Vanguard is 50-60 foot longer and was designed at 45k. Surely you are aware of that extra 10,000 tons between the designs of the KGV and Vanguard.
- If you could fit 4 twins to a KVG hull why didn't they do it to the last 2 ships in OTL ? I think you need 5,000t more to cover it doesn't the who point of building Vanguard rather than a repeat KVG suggest it needs to be bigger (ok 1/2 of the size is for more speed ?). (Hood/Vanguard/Bismark all suggest a fast BB with protection can't be done with 4xtwin 15' on 35'000t)
Through to 1920 the RN may have still fooled itself about prestige, but the British Parliament believed in cold hard cash. Give Parliament a 25% or more saving on a batch of BB's how do you think they would vote?
Not sure parliament really gets a vote (or at least they only vote on the options put in front of them by the Navy/Ministry and they didn't even consider it OTL. (remember that when these are ordered you are looking at 20+ years life and supporting the industry)
Those Mk.1 15" were acknowledged as one of the best big guns ever designed. Give it the 'Vanguard' work, more elevation for greater range and the super shell and it is as good as any of the competitions. I keep those guns because all of my BB's in this scenario are armed with 15". Would it be seen as building 2nd class ships with 14"?
They are only excellent due to age, most 15' or 16' guns form WW2 are better and lighter (well potentially if you get detailed bugs out)
Armour at 13" belt is not thin when compared to the competition. US ships were 12", Germany 12.6" only Japan really outclassed it, but then Yamato outclassed everything else. With the armour, I do not think that the one sheet of armour off an 'R' would be long enough to cover the necessary areas of an Admiral. My thought was to use one and the bit necessary to cover the area required. If you wanted to end up building all five then the last two would probably require new armour - but that would have been allowed for in the planning and would not take anything away from the other lines of construction. A slab of steel 13" thick is going to take a bit to get through no matter how old it is.
Don't think you can add thickness ie 2 layers don't just add up to to combined thickness and WW1 RN belts are something like 25% less good than WW2 built stuff.
I do note in the armament list the 2pd are 5x8 and 2x4. The turret tops are quads.
(but still think they are more 1940-41 than 39)
So what happens if this Hood appears in the Denmark Strait with Bismarck. Another mushroom cloud?
Who would this Hood be with ? (I'm presuming that the RN wouldn't fight faire if they could help it) with 2 ships with working guns properly worked up you need very bad luck not to end up with Bismarck losing.