Thiaria: Other People's ships

Hello again!

Unfinished projects:

20. The worst cruiser in the world: The L-class
Although Hitler publicly talked about Great Britain as an Aryan brother nation and natural ally of Germany, his naval planners tailored Germany's future fleet for fighting Britain. Long-ranged surface raiding missions against British trade were seen as the ideal way of fighting the Royal Navy and negating their numerical superiority. Deutschland and Admiral Graf Spee were the first ships designed to perform such missions, but the Z-Plan of 1938 went a lot further: No less than twelve additional P-type 'Panzerschiffe' were to be built, each of them twice the size of Graf Spee, carrying the same armament and only marginally more protection, but three times the engine power for eight knots more design speed and enough diesel for a range of 15.000 miles at 20 knots. This design did not survive the outbreak of the war, when all plants capable of building diesel engines were devoted to the submarine programme and the P-type was re-designed into the 'Handelszerstörer' with turbine propulsion and 'only' 10.000 miles range (see below). The P-cruisers however were not to operate alone, but in small task forces containing light cruisers and/or super-large destroyers. The former were to have mixed propulsion of diesels and turbines for a top speed of 36 knots and still a range of 12.000 miles at 20 knots on a displacement of 8.000 tons. With that sort of mobility requirements (nearly twice the designed hp and fuel capacity of the only marginally smaller British Apollo-class), all other parameters had to be curtailed. Main armament was eight 150mm guns, anti-air was limited to four 88mm and eight 37mm guns and protection was minimal (50mm sides, 30mm decks). Despite this diminutive fighting and especially protective value, the final design came out 350 tons overweight. Two ships were begun in 1938, two more in 1939; before the second pair was laid down, the design was so heavily criticized that Raeder ordered a revision in order to improve protection and defensive armament for the third pair. The same improvements were to be applied to a planned second batch of another six units. The redesign let propulsion and main armament the same, but increased side protection to 80mm and decks to 45mm; anti-air armament was upgraded to eight 105mm, twelve 37mm and sixteen 20mm. As before, two airplanes and eight 533mm torpedo tubes were shipped. Speed dropped to 34,5 knots, range remained the same. The final design for the last two units (P and Q) displaced 9.500 tons - as much as a British Town-class cruiser, to which they compared most unfavourably in terms of firepower and protection. Although this disadvantage was obvious, construction of P and Q was authorized anyway in 1939; if completed, they would have looked like this:

[ img ]

Construction of the second pair was stopped forthwith when the war started; the first and third pairs were proceeded with. The first pair was also cancelled in May 1940 and the material transferred to the third pair, which alone remained under construction. Progress was slow due to low priority. A re-design to turbine-only propulsion was approved in November 1940, resulting in a one-year delay; by late 1941, the planned launch date had been moved to mid-1943. They were even behind this revised schedule when Hitler ordered the cancellation of all warships above destroyer size in January 1943, and no one really missed them when they were broken up during the first half of 1943. According to standard German practice, the L-class cruisers were to bear names of German light cruisers which were lost during the first world war. Originally, the names Breslau, Dresden, Wiesbaden, Magdeburg, Rostock and Mainz were to be allocated; when two far advanced Dutch cruisers were captured, the names Wiesbaden and Breslau were transferred to them and Bremen and Elbing were substituted. No decision as to which ship was to receive which name was ever made, but it was fairly sure that P and Q would have been named Rostock and Mainz, because of the six possible namesakes, these two had perished in the most heroic way.

Greetings
GD

alternative universe never-wheres... that set the bar pretty well for rest of us

Great work.

Another great drawing Garlic.

_________________
[ img ]

MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

Indeed, GD sets the bar even higher with that design.

My AU will also include some never-were ships.

That is one beautiful cruiser!

_________________
Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

Great work GD.

I have been thinking of a companion AU "Dual Purpose Kriegsmarine", but the main problem I have found is the limited amount of ships available to do new drawings of with a dual purpose armament. I applaud GD for finding new ways to continue to draw German ships in AU never-weres. The only other way to get more ships to add DP armaments too is to resurrect WW1 vessels as test subjects, or as possible variations to what happens to the surrendered German ships at Scapa Flow 1919. Make the Soviets more active with their Navy to get the Allies to give the Germans more ships to guard the Baltic.

Hello everyone!

21. Impressive on the drawing board: The J-class
Bismarck and Tirpitz were a huge improvement over Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, but they still were not considered a very balanced design by German standards, with firepower having been given priority over protection and speed. Initially, the follow-on design was to take the imbalance one step further: Its 52.000-ton hull was designed around an all-diesel powerplant for 30 knots speed and 20.000 miles range at 20 knots; armament was to remain the same, and protection would even have been a little weaker. But such a dedicated raider would have compared unfavourably in a direct confrontation against the British Lion-Class, of which two units had been authorized in 1938, and by that time, Hitler insisted on his newest battleships to be capable of defeating anything in Great Britain's inventory in single combat. A revised, turbine powered design was prepared and approved in 1939. Eight 406mm guns, as installed on Bismarck, were deemed enough main armament, but the design of the barbettes and magazines allowed for increasing the main artillery caliber to 420mm if necessary. Protection was to be greatly increased to 350mm vertical armour and 200mm horizontal protection, divided between a main armoured deck of 120mm and an upper deck of 80mm. Protection of the ship's ends and the upper belt were to be retained as on Bismarck; protection of the main armament was considerably strengthened (450mm turret front and 380mm barbette above armoured deck). The secondary armament of twelve 150mm guns was to be concentrated in four unusually well armoured triple turrets arranged as on contemporary Italian battleships, and the heavy flak of sixteen 105mm guns was to be mounted in completely new twin turrets with twice the RoF of the current twin mounts. The number of 37mm twins was to increase to twelve. Propulsion was to be provided by 165.000 hp turbines on three shafts; there was enough fuel for a range of 8.000 miles at 20 knots. Calculated speed was 29,5 knots. They dropped the awkward aviation installation of the original design, reverting to Bismarck's cross-deck catapult and three small hangars amidships, all of them splinter-protected. The whole package was an infinitely better fighting ship as the original diesel-propelled design would have been and came out at a standard displacement of 50.800 tons with a LOA of 268 meters, making them somewhat more compact than the originally planned 52.600 ton hull of 277m LOA. If their gun caliber had indeed been increased to 420mm, they would have been the only battleships worldwide to match the firepower of the Iowas. Outwardly, they were to look very similar to the Bismarcks:

[ img ]

Six ships were authorized under the Z-Plan, but only two had been begun when Germany started the war. Neither was very far advanced, and the entire project was soon cancelled and all ships were broken up by mid-1940. No firm decision about naming had been made, but Friedrich der Grosse and Barbarossa were definite favourites for the first two. For the others, a variety of names was proposed, including (in order of probability) Hindenburg, Grosser Kurfürst, Karl der Grosse and Arminius.

Greetings
GD

Very attractive drawing. How does the midships catapult work, though?

Shipbucket

Who is online