feasibility of keeping WW I battleships around for WW II.

kitplane01 · Sep 7, 2021

Shortround6 said:
I will most certainly stand by my statements.

You are confusing what late (post 1935, or extensively rebuilt)) battleships were used for in Pacific, not the battleships that existed in 1939 and before.
It the Atlantic the role of the battleship, while escort, was most certainly NOT to lookout for submarines and long range air attack. It was to counter surface raiders, up to and including German battleships. If a Battleship is the first to spot a submarine the destroyers and other ASW ships have screwed up. The cruisers carried the same Air warning radar the battleships did so using a R or QE class BB with it's much larger crew and much larger fuel burn was a very uneconomic use of resources.

Going back the Pacific the same date separation applies. The older battleships were not fast enough to accompany carriers and the old/un-modernized ones carried a a suite of AA guns no better than a 10,000ton cruiser (perhaps more ammo per gun?), shore bombardment would not start until mid 1942 and was rarely used then compared to what happened latter.
The Battleships were very definitely intended to engage the enemy BBs, if only to prevent them from doing shore bombardment.

Many of the OLD US battleships at Pearl Harbor were rebuilt to have sixteen 5in/38s instead of eight 5in/25s before they rejoined the fleet, not to mention a vast increase in light AA guns.
Older British battleships generally had eight 4in AA guns, two twin mounts per side, unless extensively modified.
Repulse was even worse and had a poorer AA than many of the County Class cruisers. She was sent to the Pacific to counter Japanese surface ships.

What surface raiders required a battleship in WWII? Maybe the Bismark (which could have been done by carriers), and just about nothing else. No one would have constructed 15 British BBs and BCs (plus a bunch of American ones ) just to fight German surface raiders.

In the Atlantic, there really was no mission where the battleship was the best answer. Convoy escort, ASW, surface bombardment all could have been done better by carriers.

In the Pacific there was also little use for BBs. I agree the old battleships had to work with escort carriers because they could not keep up with fleet carriers, and that their AA gun fit was inadequate.

What battleships wound up doing from 1942/43 on is not to be confused with what they were intended to do in the years leading up to WW II or in the first few years of WW II.

Totally agree.

SaparotRob · Sep 7, 2021

Battleships are for when everybody is out of carriers.

Reluctant Poster · Sep 7, 2021

GreenKnight121 said:
The discussion of the value and honesty of Fred T. Jane's volumes of naval reference material must include their origins... An avid miniatures wargamer, Jane first published All the World's Fighting Ships (known as Jane's Fighting Ships after 1905) in 1898, which catalogued all the warships operated by each country, their armaments, and other details, as a supplement to a wargame he designed. It was a success from the start and has become the standard reference directory on the topic. The Naval Warrant Officer's Journal suggested that the book be on every ship, and in 1902 said that it should be available to every naval officer.

Note that such games were not then the province of bored middle-class people such as most of ourselves... it was the naval professionals and nobility, many of whom had their own sources of accurate information, who were his market. Therefore, his information had to be up-to-date and as accurate as possible, or his customers would grow dissatisfied and look elsewhere for their information.

Reading this preface, and especially its "thanks due" section, provides a glimpse of the quality of his sources and of his intended audience - indeed he hoped that the navies themselves would use it in their training programs, and it appears that they did.

RULES FOR THE JANE NAVAL WAR GAME (1898 preface)

The Strand Magazine, in 1904, published an 8-page article which claimed that his game was "played by every navy in the world", and specifically that "The Japanese and Russian navies trained on it for the present war" (Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905).

It also contains his relation that the game reached its final development aboard HMS Majestic, supported by such personages as Majestic's Captain, Prince Louis of Battenberg, Grand Duke Alexander (a Russian naval officer and brother-in-law of the Czar), and aided in rules-development by Rear-Admiral H. J. May (RN) and Captain Kawashima (IJN).

The game was purchased by multiple nations' navies, and it was especially purchased by the British War Office for training its coastal artillery officers etc.

The whole article may be found here: The Strand Magazine, Volume 27
View attachment 640685

So you see, it was not "just a popular reference book", but an essential reference for naval training programs worldwide before WW1.

Needless to say, accuracy was paramount.

Jane's statement that the Indefatigable was more cost effective than the Invincible was certainly an accurate statement but it was a disingenuous one when the Lion was available for comparison. Increasing the cost by 1/3 gets a far more effective ship, much faster, better armor and most importantly far greater hitting power.
The Indefatigable was the product of muddled thinking by the British. Their obsession with end on fire coupled with their refusal to use superfiring turrets resulted in designs more in line with French designs. The objection to superfiring was based on their archaic use of open sighting hoods at the front of the turret when everyone else had moved to periscopes. While havng a open path into the turret facing the enemy at the front of the turret seems foolish to begin with, it further prevented the top turret from firing dead ahead, being restricted to 30 degrees off the bow. The irony is that the wing turrets ended up having the same restrictions as any closer angle than 30 degrees had disastrous effects on the bridge personnel.
The design process of the Indefatigable was constantly changed until finally the clock ran out and the only possible solution was an "improved" Invincible. The word improved is used loosely since despite the greater separation of the P and Q turrets they still couldn't fire crossdeck with the other turret in operation. Even worse the total weight of armor was reduced from Invincible's 815 tons to 741.
The DNC at the time d'Eyncourt stated after the war that the Indefatigable should have been a lot better design.
Indefatigable was a reiteration of a 3 year old design that ignored progress in other Navy's designs that should not have been built in the first place. Building 2 more a year later seems an even greater folly.

Glider · Sep 7, 2021

kitplane01 said:
What surface raiders required a battleship in WWII? Maybe the Bismark (which could have been done by carriers), and just about nothing else. No one would have constructed 15 British BBs and BCs (plus a bunch of American ones ) just to fight German surface raiders.

In the Atlantic, there really was no mission where the battleship was the best answer. Convoy escort, ASW, surface bombardment all could have been done better by carriers.

In the Pacific there was also little use for BBs. I agree the old battleships had to work with escort carriers because they could not keep up with fleet carriers, and that their AA gun fit was inadequate.

Totally agree.

There is a lot of truth in what you are saying however I think timing is an important factor. In the first couple of years the Germans used the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Bismark and Prinz Eugen as commerce Raiders. Against these the old R class Battleships were a real danger as the German vessels couldn't afford a single damaging hit. Also of course in this period there were no carriers to be spared.

Later on the situation was very different and the R class were no longer needed and most were given secondary roles.

[h3][/h3]

GrauGeist · Sep 7, 2021

So what happens when a carrier, despite the efforts of it's air compliment, can't keep a battleship at bay and ends up being sunk by shellfire?

Sort of renders the "battleships are only good for shore bombardment" idea rather moot...

don4331 · Sep 7, 2021

kitplane01 said:
What surface raiders required a battleship in WWII? Maybe the Bismark (which could have been done by carriers), and just about nothing else. No one would have constructed 15 British BBs and BCs (plus a bunch of American ones ) just to fight German surface raiders.

In the Atlantic, there really was no mission where the battleship was the best answer. Convoy escort, ASW, surface bombardment all could have been done better by carriers.

Convoy escort in Atlantic from '39 to '43 and a bit - battleship is best answer to fight German surface raiders.

North Atlantic isn't exactly known for having nicest weather, especially at night. Your CV can't operate planes/find the raider in winter storm conditions and can't stop it when it appears within gun range.

BB can drop 2,000lb HE rounds within 100 yds, time after time to support troops in 1st 20 miles off beaches. Very few planes/pilots did.

(RN/RAF numbers converted to USD) includes purchase, maintenance & operating expenses
A Battleship costs ~$3.5M/year to operate
A 36 plane CVL costs ~$4.5M/year; an 80 plane CV about $8M/yr, even Argus cost ~2.5M/yr.
A Heavy cruiser ~1.5M/year
8 Destroyers (J class) ~$2.5M/year
A squadron (16) of twin bombers (Beauforts) ~$2M/year

Note: 10 of those RN BB/BC were left over from WWI; RN only build 6 new ones.

Shortround6 · Sep 7, 2021

kitplane01 said:
What surface raiders required a battleship in WWII? Maybe the Bismark (which could have been done by carriers), and just about nothing else. No one would have constructed 15 British BBs and BCs (plus a bunch of American ones ) just to fight German surface raiders.

As noted by others most of the Battleships already existed. The "R"s were actually newer the than QEs, but they were a bit smaller/slower with smaller boiler rooms but with oil fuel like the QEs.
Any schemes to keep Iron Dukes/Tiger/Lions has to take into account that they were older, had seen more service, had coal fired boilers that needed replacing in the 1920s.

Glider said:
In the first couple of years the Germans used the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Bismark and Prinz Eugen as commerce Raiders

Germans also had, just before the war, the Graf Spee/Deutschland/Scheer as commerce raiders that any prudent admiralty would want either a battleship or 3-4 cruisers at a minimum to counter. The Germans also got the Tirpitz into service so the need for battleship escorts did not disappear when the Bismarck was sunk.
The Blucher had been laid down in 1936 and commissioned Sept of 1939. Made history as the only cruiser sunk by by shore based torpedo tubes.

The idea in escorting convoys is not to set up a fair fight but to smash/disable the attacker as fast as possible.

Very few people expected the Taranto raid to be a successful as it was. British needed battleships to counter the Italian ones. Especially as the Italians were putting more effort into rebuilding their old ships and building new ones than the French were.

In 1935-40 the carriers had yet to prove themselves and even from 1940 to 1943 there weren't enough carriers to go around.

British had even laid down two battleships with nine 16in guns out of a class of six in the summer of 1939 but work was suspended soon after the war broke out and they were broken up on the slips in 1942.

The carrier's dominance over the battleship did not come in an instant but over several years as both aircraft and AA guns improved and fought it out.
An American 1945 AA outfit would have made a ship almost untouchable by 1939-40 aircraft but not only didn't some of the guns exist (in numbers) but the radars, gun directors and proximity fuses didn't exist. Likewise 1944/45 carrier aircraft would have made short work of any 1939-40 battleship with their improved protection, higher performance, increased fire power, heavier bomb loads and the ability to launch torpedoes at speeds and heights that 1939-40 pilots couldn't even dream about.

nuuumannn · Sep 13, 2021

GreenKnight121 said:
That HMS Agincourt was informally called "Gin Palace" is something that has been in print since long before the first glimmerings of what would eventually become the internet began to take shape in the universities of the US in the 1960s.

All caps, especially bold all caps is shouting and angry in internet culture - bolding is, both in the internet and as used in publishing for well over a century, used for emphasis, to bring attention and focus to the item of information being presented.

I find it amusing that you launch into a defense of your position, not on a basis of fact, but by taking offense and imputing a motive and state of mind on my part that you have no way of knowing at all, but which is convenient to present to discredit me and therefore my statement.

Additionally, the "defense" of "you can't prove that no one ever said it so I'm right" is, from the standpoint of debate logic, a weak argument.

Sure, whatever. I think we might be getting our wires crossed here, GK, it certainly wasn't meant as an attack, just a thing I find amusing when people use CAPS and BOLD it always looks angry (there's another forum member who does the same and it looks so CERTAIN. As for defensiveness, not at all. Sure I'm trying to stake my claim because that's what I remember reading. Your answer is so emphatic that the question has to be asked, are you sure you can justify it?

The point is, the fact still remains, I remember reading somewhere that it might have been and you can't be so sure that it wasn't, so it still remains, although now you've got me thinking... Maybe it wasn't the Princess Royal but the Queen Mary...It was a while ago...

nuuumannn · Oct 12, 2021

Reluctant Poster said:
but it was a disingenuous one when the Lion was available for comparison.

In what context? Can you prove that he deliberately misrepresented the information? He was a journalist and bringing up the spat between Beresford and Fisher bears no relation to this since both were admirals, so waaaay out of context. Jane was a civilian. He didn't represent the Admiralty, he wrote the books for information's sake and there's no reason at all that he would deliberately misrepresent information. For what reason? There's no justification for it.

If you are so certain this is the case, prove he did.

SaparotRob · Oct 12, 2021

If Fred T. Jane was an avid wargamer, and it certainly appears so, he'd probably be dead certain of his facts.

The Basket · Oct 17, 2021

Maybe Indefatigable was cheaper than a Tiger for cruiser killing so that's where the extra savings were.

A monitor is much cheaper for shore bombardment.

A carrier should be able to run away from any battleship. So the battleship will never get in range.

One aspect of carrier operation is versatility.

Royal Navy had 15 big gun ships at war start and only 3 could catch Bismarck and out of those 3 none were safe fully from her guns.

So in a 15 v Bismarck scenario, Bismarck was not in a terrible situation.

It's odd but running away is an important aspect of warfare which never gets the recognition it deserves.

Shortround6 · Oct 17, 2021

The Basket said:
Royal Navy had 15 big gun ships at war start and only 3 could catch Bismarck and out of those 3 none were safe fully from her guns.

And the Bismarck was not operational at the start of the war. In fact the Bismarck only started gunnery trials (test firing) in Nov of 1940.

The Basket · Oct 17, 2021

Indeed but it's top speed would have been known or predicted.

Of course it would be very soon 14 plus the loss of Courageous and Glorious.

So the Italian navy to add to the list.

So the Admiralty really needed a panic button to press urgently.

Shortround6 · Oct 17, 2021

The Basket said:
So the Admiralty really needed a panic button to press urgently.

Last two of five KGV battleships were laid down 28 April 1937
Four Illustrious class carriers laid down in 1937
Two Implacable class carriers laid down in 1939.

War got in the way but how much more of a panic button do you want?

Two Lion Class battleships with 9 16in guns were laid down in 1939.

Reluctant Poster · Oct 17, 2021

nuuumannn said:
In what context? Can you prove that he deliberately misrepresented the information? He was a journalist and bringing up the spat between Beresford and Fisher bears no relation to this since both were admirals, so waaaay out of context. Jane was a civilian. He didn't represent the Admiralty, he wrote the books for information's sake and there's no reason at all that he would deliberately misrepresent information. For what reason? There's no justification for it.

If you are so certain this is the case, prove he did.

You are correct I have no justification. I shouldn't have attacked the reputation of a dead who can't fight back.

The Basket · Oct 17, 2021

Problem is Lion and Temeraire was no where to be seen.

So Sept 39 you got what ya brung.

Which is a problem if you're chasing Scharnhorst and Gneisanau and the Deutschlands.

Shortround6 · Oct 17, 2021

Moving the goal posts.
In Sept 1939 the Bismarck was nowhere to be seen.
Hood and Renown are a pretty good match for Scharnhorst and Gneisanau. Repulse not so much.
The Deutschlands can be countered with several cruisers apiece as was done to the Graf Spee. Britian had the extra cruisers.

The British can afford losses, the Germans cannot.

The 1936-39 rebuild of the Renown cost £3,088,008 according to Wiki and took 3 years.
In the context of this thread any left over WW I battleships/battlecruisers that did not have similar, expensive refits were pretty much targets that burned huge amounts of coal.

If given old ships are given 3 million pound refits, what new ships does the RN give up to pay for them?

The Basket · Oct 17, 2021

Since the Lions were not built then not a case of moving goal posts but rather no goal posts made.

The KGV were not fast either so the Littorios, Kongos and Bismarck were are theoretically faster.

Naval strategy is built strategy so you cannot make amends in 1940.

The only viable options is the KGV have to be at least 31 knots. Or to Vanguard the Rs or to get the French to move all the big gun ships to UK. Or to ask America nicely for battleships.

Building a battleship in war time is hard work as resources suddenly become scarce and other ships like asw become more vital.

In many ways the KGV were not was wanted but again that's a 1936 problem which can't be fixed in 1940.

swampyankee · Oct 17, 2021

Battleships were expensive, both in initial cost and in operational expenses, and would reasonably be expected to have 20+ year lifetimes (the sudden obsolescence caused by HMS Dreadnought was an aberration), so one would expect some pre-WW1 battleships to be in service at the start of WW2. Indeed, no battleship user -- even Germany* -- didn't have pre-WW1 battleships in use in WW2. Would they all have been replaced without the disarmament treaties in place between the wars? I suspect not, if for no other reason than the older battleships were still more than adequate for one of the most important purposes of warships of imperial powers: cowing the colonized peoples.

Only four of the world's battleship-owning countries** had the financial strength to replace their pre-war battleships, and even then, they'd be unlikely to be able to do so on a one-for-one basis. The other battleship owners*** were simply unable to do so.

---

* Schleswig-Holstein, Schlesien, and Hannover all served the Kriegsmarine during WW2
** The US, the UK, and Japan, the last only because they were spending completely unsustainable amounts of their country's wealth on naval construction. Germany could only because it had lost all of its dreadnoughts.
***France was still recovering from a war largely fought in its most industrialized region, with the resultant wreckage (a significant portion of which was due to Germany's official policy of looting), Italy didn't have a strong economy to start with and was massively in debt, and the USSR (née Russia) was in recovery from a massive civil war preceded by years of massive mismanagement of the country. Spain may have been able to replace its two battleships, but, again, economic problems precluded that. Argentina, Brazil, and Chile couldn't build battleships and all had economic troubles.

The Basket · Oct 17, 2021

Had battleship design and construction continue a pace in 1920s and 1930s then who knows what monsters would have appeared. In this time frame, Warspite would have looked like a tugboat.

The Washington and subsequent treaties certainly limited what a battleship could have been.

So old ships were retained as part of the treaty and even new ships like the original KGV dreadnought battleships were scrapped due to treaty limitation or placed into training roles.

Warspite would have been hopelessly outmatched by a N3 or a G3.

feasibility of keeping WW I battleships around for WW II.

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