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Post by mostlyharmless on Feb 19, 2022 21:04:51 GMT
During the evolution of the designs leading to the WW1 Queen Elizabeth Class of battleships proposals were made for a 28 knot design before considerations of cost led to the final 25 knot design that finally made about 24 knots on trials. There may even have been plans to build a ship to modified design, possibly named Agincourt, with 10 in. armour to achieve higher speed. However, the Board of the Admiralty in 1913 decided to build a slower cheaper design which became the R Class battleships. Was this inevitable? Can we imagine a radically different route being taken? Clearly Admiral Fisher’s first retirement from his position as First Sea Lord at the start of 1911 had removed one voice asking for higher speed although Fisher retained some indirect influence via Winston Churchill and remained an advocate of oil fuelling. Perhaps the simplest way to change the Royal Navy’s policy would be to change the perceived threat. There were proposals in Germany to complete the second and third of the Derfflinger Class, laid down in 1912 and 1913, with 35 cm guns. The subsequent Mackensen Class en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackensen-class_battlecruiser was being designed over 1912-3, with the design being approved in May 1913. Thus let us assume that late in 1912 a British Naval attaché heard a rumour that Lutzow and Hindenburg would carry 35 cm guns and independently some unscrupulous German sold the British a version of the plans for Mackensen, ideally with the suggestion that a large class was planned. It is possible that the Board of the Admiralty might have concluded that as many as seven Mackensens were planned with the first commissioning in 1915. Had they done so, it seems likely that instead of as many as eight R Class battleships being ordered from 1913 (two were replaced by Renown and Repulse after Fisher’s return to the Admiralty in 1914), a class of larger and more expensive but also faster ships might have been built. If we are trying to achieve 28 knots, we might imagine that we need a ship almost exactly halfway between HMS Queen Elizabeth and the latter HMS Hood. The deep load displacement is thus between 33,260 and 46,680 long tons, which is 39,970 long tons. The machinery available in 1913 will be either a copy of Tiger’s, adapted to oil firing, or a variant with extra boiler rooms as fitted to Renown. Can we guess at the dimensions? Simplest would be to take Tiger (Length 704 ft (o.a.), Beam 90 ft 6 in and Draught 32 ft 5 in giving a 33,260 long tons full load) and increase the size to give enough displacement to carry the required armour and armament. For our guess of 39,970 tons required, we need a 1.20 factor. However, there are limits to draught, so it seems simplest to increase the length and beam by 9.6%, which means a length of 771 ft. (o.a) and a beam of 99 ft. This is almost identical to the WW2 Scharnhorst Class although the hull form is different. It is longer than the Japanese Nagato class, which has a similar beam and a very similar displacement but is closer in proportions to British battleships rather than to battlecruisers with an overall length of 708 ft (overall length is possible slightly misleading as simply remodelling Mutsu’s bow to reduce spray increased the length to 713 ft). The Tiger based design is wider and shorter than Renown as built, showing the greyhound proportions Fisher preferred. It may be that the process of refining the design would move towards a slightly shorter ship. The replacement of Tiger’s 13.5 in turrets with Queen Elizabeth’s 15 in would add around 800 to 1000 tons of just rotating weight as well as requiring larger and thicker barbettes and some increase in the turret spacing. However, the design probably would not require a great deal more citadel length than Tiger unless extra boiler rooms as built into Renown were added in addition to mounting eight 15 in. guns. If bulges are added as on the last of the R Class, Ramilles, the extra weight of guns and armour would be better supported but some speed would certainly be lost. The speed expected from these ships should be faster than Nagato, which made 26.7 knots on 85,500 shp during trials as the shape is finer and longer and the power should at least equal Tiger’s 104,635 shp on trials despite Nagato being slightly lighter at full load at 38,498 long tons. Can we check that scaling Tiger by 1.2 would allow us to carry armour giving protection comparable to a Queen Elizabeth or better a Revenge? One key point is that we are designing an oil fired ship. Tiger carried up to 3,800 long tons of fuel oil and 3,340 long tons of coal. Queen Elizabeth carried only 3,400 tons of oil, Renown 4,289 tons and Hood 4,000 tons. Thus we have around an extra 3000 tons to use for armour beyond the effects of scaling, which makes it quite clear that even after mounting the more powerful armament, we can certainly add an extra 4 inches thickness to the belt although Revenge’s non-tapering belt is deeper than belts of earlier ships. If we give the belt the same 12 ft 9 in height and the same 520 lb thickness as on Revenge and make it 463 ft. long (60% of the scaled Tiger length), it only weighs 2,741 long tons. On WW2 battleships, the deck armour was much heavier than the belt but Revenge has only three layers, two of one inch and the lowest of two inches, which was admittedly probably inadequate even in 1916. If we make an unreasonably pessimistic assumption that that covers a rectangle of 463 ft. by 99 ft., it only adds 3274 tons. Extensions fore and aft, the upper belt, barbettes, a torpedo bulkhead and conning tower may take the total protection weight to around 10,000 tons, which would be roughly expected from a battleship of 39,000 full load displacement. Nagato for comparison had a 12 in. belt but a 9 in upper belt compared to Revenge’s 6 in and a much thicker torpedo bulkhead. Nagato also had significantly thicker armoured decks. Cost is rather hard to estimate. Tiger cost £2,593,100, Queen Elizabeth cost £3,014,103, Revenge cost £2,406,368 and Renown cost £3,117,204. We could add that Hood cost £6,025,000 but that was after significant inflation and was also raised by modifying the design during construction. The Tiger to Queen Elizabeth comparison suggests that heavier guns and thicker armour did cost more. The low cost of Revenge shows that shortening the citadel and using less powerful machinery could save money. Clearly armouring a longer citadel than Tiger or Queen Elizabeth to Revenge’s standard and using Tiger or Renown’s machinery would cost significantly more than any of these ships and might cost £3,600,000 to £3,800,000. Despite the cost, Britain was not short of money in 1913 and I believe that four of this R Class might be ordered and laid down over 1913-4. It is even possible that Fisher, Jellicoe and Beatty would persuade the Cabinet to allow two more ships to be built over 1915-7, probably with the more powerful machinery of Renown. So what consequences might follow? Revenge and Royal Oak could well miss Jutland but that is unlikely to change much of that battle. However, the existence of particularly the last two ships with more powerful machinery and thus perhaps 29 knots speed, would make the Admiral Class less necessary. Would the extra cost of these six ships also prevent the construction of the Courageous Class? We can imagine Britain being invited to Washington in 1921, with or without Hood or the Courageous Class and the negotiations going more or less as in our history. If Britain was allowed to build a Nelson Class by a treaty, it seems likely that the design would be slightly different. Here the RN has two ships capable of about 28.5 knots, four ships capable of 27.5 knots, five ships capable of 24 knots together with Tiger and several of the Iron Duke Class. The new ship would surely be designed to at least keep up with the Queen Elizabeths, implying 25 knots. In fact Nelson was actually only 33,300 tons standard displacement and increasing the size of the machinery might have been possible to give a two shaft ship with 25 knots on 70,000 shp and a 34,900 standard displacement. If no Courageous Class had been built, Britain would have certainly constructed two or three aircraft carriers between 1922 and 1934. This would at least support the warship building industry. If the RN was reduced to 15 battleships by a London Treaty in 1930, the choice of which ships to discard would be interesting. The RN would have two Nelsons, two of the above “Renown Class”, four of the above “Revenge Class” and five of the Queen Elizabeth Class, which it would be sure to keep. Britain would be allowed to keep two extra ships from Tiger and the four Iron Duke Class. Assuming that some information on the Deutschland Class had become available, it seems likely that Tiger would be kept together with one Iron Duke with another reduced to a training ship. Rebuilding during the period of the London Treaty would be much more attractive than in our history as none of the ships except the Nelsons had geared turbines and fitting new machinery could recover speed lost due to bulging. In fact, British rebuilding during this period tended to only slightly raise the power of the machinery whilst reducing its weight, adding magazines for anti-aircraft guns in what had been machinery spaces and adding a layer of possibly sacrificial auxiliary machinery spaces between the torpedo bulkhead and the new boiler rooms. Nevertheless it seems likely that in 1939 the RN will have three ships capable of more than 28 knot, perhaps called Tiger, Renown and Ramilles, four 27 knot ships of the “Revenge” class, seven 24 knot ships and one 21 knot ship only useful as a convoy escort or for shore bombardment. |
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Post by mostlyharmless on Feb 20, 2022 16:24:50 GMT
It is slightly strange that someone has tagged this with World War I because it seems unlikely to change World War I in a noticeable way. It does depend on pre-World War I events and looking at the decision making leading to the historical R-Class, the British desire to send six modern capital ships to the Mediterranean did play a part. Thus we can add a report from Rome that Italy was very unlikely to support Austria in any general conflict might have argued against the historical R-Class.
The interesting effects of this 1913 decision is that by the late 1930s, the RN has six ships capable of 27+ knots that might be risked in battle against a modern battleship instead of only HMS Hood (or possibly in addition to HMS Hood if the Admiral Class is still laid down in 1916). The new R Class are slower than Hood but carry a similar armament and similar strength of belt armour. I am assuming that these ships armour as built is very similar to the original R Class but over a much longer citadel.
In order to fight at longer range, the armour decks will need to be strengthened. A possible model would be Royal Oak where in 1934 4 inch non-cemented armour was fitted on the main deck over the magazines and 2.5 inch non-cemented armour over the machinery on top of the existing 1 inch deck (partially 2 inch but only the outboard section) adding 900 tons to her displacement (Raven & Roberts, British Battleships of World War two, page 172) as well as removal of her underwater torpedo tubes and addition of anti-aircraft armament. The 1 inch forecastle and upper decks were presumably retained. The extra weight would be matched by bulges that were added to all the R Class by the mid 20s. Even for a significantly longer ship, such additions would be less than the 3,000 tons allowed by Washington.
One fortunate feature of this version of history for the RN is that they are not forced to spend so much to make Renown and Repulse (Refit and Repair) battleworthy. However, they may have an insoluble problem with Tiger unless she is simply regarded as a cruiser killer.
However, the big question is whether the RN will spend more in the 30s to put new wine in old bottles now that they have bigger bottles. The higher speed must make increasing the range of the armament attractive as chasing an enemy force is likely to be more successful but will likely involve a prolonged action at long range.
As I mentioned, the RN generally installed smaller and lighter machinery rather than raising the power so that Warspite’s power was raised from 75,000 shp to 80,000 whilst the weight was reduced from 3,691 tons to 2,300 tons. For comparison, Ise’s power went from 45,000 shp to 80,825 shp. The extra space was used to install auxiliary machinery outboard of the new boilers and thus increase subdivision. We don’t know how well this worked because replacing the machinery proved completely successful at preventing torpedo hits. The RN had twelve WW1 capital ships in 1939 and suffered torpedo hits on Royal Oak, Barham on two occasions, Resolution, Malaya, Repulse and Ramilles. None of the four ships with new machinery were hit even when Warspite sailed into the fjords around Narvik. It is possible that had Kongo been rebuilt by the RN instead of having her power increased from 64,000 shp to 136,000 shp, she might have survived two torpedo hits.
If we could guess how rebuilding went, we could start to look at how the RN’s altered fleet might change WW2.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Feb 20, 2022 16:27:18 GMT
It is slightly strange that someone has tagged this with World War I because it seems unlikely to change World War I in a noticeable way. That would be me, my apologies. |
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stevep
Fleet admiral
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Post by stevep on Feb 20, 2022 17:26:21 GMT
If its any help, although it takes a different path, see this thread from a naval site, especially posts 7 & 11 by John French - who used to have the handle Irish Opinion, hence my initial reference to him in the 1st post. With a less conservative Admiralty board a fast 10x13.5" Iron Duke or a markedly faster Queen Elizabeth that could make a significant difference to both WWI and potentially WWII. [If the QE's had been able to keep up with the BCs at Jutland things could go a lot different in the RTTS [Run to the South] let alone later stages, even with the deficiencies in cordite handling and shells that the RN laboured under or Beatty's mismanagement of the BCS.
As you say either such classes with such speed - and if the Iron Dukes had been completed as fast oil powered ships then the following designs are almost certainly to be similarly equipped. As such you get a markedly more capable set of ships going into a treaty agreement and the inter-war period as well as a possible WWII.
Money was an issue in the run up to WWI, as the posts I mentioned discuss. Less from sheer lack of money than the government's desire to minimise defensive spending and the way the navy was funded.
Steve
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1bigrich
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Post by 1bigrich on Feb 21, 2022 13:40:54 GMT
Interesting idea, thanks for sharing it. I'm a little pressed for time right now, so I'll be brief: Perhaps the simplest way to change the Royal Navy’s policy would be to change the perceived threat. There were proposals in Germany to complete the second and third of the Derfflinger Class, laid down in 1912 and 1913, with 35 cm guns. The subsequent Mackensen Class en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mackensen-class_battlecruiser was being designed over 1912-3, with the design being approved in May 1913. Thus let us assume that late in 1912 a British Naval attaché heard a rumour that Lutzow and Hindenburg would carry 35 cm guns and independently some unscrupulous German sold the British a version of the plans for Mackensen, ideally with the suggestion that a large class was planned. It is possible that the Board of the Admiralty might have concluded that as many as seven Mackensens were planned with the first commissioning in 1915. Had they done so, it seems likely that instead of as many as eight R Class battleships being ordered from 1913 (two were replaced by Renown and Repulse after Fisher’s return to the Admiralty in 1914), a class of larger and more expensive but also faster ships might have been built. You might find this post www.tapatalk.com/groups/alltheworldsbattlecruisers/viewtopic.php?p=11158#p11158From the late Bob Henneman interesting on Kaiserliche Marine caliber, size and costs. You might be interested in the info we have on the F2 and F3 battlecruiser concepts over on the BC board www.tapatalk.com/groups/alltheworldsbattlecruisers/f2-and-f3-battlecruisers-t8627.htmlRegards, |
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Post by mostlyharmless on Feb 24, 2022 15:59:41 GMT
Thank you Stevep and Big Rich for the links to the threads on All the World's Battlecruisers. There is quite a lot of very good material there especially on the Queen Elizabeth Class and John French’s posts should almost be an article.
I don’t believe that Watt’s idea of using small tube boilers and geared turbines was a real option because even for the Renown Class, a conversion of Tiger’s plant converted to pure oil firing with three extra boiler rooms was used (the RN should have developed small tube boilers and geared turbines but clearly hadn’t over 1911-15). Thus I still believe that any fast battleship laid down in 1913 will be powered by something directly derived from Tiger’s machinery.
However, the question of whether the Queen Elizabeth’s design was inefficient in other ways is important because it does open the possibility of building a smaller and cheaper ship than my 39,000 full load monster (which is unfortunate because my monster was deliberately designed to be useful in WW2 with plenty of space for an AA armament etc.).
In my own search through purely secondary sources, I did find that Brown’s “The Grand Fleet” had the RPI (retail price index) for the launch date of the RN battlecruisers. The inflation from Tiger to Renown was a factor of 1.60 and from Tiger to Hood a factor of 2.30. However, the RPI given is clearly not quite correct as we would expect Hood to cost quite a bit more than Tiger in real terms.
The notes that Jellicoe was concerned that the older dreadnoughts would not be effective beyond 10,000 yards and thus desired 15 inch guns to be deployed in quantity as quickly as possible was also interesting (although possibly wrong as Hood’s battlecruisers were devastatingly effective at Jutland, at least until the Germans fired back). By contrast Jellicoe seems happy that his ships were faster than the Germans, at least until the Run to the North suggested that the Konigs could make 23 knots.
Whilst getting the most 15 inch guns at sea fastest was the historical priority, a false belief that the Germans were building many Mackensen Class battlecruisers might perhaps have pushed the RN to lay down four faster ships instead of the five R Class in 1913. The constructors seem to have believed that they could obtain 27-8 knots from a ship not hugely larger than Queen Elizabeth. Thus I am proposing that for the same cost they might have ordered four ships with the dimensions of the Ise Class (length 683 ft. oa, 675 ft. waterline, 642 ft. pp, beam 94 ft. - compared to 620 ft 7 in oa, 614 ft 6 in waterline, 580 feet 3 inches pp and a beam of 88 ft. 6 in for Revenge). The extra length and beam should allow installation of an oil fired version of Tiger’s machinery which the RN would believe would give enough speed to run down a German battlecruiser, assuming that German coal was inferior and that stokers tire after two hours. Ise was 29,980 long tons at standard displacement and 36,500 tons full load.
It is possible that after the Run to the North, the Admiral Class would be demanded as historically because 32 knots might start to seem attractive.
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1bigrich
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Post by 1bigrich on Feb 24, 2022 20:09:19 GMT
There is quite a lot of very good material there especially on the Queen Elizabeth Class and John French’s posts should almost be an article. John has done some great work. He and Mark Bailey are working on a Coronel book that should be the definitive work on the topic. You might find his post of ships in terms of 'Fisherspeak' of interest: www.tapatalk.com/groups/alltheworldsbattlecruisers/battle-cruisers-fast-battleships-t8622.htmlOf course it would be a sliding scale, with things changing as new classes are commissioned, but it makes for an interesting snapshot of the strategic situation. Regards, |
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miletus12
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Post by miletus12 on Feb 26, 2022 14:24:50 GMT
If its any help, although it takes a different path, see this thread from a naval site, especially posts 7 & 11 by John French - who used to have the handle Irish Opinion, hence my initial reference to him in the 1st post. With a less conservative Admiralty board a fast 10x13.5" Iron Duke or a markedly faster Queen Elizabeth that could make a significant difference to both WWI and potentially WWII. [If the QE's had been able to keep up with the BCs at Jutland things could go a lot different in the RTTS [Run to the South] let alone later stages, even with the deficiencies in cordite handling and shells that the RN laboured under or Beatty's mismanagement of the BCS. As you say either such classes with such speed - and if the Iron Dukes had been completed as fast oil powered ships then the following designs are almost certainly to be similarly equipped. As such you get a markedly more capable set of ships going into a treaty agreement and the inter-war period as well as a possible WWII. Money was an issue in the run up to WWI, as the posts I mentioned discuss. Less from sheer lack of money than the government's desire to minimise defensive spending and the way the navy was funded. Steve
1. Book or published trials speeds on British warships should be assessed with actual sea running conditions in practice. For example, the Americans knew that flank run speeds for the British battlecruisers were RN declared to be 27 knots as a squadron average. The functional speed at flank was 25 knots, unfouled, and at Jutland was approximately truer to 23 knots sustained. This was the same exact speed as the supposedly "slower" German battle / scout cruisers. The Queen Elizabeths were booked at 25 knots. The same "true conditions" showed a tactical speed of 23 knots sustained in clean unfouled conditions. The apparent true 1 knot difference was insignificant as to tactical sustained speed. 2. Ammunition handling was a problem for the British both chemically and operationally. Unstable hypersensitive to shock propellants and faulty ammunition handling has been an RN historic practice. Training and handling procedures easily overcomes this deficiency. The battlecruisers with Jellicoe practiced safe shell and propellant practices. Beatty's squadron did not. Apply some Bayseian mathematics and German shooting, and one still gets the Beatty results in spite of negating his lousy maneuvering plan, incompetent ship handling and failures to communicate intent and distribute fires among the Germans properly. 3. Faster ships are less useful than skilled procedures and better command and control and better doctrine and battle drill at the ship and squadron level, either pre-WWI or WWII. For a comparator, the IJN ships once they were USN examined were found to be terrible reconstructions with numerous technical deficiencies compared with either Italian or British rebuilds. The difference in Japanese performance actual IJN methods and procedures in using the tools they had. Getting shells and torpedoes to service targets and fitting methods and procedures to realistic conditions was more important than "assumptions" about desired ship characteristics. In the British case, the RN work on reliable torpedoes, better fire-control and on improved ammunition handling and gun service investment in training was a far sounder interwar investment in their battleships than many of the haberdashed and incompetent rebuilds the RN attempted. So a better argument could be made for following and improving more what the RN actually did right and less for what proved "ephemeral or derivative" as to what was important in Jutland lessons learned. Communications and better target servicing at effective battle range was more important than speed and armor when it came to battleships. One only has so many minutes when the enemy is in effective range of one's own ordinance. Quality in a gunfight is shells hitting over time and the ability to dodge counterfire and torpedoes, along with damage control and float bubble sustainable condition as one takes battle damage, far more than speed of the launch platform or how much armor it carries. Hence, tighter turns, better positive and negative acceleration, better ship rudder control, better fire control, rapid accurate fire and good squadron and above level communications (radios), and an in-built damage control /flood control scheme, make a great deal of desired sense. The RN covered those desired goals better than most other navies in their WWI rebuilds. The exceptions to that general trend were the new built Nelsons and the KGVs which were utterly lacking as modern builds in keeping those desired improvements in mind. There, the designers failed in the artillery target servicing cycles, the damage control measures, tactical ship steer maneuvering and internal and external communications characteristics desired. If we are trying to achieve 28 knots, we might imagine that we need a ship almost exactly halfway between HMS Queen Elizabeth and the latter HMS Hood. The deep load displacement is thus between 33,260 and 46,680 long tons, which is 39,970 long tons. The machinery available in 1913 will be either a copy of Tiger’s, adapted to oil firing, or a variant with extra boiler rooms as fitted to Renown. Can we guess at the dimensions? Simplest would be to take Tiger (Length 704 ft (o.a.), Beam 90 ft 6 in and Draught 32 ft 5 in giving a 33,260 long tons full load) and increase the size to give enough displacement to carry the required armour and armament. For our guess of 39,970 tons required, we need a 1.20 factor. However, there are limits to draught, so it seems simplest to increase the length and beam by 9.6%, which means a length of 771 ft. (o.a) and a beam of 99 ft. This is almost identical to the WW2 Scharnhorst Class although the hull form is different. It is longer than the Japanese Nagato class, which has a similar beam and a very similar displacement but is closer in proportions to British battleships rather than to battlecruisers with an overall length of 708 ft (overall length is possible slightly misleading as simply remodelling Mutsu’s bow to reduce spray increased the length to 713 ft). The Tiger based design is wider and shorter than Renown as built, showing the greyhound proportions Fisher preferred. See previous comments. Argo Clock and a better rudder steer control is probably cheaper and better to quality improve the present hardware. Bulbous bow was known to the British, but unlike the Americans and Japanese who adopted it for good Pacific Ocean fueled range extension reasons at optimum cruise speed, the British had their own Atlantic and Mediterranean ocean reasons based on a shorter interval wave mechanics to stick with the square stem prows and to accept "wet forward wash" and forego the added drag at high-speed cruise in those oceans. As I mentioned, the RN generally installed smaller and lighter machinery rather than raising the power so that Warspite’s power was raised from 75,000 shp to 80,000 whilst the weight was reduced from 3,691 tons to 2,300 tons. For comparison, Ise’s power went from 45,000 shp to 80,825 shp. The extra space was used to install auxiliary machinery outboard of the new boilers and thus increase subdivision. We don’t know how well this worked because replacing the machinery proved completely successful at preventing torpedo hits. The RN had twelve WW1 capital ships in 1939 and suffered torpedo hits on Royal Oak, Barham on two occasions, Resolution, Malaya, Repulse and Ramilles. None of the four ships with new machinery were hit even when Warspite sailed into the fjords around Narvik. It is possible that had Kongo been rebuilt by the RN instead of having her power increased from 64,000 shp to 136,000 shp, she might have survived two torpedo hits. British torpedo defense was not that good. Kongo was going to die when hit by American torpedoes no matter who built her. By the time USS Sealion got her, US torpedoes had had their TNT front ends replaced with British developed torpedo explosive charges that gave the submarine launched fish about 2X the explosive concussive force of the air dropped torpedoes that punched holes in Musashi and Yamato. The only other torpedoes with that kind of punch in service anywhere were British and Japanese and those were in 1944 less accurate as free swimmers. |
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stevep
Fleet admiral
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Post by stevep on Feb 27, 2022 13:08:00 GMT
If its any help, although it takes a different path, see this thread from a naval site, especially posts 7 & 11 by John French - who used to have the handle Irish Opinion, hence my initial reference to him in the 1st post. With a less conservative Admiralty board a fast 10x13.5" Iron Duke or a markedly faster Queen Elizabeth that could make a significant difference to both WWI and potentially WWII. [If the QE's had been able to keep up with the BCs at Jutland things could go a lot different in the RTTS [Run to the South] let alone later stages, even with the deficiencies in cordite handling and shells that the RN laboured under or Beatty's mismanagement of the BCS. As you say either such classes with such speed - and if the Iron Dukes had been completed as fast oil powered ships then the following designs are almost certainly to be similarly equipped. As such you get a markedly more capable set of ships going into a treaty agreement and the inter-war period as well as a possible WWII. Money was an issue in the run up to WWI, as the posts I mentioned discuss. Less from sheer lack of money than the government's desire to minimise defensive spending and the way the navy was funded. Steve
1. Book or published trials speeds on British warships should be assessed with actual sea running conditions in practice. For example, the Americans knew that flank run speeds for the British battlecruisers were RN declared to be 27 knots as a squadron average. The functional speed at flank was 25 knots, unfouled, and at Jutland was approximately truer to 23 knots sustained. This was the same exact speed as the supposedly "slower" German battle / scout cruisers. The Queen Elizabeths were booked at 25 knots. The same "true conditions" showed a tactical speed of 23 knots sustained in clean unfouled conditions. The apparent true 1 knot difference was insignificant as to tactical sustained speed. 2. Ammunition handling was a problem for the British both chemically and operationally. Unstable hypersensitive to shock propellants and faulty ammunition handling has been an RN historic practice. Training and handling procedures easily overcomes this deficiency. The battlecruisers with Jellicoe practiced safe shell and propellant practices. Beatty's squadron did not. Apply some Bayseian mathematics and German shooting, and one still gets the Beatty results in spite of negating his lousy maneuvering plan, incompetent ship handling and failures to communicate intent and distribute fires among the Germans properly. 3. Faster ships are less useful than skilled procedures and better command and control and better doctrine and battle drill at the ship and squadron level, either pre-WWI or WWII. For a comparator, the IJN ships once they were USN examined were found to be terrible reconstructions with numerous technical deficiencies compared with either Italian or British rebuilds. The difference in Japanese performance actual IJN methods and procedures in using the tools they had. Getting shells and torpedoes to service targets and fitting methods and procedures to realistic conditions was more important than "assumptions" about desired ship characteristics. In the British case, the RN work on reliable torpedoes, better fire-control and on improved ammunition handling and gun service investment in training was a far sounder interwar investment in their battleships than many of the haberdashed and incompetent rebuilds the RN attempted. So a better argument could be made for following and improving more what the RN actually did right and less for what proved "ephemeral or derivative" as to what was important in Jutland lessons learned. Communications and better target servicing at effective battle range was more important than speed and armor when it came to battleships. One only has so many minutes when the enemy is in effective range of one's own ordinance. Quality in a gunfight is shells hitting over time and the ability to dodge counterfire and torpedoes, along with damage control and float bubble sustainable condition as one takes battle damage, far more than speed of the launch platform or how much armor it carries. Hence, tighter turns, better positive and negative acceleration, better ship rudder control, better fire control, rapid accurate fire and good squadron and above level communications (radios), and an in-built damage control /flood control scheme, make a great deal of desired sense. The RN covered those desired goals better than most other navies in their WWI rebuilds. The exceptions to that general trend were the new built Nelsons and the KGVs which were utterly lacking as modern builds in keeping those desired improvements in mind. There, the designers failed in the artillery target servicing cycles, the damage control measures, tactical ship steer maneuvering and internal and external communications characteristics desired. If we are trying to achieve 28 knots, we might imagine that we need a ship almost exactly halfway between HMS Queen Elizabeth and the latter HMS Hood. The deep load displacement is thus between 33,260 and 46,680 long tons, which is 39,970 long tons. The machinery available in 1913 will be either a copy of Tiger’s, adapted to oil firing, or a variant with extra boiler rooms as fitted to Renown. Can we guess at the dimensions? Simplest would be to take Tiger (Length 704 ft (o.a.), Beam 90 ft 6 in and Draught 32 ft 5 in giving a 33,260 long tons full load) and increase the size to give enough displacement to carry the required armour and armament. For our guess of 39,970 tons required, we need a 1.20 factor. However, there are limits to draught, so it seems simplest to increase the length and beam by 9.6%, which means a length of 771 ft. (o.a) and a beam of 99 ft. This is almost identical to the WW2 Scharnhorst Class although the hull form is different. It is longer than the Japanese Nagato class, which has a similar beam and a very similar displacement but is closer in proportions to British battleships rather than to battlecruisers with an overall length of 708 ft (overall length is possible slightly misleading as simply remodelling Mutsu’s bow to reduce spray increased the length to 713 ft). The Tiger based design is wider and shorter than Renown as built, showing the greyhound proportions Fisher preferred. See previous comments. Argo Clock and a better rudder steer control is probably cheaper and better to quality improve the present hardware. Bulbous bow was known to the British, but unlike the Americans and Japanese who adopted it for good Pacific Ocean fueled range extension reasons at optimum cruise speed, the British had their own Atlantic and Mediterranean ocean reasons based on a shorter interval wave mechanics to stick with the square stem prows and to accept "wet forward wash" and forego the added drag at high-speed cruise in those oceans. As I mentioned, the RN generally installed smaller and lighter machinery rather than raising the power so that Warspite’s power was raised from 75,000 shp to 80,000 whilst the weight was reduced from 3,691 tons to 2,300 tons. For comparison, Ise’s power went from 45,000 shp to 80,825 shp. The extra space was used to install auxiliary machinery outboard of the new boilers and thus increase subdivision. We don’t know how well this worked because replacing the machinery proved completely successful at preventing torpedo hits. The RN had twelve WW1 capital ships in 1939 and suffered torpedo hits on Royal Oak, Barham on two occasions, Resolution, Malaya, Repulse and Ramilles. None of the four ships with new machinery were hit even when Warspite sailed into the fjords around Narvik. It is possible that had Kongo been rebuilt by the RN instead of having her power increased from 64,000 shp to 136,000 shp, she might have survived two torpedo hits. British torpedo defense was not that good. Kongo was going to die when hit by American torpedoes no matter who built her. By the time USS Sealion got her, US torpedoes had had their TNT front ends replaced with British developed torpedo explosive charges that gave the submarine launched fish about 2X the explosive concussive force of the air dropped torpedoes that punched holes in Musashi and Yamato. The only other torpedoes with that kind of punch in service anywhere were British and Japanese and those were in 1944 less accurate as free swimmers.
1) Dubious considering the actions on the day. The British BCs, despite having already seen hard steaming did pull ahead of the German BCs and the QE's, once they picked up speed after a 180 turn which of course did again pull away from the pursuing German battleships. They didn't met the planned 25kts in original planned form, but that's a fairly well known factor. Difference on performance between trials and actual performance, especially after some use was a well known factor but the RN generally was more accurate and realistic than other powers.
2) Largely accurate although the other factor as well as removal of safety measures and less stable cordite was that private industry pressure had allowed very relaxed standards for shell performance so many failed to perform as planned, especially at oblique angles. If that had been prevented, which it could and should have been then despite all Beatty's failures the BC exchange would have been far more even, especially considering the resultant British 'control of the battlefield' in terms of the problems for heavily damaged German ships trying to limp home.
3) Again agree. Speed is very useful but better leadership and doctrine is even more important. All powers found this in WWII but with their greater resources the allies were able to benefit more from lessons learnt.
British torpedo defence in elderly ships were lacking, in part because the late rearmament and the intention of replacing old ships with new builds made later upgrades of older ones impractical. Of the new ships only PoW was [as far as I was aware] hit by torpedoes and one hit on a vulnerable area, followed by a bad decision onboard proved crippling but its likely the ship would have been overwhelmed given the number of attackers. Although without that hit the continued targeting of the PoW, as the more powerful ship, might have lead to the survival of the Repulse.
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miletus12
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Post by miletus12 on Feb 27, 2022 14:41:58 GMT
Of the new ships only PoW was [as far as I was aware] hit by torpedoes and one hit on a vulnerable area, followed by a bad decision onboard proved crippling but its likely the ship would have been overwhelmed given the number of attackers. Although without that hit the continued targeting of the PoW, as the more powerful ship, might have lead to the survival of the Repulse. British torpedo cell defense was about two or three cell layers deep and their compartmentation schemed was longitudinal rather than in transverse. This was true in the WWII British builds. The British WWII builds increased the cell defense to four voids, but kept the longitudinal bulkhead schemes, especially in the engineering spaces. This made for impossible unit machinery isolation, and leveling out the flood control. British ships rolled over and sank into uncorrectable lists and this happened quickly. In US WWI builds, such as the Tennessee class, the "mine defense" was four to five cells deep and the compartmentation scheme was transverse. These ships were built to different design philosophies. This difference occurred before the Mitchell shock tests on obsolete US pre-dreadnoughts and German WWI reparation ships. Both navies conducted such tests, but again the structural lessons learned were different. The British came away without understanding underwater shock too well. The Americans did not learn about the water hammer effect of in-flooding. Thus the British paid strenuous attention to water-tighten manholes and passthroughs but did not understand about plate buckle and flood paths. The Americans understood about shock effect on plates but missed how important even the tiniest seep hole or tear was in the packing about manholes or pipe and cable passthroughs. Both navies missed the plot about bend moment and how more important elasticity and reset memory was in hull metal than Brinell hardness. Thick armor was less useful than blast venting or pre-detonation outside the citadel. It is true that the British only had one modern capital battleship unit torpedoed by a competent enemy, but they had enough cruisers and aircraft carriers hit to give a good indication and comparison as to how their torpedo defense systems and damage control methods worked in their modern ships. Counties and Indomitables were "unacceptabvle" as measured. The Americans had enough Clevelands and Yorktowns hit to compare like with like. Again, the performance in damage control was not as wished, but the contrast to damage resistance is startling. British ships were quicker to mission kill if no faster to sink. And damage repair time, a metric often ignored in such comparisons, was longer for the British ship and sometimes, because of the way the ship was put together, impossible to fix at all. For example, if fire swept the flight deck of an American flattop or weather deck of an American ship, the cladding was cut out and replaced with new steel and decking. It was not framed into the main hull as a strength member. British practice was to build strength all the way to the main deck. This makes for a "stiff" ship. Results? a. In escorts as an example, in the battle of the Atlantic, when German acoustic torpedoes homed in on screws and blew the rudders off British ships, the destroyers were parading through allied shipyards to be repaired., The hulls were "bent" up as if they had been hogged astern. This was due to lack of flexion in the framing. It was impossible to repair the damage. b. In the famous Prince of Wales torpedo hit on that screw, the Japanese aerial torpedo drove the screw shaft both sideways and into the shaft alley, snapping it at the second coupling, wallowing out the passthrough bearing at the bulkhead and allowing a flood path into the engineering spaces, past the drive shaft block and into the boilers and turbine rooms on that side of the ship. What is not commented when this golden BB is described is that the hull BENT from the underwater pressure wave sideways and that distortion carried up into the fantail all the way upon the main deck. Even if the Prince of Wales had survived, she would have been Warspited and reduced to no more than a second-class monitor as a result of her severe frame buckling. USS Virginia and USS Pennsylvania suffered similar hits. Pennsylvania was decommed as it was near the end of the war. USS West Virginia? Suriagao Strait she was in line of battle. Design philosophy tends to produce different results in different circumstances. And over time, two different design philosophies as a result of battle tend to converge. HMS Vanguard and USS Wisconsin are not that dissimilar under the belts. They have distributed and donkey-engined electrical systems, five cell torpedo defenses, three layered AAA gun suites, four sets of range finders and triply redundant fire-fighting systems and even similar dog down manhole covers and ammunition stowage. What is different is that Wisconsin is laterally framed and Vanguard is longitudinally framed. The British adopted in Vanguard's case a fast cross transfer pumping system to manage even keel settling so that the traditional list and rollover of a British ship did not occur. This was similar to the point of being IDENTICAL to what was planned for the Montanas, so maybe the Americans let the British have a look at their plans for those battleships? |
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Post by mostlyharmless on Mar 1, 2022 0:06:45 GMT
...b. In the famous Prince of Wales torpedo hit on that screw, the Japanese aerial torpedo drove the screw shaft both sideways and into the shaft alley, snapping it at the second coupling, wallowing out the passthrough bearing at the bulkhead and allowing a flood path into the engineering spaces, past the drive shaft block and into the boilers and turbine rooms on that side of the ship. What is not commented when this golden BB is described is that the hull BENT from the underwater pressure wave sideways and that distortion carried up into the fantail all the way upon the main deck. Even if the Prince of Wales had survived, she would have been Warspited and reduced to no more than a second-class monitor as a result of her severe frame buckling. USS Virginia and USS Pennsylvania suffered similar hits. Pennsylvania was decommed as it was near the end of the war. USS West Virginia? Suriagao Strait she was in line of battle. ... Since reading this, I have been searching for your source. It is quite plausible as witnesses didn’t see a huge column of water from the first hit, suggesting that the energy was absorbed in destroying structure from below, and there are references to the hull whipping in old books such as Middlebrook’s from 1977. However, I have not found mention of such distortion in “Death of a Battleship - A Re-Analysis of the Tragic Loss of HMS Prince of Wales” by William H. Garzke, Jr., Kevin V. Denlay and Robert O. Dulin, jr. or the related “HMS Prince of Wales – Stern Damage Survey (I seem to have downloaded something called “A Report on the Torpedo Damage to the Stern of HMS Prince of Wales Prepared and submitted By Kevin Denlay for the SD-7 Panel Meeting, Washington, D.C., October 2008. This mentions an earlier report which is still available at web.archive.org/web/20090319135623/http://www.explorers.org/expeditions/reports/Flag_Reports_PDF/Expedition%20Job_74_web_version.pdf). It is also not mentioned in the 1955 Loss of H.M. Ships Prince Of Wales and Repulse - Naval Staff History Second World War, Battle Summary No. 14. at www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/RN/BS-14_POW+Repulse/index.html. |
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miletus12
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Post by miletus12 on Mar 1, 2022 0:17:24 GMT
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Post by mostlyharmless on Mar 1, 2022 12:40:39 GMT
I looked at that report but the article “Death of a Battleship - A Re-Analysis of the Tragic Loss of HMS Prince of Wales” had:
The 2007 survey also discovered that there was significant longitudinal indentationing of the hull plating for 65 meters along the hull on the starboard side of the ship and for 70 meters along the port side hull as well. (Figure 7) This leads to the conclusion that non-contact explosions, either from ‘near-miss’ bombs or torpedoes, caused considerable indentation on both sides o f the ship and flooding of the outer voids through failed riveted seams; as these indentations could not result from the ‘implosion phenomenon’ as most of these areas were already flooded prior to sinking. Some of the indentations closely resemble the damage that Prince of Wales sustained from a near miss 250-kilogram bomb that exploded ten feet (three meters) from the ship’s port side aft during a German air raid in August 1940 when the battleship was afloat at the fitting out dock at the Cammell Laird Shipyard.
[End quote]
If the stern had been greatly distorted by the first torpedo hit, it would surely have affected the starboard shafts which kept turning and gave POW 15 knots (admittedly in circles).
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miletus12
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Post by miletus12 on Mar 1, 2022 13:23:09 GMT
If the stern had been greatly distorted by the first torpedo hit, it would surely have affected the starboard shafts which kept turning and gave POW 15 knots (admittedly in circles). It did. The vibration and alignment distortion of the portside power take off shafts was caused by that frame distortion aft, not by the indents along where the torpedo defense cells later collapsed into and up into the hull framing during and from the later torpedo hits which distorted the frame joints along the amidship's seam^1; which supported the armor belt, It was the distortion aft which was what knocked out the port shaft(s) especially the inboard one that was the turning shaft for the primary hotel load generator. ^1 One can see similar effects in USS Pennsylvania where the screw and shaft was pranged. The Americans feathered the shaft turn, stopped forward movement and were able to plug the inflood at the bladder seal which allowed them to ground the Pennsylvania. The screw and attendant shaft section did not pop-out and open up the shaft alley. I think it was based on lessons learned from US analysis of what caused loss of the Prince of Wales. As for the unzipping of the PoW torpedo defense system, I cannot but speculate that the Americans noticed this effect as well. It would explain how they went after Musashi and later Yamato. Those puny torpedoes the Americans used, in theory, should not have been enough to open a Yamato up. |
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Post by mostlyharmless on Mar 1, 2022 15:50:56 GMT
Quoting the article:
Revolutions ceased on the inner port shaft (“Y” Engine Room) due to vibrations in its turbine. Power Control Room narrative notes that starboard shaft revolutions are at 158; no revolutions are shown for the port shafts Comment: These vibrations probably resulted from debris from the hull plating, the outer strut and outer propeller damaging the blades of the inner port propeller. Chipping of its blades was observed and photographed by Expedition ‘Job 74’ divers.
[end quote]
This is at 1151 after torpedo hit 1 on the port outer shaft at 1144. Thus the article argues that it was damage to the propeller rather than the hull that caused vibrations of this shaft.
At 1222, the two starboard shafts are running at 220 revolutions before the hit starboard aft which stopped both shafts.
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