1927 Programme Surrey Class & 1929 Programme Heavy Cruisers

"Nicely done Hood, these never were British cruisers and the stories behind them make fascinating reading."

Oh dear, but that being the case the stories ought to be right, and so that means a rather long e-mail to Hood to clarify which primary sources the information in his sources actually comes from. Suffice it to say at this point that it is quite difficult from Friedman's book to separate what his sources actually say from his interpretation of them (especially if you have never seen those sources!). He also tends to treat Lillicrap's immediate responses to DNC's requests on the same basis as the calculations leading to official legends which might take weeks to prepare. (Lillicrap was head of the DNC's cruiser design team)
In particular, the 1929 cruiser documents begin with
"In accordance with 1st Sea Lord's minute on TD 2567/29 dated 19/6/29 the sketch design shown on the enclosed drawing and legend of particulars has been prepared to embody the proposals put forward on the above paper. For purposes of comparison, the corresponding legend particulars for Surrey have been shown in the legend form and the differences which exist are indicated by X. The additional protection which has been provided has become possible by the expected saving of 100tons in the hull weight for 'SURREY', which the completed calculations for that class show is a possibility."

That is where the 100tons of extra protection for the 1929 A type cruiser came from. Thickening the fan chambers by 2" corresponds to 80lbs per square foot or about 2800 square feet of armour - which is quite a limited improvement adding about 5% to Surrey's 1900tons of protection. Apart from that 100tons, there is NO difference between the legends for Surrey and A1929. Add to that the fact that all the drawings of Surrey and her immediate predecessors in the Ship's Cover show sloping funnels and earlier York type bridges. While it is almost certain that Surrey would have been completed with vertical funnels and Exeter type bridge, any drawings of such an actual layout are speculative. However, there is a drawing of A1929 in ADM 1/9301 to scale 1/16in = 1ft (from which Friedman's 4in drawing was derived) I have photos of that drawing and the legend referred to. It seems most likely to me that there would have been no visible differences between Surrey and the 1929 cruiser. E-mail to Hood (which may take a while to prepare) to explain this and the drawings from the Surrey Cover in Ian Sturton's Warship International article on those ships.

I'll await Smurf's info before attempting any changes.

Friedman's account of the 1929 cruisers is slightly muddled, those different studies with triple turrets and 80,000 and 120,000hp machinery seem to be just tinkering, when the actual design seems not to have changed very much. He does state for example the fuel load remained the same in the legend and he mentions the boiler fan amour etc. It seems they were almost identical designs to me.

The drawing of the 1927 Programme Surrey is based on that in Conway's 1922-1946 and I think there is another similar drawing elsewhere on the web. I admit I have my doubts about the Conway drawing. It looks too sparse and those searchlight positions look unlikely given the way other cruisers of the period were laid out. I think the small drawing in Friedman is far more accurate. I of course have heard about the raked funnels and mast original version, I do think as built they would have resembled Exeter, I'll add an original design when I've received more information and clarification from smurf.

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I have entirely redrawn the 1929 Modified Surrey design thanks to better materials from smurf.
It can be found on p.1.

I will be redoing the Surrey next, there will be four drawings; the original X and Y designs, the straight funnel and mast Y and the Exeter-bridge Y.

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More excellent drawings Hood

Thanks to excellent source materials from smurf I have rejigged the whole thread and drawn some interesting precursors to the Surreys and redrawn the Surreys too. Full info on p.1.

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5-Turret County (2 layouts) 1927

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Design X - early version 1927

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Design X 1927

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Design Y 1927

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Design Y - later design with straight funnels and masts 1928

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Surrey Class

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

Type 5 turrets design B:
the IJN naval staff called me, they want their cruiser back.

Amazing stuff as usual Hood.

That really fills in the cruiser design period, from the 3 funnel Counties to York/Exeter then the RN thoughts on future cruisers. Are we going to now get a "Personal design" thread with the 3x3 design and other designs where more concrete data is not available?

As usual, excellent work Hood.

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

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Outstanding job Hood!

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References and feedback is always welcome!

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