Shipbucket

Hey all,

I'm currently working on a development of my AU timeline that sees the Weimar Republic granted to keep the Helgoland class as defence against the Soviet threat in the Baltic. The ships are old enough and reports appear to suggest they were the ships of choice before the treaty to be retained by the navy post war.

The idea and reason for my question is that they would serve in the active fleet until around 1931 or so when they are 20 years old, after which time they would most likely be converted for use as training and barracks ships. For the training and their operational use. I was thinking they might be converted to oil burning to reduce crew requirements and also replace ageing boilers. Would replacing the triple expansion engines with turbines be feasible at all or be excessively expensive?

Thinking I might try drawing them in this post war guise perhaps afterwards, we shall have to see.

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"The first rule is not to lose; The second rule is not to forget the first rule"

It's a chance for rebuilding them for oil burning, but replacing engines and boilers is not a cheap work, almost the entire ship (50-70%, depends on ship) are engines.

Most likely the oil will replace cool as a heating solution in boilers, rest would be the same. For boilers, they would most likely be rebuild, and operate at reduced speed if there is now parts for the engines and boilers. Just like on the Norwegian Oslo class when build the managed 32 knots, when taken out of service due to lake of new parts: 25-knots.

Yeah that was my thought as well, upgrading or replacing their engines may be far too expensive compared to simply building a new ship. The boilers themselves are a bit more flexible but also likely that oil firing conversion is about the extent of it.

Does anyone know if the Helgolands recieved modifications to spray oil on coal like the Koning class ships did?

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"The first rule is not to lose; The second rule is not to forget the first rule"

While AFAIK none of the oil conversions carried out back then were ever really satisfactory, they were relatively straight forward to carry out. Replacing the engines, not so much, especially since you'd have to find room for a reduction and turning gear as well.
(Steam engines are run in reverse when the ship needs to back up, turbines can only go one way.)

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“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

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Source Materiel is always welcome.

Also worth remembering yeah. I haven't found much but I don't have any problems with believing the conversions to not have been perfect given the limitations within a ship.

Also what would be the process in improving the main batteries elevation? As far as I can tell that was not covered by the Washington treaty that this version of Germany would be a member of. Also what to do with the Helgolands casemates? I believe major armament changes were impossible due to the various limitation treaties and replacing casemates with turrets isn't really an option as it would more than likely restrict the archs of fire for the wing mounts fore and aft.

Any suggestions for what could be done realistically?

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"The first rule is not to lose; The second rule is not to forget the first rule"

Building this is more realistic.

http://www.shipbucket.com/images.php?di ... 201928.png

The Moltke would be out of the question along with the Mackensens and Bayerns. France would refuse to allow a defeated Germany to possess ships that were faster and had superior guns to their own. The ships would also be considered too modern and pose too much of a potential threat even to the RN. The Helgolands are old, slow with awkward gun arrangement and poor range. In that sense France (pressured perhaps by the US with Wilsons 14 point plan upon the British) might concede at least those old vessels.

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"The first rule is not to lose; The second rule is not to forget the first rule"

I don't know the specifics on any of the conversions that were done, but I imagine you'd need to strengthen the entire mounting to take the higher vertical forces. The internal arrangement of the turret might also need to change so the breach doesn't hit the deck when recoiling at full elevation. The loading arrangements might also need to be modified and lastly it's not inconceivable that the breach would need to be strengthened to stand up to the higher pressures.

Actually, if I wanted to update these ships without ticking off France I'd focus on reload speeds and fire control since these under-the-hood modifications would be hard to figure out from the outside.

_________________
“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

Worklist

Source Materiel is always welcome.

From what I've read, converting from coal to oil was done somewhat frequently, at least among the first-rate Navies. Pre-WWI warships that lived to the 30's and 40's were frequently converted to oil. An interesting thing to consider is that coal bunkers, in cruisers and battleships, figured into the ship's protection scheme. Although flammable, coal is a solid object, and acted as a second set of armor for larger warships. when convering to fuel oil, the protection arrangement had to be changed. also, fuel oil used for large warships often also required oil heaters to get moving.

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World's Best Okayest Author and Artist

After spending the past week replacing the engine in my car, I can see now how swapping out engines could be a real pain in the backside for something so much more complicated like a ship.

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World's Best Okayest Author and Artist