gun turrets for battleships, I see no reason to assume that the Lion class turrets would be any more problem free than the ships in OTL. History suggest that they would not.

While the actual 16" gun might well take a bit longer (but not much longer) than a 14", the limiting factor was the turret, so it wouldnt impact the delivery time.

Lion wasnt much bigger than KGV. 40kt against 35kt. There would be a need for more armour, which might cause a delay (but not much, the protected areas were fairly simliar apparently - the size increase was to preserve stability with the heavier gun/turrets). A bigger ship doesnt necessarily mean a longer construction time as long as the men are available to work on it. Longer delays in WW2 era ships seemd to be due to poor prediction of when critical components would be ready, and insufficient allowance for getting critical bits ready early to allow for delays.
However even the larger size seems to have been a bit of an red herring. KGV came in well over weight - the only real difference with Lion was heavier guns, turrets and shells, plus possibly larger machinery to maintain the KGV speed. So I really cant see much difference in completion times, and there is still the 6 month saving on the twin turret.

One thing I didnt realise earlier, though, was that Lion was to carry a heavier AAA set - about 33% more AA guns than KGV. So maybe the result of Force Z could have been changed after all...

The problems with the 14" turret were mainly due to the issue of the flexibility of the ship/deck around it. Whether this would have been repeated with a triple 16", I dont know if anyone can say. After all, they had the Nelrods 16" triple working ok by then (or at least, they had ID'd the fixes they needed to implement). Given the urgency of the BB requirement, there is the possibility they could have decided to basically replicate the (fixed) Nelrod turret with the new guns. That obviously wasnt an option with the OTL KGV
 
IIRC, Navweapons notes the NelRod turrets were not fixed by 1939. That might not have been soon enough.
After all, they had the Nelrods 16" triple working ok by then (or at least, they had ID'd the fixes they needed to implement). Given the urgency of the BB requirement, there is the possibility they could have decided to basically replicate the (fixed) Nelrod turret with the new guns. That obviously wasnt an option with the OTL KGV
 
Who cares--battleships look cool!

In writing game rules for giant robots in GURPS Mecha, David Pulver pointed out that there are sound engineering reasons why fighting vehicles shaped like giant men (or elephants, dinosaurs, whatever) cannot serve as well as tanks weight-for-weight. Then he went on to say "...but who cares. Mecha look cool." And so it was for the period of dreadnought battleships and battlecruisers. They were by far the most expensive and least useful weapons of their times. If Hitler had put the treasure and steel and crews he put into his four battleships into Uboats instead, he could have started the war with around 200 of them instead of around 50 and he might have won.

Anyone who could afford these useless monsters built them or bought them. Brazil had two, Argentina two, and Chile one by the 1930s. Spain built three. Austria-Hungary built four, while they still had coastlines.

The best looking battleships were the Vittorio Venetos and the Yamatos, which because of their ridiculous fuel consumption spent most of their war in port. None of them ever sank a single enemy ship; only a couple of them even fired on another ship at all.

The KGV's were a little more successful; they did sink about a battleship-and-a-half (Scharnhorst and a half-credit for Bismarck) but Prince of Wales didn't last long.

Only the USN came up with battleships that could actually give aircraft serious problems. The ten fast battleships we built had 16 or 20 5-inch/38 DP guns that could put out 30 rounds a minute. We didn't have a decent light AA at the start of the war, but we happily bought licences and stuck 40mm Bofors (Swedish) and 20mm Oerlikon (Swiss) on everything that floated.

Instead of using the 4.5 inch or 4.7 inch antiaicraft guns already in Royal Navy use, the Admiralty opted for a 5.25 inch design which was heavier, more complicated, less reliable, more expensive, and slower-firing. The Lions would have had more of the same.

On balance, Britain would might have been better off if she stopped building battleships around 1900. In both world wars, what Britain needed most on the seas were destroyers. Not only did the battleships use up resources that could have built more destroyers; they soaked up destroyers because every one of them needed to be escorted when it went to sea.

Britain's battleship addiction allowed them to build one of the Lions, sort of. The last Royal Navy battleship was Vanguard, more or less a Lion armed with eight 15 inch guns in four turrets. The turrets had originally been mounted on HMS Courageous and HMS Glorious, two of the "large light cruisers" built by the legendarily eccentric Admiral Lord Fisher but later converted into aircraft carriers. Completed in 1946 and broken up in 1960, she was said to have "her great-auntie's teeth."

But we don't do that any more, do we?

Well, we built a fleet of 21 B-2 Spirits for around a billion dollars each, and we've spent about another billion on development and maintenance for each, not counting the support system. Each requires about 120 hours of maintenance for each hour spent in the air. They never land at any airfield other than their home base; each mission usually requires multiple refuellings, which means each B-2 requires around a half-dozen tanker aircraft in support, and the tankers need forward bases, and...

But the Stealth Bomber looks cool!
 

Redbeard

Banned
Unless we count in some substantial political PoDs, I doubt we could have the British lay down a 40k battleship with 16” guns by 1937. Technically it of course would be possible, even to have it completed in the same time as the OTL KGVs, but I doubt the political starting point will be present.

It will also be technically possible to build a 1937 35k battleship with 9 16” guns, but then you will have to pay with speed and/or protection. For the British paying with protection is a no-go, considering their experience with battle cruisers at Jutland (although thin armour IMHO really wasn’t the problem) and if they build something slower than the OTL KGVs, the ships will be of little use in modern warfare.

The USN built 35k ship with 9 16” guns (North Carolina and Washington), but they were not ready by spring of 41 (when Bismarck was) and were rather thin skinned compared to the KGVs, and with a much lower practical speed (due to serious vibration problems).

A 35k design with 8 16” in a 3-2 ___ 3 combination (or 3-3-2_____?) and a lighter secondary armament (4,5” instead of 5,25”) might produce an acceptable combination of firepower, protection and speed, but designing both twin and triple turrets involve a risk of delays.

A design with 6 16” in two superimposed triples forward would make it possible to build a 35k ship with superior speed and protection - let us call her HMS Pussycat. The ship can engage head on and could be protected to be virtually immune to fire from ahead (thick fwd. bulkhead, turret fronts/barbettes and deck, but moderate belt) and would be well suited to the RN’s needs of forcing the enemy to engage.

In most scenarios the RN could count on being numerically superior, and could operate the ships in pairs, but anyway even a single well protected ship capable of 30+ knots would be a serious problem for any axis raider. If Bismarck tries to flee, it will only be able to use 4 guns against 6 from the HMS Pussycat, and the RN ship has its “best side“ turned towards the enemy. If Bismarck turns to engage with all guns the HMS Pussycat still can count on resisting hits much better and can reduce speed to stay longer in the favourable head-on position. Both ships might take quite a licking, but being damaged is much worse for a German raider in the Atlantic than for a British BB among friends.

I doubt however, that it politically would be anything but suicide to propose spending millions of 1930s £ on ships with only six main guns when everybody else have eight or more.

So all in all I guess the KGVs were exactly what the RN needed - they were there when they were needed and did the job. The world’s best ship not present is a trizillion times worse than the worst ship being available.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 

Redbeard

Banned
Only the USN came up with battleships that could actually give aircraft serious problems. The ten fast battleships we built had 16 or 20 5-inch/38 DP guns that could put out 30 rounds a minute. We didn't have a decent light AA at the start of the war, but we happily bought licences and stuck 40mm Bofors (Swedish) and 20mm Oerlikon (Swiss) on everything that floated.

[/I]

Comparing a USN and RN battleships in 1941 or 1942 will not bring about significant advantages to either. The USN 5" was better than the RN equivalent (4, 4,5 and 5,25") but the British 2" multiple mount better than the USN 1,1".

But in late WWII, when RN hardly saw enemy airpower anymore, USN ships engaged scores of Japanese planes with incredible numbers of 40mm and 20mm and with proximity fused 5" shells. USN AA firecontrol probably was better than RN ditto but still a 1945 KGV is a whole lot more bristling with AAA than a 1941 one.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
Love to know if the suggestion that 37,500 tons that is mentioned in WTRE was a possibility.

IIRC, the WTRE authors found a single reference to it but couldn't find it again when they went for another look.
 
Speculation aside about when the Lions could be ready or what other types of battleships the British might have built, CalBear's original statement that it really doesn't make any difference in the long run stands. Yes, maybe a Lion along with Hood would have helped destroy the Bismarck earlier than she was actually lost. Or, maybe Hood would be out there alone, or with a ship like Renown or Nelson, still get sunk and Bismarck would still probably be caught and destroyed before she made Brest. None of this would have affected the basic fact that Britain was facing, in Nazi Germany, a navy with at most two modern battleships in the Bismarcks and two undergunned wastes of steel in the Scharnhorsts. With the Queen Elizabeths, the "R's", Nelson, Rodney, and Hood available, it really doesn't matter if Britain build the KGV's or the Lions - the minor differences between these ships would have no effect on how the naval war was fought.
 
The ten fast battleships we built had 16 or 20 5-inch/38 DP guns that could put out 30 rounds a minute.

No 5"/38 gun ever fired 30 rounds a minute. 15 rounds a minute would be more like it and even then only for a very short time unless you had a gun crew consisting of Olympic Decathletes.
 
Comparing a USN and RN battleships in 1941 or 1942 will not bring about significant advantages to either. The USN 5" was better than the RN equivalent (4, 4,5 and 5,25") but the British 2" multiple mount better than the USN 1,1".

But in late WWII, when RN hardly saw enemy airpower anymore, USN ships engaged scores of Japanese planes with incredible numbers of 40mm and 20mm and with proximity fused 5" shells. USN AA firecontrol probably was better than RN ditto but still a 1945 KGV is a whole lot more bristling with AAA than a 1941 one.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard


AA fire on any surfaceship, no matter which one, cannot do anything better than a flight of CAP fighters form a carrier, so AA guns can best be seen as last ditch defense in a multiple layered defense against enemy airattack. Even the often praised USN battelships with lots of AA guns in the late 1944 period are vulnerable to airattack, as they cannot defend themselves on their own, or even with the help of other ships nearby. A good example of such a futile form of uncovered surface action group is the way the Japanese Yamato taskforce was waisted near Okinawa in 1945, as even her beefed up AA did not make any impression against a detered agreesor with lots of strike aircraft, as the IJN lacked aircover herself. Simply swapping the Japanese ships fo that period for USN fitted and equipped ships would not have altered the outcome at all.
 
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