Thiaria: Other People's ships

Fantastic additions!

I have had several looks at this design and while the drawings are superb, the ship itself does not make a lot of sense. An improved Kongo would have had to go to more 14" (5x2 same layout as Amagi) or increased gun size to 15"/16". If the only 'improvement' for all the extra size is an increase in speed then the design would be a failure. The Japanese/Koko navies would have been aware through all of WW1 of what the Royal Navy was up to. You have the design being 1913, but the ships not being laid down for another 2 years till 1915. At that stage the Renown class were already under construction and were (supposedly) far superior to the Konishi type. Would Koko have recast the design in the knowledge of what was being built? Admirals (Hood) designs underway 1915, laid down 1916.

Nagato (16") laid down 1916, so design work 1914-15, based on the Queen Elizabeth Class of 1913. A definitely improved design over the RN vessel. So Japan/Koko were aware of the increase in gun size to 15" well in advance of the Konishi being laid down. A Konishi with 6-8x16" at 28-30 knots on roughly similar dimensions (larger for an 8 gun version obviously) would be a more expected reply to Renown. Keeping the speed down to 28-30 knots keeps the ship size to reasonable levels.

I hope I have made some sense. The armaments I would have expected the Konishi to have would be. As designed 10x14". With Renown knowledge 6x16". Beat everything design 8x16".

Hi Krakatoa!

You do make sense perfectly well. In a world where the naval establishemts always know best what's good for them and the politicians always give the Admirals what they want, these would be slower ships with 10-381mm guns. Unfortunately, Koko is not located in such a world. They looked at the Kongo's speed of 26 knots, then at a map where Koko stretches pretty much all the way from the Arctic to the equator and decided they wanted more speed first and foremost. Thea ylso wanted to build these ships domestically, resulting in long gestation periods due to inexperienced yards, and wanted to avoid even more delays by frequent design changes. Here you are!

Greetings
GD

I'm wit Garlic too here. By looking at my AU thread it emerges how most of Kokoan designs until the 1920s are cheap versions of IJN ships (Goryo and Yagumo classes are the best examples), with a few design failures along the way (Heian, Kuchikukan14 and Sato classes). During that period shipyards are still a bit inexperienced. Koko will gain quality, a bit of edge and more daring designers during the late 20's and especially the 30s (althoug smaller units are still heavily based on IJN ships...).
A cheap 8x356mm 30knot ship to flank the two slower 10x356mm Yagumos, fits well as a mid 1910s Kokoan project. At least according to my idea of Koko, Garlic interpreted it quite well.

Come on guys, I know it is your AU and you do not like criticism, but, you can dress it up any way you like but when you have half a dozen superb drawings of a dog, it does not matter how good the drawings are, it is still a dog. Koko doctrine as you say would not have had 10x15" BB's, because that was not what was needed. BUT, keeping to a 14" armament when the rest of the world was building 15"/16" ships is just keeping Koko as a second class navy. No navy wants its ships to be second class. That is the reality of whatever world you live in. I gave you all the dates so you could match it all up. Koko could easily have bought the first three turrets and six 16" guns from Japan and built the further three sets needed themselves to keep the 'domestic' element going. Like the Nagato, the Konishi would have been a superior version of the RN equivalent. In this case the Konishi would have been better than the Renowns. That is what Koko would have wanted.

A question for you both. What was the biggest building disaster of the Dreadnought era? (Hint, it was almost a 120,000 ton disaster as well)

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Nice work, esp. on the P-class

_________________
best regards
Martin

~~Normerr~~FD stuff~~

Hello again!

@ Krakatoa: No one (not me certainly) ever said or implied to resent criticism as a matter of principle, certainly not in my last post. I know that you tried to craft a 'perfect' Royal Navy in your Fisherless thread, but perfection is not my goal here. I did not try to convince you that I was right and you where wrong, because that's beside the point. I just wanted to tell you that Politicians occasionally buy what you call dogs, sometimes even on purpose. Comes maybe from me being German - our government has turned our armed forces into a monoculture dog-farm in the last twenty years. The same thing here: In 1914, Koko WAS a second rate power, and they made a conscious decision for what probably seemed good reasons to them - after all, the USA laid down her last battleship with 356mm guns as late as 1916, and British 381mm guns were certainly not available for the duration of the war.

Anyway, if the last one miffed you, my next post might just kill you. If this dog was a yorkshire terrier, the next one will be a Newfoundland dog. Stay tuned!

I'm hard to kill, much like a cockroach, I keep coming back

I have been trying to figure out how to say that your drawings and backstories are almost 'too perfect'. One of the things I liked about the Fisherless RN, was that I got a lot of feedback on the drawings and it grew in different directions from the feedback from various members. JSB and Mihoshik provided inspiration and drawings that prompted even more discussion. You are not getting that in these threads. All the feedback is 'great drawing' 'great backstory'. I do not want Koko to be perfect, but a few more Koko brains than the French would be nice.

Were the Kokoans allied to Japan at the time of the Russo-Japanese War?
What forces did Koko have at the Battle of Tsushima?

If the answers are 1. Yes, and 2. Yes they had forces at the battle. Then while the Kokoan Navy may have been smaller it would not have been second class. The lessons learnt by the Japanese and Kokoans put them in the box seat to build first class ships. The Kokoans may have built them slower because of the inexperienced yards. But that should not have been a problem. How do you get around that? Build smaller classes. Same as the US did. Instead of four ship classes you build two ship classes so that you are better able to respond to advances being made in other navies. Build your first two Konishi type with 8x14" then switch to the 6x16" for the second pair.

As you pointed out, it was not just the disaster of building the Dantons that was such a failure it was also the resources that were tied up till the ships were finished. Dockyards, building slips, armaments manufacturers, etc.

There are a lot of smart people both in Government and at the top of the Navy. If they are getting direct help also from Japan then they are getting a double dose of smarts.

As a preface, I'd like to point out too that I'm not against criticism. I've already amicably addressed opinions and suggestion in my own AU, it was not my intention to appear resentful.

I peek here briefly to land some small info on the Kokoan side.
At the time the Battle of Tsushima was fought Koko no Kaigun (then a branch of the IJN established in 1897 as Koko was a Japanese protectorate and not an independent nation yet) had only eight 337T Destroyers and a single 4.000T protected cruiser in it's entire inventory. At the start of the Russo-Japanese war that number was down to just five Destroyers, nothing else.

Anyway, building the Konishi-class ships as 16-inch units might be a problem for Garlic's timeline were he tries to keep the WNT closer to the real one as much as he can. It would be more ships than even the Japanese or the British Navies would have fielded, on par with the US Navy (even if they sported some 50% less guns they had th speed advantage). I Circumvented that matter in my own AU with high tonnage cap and a few more concessions (even so Koko had no 16-inch ships until 1926) but this does not necessarily have to apply here. In Thiaria's timeline it is Garlic's choice to have or not the extra 16-inch battleships the USN and RN would have wanted to build in order to counter that threat.

Now pardon me but I have to get some sleep, I'll add some more replies tomorrow if you want

Re-reading the Koko thread I can see what you mean. Koko would not be capable of building anything during the period that Garlicdesign wishes to build the Konishi's. The Yagumo class BB's would have taken all of the Kokoan shipwrights and large building docks. They were also laid down in 1915, same year as the Konishi type. Where does Koko suddenly get the trained personnel to build six capital ships, let alone two.

The only large ship construction that Koko had had before laying down two Yagumo and four Konishi were the two Goryo 15,000 ton Armoured cruisers. The Goryo class were laid down one after the other using the same yard. The jump to the new 6 capital ships would have required the building of at least 2-3 new building yards (large enough to build the new ships) and an increase of three times (or more) the trained personnel. All in three to five years. Koko is truly a magical land.

The whole premise for Koko is suspect. Protectorate and building large ships while a protectorate, independence 1920ish. Sorry but that has no basis whatsoever to the Japanese mentality. Right through to the end of WW2, what Japan took stayed Japanese till forcibly removed from them. The other part that does not gel is the type of Government in Japan throughout time. Japan is broken into provinces run by Lords. Up till 1860, there was then a 'Shogun' between the Lords and the Emperor. It was the Shogun that held the power. Emperor Meiji broke the power of the Shogun in 1860. That is Koko's moment.

With large and small islands in the Koko Archipelago, one or more Lord would run each, depending on size. The bigger islands like Koko may be split into 3-6 'provinces' each with a lord in control. In 1860 with the Shogun being removed, the Shogun could either relocate to Koko (maybe being from Koko), or the Lords of Koko could defy the Emperor and create "Koko". At this stage in Japans development it was heavily land militarised but very few ships. So though the Emperor may have had the forces to make Koko remain part of the Empire he had no delivery systems. Get America, France and Germany to recognise Koko, that stops any future challenges till Koko and Japan can come to an accord. That gives you 40-50 years to get Koko and Japan back to close 'unity'. Much like the US and UK after their war of Independence. Japan had British help with the navy, but German help with the Army. You certainly do not want French help with the Navy, but you also have the Germans for the navy and maybe French for the army. That opens up a whole new world where you can blend both Japanese and German building styles together to create the Kokoan Navy, no more Japanese clones. Koko would also be capable of building big ships in any numbers they like. Also taking the Koko 'iron' and other minerals away from Japanese control gives Koko something to sell to the world to provide the finances required to build the monsters you wish to build.

Shipbucket

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