Shipbucket

Smurf said:
Well .... as this is 25000ton battleships my love of cruisers doesn't fit. I'm also into 'neverweres' rather than personal inventions, and I've committed to Hood if he continues his Interwar Capital Ships beyond Nelson.

But I do know of one pair, a bit smaller than 25,000tons, for which there are no drawings so far as I know, so you could use your imagination on them in personal designs. In 1930-32, Charles Lillicrap, the chief cruiser designer, was seconded to the battleship section of the RCNC to design two small battlecruisers as examples for the 1932 Geneva talks on arms limitation.

1930. 20,000tons 680' waterline, beam 84', 90' over bulges; draught 22'; (3x2)12" or 10" (6x2)6" 6x4.7". Armour 9" side, 5" deck. 80,000shp for 30knots.

1932. 18,500tons 660', beam 83ft draught 21' (3x2)10" (4x2)6" (4x2)HA (2x8)2pdr. Armour 8" side, 3"+1" deck 80,000shp, 30 knots

Figures from his Workbook, with a weight breakdown and notes about armour to defeat 12" shells and poor underwater protection of second design (assume no bulges?)
So a bigger ship than Lillicrap usually designed, but his style in the days of Leanders, Amphion and Arethusa?

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1930 Design - only change from stats is to go with 10x6", otherwise as stated above.



1932 design.

That bridge looks too modern for a ship designed in 1930. It would either look more similar to the cruisers, or the Nelson and G3/N3.

it could fit, since Vanguard was designed in that time period and out ward depending how slow they was at designing a ship during wartime...

Well, i didn't expect it here, as I don't believe it was expected to be built -just a try to illustrate how small a battlecruiser might be.
However, as it is @heuhen " since Vanguard was designed in that time period " Hardly. Vanguard was designed after KGV, whose design began in 1935. I'd suggest more like the cruisers (it was a Lillicrap design, who headed the cruiser section. The most modern at the time was Exeter's or Leander's .
The funnels look like HMS Hood's, which were the exhausts for 144,000shp! You surely don't need two of those, each about 8m across, to carry off the exhaust from modern boilers generating steam for 80,000shp. Look at Hood's Surrey for 60,000; or Leander or Amphion for 72,000 or what London (80,000) got when reconstructed to look like a Fiji. Her machinery was not changed. Hits (even shell fragments) on funnels reduce draught and so speed. Compare battlecruisers F2 and F3 of 35,000tons, with single funnels for 112,000 or 96,000shp.

They are the funnels off the rebuilt Renown (bridge too) the funnels could probably come down in size, I can fix that easy enough. I was going to use the bridge off the Surrey, but it just looked too small. My next thought was the bridge designed for the rebuilt QE's which started rebuilding in 1934, so the plans for that rebuilding would be around the same time. Repulse began her refit in 1933 so the planning for that would be closer to the timeline for the Warrior. Where the 1932 design for Minotaur would be right in the rebuild battleships timeline.

Despite Lillicrap being a cruiser designer he would still want a battlecruiser to look like a capital ship. Would he take direction from the rest of the design crew? Would he have been involved in the reconstruction designs for the Renown's and QE's?

Remember that the date I have on the drawing is 1930, but that is the design date, add 4-5 years for building and that gives you a 1934-35 completion date.

Very interesting.

Don't use the bridge off the Surrey - I know the snag now, and Hood will pass it on! The modified Surrey sketch design with Exeter-style bridge was made in July 1929. The 'last word' at the time, but Exeter wasn't commissioned until July 1931, and Leander with a derived bridge was ordered in Feb 1930 but not commissioned until 1933.
"Lillicrap being a cruiser designer he would still want a battlecruiser to look like a capital ship." and so would design accordingly.
It shouldn't take 4-5 years to build a 20,000tonner., though times were hard in the early thirties. It's chopping and changing details that delays ships. What would he design in 1930? Dreadnought took 12-14 months in 1906, Renown at 26000tons Design began December 1914; Laid down: 25 January 1915 Launched: 4 March 1916 Commissioned: 20 September 1916
"Would he take direction from the rest of the design crew?" Hardly. He was senior to most of them and became DNC in 1944. High speed ships of 18-20,000tons were foreign territory to the battleship team, which only 3 years before had decided on the basis of some design studies around 27-28,000tons that 30,000tons was necessary to build an effective battlecruiser with 14" guns. It is better to scale up than scale down (eg bunks, doors and radio sets don't have to be bigger, giving some leeway) so I would expect this ship to be an enlargement of a cruiser design. But I don't think the RN expected to build these, nor ever intended to. They are only big enough to be cruiser killers, and you could build two 8in cruisers but for treaty restrictions. The aim with these was to make them small, but there were no specific treaty limits not to be exceeded. The idea was to get a realistic-looking ship to persuade politicians to bring size limits down (or keep them happy while a proper design was made!)
"Would he have been involved in the reconstruction designs for the Renown's and QE's?" No. He was seconded for this specific task, and was soon back designing small cruisers. There was a complete series of 4500ton sketch designs in 1934, while the Southampton design began in 1933. The new DNC from 1930 Sir Arthur Johns, was heavily involved with Ark Royal.
Renown's reconstruction (based on Warspite, hers March 1934 to March 1937) with new bridge etc began Sept 1935 to Aug 1939.
By then there were huge war emergency building programmes underway, and major reconstruction needs things removed as well as added.

I thought you of all people would have had a go at scaling up Leander! Or Amphion, you'll need unit machinery layout.

Nice work!

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Really nice drawing, she looks like a nice heavy cruiser.

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Smurf, I did actually upscale the Surrey 1929/30 hull from Hoods drawing, and the aft end is all from the Surrey design from the torpedoes / catapult aft. I thought the Amphion type would be too modern, the Leander would be the nearest in timescale. It is the bridge and funnels that are the major problem. The bridge needs to be big enough to carry the main director, secondary director and the first HACS units. If using a capital ship bridge then I need something between the Nelson type and the first rebuilding type like Warspite. I can upscale either the Leander or Amphion funnel(s) to give it a more modern look. I was going to use those on the later 1932 design (Minotaur). The hull of which would be the same (but shorter) without the bulges.

You give the war build details for Renown 1915/16, which was an extraordinary building time. Peacetime building times are much slower.

So I am back to the problem with the bridge superstructure. What is Lillicrap likely to have based a bridge on at that time? Would he be likely to upscale a York or Exeter bridge? I am quite happy to try and modify an earlier structure if that is what is the consensus says it should be.

Like all designs, this one is a living thing that can be amended until such time we are all happy with it.