Shipbucket

Hey guys.

I was curious if any of you know of any battleship hulls (so armor intact) that were converted in late construction or after launch into more cruiser like vessels. I am thinking of a treaty restriction taking place after the hull is mostly done prompting a downgrade in armament. There are several examples of battleship to carrier, but I found nothing about a "downgrade."

I have neither seen nor read anything in real life ships. Not to say somebody might have done a concept for the uncompleted hulls available.

It is hard to think of hulls in the condition you mention, that would be available to 'downgrade'. End of WW1 was ones like the Lexington, or Admiral classes. But once treaties limited size of ship types any sort of downsizing would go out the window. Maybe the US could have changed one of the uncompleted Alaska's to an armament of 12x8" auto guns. Be interesting as a competitor to Gollys PR66.

JSB did some drawings converting Courageous class LBC's to heavy cruisers with 8-12 x 8", which were an interesting concept.

Those concepts are pretty much what I was talking about. I was just curious if any building ships got caught up in any of the post WWII building limitation treaties that required conversion. I assume in most cases they were either exempted or cancelled.

The idea aren't stupid, the only ship that can get close is old BB-dreadnought's that have been converted to an gunnery training platform.

for example, USS Wyoming (note the change to an gunnery training vessel, have made her much lighter, notice how much higher in water she is floating, I will not be suprised if that affect here sea capability, since the hull is designed to be heavier as standard) :






I can not see how they would do such conversion. you just end up with a slow moving, sluggish, heavy armored, light armed vessel that doesn't have the maneuverability of an cruiser. And a gun cruiser for that era, should be fast, have excellent maneuverability, for often a cruiser are used either in as an AA-platform or as an destroyer hunter.

The only conversion I can see for an BB hull is: aircraft carrier or as an large AA-vessel with only small to medium guns. you can also use them as an floating fortress that have no propulsion.

But as an classic cruiser, I don't see the point. It's cheaper to just melt down all the steal and reproduce it for a totally new ship, a purpose build cruiser... two of them.

I had a bit of a play with one of Colo's great Alaska class, hopefully I have not ruined it too much.

Idea was to give a full squadron with the 3 Salem types and the Virgin Islands. 39 auto 8" giving a tremendous amount of firepower.




Armament:
12 x 8" (4x3)
8 x 5" (8x1)
20 x 3" (10x2)

all weapons are full automatic.

The problem is that the treaty's didn't leave much that could be useful as cruisers?

After the WWI you have potentially the following conversion "cruisers" that could have happened without the WNT, the treaty itself didn't allow any conversions apart from the limited number of listed CV (2 each).

The main problem is that there was nothing new building that would really make a useful conversion, you had the Hawkins (under 10,000t 7.5") so allowed by treaty as the top limit for CAs and nothing above them till you get to the Lex & Amagis (42,000t 16") or G3 (48,400 16") and they really cant be kept or converted without outclassing the 35,000t treaty limit.

So you are limited to what had already been built that could have been converted ?

You also ideally need high speed and large size to be a useful conversion...

So of the ships that could have been useful,
RN,
LLC - already destined to be more useful CVs
Old BC (the RN Cats) - hard worked but still powerful (maybe to powerful to not count as capital ships for the RN)
Older BC (Invincible & Indefatigable class) - could you keep as cruisers?

All,
Old armoured cruisers - lots kept in OTL by everybody but mostly weak and very slow by WWII standards

Personally I think the best idea would be keeping the Invincible & Indefatigable class and rebuilding them as CA killers post 37 in the build-up to WWII.

They have 12" guns and have speed 25Kn that could be made useful, rebuild them with more speed due to new engines, higher elevations for the guns and new fire control. They would be well able to destroy any CA/CL.

The problem is how to keep them post WNT ?
You need to get them rerated as armoured cruisers that can be kept for training purposes ?
Or you get Aus and NZ to throw a temper tantrum and demand to keep one each as they are not colony's but independent nations!

Love the CA, Krakatoa!

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

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