feasibility of keeping WW I battleships around for WW II.

Except Chile didn't declare war on anyone in Jan 1943. Having been neutral to that point, it broke off diplomatic relations with all 3 major Axis powers having broken up various spy rings in 1942, and forcing the survivors to flee to Argentina.

Breaking diplomatic relations with another country is a long way short of declaring war.

Substantial numbers of both German & Italian citizens continued to live peacefully in Chile.


On 18 May 1943 it also broke diplomatic relations with Hungary. Romania,Bulgaria & Vichy France.

Chile did declare war on Japan in April 1945.

Timeline for it all here.

I would expect that the Chileans would never get to PH in your scenario. You just need to look at Adm King's attitudein 1943/44 to the prospect of a BPF arriving. He only accepted it when ordered by his political masters, then insisted it should be self supporting. He stopped a French TG based around Richelieu and the ships modernised in the US.

So how is the Chilean Navy going to support it's PH TG.

Edit. The RNethN, after the withdrawal from the DEI in early 1942, operated as part of US Seventh Fleet in SWPA under MacArthur.

You are trying to stick old, obsolete hulls and guns into a modern war. The benefits are small and the problems are large.

The Dreadnought era has two main periods. 1906-1922 (16 years) and 1923-1945 (22 years), Note that 1923 to 1939 is 16 years.
Anybody think that 1918 airplanes had any business trying to fight in WW II?
Anybody think that 1918 tanks had any business trying to fight in WW II?
Would anybody even use a 1914 staff car or truck in a WW II Army?

Admiral Beez said:

At least none of the Chilean group is coal-fired.

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and once you have said that you have pretty much exhausted the good points. It is all down hill from there.
Non-standard ammo. Non standard parts. AA armament not even up to 1939 standards unless extensive refit.

Shortround6 said:

You are trying to stick old, obsolete hulls and guns into a modern war. The benefits are small and the problems are large.

Click to expand...

You use them like the WWI era battleships were used historically, as convoy escorts and for shore bombardment? For such tasks extensive refits are maybe not worth it?

For an actual fleet action, you bring your modern capital ships.

The Dreadnought era has two main periods. 1906-1922 (16 years) and 1923-1945 (22 years), Note that 1923 to 1939 is 16 years.
Anybody think that 1918 airplanes had any business trying to fight in WW II?
Anybody think that 1918 tanks had any business trying to fight in WW II?
Would anybody even use a 1914 staff car or truck in a WW II Army?

Click to expand...

I don't think that's an entirely fair comparison. Tanks and airplanes were more or less brand spanking new inventions at the time, and were thus developing quickly. By comparison, steam powered gunships were much more mature, even though they developed rapidly

z42 said:

You use them like the WWI era battleships were used historically, as convoy escorts and for shore bombardment? For such tasks extensive refits are maybe not worth it?

For an actual fleet action, you bring your modern capital ships.

Click to expand...

z42 said:

I don't think that's an entirely fair comparison. Tanks and airplanes were more or less brand spanking new inventions at the time, and were thus developing quickly. By comparison, steam powered gunships were much more mature, even though they developed rapidly

Click to expand...

It took 4-5 years for steam turbines to totally eclipse reciprocating engines. In fact the USS New York, Texas and Oklahoma all used VTE engines. Mostly because early direct drive turbines had much less cruising range than VTE expansion engines. There were also major changes in boiler construction in the first 10-12 years of the dreadnought era, not counting oil fuel.
Steam propulsion machinery changed with 1930s ships getting twice the power per ton as mid/late WW I powerplants. Let alone earlier powerplants. British were late to adopt small tube boilers even for coal fired boilers.
There was a lot going on under the decks, which allowed for more power from smaller machinery spaces which allowed for more armament and/or more protection on the same size ship. When used on a somewhat larger ship the increase in the ship's fighting power was huge.

Long range fire was also changing almost by the year in the first decade or so. The HMS Dreadnought had completed with a 9ft rangefinder.
The British conducted trials with a gun director in 1912 with the Orion and Thunderer. Very successful although somewhat primitive. By Aug 1914 8 Ships had been fitted but by Jutland on 2 British Dreadnoughts had not been fitted. These were main armament only. It took several more years for director control to extend down to secondary batteries and searchlights.
And this was 1st and perhaps 2nd generation equipment.
In the Nevada class the central fire control station was placed below the main armored deck. Actually the main armored deck was placed over the top of the central fire control station by raising the the main armor deck up one deck. These ships were laid down in 1912 and completed in 1916. The preceding New York and Texas were completed with the central fire control station above the armored deck as this was fitted during construction. The directors in tops or on the conning tower were the eyes and fed information to the central firing control station.
As expected fighting ranges increased, often faster than the ships could be constructed, and bigger guns were mounted and thicker armor was used some ships actually were obsolete when completed in some of the smaller navies due to building time.
Some nations dreadnoughts were limited due to construction/doctrine. The French Bretagne class was completes with 12 degree elevation and a max range of 14,500 meters.
although the Lorraine's rear turret was changed to 18 degrees in 1917 but the other turrets and her sisters were not changed until after 1918 due to other work in the dockyards. Between the wars the elevation was finally changed to 23 degrees and max range of 23,700meters which compares badly with the French 8in cruisers (28,000 meters?)
Many navies went a little overboard with long range gunnery during the 1920s and early 30s. The ability to actually see an enemy ship at over 30,000 meters due to weather was exceedingly rare. Seeing does not mean hitting. Time of flight of the shells at long range could exceed 60 seconds and accurate ranging and course setting was essential to order to predict future enemy position. Very good fire control equipment was needed.
Ships, as the Germans found out, had a central nervous system (fire control) that could be damaged/ knocked out rendering the ship mission killed even if the guns still would fire, the engines would still drive the ship at speed and the hull would still keep the ship afloat. But the ship could no longer effectively defend her self.

We have not even looked at what a 3rd rate AA suite was like on some of these ships in some of the these old ships. Eight heavy AA guns in some of the British and American ships were bad enough, trying to use an old ship with only four heavy AA guns and a scattering of light AA is asking for trouble in any but the most heavily occupied airspace. That or you need to station special AA ships near the antique to guard her which really makes her a poor bargain.
Or you give her a quicky refit at the expense of one or two other ships not getting refits with better AA.
The US spent a crap load of money on some of the old Pearl Harbor ships.
USS Tennessee

Yes, better AA than an KGV, but that was 1944, not 1939-41.