An Ideal Battleship for the British Fleet.

[galagagalaxian]

The Rule the Waves thread of another forum I go to just had a nice treat given to it. A poster, through his local library system, managed to lend a venerable and vintage copy of the 1903 edition of Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships. The purpose of this was to examine Italian naval architect Vittorio Cuniberti's famous article An Ideal Battleship for the British Fleet. I've long sought a copy of this article but had no success finding it online, and must shamefully admit I never even thought to try my library! He provided some scans of the article and I decided to transcribe it. 

I figured the members of the official RtW forums, aspiring naval architects and strategists of a sort we are, might find the article interesting. So here is a link to my transcription, as well as a few choice excerpts.

Link to Article

The discharge of projectiles will commence in earnest, greatly assisted by the rapid loading of which the guns of medium and small calibre are now capable. What results can reasonably be expected from the discharge of the smaller guns at such great distances is hard to say; nor can the slender expectation of, let us say, chancing to hit the captain of the opposing ship in the eye with a lucky shot, at all justify such a waste of ammunition.

We thus have outlined for us the main features of our absolutely supreme vessel—with medium calibres abolished—so effectually protected as to be able to disregard entirely all the subsidiary armament of an enemy, and armed only with twelves pieces of 12-inch. Such a ship could fight in the second method we have delineated. Without throwing away a single shot, without wasting ammunition, secure in her exuberant protection, with her twelve guns ready, she would swiftly descend on her adversary and pour in a terrible converging fire at the belt.

I must admit the article outlines a tactic far different than what I expected of a proposal for a mono-caliber battleship! Colonel Cuniberti envisions his Colossus as a brutal juggernaut, charging her enemy at speed and blasting them to smithereens at close range, an evolution of the then ruling philosophy of close range battle. I had figured the article would instead propose what Battleships would come to be; that speed be used to control the range and keep it open while pummeling its enemy with accurate long range fire. Of course, I had somewhat forgotten that the article was written in 1903, or at least not considered the state of fire control technology at the time which would make accurate long-range fire quite unreliable. 


I'm curious to see what others here might think of Cuniberti's article. On the technical side of things, even setting Rule the Waves aside, I am skeptical of Cuniberti's figures. Dreadnought is heavier by a couple thousand tons and only manages ten 12 inch guns (though better arranged so as to have the same broadside firepower as Cuniberti's Colossus), less armor (especially in the extremities of the ship), and only 21 knots speed (despite being powered by Steam Turbines, though perhaps Cuniberti had turbines in mind for Colossus).

From a Rule the Waves gameplay perspective, I see no reason to use Cuniberti's turret arrangement, especially since the wing twin-turrets cannot be given a raised/superfiring position above the single wing turrets so as to permit fire to fore/aft (wing turrets in general are incapable of firing along the ship's axis in RtW I believe). Instead a player would be better served by placing the four 12 inch guns on each wing into a pair of twin turrets in a "hex" pattern as seen on the earliest German Dreadnoughts such as Nassau. This would save a modest bit of weight while the only advantage of the single turrets is risking one less 12 inch gun being knocked out if one of the single turrets is disabled.

I also look at his call for a 12 inch homogeneous belt and turret armor and cry "Are you mad?!" while thinking of all the tonnage that would require.


Unrelated to the article, but also of potential interest, the book apparently contained a handwritten and signed note from Jane himself! (he has awful handwriting)

[bcoopactual]

Thanks for posting that link, very interesting read.

I took a British game in 1903 and tried to recreate the design.  You were right about the armor.  Way too much tonnage. And it's not just the armor.  Also, I haven't developed steam turbines in this game yet either.




However, I think the armor abstraction in-game is severely throwing off the weights you would see historically.  There is no telling how much difference in weight twelve inches of armor in 1903 would differ from what you see in-game.  That being said, twelve inches of armor in-game is way too much for that year.  Her max penetration at the time with her 12 in (-1) guns is 7.8".  I could make her legal by reducing the belt, turret and conning tower armors to 9" but without reducing speed, I would also have to make her short range and have low freeboard and a narrow belt.

[ddg]

Bear in mind, though, those designs are three knots slower than Cuniberti's proposal, and those will be very expensive knots.

[thatzenoguy]

Remember the ingame 'inches' of armour is how many inches of PENETRATION it resists, and not the thickness.

A 1900 12 inch plate might actually be 16+ inches thick, while a 1925 plate might be 11 inches thick.

[ccip]

Thanks for the link!

That's a really interesting hull form, too, if you look at the drawing. I think that's part of what might account for his calculations, since that's pretty different from the typical battleship of the time. In fact, from the top view it looks an awful lot like am armored cruiser hull... And maybe that's what makes it the way it is. I think his assumptions are based on an armored cruiser he designed. He talks about the Amalfi class, and how the hull form saved weight for it, and was optimised for it. Before I tried this on a battleship scale, I'd instead try to build a 24-knot 10in CA in that sort of config, and see what happens. At the least, I think RTW would treat CA hulls as better optimized for that speed. Otherwise, I suspect you'd have to compensate for hull form - if Amalfi saved 1000t on a 9000t cruiser hull, blown up to that size, you'd be starting off with about 19,000t. Factor in that this is a battleship... And you're probably over 20,000t in RTW terms, realistically speaking.

So I'd give a lot of leeway here as far as his assumptions go, and definitely go with a Nassau-style configuration, where you're indeed getting into 20,000t+ territory. In fact, I'd even just take something like the Nassau as a starting point (or just generate a ship until you get something close to it), reduce the secondaries to 12x 3in, and just go from there. Assume the actual armor you're putting on is 9" at best. I suspect that even when you take all the 6inch guns off a Nassau, you would still need a really substantial increase in horsepower to get to 24 knots. But at that point, you wouldn't be overweight anymore, I think. In fact I'd say the Nassaus were more or less the practical man's Cuniberti battleships, and their performance was not too bad either, especially for not using turbines, and having a full secondary battery that both Cuniberti's design here and the Dreadnought got rid of completely.

Another area where I think he could've easily saved weight is that secondary placement at bow and stern - seems like putting those there and under full armor going all the way to the ends is a bit of a waste. And if you moved those 12pdrs into the central citadel, now that's beginning to suggest an all-or-nothing scheme, which of course you won't have invented by then, but that could gain you some weight savings as well. So I think once you add some optimizations, it starts looking doable... But by then you already have better configurations anyway!

[galagagalaxian]

Yeah, the Vittorio Emanuele he talks about is one of the Regina Elena class battleships (in early stages of construction when he wrote this article, so perhaps Vittorio was originally meant to be the lead ship) and they have a very similar hull and turret arrangement, though using single 12" centerlines and twin 8" wing turrets.




And the Regina Elenas certainly were rather fast for the time, especially since they didn't use turbines. I haven't found much about his proposed 1899 Amalfi, poking around on the internet mostly just brings up a later cruiser by that name.

[davedave]

Thank you so much for posting this.

Support your local library! Seriously.

[axe99]

Cheers for the post and link, very interesting stuff .

[bcoopactual]

Sept 30, 2016 1:54:19 GMT -6 ddg said:

Bear in mind, though, those designs are three knots slower than Cuniberti's proposal, and those will be very expensive knots.

Felgercarb.  I must have seen galagagalaxian reference the 21 knots of the Dreadnought in the OP and got that number stuck in my head.  Yeah, I'm not even going to try to make that work at 24 knots. 

[ccip]

Sept 30, 2016 13:53:44 GMT -6 galagagalaxian said:

Yeah, the Vittorio Emanuele he talks about is one of the Regina Elena class battleships (in early stages of construction when he wrote this article, so perhaps Vittorio was originally meant to be the lead ship) and they have a very similar hull and turret arrangement, though using single 12" centerlines and twin 8" wing turrets.




And the Regina Elenas certainly were rather fast for the time, especially since they didn't use turbines. I haven't found much about his proposed 1899 Amalfi, poking around on the internet mostly just brings up a later cruiser by that name.

That's an even odder ship, if you think about it! Really much closer to an armored cruiser than anything. 


Disregarding the armament for a moment, though - if this is 12,425t and 22kt, with a narrow 9 1/4 inch belt, that does make me question a bit how he was planning to get 24kt out of a 17,000t ship that had 12" armor end to end. Something doesn't quite add up there.

[brucesim2003]

Maybe he was using springstyle instead of springsharp?

[Bullethead]

Sept 29, 2016 22:33:37 GMT -6 galagagalaxian said:

I'm curious to see what others here might think of Cuniberti's article............

Thanks for the link.  I made a paper copy 35 years ago at my university library but it's been badly stained by coffee and booze since then.  It's nice to have a fresh set in PDF format I can print whenever I want

Anyway, as to its relevance at the time, this was originally written some time before the 1903 edition of Jane's was published, so about 2 years prior to the Russo-Japanese War.  At that time, expected battle ranges weren't appreciably greater than the ironclad norm going back to at least the 1880s, when the only rangefinder was a hand-held sextant.  It availed nothing to be able to shoot 20,000 yards at max elevation if your fire control was only good for 5,000, and at such short ranges being on for deflection (assuming ram attacks) was more important than being on for range, which was pretty much point blank.

At such short ranges, a 2ndary battery of 6" guns was quite effective against battleships with the circa 1900 version of "all or nothing", dictated by the weakness of contemporary armor.  This is why battleships had 2ndary batteries.  They were to shoot at other battleships in the inevitable short-range melee, at a time when machinery space and dock size prevented battleships from having more than 2 main turrets.  In those days, no TB or TBD could accompany the fleet at sea so battlefleet engagements were like in Nelson's day, nothing but battleships at short range.  Battleships therefore sprouted tertiary batteries of small, rapid-fire guns to deal with torpedo attacks at night when anchored, which was about the only way light forces were a threat to them.  
However, the torpedo was evolving faster than anything else at the time.  Battleships initially had them to deter ramming attacks but soon torpedo range exceeded the expected battle range of a few thousand yards.  While main guns weren't affected so much, the 6" battery was rendered less effective, which led to the introduction of an intermediate battery of 8-10" guns at the expense of 6" guns.  Still, the target for all these guns was the enemy battlefleet, not light forces attacking with torpedoes in the open sea because such a threat did not yet exist.  Eventually, due to hull size not increasing as fast as technology, this led to the intermediate battery greatly expanding at the expense of the 6" battery, resulting in the semi-dreadnoughts.  It was logical to expect such trends to continue, so that the intermediate battery would eliminate all 6" guns of the secondary battery.  But at that point, with torpedo range still increasing, it was only a matter of time before the intermediate battery went the same way as the 6" secondary battery.  Which meant it would have to merge into the main battery of 12" guns.  This was the reason for going with an "all big-gun" dreadnought.  It was all about bringing more effective (as in bigger) guns to bear at the increasing expected battle ranges, which was just beyond contemporary torpedo range.  There not yet being any effective fire control at longer ranges, considerations of a uniform main battery enhancing spotting at long range had nothing to do with this.

This was the context in which Cuniberti wrote.  His ideas weren't really revolutionary as pretty much everybody seriously into the battlefleet business had reached the same conclusions already.  The main reasons they hadn't already build such ships were because dreadnoughts were way more expensive than pre-dreadnoughts, and also needed bigger docks not only at home but abroad.  This trend being already common knowledge, the Italian government had no problem with Cuniberti publishing his ideas in Jane's even though it couldn't yet build such ships itself.  It's generally claimed by all navies, who back this up with official documents with prior dates, that their decision to build dreadnoughts predated Jane's publication of Cuniberti's article.

Therefore, my own opinion of Cuniberti's article is that it was just a sign of the times, not a prophecy.

[ccip]

Sept 30, 2016 21:37:22 GMT -6 Bullethead said:

I remember thinking not too long ago about just how rapidly the changes were happening in the space of a few years as far as roles and layouts of intermediate/secondary/tertiary batteries and their relative balance. It always made me chuckle a bit just how quickly the 6" secondary battery died out.... and then returned just as quickly! Didn't take long even for state-of-the-art to backpedal from Fisher's Dreadnought and Invincible back to more or less a full secondary battery. And for the little tertiary guns to morph into AA/DP weapons.

This was the context in which Cuniberti wrote. His ideas weren't really revolutionary as pretty much everybody seriously into the battlefleet business had reached the same conclusions already. The main reasons they hadn't already build such ships were because dreadnoughts were way more expensive than pre-dreadnoughts, and also needed bigger docks not only at home but abroad. This trend being already common knowledge, the Italian government had no problem with Cuniberti publishing his ideas in Jane's even though it couldn't yet build such ships itself. It's generally claimed by all navies, who back this up with official documents with prior dates, that their decision to build dreadnoughts predated Jane's publication of Cuniberti's article.
 


Therefore, my own opinion of Cuniberti's article is that it was just a sign of the times, not a prophecy.

That was my understanding as well - in the sense that the impact of Cuniberti's article was more political than technological. The other thing that I'd presumed about it was that  although the idea was long being explored by others, nobody had wanted to talk about it publicly (or at least publish it), for fear it might give away some aspect a potential enemy hadn't thought of, or even simply encourage another nation to actually start building these. For Britain in particular, even if they were already closer than everyone else to being ready to build it, the notion of pulling the trigger on a ship type that was going to make every other battleship (including all of their own) obsolete was a sensitive one. Now, I doubt it had any effect whatsoever on the actual timing of the Dreadnought's construction - but it did stir the pot a bit, and may have played a role in pushing particular interests in naval funding bills in various nations.

[ccip]

Also, you have to admit that Cuniberti's claims of 24kt speed notwithstanding (because the more I look at them, the more I'm skeptical) - what's actually more striking here is how much of a better ship design the Dreadnought was, for being launched only 3 years after this article was published.

[Bullethead]

Oct 1, 2016 0:33:36 GMT -6 ccip said:

I remember thinking not too long ago about just how rapidly the changes were happening in the space of a few years as far as roles and layouts of intermediate/secondary/tertiary batteries and their relative balance. It always made me chuckle a bit just how quickly the 6" secondary battery died out.... and then returned just as quickly! Didn't take long even for state-of-the-art to backpedal from Fisher's Dreadnought and Invincible back to more or less a full secondary battery. And for the little tertiary guns to morph into AA/DP weapons.

Yeah, this looks weird from our perspective, but the "rebirth" of the Brit 6" "secondary battery" is more an issue of semantics than actual back-pedaling. It's because the meaning of the term "secondary battery" changed during this time. The "reborn" version really had nothing in common tactically with the original version, and was the product of a separate stream of evolution in other areas of naval warfare, not that of battleships themselves.

The disappearance of the original 6" secondary battery was a function of the evolution of battleships and their systems. The objective throughout battleship history was to carry the most anti-battleship armament possible, and all guns aboard were intended for that purpose because there wasn't really anything else to shoot at anyway. But at the start of the pre-dreadnought era, ship size, machinery inefficiency, and armor weakness all combined to limit armament to the standard of 4x 12" and some dozen or so 6". The 6" were the biggest guns that would fit along the sides back then. Because they were smaller, they were called the "secondary battery". But as ships grew, machinery shrank, and armor mass decreased while still providing the same protection, it became possible to increase the size of the secondary battery. At first there was room for only a few bigger guns, so this became the "intermediate" battery because there were still many 6". Next, the remaining 6" were replaced by the "intermediate" caliber, so again there were only 2 batteries, main (12") and secondary (8-10"). But the secondary guns then grew again to the same size as the main battery, at which point you had a dreadnought with nothing but a main battery. This freed up the term "secondary battery" for other uses.

While all this was going on, those pesky torpedoboats had appeared but were only a threat to ships anchored at night, not during a daylight or on the open sea. Thus, battleships had acquired an "anti-torpedo armament" of light guns scattered about wherever there was room. These little guns weren't dignified with the term "battery" because "battery" meant a number of guns physically grouped together for command and control. But these things were spread around to cover all directions and didn't need command and control because they would be only shooting at point-blank range, usually at night, usually from a stationary ship. Over time, TBs gradually grew and eventually turned into so-called TBDs, which were just the same but slightly larger. However, none of them had the range, sea speed, or seaworthiness to be part of, or a thereat to, the battlefleet on the open sea. This remained the case the whole time battleship guns were evolving as described above. The anti-torpedo guns just grew in response to TB growth, but were still not in, nor called, a "battery". Thus, Dreadnought's oft-criticized so-called "secondary battery" of scattered 12pdrs was actually the same old standard battleship "anti-torpedo armament". It was not a "secondary battery" as that term was used at the time, nor even a "battery" at all. And it actually made sense in the context of the time, except for 1 thing....

That 1 thing was that at the same time the Brits were designing Dreadnought, they were also designing the "River" class. These were the 1st true destroyers worthy of the name, with the range and seakeeping to be part of the battlefleet. Thus, for the 1st time, battleships could realistically expect to face torpedo attacks from light forces in the open sea. Still usually at night due to pathetic torpedo performance requiring very short range, but this had serious implications for fleets hanging out near each other in the dark to resume their battle next morning. And now the attackers were now big enough that a 12pdr wasn't enough gun. IOW, it was like the Brits' left hand didn't know what their right hand was doing. But in fairness, the "River"s weren't yet in service so their implications weren't obvious to all at first. But this soon became apparent, which is why the next few Brit dreadnoughts, essentially copies of the first, had 4" guns. But these were still called "anti-torpedo armament" and still were scattered all over the ships instead of being grouped in a proper battery.

About this time, torpedo range increased to rival that of effective main gunfire, which meant that destroyers now could launch attacks in broad daylight from "long" (for the day) range. This meant the anti-torpedo armament now needed a fire control system. As a result, the guns started being grouped into actual batteries, which looked just like the old secondary batteries of pre-dreadnoughts. And because the term "secondary battery" had been unemployed for the last few years, it could now be applied to the massed anti-torpedo armament. Over time, as DDs got bigger and torpedo attack range became longer, the anti-torpedo guns grew to 6". This is how the superdreadnoughts ended up with 6" "secondary batteries". But the new "secondary batteries" had nothing in common tactically with the originals. They were the evolution of the old anti-torpedo armament. They were even massed to fire mostly forward, where torpedo attacks would come from, instead of on the broadside against battleships.

Now that's the Brit side of things. It was different in other navies. The Germans, for instance, retained a 15cm secondary battery in the original sense, intended to shoot at battleships. For anti-torpedo armament, they had 8.8cm. Eventually, they decicded 8.8cm wasn't enough gun so removed them, and as they already had 15cm batteries, those took over the anti-torpedo role, making them somewhat dual-purpose. But this is why German 15cm batteries were evenly distributed along the sides, because they were originally intended to shoot at battleships, not destroyers.