Proposed 25,000 ton Battleships and Battlecruisers

If Great Britain had got their wish and got the size reduced to 25,000 tons and 12" guns what might the BB's and BC's look like under these parameters. The first ships could be laid down 1930 and would complete 1934-35. Guns available would be the 12" Mk14, 4.5" BD mounting, 2pd in four and eight gun mountings. Smurf, in one of his posts, said that the ships would have to be armoured to meet other countries previously built battleships. So we need to look at the battleships these ships are most likely to encounter. There are a total of 7 x 16" BB's extant at that date, 2 x Nelson, 3 x Colorado, and 2 Nagato class ships. Do you armour your ships to meet that amount of threat? I would say 'No'. The next level down is the 14" armed ships of which there is many more examples, those are the ones I would be armouring my ships against. To make your ships proof against 14" guns at the 20-25.000 yard ranges that battles were expected to be fought at, how much armour do you need? To stop 14" shells at that range would need 10-11" of armour, possibly 12", at the same ranges you would need at least 5" of deck armour. Some 14" guns do not give armour penetration details, so I am working off the US and UK 14" guns. A 12" belt and 5" deck would give you a margin of error. The other side of the coin is could your 12" guns damage your 14" opponent at the same ranges. Short answer is 'No'. Your shells could easily reach and hit your opponent, but any time you hit their belt or deck armour, your shells would not penetrate. The best you could hope for is to damage superstructure and external fittings to start fires, and hope to hit your opponents directors to blind them. So why build them? Those 14"/16" gunned ships were completed 1914 to 1920, so by the time your 12" (and other countries) ships start to complete they would already be 15-20 years old. Being able to build new ships in 1930, would that stop the rush to rebuild these old capital ships? The other thing is that you have your own 15" and 16" capital ships of the same era to take on those ships of your enemy.

Anyway to my ships. The battlecruisers I have already drawn examples of, and I have put one of them in this thread to compare to the battleships. The battleships details I give below. Changes in design policy is to get rid of the 0 degree forward firing policy (if you need to fire at that angle you are probably in trouble), to improve the seakeeping and to help with the hydrodynamics of the hull (started with the Nelsons) to lower the amount of engine power required to achieve your designated speed. 4-5 years of testing with the Nelsons, would that drop or retain the all forward gun placement? The French continued the trend through the 1930's with Dunkerque and Richelieu classes but the RN abandoned that layout with their next KGV class. I have used a traditional two forward one aft turret arrangement.

The next thing I thought of is that the Japanese are not likely to want to build these ships especially since we know now that all their design work was aimed at maximum sized battleships. To get the same treaty sized ships past 1935 (as per real life) is unlikely. Chances are is that each country might only build one set of this level of ship before the size increases back to the larger levels of the 1936-37 ships of real life. Next, to fit these new ships into your fleet you will need to scrap tonnage/numbers of older ships so that you are not exceeding Treaty limits. Out go the R class? Keeping Japanese aspirations in mind, would the RN Admiralty be forward thinking enough to make provision to make the triple 12" with a large enough barbette so that twin 14" or 15" could be refitted at a later date? That way you could end up with 6 x 14"/15" armed ships in the future. Added to that thought is that you are scrapping the R class to make way for the new ships, would it be out of order for the RN to put a number of the 15" turrets aside for refitting? Those turrets could always be scrapped at a later date if not used. That way your ships can gain some real teeth. I have done versions of both 12" and 15" drawings.

Now rather than just critiquing my drawings, I would like to see others Shipbucketeers design Btitish, US, Japanese, French, Italian and other countries designs for similar ships and place them in this thread. I know that the Italians did a lot of design work on 23,000 ton ships to make best use of the 70,000 ton Treaty tonnage they had. JSB did something similar with his Emergency Measure Battleship just recently. You are all capable of bashing something together either by kit or from scratch, so have a go. Make a change from all those modern ship challenges.

HMS Bellerophon.
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HMS Bellerophon (Nelsonian version)
Because of its reduced size it has a more comprehensive armour scheme, better underwater protection etc. The problem it has over the normal layout and bigger sized vessel is the lack of room for improvements to AA weapons, aircraft handling arrangements, and future Radar / directors.

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HMSAS Africa.
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RN Cristoforo Columbo (Previously RM Livorno). As built,
While described as 25,000 ton ships by the Italians they were in fact 29,000 and a bit standard tonnage. This explained how the Italians were able to fit the fourth turret in. The armour at 8" said more battlecruiser than battleship.
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RN Cristoforo Columbo. As rebuilt
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Lets see some good drawings guys..

Looks like an interesting challenge, I might start working on some designs.

The first (I think) such RN design was in 1926. Appearance a 12in gun Nelson.
3x3 12", armour belt 13", deck 6.75" over magazines; belt 12" deck 3.75" over machinery.
A 3x3 14" version in 1927 had the deck over the machinery increased to 4.5"
There was a Nelson style design in Jan 27, 630' waterline, 28,000tons and a Revenge style design for comparison in June 1927, 660'wl 29,200tons; both with 500tons added later for 'protection against diving shell' (ie shells dropping just short and continuing under water)

After that there was a whole range of designs for the 1930 London Conference and the 1931 16" gun ships to replace the older 13.5in.
What I said (I hope) was that earlier ships with guns 14" to 16" would have been a problem for 12" ships - not that it was solved!

EDIT re-reading K's post, I should say these RN 1927 ships had a beam of 100ft. RN battlecruiser studies March 1927 were around 28000 to 31000tons, 730' wl x 94'; 30knots from 100,000shp, only six 3x2 12".
Ships with 82' beam would offer very poor protection against torpedoes.

Will have to make a ship, hum might go for a IJN try at 12inch

JSB

On the Cristoforo Colombo, I would suggest that you look over the FCS for your rebuild version. (Both of which I kinda like...resembles my Thessalonike-class CAs!) A heavier armament requires a substantial upgrade in the FCS. As it is you have basically the main FCS for the 8"-guns coupled to either a 12"-gun-system or 15"(?)! Look at the Andrea Dorias and Littorios for the correct FCS!

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My Avatar:Петр Алексеевич Безобразов (Petr Alekseevich Bezobrazov), Вице-адмирал , царская ВМФ России(1845-1906) - I sign my drawings as Ari Saarinen

JSB wrote:

Will have to make a ship, hum might go for a IJN try at 12inch

JSB

You might get some company

The IJN agreed to lay down 3 x 25,000t to replace the Kongos in 1930, The IJN did not actually lay them does till 1932 due to infighting and design changes brought about by agreeing to such a low limit. After that not much was released apart from a the minimun numbers required by the treatys. On December 29, 1934, the Japanese government gave formal notice that it intended to terminate the treaty, its provisions remained in force until the end of 1936 but nothing more was publicaly released.....

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Named Asama class after the Asama class cruiser of Tsushima fame, itself after a mountian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Asama

JSB

(Not all facts may be true or to scale

remember this is ONI not IJN

) (and finally got dropbox to work

)

Hm, i'm really interested in one idea - if the "minor dreadnought race" would somehow been restarted in late 1920 - probably again on South America - what would the "export" battleships look like?

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Serve the Nation! Be striped!

I figured I'd step out of my comfort zone with this one and draw a ship with no British influence, so here is the Italia class battleship:

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New build 12" guns.

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Re-used 12.6" guns.

Italia
Lepanto
Leonardo da Vinci
Napoli

25,000t standard

3 x 3 12" guns
6 x 2 4.7" guns
8 x 1 3.9" guns

30kts max speed
4500nm range at 16kts

10" main belt armour
5" deck armour
10" gun armour
8" barbette armour

I couldn't find an Italian specific parts sheet and only knowing what I could quickly google about Italian guns and fire control I hopefully haven't made too big of a hash of it.

I'm actually half tempted to do a battleship from each major country now...

Rowdy, are you sure your displacement can adequately support the same armament as the nearly twice as big real Littorios? Also with that speed and range? I say, go with the proven 12.6" gun, with super-firing arrangement and maybe a longer caliber/bore...

Shipbucket

Proposed 25,000 ton Battleships and Battlecruisers

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