A world without the Washington/London naval treaties

[Ma Deuce]

In the "Obama to ban space weapons" thread, Sea Skimmer's comment about how a lack of said treaty could have deterred the Pacific War from even hapenning reminded me of something I'd thought about for a long time: Just how would history up to and during World War II have played out had these treaties never existed? Furthermore, how exactly would warship development have evolved? We've all seen the unbuilt ships the treaty directly cancelled, but what about the second generation of warships laid down in the '30s? Would every new battleship have 18" guns as a matter of course? Would the development of the aircraft carrier be stunted compared to OTL? And what of cruisers: Would they be significantly larger and more heavily armed than their treaty counterparts were?

[Stark]

I'd suggest that as displacement bloomed right up to practical limits (like the problems with the Admiral design) the 'fast battleship' concept would have emerged much earlier. Without treaty limits at all, carrier production would have been less initially (due to the lack of super-battlecruiser hulls to convert) but in the 20s the utility would have prompted their construction anyway. On the other hand, the treaty defined 'heavy' and 'light' cruisers and pushed for them to be full size, so it's possible cruisers wouldn't have been as significant without BB building limits.

[Sea Skimmer]

Interest and construction and conversion of aircraft carriers was going full bore from about 1917 onward, and several conversions like HMS Eagle would still go ahead. Everyone fully appreciated the value of aircraft for scouting and counter scouting, which quickly evolved into sinking enemy aircraft carriers. People doubted the ability of carrier aircraft to deal with battleships even with the Treaty, and rightly so. Carrier aircraft pretty well sucked before the late 1930s and would have been hacked down in droves by large wartime batteries of automatic weapons.

The lack of large (but also absurdly expensive and time consuming to build) battlecruiser conversions would have only a limited effect on restricting development of aircraft carriers and carrier planes. After all historically Lexington didn’t join the fleet until 1928, and Kaga until late 1929! In addition, the treaty restricted aircraft carriers much as it did battleships, leading to tonnage limited vessels of dubious value like USS unarmored Ranger and HIJMS no freeboard Ryujo.

On battleships, rapid, though not instant, escalation to 50-60,000 ton ships armed with 18 inch guns is inevitable. Superheavy shells, which did not exist before 1939 could make a 16 inch gun mostly as good as a bad 18 inch gun, but that just doesn’t cut it, against the growth in displacement. On 48,000 tons N3 already had as much deck armor as Yamato (more actually, if you count the 1 inch upper deck, which was near meaningless) over her magazines and only an inch less on the belt abet it was not as tall. Major machinery improvements in the late 1920s and early 1930s would also for major increases in fighting power without continuing to push tonnage upward.

Two main factors constrained battleship designs growth, cost being an annoying issue but one that was largely secondary. The first was draught, you’ve got to be able to enter ports without excessive dredging, particularly after you’ve taken flooding damage in combat. Even today most ports aren’t deeper then 40 feet, abet many are now being expanded to 45 to as much as 60 feet to take new mega container ships.

The second was length for dry docking, as a new dry dock costs literally as much as a whole battleship (bad for the budget when you’ll need 3-4 new docks spread around to allow for an increase in battleship size). Draught wasn’t an enormous problem, Yamato managed to keep her draught to 34 feet by accepting a very wide beam, and then using a very good hull form (determined through extensive tank testing, not clever design work) to keep down its drag. Since a 30,000 ton ship would already draw 30 feet this was a pretty good accomplishment.

Length though, that’s a bitch. Length limitations are why the Royal Navy had to adapt the separate G3 and N3 designs, rather then building a single fast battleship with 30 knot speed and 18 inch guns it wanted. They had such a design, with a 12 inch belt and 7 inch deck called K3, but it was about 100 feet (might have been around 150, whatever) too long for existing docks. Given an unrestrained naval arms race new docks will be built, but they take years to build and they won’t come until every ounce is wrung out of existing ones. In general these issues are much less significant if you’re willing to accept a slow battle line, which the USN was fine with, but not Japan or Britain.

The matter of cruisers is fairly clear, they will be big. At the time the WNT was signed the USN was already designing a cruiser of about 11,000 tons with a dozen 8 inch guns. This design was cut down by removing two 8 inch guns to make our first treaty cruiser, Pensacola. But like all early heavy cruisers she was tin clad, demands for more armor will rapidly push cruisers to 14-17,000 tons. When nations designed heavy cruisers without treaty limitations (I can provide some examples of various paper designs, though the USN acutally got to build them), they virtually all fell into this size bracket. Japanese ships swelled into this displacement through deliberate cheating, and simply through unintentional design growth and features added after completion. The USN design was a direct response to the British Hawkins class, which the RN didn’t like, but the USN was fearful of. Japan was already designing what became the Furutaka class as well, also a ship of about 10,000 tons.

As a note, prior to the London Naval Treaty, heavy cruiser was not a term in use. All the big cruisers were called light cruisers, a continuation of WW1 naming practices in which a light cruiser was a short version of light armored cruiser (and note, the old armored cruisers tended to be around 14-16,000 tons, just like unrestrained heavy cruiser designs!). This simply meant it was a cruiser with belt armor, vs. smaller cruisers which only had an armored turtle deck. In the 1922-1930 period smaller cruisers with 6 inch guns were called various things, fleet cruisers, scout cruisers, or just plain cruisers. Once the LNT created the distinction between 8 inch and 6 inch cruisers the 8 inchers became ‘heavies’, the 6 inch ships which were often just as big became lights. Then the Second London Treaty tried to cut down the 6 inch ships, but since that treaty lapsed inside two years only Britian actually built any 8,000 ton units. Britain had always preferred smaller cruisers anyway, because it needed hoards of them to defend the trade lanes and saw no fleet role for bigger units, unlike the USN and IJN.

Naturally, with battlecruisers and battleships merging, and becoming bigger and less numerous, while 17,000 ton cruisers roam the seas, the demand will come for a ‘cruiser killer’ a very popular historical concept typified by the Dunkerque, Alaska and the unbuilt Japanese B-65. Such a ship defends the trade lanes, screens the fleet and would naturally make a great carrier escort. The cruiser killer mounts with fairly heavy guns (usually about 12 inch) that have a decisive advantage in long range performance over 8 inch weapons but not the full features of a capital ship. They tend to be bad ideas in general, not because they lack a role but because in cost terms they come awful close in cost to a full capital ship, but hey, they got built in real life (and despite the US already having 33 knot Iowas) to deal with mere 10,000 ton cruisers, so its easy to see them spreading in this situation. Some minor powers may forego trying to compete with full scale battleships and simply build cruiser killers as raiders. France and Italy in paritular may go this line.

In general, Japan is fucked as it has less then 1/10th the industry of the US, and not a much better ratio compared to Britain. Only France and Italy can even think about building new battleships before the late 1930s, and neither could afford more then a handful.

Also, no WNT means no mass scrapping of old battleships, which means fleets have lots of old ships to use to escort convoys and commit to secondary areas of operations. This means less need to use big cruisers a pseudo capital ships as happened at Guadalcanal and other battles historically. Naturally this yet again favors the big powers, which can afford to keep older ships around, and which have more of them.

Fact is the WNT was the best thing that ever happened to Imperial Japan from a military viewpoint. Its naval leadership knew it, but still the 5/5/3 ratio was seen as a national insult, even when the LNT raised ratios of cruisers and smaller units to be higher, and when the US failed to build to the treaty limit on the assumption war had been abolished (seriously, people argued that since the Kellogg-Briand Pact made war illegal, it wouldn’t happen)

Of course, all of this is quite expensive, but for the US and Britain not unbearably so, Japan was breaking the back just with her historical programs. That’s all why the treaties happened, no one wanted an arms race. It was too expensive, and everyone feared (without a lot of justification I’d say, the US and Britain had nothing to fight over, Japan was clearly inferior) that it would cause nations to rush into another war. Arms limitations work when its in everyone’s interest, and the fewer parties, the better. The same factors applied to the strategic arms limitations, both the US and USSR saw unrestrained growth as too expensive and not contributing to security. So the Russians didn’t cheat on SALT, but they did cheat on the INF treaty because that was a capability they’d actually miss. We can see with the London Naval Treaties that already breaks were appearing with France and Italy refusing to accept all the limitations, and eventually Japan simply dropped out when it saw a chance to seize an advantage it could never otherwise gain with the construction of the Yamato’s in secret while the US and UK would hang

[PainRack]

Wasn't Britain severely afraid of the expenditure that would emerge? As it was, strict control over spending in the 1920s/1930s hampered various military adventures such as Iraq.

[Sea Skimmer]

Britain was reluctant to spend more money on armaments owing to her large war debts. None the less the money existed and could have, and certainly would have been spent. Someone once calculated that the cost of the N3 class would be equal to no more then a one pound per person tax increase. I don’t have the math to back that up, but I doubt its greatly inaccurate.

British and Japanese construction would force an American reply and so the cycle goes on. Most of the RN budget, and indeed all military budgets then and now, went into maintenance and upkeep, with new construction being only a small faction of the total. Tripling the RN budget for new construction, which would allow for two new capital ships a year besides all historical construction, would only mean about a 25% increase in naval spending over the 1930 level. In real life the British GDP doubled between 1914 and 1933 (and this pushed it into the billions of pounds, the KGVs cost 7 million, a 1920s ship would be cheaper), and yet the naval budget, adjusted for inflation, was flat lined. The sums spent on new construction dropped significantly.

What’s more not building new capital ships, or a large fleet in general had major economic effects. Numerous shipyards in Britain completely shutdown, as did most of the gun and armor plants, which not only took away hoards of skilled jobs, it also meant that British historical mobilization efforts were crippled. In fact in 1936 Britain actually had to go and import armor plate, more then 15,000 tons of it, from Czechoslovakia to make up shortfalls. To a point the growth of aviation counter balanced this, but not completely, and in any case large scale production of military aircraft didn’t begin until 1937.

So it’s not a happy situation, that’s why we got the treaty system, but lack of funding is not an actual problem for Britain or the US. It was a big deal for Japan, but this goes back to my very original point, that Japan should never have been able to even think about competing with either western power, let alone both of them at once.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Just curious, how much is a battleship vs the size of the RN budget?

[PainRack]

Britain was reluctant to spend more money on armaments owing to her large war debts. None the less the money existed and could have, and certainly would have been spent. Someone once calculated that the cost of the N3 class would be equal to no more then a one pound per person tax increase. I don’t have the math to back that up, but I doubt its greatly inaccurate.

Ah, but was there the will to increase the income tax?

So it’s not a happy situation, that’s why we got the treaty system, but lack of funding is not an actual problem for Britain or the US. It was a big deal for Japan, but this goes back to my very original point, that Japan should never have been able to even think about competing with either western power, let alone both of them at once.

Wasn't the British equally pleased that the naval treaty would allow it parity with the US? In hindsight, the idea that the US and UK would find itself in conflict in the 1920s is laughable, but that was a concern then, with the US fearful of British intervention with Japan. Ditto to the British concerns about the rising naval power, the Monroe doctrine and British interests.


Interestingly, would a naval race have moderated the effects of the Great Depression...........

[Sea Skimmer]

Ah, but was there the will to increase the income tax?

Of course, and Britain did go and pay for two new battleships in the 1920s anyway, when no one else was allowed to build a single thing. The US had already completed or begun construction on no less then fourteen ships with 16 inch guns, while Japan had four built or building, and four more very soon to be laid down. Against this the RN had none, and only hastily started work on the four G3s just before the treaty negotiations began. The G3s and N3s would be built, no other choice exists. Beyond that politics might force them to take a break, but it’s basically inevitable that new US and Japanese construction will force another class before the 1920s are up.

All and all, this would end up being much less money spent any given year then what Britain ended up having to pay from 1933 and epically from 1937 onward to rebuild its defenses even if the battleships are much bigger.

Interestingly, would a naval race have moderated the effects of the Great Depression...........

I’d think so, and in fact the social/political/economic consequences of a continuing full scale world naval arms race (in real life the WNT simply replaced a battleship race with a cheaper cruiser building race) might have quite significant ripple effects. I don’t know a huge amount about the precise causes of the Great Depression, but I know one of them was simply that he worlds not very diversified economy was making hoards of steel in a world that wasn’t consuming hoards of steel.

Just curious, how much is a battleship vs the size of the RN budget?

Well, that depends on which year it is, in the latter 1920s and early 30s the RN budget was down around 51 million pounds, of which only about 5-6 million was for shipbuilding. However the budget began rising after 1933 and almost all the increases went into more shipbuilding, the costs of operation and maintenance being largely static, especially since much of that money went into paying for naval bases. The prewar peak was 1938 with 94 million pounds and 34 million of that spent on building. A KGV battleship was initially estimated to cost around 7.4 million based off of Rodney, but in fact they turned out about 20% cheaper. Carrier HMS Illustrious cost about 4 million in comparison, and a 10,000 ton County class cruiser about 2 million. Bigger battleships will cost more but not proportionally so since many expensive features like fire control and machinery don’t scale up as much. In fact an N3 had less then half the horsepower of a KGV, while G3 only had about 28% more despite being much larger faster. Much of the increase in armor would be in deck armor, which is much cheaper then face hardened side armor.

Modernizing an older ship cost anything from 1-3 million pounds depending on how good a job was done. The 1 million was basically for blisters and another inch of deck armor, 3 million is what it cost to do a really good job with a new high angle battery as you saw on for example Renown. If new ships could be built, no one would extensively refit older ships, so that’s at least the price of one new battleship (or dry dock) saved out of hand.

[Ma Deuce]

(I can provide some examples of various paper designs, though the USN acutally got to build them)

I'd be very interested to see some of these non-limited paper designs. The only one I'm really familiar with is the Soviet Pr. 22/66 heavy cruiser (described in the book "Stalin's Ocean-Going Fleet"), which as I recall displaced almost 20,000 tons and was to be armed with 9 x 220mm high-velocity guns.

[Sea Skimmer]

Project 66 was an improved version of Project 22, but it ran to around 26,000 tons loaded with 9 x 220mm guns. The main differences are in arrangement of AA guns, Project 66 has quite a few on the centerline. The idea was the 220mm battery would outrange the 8 inch autoloaders on a Des Monies, but studies found that since this required shooting at over 31,000 yards the Project 22 might well run out of ammo without achieving decisive results. In order to dictate the range the ship also had to be capable of 35 knots. This made the ship very expensive for the caliber of gun and not worthwhile. It was canceled well before Stalin’s death put an end to all heavy ship projects.

Britain made numerous studies on the matter. An early effort at a ship with 12 x 9.2 inch guns ran to 22,000 tons with a 7inch belt and 3.5 inch deck. It also cost five and a half million pounds, approaching the price of a full battleship, and died quick.

1940 heavy cruiser studies ran 12-15,000 tons all with 9 x 8 inch guns for 3.5 to 4.5 million pounds. Five were to be built in place of two Lion class battleships, but the fall of France saw a suspension of work on the Lions completely in favor of work that could be more quickly completed.

1941 saw a new effort which was essentially an enlarged Southampton with 9 x 8 inch guns and a heavy AA battery of sixteen 4 inch guns on 16,000 tons. 1942 saw it grow to over 17,000 tons before the decision was made that quite simply 8 inch cruisers were not worth building, and could not be completed in time for the war in any case. Latter efforts, running into 1947, saw 6 inch cruisers with alternatively four triple 6 inch automatic guns or five twins run to over 15,000 tons.

France placed an actual order for three St. Louis class cruisers of 14,500 tons with 9 x 8 inch and 6 x 3.9 inch guns, 33 knots. Armor is a bit unclear, but would have been considerable, better then Algiers

Japans last threat cruisers, the MOgamis were near 15,000 tons full load by the time all rebuilding was completed. The Tone class came post treaty but was no larger, being intended as a specialist aircraft heavy scout. The last Japanese heavy cruiser was the Ikubi, an evolved version of the Mogamis with all the defects put right and about the saome displacement. Ikubi herself had considerable work done but was converted to a CV before completion with half the engines removed (speed 29 knots, space became AVGAS tanks). This carrier was 80% complete at the end of the war, but all work had ceased in ordered to build more of the mighty Kaiten and other midget suicide craft.

Italy seems to have put little thought into bigger heavy cruisers, its real interest lay with much heavier ships, including a string of 23,000 ton projects with as much as 6 x 16 inch guns and barely any armor. Economic realities meant that wartime cruiser design was aimed at a string of small ships with 6 and 5.3 inch guns.

Des Monies of course was actually built and exceeded 20,000 tons loaded, nearly as heavy as HMS Dreadnought was in 1906 as worlds largest warship. The preposterously poorly designed Admiral Hipper class approached 18,000 tons loaded and yet one cannot figure out what the weight was spent on. It sure didn’t go into guns, armor, speed or endurance. Its treaty limitation was a joke at best, but god only knows what even worse monstrosity would have happened without it…. Germany did latter work on the Project P raiding cruiser, not really meant to be a heavy cruiser but rather a pocket battleship scaled up to have 32 knot speed on 26,000 tons.

The trend is pretty clear, while 9 x 8 inch guns was sufficient armament, and many cruisers had sufficient speed, the 10,000 ton treaty cruiser had to grow considerably to combind the armor, range, secondary battery and sea keeping navies really wanted out of them. Only the US could design well armored ships within the treaty limits, and even then the ships were not really satisfactory, thus the major inflation in displacement with Baltimore and then Des Monies. The pressure for growth was just enormous to create well balanced ships.

Another clear trend is that once you hit about 20,000 tons, or went to significant heavier armaments, you hit diminishing returns, and it made little sense not to jump up and just build a 25-40,000 ton cruiser killer armed with at least 12 inch guns. Quite a lot of cruiser killer designs floated around, with probably more of them on average being actually built. Ill have to cover those when I have more time.

[CaptHawkeye]

If Japan is fucked by a lack of the Naval Treaties, then Germany is fucked even more. Versailles is still in effect during this alt history I presume, and that means Germany is still going to be answering to its demands. It doesn't really matter than Germany began to ignore Versailles by the late 30s, since by then the damage had already been done. Germany's hiatus, plus the stringent limitations it had to answer to on warship development left its design bureau's crippled.

When Bismarck hits the waves she'll probably just end up getting ruled faster by a bigger, badder Royal Navy. Hokey legends of "super" KM warships will never come about in the first place. The Kriegsmarine will ultimately end up even more superfluous in this world.

Thinking about this makes me realize just how much the NTs helped the axis in general. They almost completely mitigated the industrial advantages posed by the western allies and its astounding they were the ones that drew it up. Post WW1 fear of another dreadnought arms race must have been that debilitating. They really did see them as we see nukes today.

[thejester]

If Japan is fucked by a lack of the Naval Treaties, then Germany is fucked even more.

How? Germany's surface fleet's biggest accomplishment was tying down a disproportionate amount of RN strength when it was desperately needed elsewhere, and it will presumably still do that; the biggest effect of no WNT would perhaps be that the RN has a few more hulls it can spare for service in the Med or Indian Ocean.

[CaptHawkeye]

If Japan is fucked by a lack of the Naval Treaties, then Germany is fucked even more.

How? Germany's surface fleet's biggest accomplishment was tying down a disproportionate amount of RN strength when it was desperately needed elsewhere, and it will presumably still do that; the biggest effect of no WNT would perhaps be that the RN has a few more hulls it can spare for service in the Med or Indian Ocean.

Desperately needed elsewhere? The RN wasn't going to be carrying out major operations in the Indian Ocean and it knew it. That was the whole point of relying on the USN to cover their colonies. The RN only pitched a fit over the Kriegsmarine because of the whole farce that was the Bismarck hunt.

You also missed the point, holding down a "disproportionate" amount of the Royal Navy is totally worthless to Germany. Sorry, but when the only purpose your fleet serves is a distraction, it's a failure. Especially if you're an industrially disadvantaged nation like Germany. In fact, Germany shouldn't even bother with the Kriegsmarine at all. Since the reality was it ended up tying down way more GERMAN resources than allied. My what an accomplishment.

[atg]

the biggest effect of no WNT would perhaps be that the RN has a few more hulls it can spare for service in the Med or Indian Ocean.

It could also potentially mean that the extra resources and funding directed to the Royal Navy would drain that available for the Army/RAF.

In fact, Germany shouldn't even bother with the Kriegsmarine at all. Since the reality was it ended up tying down way more GERMAN resources than allied. My what an accomplishment.

Germany needed the Kriegsmarine to have some way to strike against Britain and try to protect its interests. At the very least, without the Kriegsmarine Germany couldn't have taken Norway to secure the ore supplies it needed from Sweden, and it wouldn't have had a hope in hell of threatening Britain with a potential invasion, or struck at the convoys.

I'll grant that the Kriegsmarine was very stupidly used during the war, especially in the few moments when it could have actually done something such as the Battle of the Barents Sea.

What kind of a naval force would you see as being the best option for Germany in the war (aside from none, at the very least its going to need something to cover the Baltic)? The most common answer I've seen is "Just build x number of U-Boats", but this discounts that the type of U-Boats that were being built at the time of the capital ships would have been near useless and allows the RN to concentrate its rescorces on ASW.

[thejester]

Desperately needed elsewhere? The RN wasn't going to be carrying out major operations in the Indian Ocean and it knew it. That was the whole point of relying on the USN to cover their colonies.

The RN no more relied on the USN to 'cover the colonies' than it did to cover anything else. The eventual division of responsibilities meant that the USN only covered New Zealand and the Australian east coast anyway; the Indian Ocean was still the sole responsibility of the RN. The complete absence of modern ships in the Indian Ocean meant the RN had to retreat to Madagascar, leaving Ceylon completely open to attack and meaning naval power could have no influence on events in Burma.

In a sense this discussion is a bit specific anyway as with no WNT the war obviously won't pan out in the same way. Worth noting that Britain continued to pursue a Far Eastern strategy based around some sort of fleet-in-being based in Singapore, despite the mounting evidence the RN would be incapable of spreading itself across two, let alone three, theatres. If a more serious force could be based in Singapore, I'm sure the RN would push for it.

The RN only pitched a fit over the Kriegsmarine because of the whole farce that was the Bismarck hunt.

Only? The KM sent a string of raiders out that gave the RN serious concern...hell, look at the forces in place to move against the Bismarck in the first place.

You also missed the point, holding down a "disproportionate" amount of the Royal Navy is totally worthless to Germany. Sorry, but when the only purpose your fleet serves is a distraction, it's a failure. Especially if you're an industrially disadvantaged nation like Germany. In fact, Germany shouldn't even bother with the Kriegsmarine at all. Since the reality was it ended up tying down way more GERMAN resources than allied. My what an accomplishment.

That's not true at all, and it's certainly not 'worthless' to the entirety of the Axis. Arguing the KM was a waste of resources is silly, it tied down a massively disproportionate amount of Allied resources, not just naval units, either. Operations against submarine forces were given the No 1 priority in the Combined Bomber Offensive at the start of 1943 - a huge amount of tonnage that could have gone onto German industry was instead directed at submarine pens.

[thejester]

the biggest effect of no WNT would perhaps be that the RN has a few more hulls it can spare for service in the Med or Indian Ocean.

It could also potentially mean that the extra resources and funding directed to the Royal Navy would drain that available for the Army/RAF.

Mmm, probably not. RAF's average share of defence budgets in the interwar period was 17%, IIRC (and a large portion of that went into a bloated Air Ministry and luxurious permanent stations). In any case it's the massive increases in funding from 1937 that were really important, as any money before that would have been wasted on aircraft that would have been obsolete within a few years.

[atg]

the biggest effect of no WNT would perhaps be that the RN has a few more hulls it can spare for service in the Med or Indian Ocean.

It could also potentially mean that the extra resources and funding directed to the Royal Navy would drain that available for the Army/RAF.

Mmm, probably not. RAF's average share of defence budgets in the interwar period was 17%, IIRC (and a large portion of that went into a bloated Air Ministry and luxurious permanent stations). In any case it's the massive increases in funding from 1937 that were really important, as any money before that would have been wasted on aircraft that would have been obsolete within a few years.

It doesn't really matter what percentage of the budget each service had. If the Royal Navy is going to build more ships then it needs increased funding/resources, which have to come from somewhere. Britain has a finite amount of funding to allocate. In regard to the RAF build up from 1937 - any new ships for the RN aren't just a one off cost, but there is still major costs involved over the life of the ship in regards to maintenance, fuel, personel, etc. This would have to impact the other forces in some measure, whether it be a "cutting of the fat" with regards to the bloated Air Ministry or luxurious stations, or be via more practical effects on what the Army/RAF could produce.

[thejester]

Skimmer already covered this to an extent:

Britain was reluctant to spend more money on armaments owing to her large war debts. None the less the money existed and could have, and certainly would have been spent. Someone once calculated that the cost of the N3 class would be equal to no more then a one pound per person tax increase. I don’t have the math to back that up, but I doubt its greatly inaccurate.

British and Japanese construction would force an American reply and so the cycle goes on. Most of the RN budget, and indeed all military budgets then and now, went into maintenance and upkeep, with new construction being only a small faction of the total. Tripling the RN budget for new construction, which would allow for two new capital ships a year besides all historical construction, would only mean about a 25% increase in naval spending over the 1930 level. In real life the British GDP doubled between 1914 and 1933 (and this pushed it into the billions of pounds, the KGVs cost 7 million, a 1920s ship would be cheaper), and yet the naval budget, adjusted for inflation, was flat lined. The sums spent on new construction dropped significantly.

In addition, as long as the RAF can continue to justify its existence and the British see strategic bombing as a viable alternative to a repeat of the Western Front deadlock, I don't think it will really matter. Bomber Command was so totally unprepared for war in '39 that it's hard to see how less funding could have made a serious difference...Fighter Command's funding was a different matter, but the prospect of ruin from the air was such a popular topic in pre-war Britain that you'd think their funding would be secure too.

I suppose construction beyond the G3/N3 would also have an effect; presumably the RN will launch at least one more capital ship class in the '30s/early 40s.

[An Ancient]

The initial part of the arms race would've been interesting, there was a split in opinion over battleship armament, the N3's of the RN were 9 x 18" gun units, conversely, the USN went for a dozen 16" on their South Dakota design. This reflects the earlier trends that saw the RN and German Navy go for 10-12 x 12" guns to 8 x 15" whereas the USN went for 10-12 x 14".

Similarly for BC's, the RN's G3 design was fast, heavily armed and heavily armoured, it's a scary thought that the '20's era battlecruiser would've made a good match (when modernised) for the Iowa. Conversely, the USN Lexington class were faster still, but had no useful armour to speak of. The second generation ships would likely be still further different as a result, I'm not sure if battlecruiser gun calibre would got up, although the number of guns may increase. But you can bet battleship gun calibre would go up, or at least serious attempts would be made to do so.

The 'cruiser killer' idea might actually give the oldest battleships new lease in life, think about it, you need a convoy escort (so speed is not so much an issue), with thick armour, 12-14" guns in relatively large numbers and you need a few of them. Exactly what the older battleships are! GRanted they'd need new machinery, probably new guns, but the hulls themselves would represent a tremendous cost saving when funds are being poured into new battleship construction and the development of new cruiser and destroyer designs.

Destroyers would probably also undergo an upgrading in size, the German's aren't much of a threat, and in an arms race, for the IJN and USN, their potential opponents are miles away anyway, for the RN, the same applies plus it has the colonial regions of the Empire to worry about. Destroyers would need more fuel, more and bigger guns, and the like.

Ironically the ships coming off worst from all this would be the older 'super dreadnoughts' like the QE's, Nagato's and Colorado's, they are to few in number to serve as convoy escorts/cruiser killers, they aren't big enough to seriously think of engaging even the latest battlecruisers (with the possible exception of the Lexington's) and the best they could hope for would be to form a 'reserve fleet' to be kept to make up the numbers if significant amounts of the new ships get destroyed in a war. Either that or they end up leading commerce raiding groups against their smaller, older relatives (plasuible given these classes generally higher speeds).

[Sea Skimmer]

The initial part of the arms race would've been interesting, there was a split in opinion over battleship armament, the N3's of the RN were 9 x 18" gun units, conversely, the USN went for a dozen 16" on their South Dakota design. This reflects the earlier trends that saw the RN and German Navy go for 10-12 x 12" guns to 8 x 15" whereas the USN went for 10-12 x 14".

You can’t really draw any meaningful conclusion on that. The USN approved the South Dakota design in 1916, only to have work delayed by the war. The ships should have been in active service before N3 was even designed. Almost no work seems to have been done on any follow on battleships because of this delay, and the need to redesign Lexington to suck slightly less. However the USN did have an 18 inch gun and it was actually built, abet with a 16 inch liner, later converted back to 18 inch. The USN didn’t really let itself be pushed around by what other nations were doing, but the need for an 18 inch gun will be obvious real fast once Japan also lays down an 18 inch ship.

The 'cruiser killer' idea might actually give the oldest battleships new lease in life, think about it, you need a convoy escort (so speed is not so much an issue), with thick armour, 12-14" guns in relatively large numbers and you need a few of them. Exactly what the older battleships are! GRanted they'd need new machinery, probably new guns, but the hulls themselves would represent a tremendous cost saving when funds are being poured into new battleship construction and the development of new cruiser and destroyer designs.

No way, machinery and guns are the main costs of a battleship, the hull and armor is not nearly so expensive and would need all sorts of work anyway. Lesser rebuilds already had costs approaching half that of a new ship, and you can’t even make a comparison here since no ones old battleship was fit for conversion into a ship capable of 32-35 knots. Also a keep thing to remember is the older ship when rebuilt will not last nearly so long as a new built unit, so if it costs 40% as much, but lasts 25% as long, did you really save money? I don’t know what battleship you could have in mind that it would even be physically possible to modify to have 32 knot speed.

Now for a pure escort role all you have to do is add another inch of deck armor and modify the main battery for as much elevation as possible. That’s cheap and reasonable. But the cruiser killer has to be new because it has to be fast to do its job.

[An Ancient]

You can’t really draw any meaningful conclusion on that. The USN approved the South Dakota design in 1916, only to have work delayed by the war. The ships should have been in active service before N3 was even designed. Almost no work seems to have been done on any follow on battleships because of this delay, and the need to redesign Lexington to suck slightly less. However the USN did have an 18 inch gun and it was actually built, abet with a 16 inch liner, later converted back to 18 inch. The USN didn’t really let itself be pushed around by what other nations were doing, but the need for an 18 inch gun will be obvious real fast once Japan also lays down an 18 inch ship.

I agree with a lot of that, but it is a noticable trend of the WW1-era USN to go for slightly more slightly smaller guns when other countries were content with a few less, but slightly larger, guns. The N3 designs probably would've been started around the same time if WW1 hadn't paused BB construction in the UK. Obviously the USN will start on an 18" design when they see the N3's and Japan's designs, which is kinda the point, it's a response to others upping the ante, the RN and IJN would probably be trying to see if you can stick a 20" barrell on at the time of the hypothetical USN 18" design being developed.

In a way the RN and USN had different ends of the same stick, at the time the RN had to keep going bigger to keep ahead of everyone else, the USN was strapped for cash thanks to Congress a lot of the time so would tend to upscale following the lead of other countries. Of course they did their own thing a lot of the time, hell, the very fact that their designs went 12", 14" 16", 18" as opposed to the RN's 12", 13.5", 15", 16", 18" shows that, but the 'contemporary' designs did tend towards the smaller but more numerous.

No way, machinery and guns are the main costs of a battleship, the hull and armor is not nearly so expensive and would need all sorts of work anyway. Lesser rebuilds already had costs approaching half that of a new ship, and you can’t even make a comparison here since no ones old battleship was fit for conversion into a ship capable of 32-35 knots. Also a keep thing to remember is the older ship when rebuilt will not last nearly so long as a new built unit, so if it costs 40% as much, but lasts 25% as long, did you really save money? I don’t know what battleship you could have in mind that it would even be physically possible to modify to have 32 knot speed.

Now for a pure escort role all you have to do is add another inch of deck armor and modify the main battery for as much elevation as possible. That’s cheap and reasonable. But the cruiser killer has to be new because it has to be fast to do its job.

You wouldn't, you probably wouldn't even redo the machinery unless it was falling apart, and the guns could possibly simply be re-bored like the Italians did or give them super-charged shells. I'm not thinking the hunting aspect of the 'cruiser killer', but the convoy escort aspect.

You can make a big cruiser with a dozen 8" guns, a high top speed and a reasonable cruiser-grade belt, but if it runs into a convoy with even a Dreadnought or South Carolina escorting it, it'll still lose. Hence the old ships with minimal modification are effective convoy escorts. Essentially what you said in the second paragraph.

I have no idea what you'd end up with as the 'cruiser killer' in it's full form, although I have a nasty suspicion we'd end up with bigger faster versions of the Invincibles all over again.

[Sea Skimmer]

I agree with a lot of that, but it is a noticable trend of the WW1-era USN to go for slightly more slightly smaller guns when other countries were content with a few less, but slightly larger, guns. The N3 designs probably would've been started around the same time if WW1 hadn't paused BB construction in the UK.

Yeah but RN thinking at the time was much different. 18 inch guns sure, but they still would have still spread the armor all over the hull to guard against CPC and HE shells. The deck would have probably only been 3 inches thick, maybe raised to 5 inches over magazines latter. Of course that’s perfectly fine for the time, since no one was going to hit at really long ranges until second generation director gear and rangeclocks showed up postwar.

Obviously the USN will start on an 18" design when they see the N3's and Japan's designs, which is kinda the point, it's a response to others upping the ante, the RN and IJN would probably be trying to see if you can stick a 20" barrell on at the time of the hypothetical USN 18" design being developed.

Well, 18 inch guns already suffer from diminishing returns big time, 20 inch guns are a joke, the RN might be nuts enough to build a 60,000 ton ship with only six guns that goes 30 knots (it might also have like 10 inches of deck armor on the magazines), but the USN wouldn’t be. They’d just eventually get around to designing superheavy shells and use them in combination with superior barrel counts to gain an advantage in long range battles. The superheavy round for the 18 inch 47 weighed a mere 3,850lb, not much smaller then the shell weights tossed around for 20 inch gun designs. Japan will go bankrupt before it gets very far into 18 inch gun ships.

I have no idea what you'd end up with as the 'cruiser killer' in it's full form, although I have a nasty suspicion we'd end up with bigger faster versions of the Invincibles all over again.

Probably, but since battleships are now three times as big, rather then the same size as the super Invincible, such as ship is slightly more justifiable. Not to say they are a good idea… but well like I was saying before, if ships like Alaska could get built when the USN already had six Iowas built or building, it’s hard to see how they could be avoided with no treaties and all categories of ships going up. Heck the Russian Kronstadat was bigger then a South Dakota, though part of this can be blamed on Russian design inexperience.

[An Ancient]

Yeah but RN thinking at the time was much different. 18 inch guns sure, but they still would have still spread the armor all over the hull to guard against CPC and HE shells. The deck would have probably only been 3 inches thick, maybe raised to 5 inches over magazines latter. Of course that’s perfectly fine for the time, since no one was going to hit at really long ranges until second generation director gear and rangeclocks showed up postwar.

True, but at that point everyone's designs changed in light of WW1 (for the most part anyway), they did stop work on Hood after Jutland for some changes, and that was already being built, so the hypothetical mid-WW1 N3 probably would've been quite close to the historical design, as it's much cheaper to redo some paper designs before you lay down the hulls.

Well, 18 inch guns already suffer from diminishing returns big time,

Yeah, like killing anyone out on deck when you fire them.

20 inch guns are a joke, the RN might be nuts enough to build a 60,000 ton ship with only six guns that goes 30 knots (it might also have like 10 inches of deck armor on the magazines), but the USN wouldn’t be. They’d just eventually get around to designing superheavy shells and use them in combination with superior barrel counts to gain an advantage in long range battles. The superheavy round for the 18 inch 47 weighed a mere 3,850lb, not much smaller then the shell weights tossed around for 20 inch gun designs. Japan will go bankrupt before it gets very far into 18 inch gun ships.

That's a bit of an oyxmoron, superheavy shells had markedly less range than their standard counterparts, you don't want to be fighting a long range battle in those circumstances. In any case, such shells are quite a way off anyway, and as you point out, the 20" concept is really a bit stupid, although someone would probably try. So you might see a few ships with 20" guns, but there would be a reversion to 18" as the 'standard' BB gun fairly quickly.

Probably, but since battleships are now three times as big, rather then the same size as the super Invincible, such as ship is slightly more justifiable. Not to say they are a good idea… but well like I was saying before, if ships like Alaska could get built when the USN already had six Iowas built or building, it’s hard to see how they could be avoided with no treaties and all categories of ships going up. Heck the Russian Kronstadat was bigger then a South Dakota, though part of this can be blamed on Russian design inexperience.

Very true, although the Alaska did benefit from actually having meaningful armour, these new ships would probably suffer the same kind of fate as the orignals, everyone would be happy whilst they chase cruisers around, but inevitably they'll try and fight something of similar gun power and get killed horribly.


The other thing I'm interested in would be the hypothetical large destroyers that would probably come about, even when the pre-WW1 USN was building up, Congress still throttled its budget so that lighter ships were built in fewer numbers than was needed. What are the chances of that happening again?

[Sea Skimmer]

That's a bit of an oyxmoron, superheavy shells had markedly less range than their standard counterparts, you don't want to be fighting a long range battle in those circumstances.

Less range is relative; range is still enormous, especially since this is all in an era before even the most basic radar sets were in service. Even the 16/45 Mark 6 reached 36,900 yards, and the 16/50 Mark 7 42,000 yards. The 16/50 Mark 2 in use on the 1916 ships reached 45,000 yards without a superheavy round and was highly similar in characteristics to the Mark 7, so it should have about the same range if latter units had superheavy shells. The 18/47 with superheavies reached 43,000 yards. The US also had a coast defence 16/50 Army gun that reached 49,000 yards with a 2,300lb shell, showing that one could build a significantly more powerful 16 inch gun if it was wanted as an intermediate step.

You really think ranges greater then 42-43,000 yards will ever matter? The British 18/45 wasn’t even supposed to shoot further then that with a normal shell weight, and Yamato only has around 3,000 yards greater reach. I mean it’s possible that with a dozen battleships firing at that distance you might get a few hits, but before long the range will be closed anyway. Meanwhile if American ships can’t fire, they have no reason to continue on perfectly straight courses, they can chase salvos and they’ll literally have about a two minute time of flight to work with. Escorts could also simply lay a smoke screen, forcing the enemy to rely entirely on air spotting. Air spotting was a nice aid, but it really only worked for spotting range errors, spotting for deflection is much harder if the firing ship cannot see the target at all.

In any case, such shells are quite a way off anyway, and as you point out, the 20" concept is really a bit stupid, although someone would probably try. So you might see a few ships with 20" guns, but there would be a reversion to 18" as the 'standard' BB gun fairly quickly.

Yes I’d agree with that, a reversion in calibers is quite possible. Probably Japan would come out with a 20 inch ship, the RN would feel forced into a counter and then both navies would find out what they should have already known, you can’t hit much with only six guns.

Very true, although the Alaska did benefit from actually having meaningful armour, these new ships would probably suffer the same kind of fate as the orignals, everyone would be happy whilst they chase cruisers around, but inevitably they'll try and fight something of similar gun power and get killed horribly.

Well from what I’ve read in some period articles it’s pretty clear that the battlecruisers at Jutland all blew up quite simply because they had way too much ready ammunition in the handling spaces and such, and literally men were stacking cordite in piles besides the ammo hoists. This was a direct result of orders to emphasis rapidity of fire. The Admiralty knew this, but refused to acknowledge it officially because that’d mean admitting there own orders had gotten the ships sunk. So instead they cooked up a claim that deck armor penetrations had done it, even though no ship had its much larger machinery spaces penetrated. Still, revises firing orders were quietly issued, placing strict restrictions on the amount of ammo allowed in each stage of the hoists and handling rooms. Improved fire control also made rapid as opposed to deliberate fire less attractive.

If they’d followed proper safety precautions then they’d have been okay (abet with plenty of turrets knocked out), and after all, several battlecruisers did survive very heavy damage. Lack of armor and not very stable propellant didn’t help, but neither factor should have resulted in three ships exploding from hits on turrets. The dreaded flash should not have been a serious risk, because it simply should not have been enough exposed propellant to allow explosive pressure to build up.

So the cruiser kill will be vulnerable, but it shouldn’t be a floating coffin. And since its now distinctly smaller then capital ships, hopefully it would not be used in a battleline as a matter of routine. Dunkerque managed to have pretty great armor as it is, better then Alaska, and once they increased the belt on Strasbourg the things had nearly as much protection on the magazines as Bismarck. Course Bismarck sucked, but she’s nearly twice as big too.

The other thing I'm interested in would be the hypothetical large destroyers that would probably come about, even when the pre-WW1 USN was building up, Congress still throttled its budget so that lighter ships were built in fewer numbers than was needed. What are the chances of that happening again?

That’s quite likely. The USN would get the Omaha’s, and then probably it would revert to the prewar situation in which it’s just not building anything between a destroyer and a very big cruiser. Being the largest economy on earth and having few requirements for an army the US could quite easily afford a balanced fleet if it wanted. But if that happens or not would really depend on how Congress views the world. As seen in 1916 and 1940, when Congress saw a threat they’d quickly vote enormous amounts of money to counter it, literally they’d vote for a whole new fleet. However, in this case, Japan isn’t really a long term threat because the US can out build Japan even building at a restrained pace, and Britain may or may not be seen as an imminent threat. If Britain is an imminent threat, the USN gets a full fleet, if not then the USN only gets big ships and destroyers.

[Kitsune]

Wanted to add that NavWeap gives originally planned ranges for the 16/50 and 16/45 using non superheavy shells.

Trying to hit a moving target when flight time is over a minute, need to use aircraft spotting, and no guidance seems like it would be a special miracle.