Post by exltcmts on Apr 16, 2021 4:24:22 GMT -6
What has to be kept in mind is that the Washington Treaty or something like it was almost inevitable after the Great War. Many people believed that the naval rivalry between the British and Germans was a major cause of the war. Then there were the massive costs involved in building and sustaining such navies in a period of economic recession and government retrenchment. It is simply not possible that the building programs of the navies of the Great Powers were going to be executed in full and as planned. Even had there been no arms limitations, the economy, political pressure and governmental spending priorities would have altered, delayed or cancelled much of the naval building programs in place at the end of the war and before.
Royal Navy - The British Empire came out of the Great War with renewed prestige, and with a massive war debt (much of it held by US banks), the promise of social programs that kept the troops and people motivated and a recession as government spending declined. In the fiscal year for 1918, the Naval Estimates exceeded 350,000,000 pounds sterling. For the 1920 Fiscal Year, the estimates were for 157,528,800 pounds, a decrease of over half. In 1923, it was 58,000,000 pounds. Like the aftermath of WW2, the government concentrated on rebuilding the merchant marine, deliberately cancelling warships to open slips and docks for commercial construction. The there were other issues. The planned G3 and N3 classes had hit the limit for British warships in tonnage and length. There were only four building slips for warships (there were two commercial slips for large passenger liners) that could build ships of 45,000 tons and over 825 feet in length. There were only five dry docks in the Empire (six when the KGV dock in Singapore was completed) that could handle such ships. This limitation would remain in existence through WW2 because the massive costs that would be involved in expanding warship construction and infrastructure. In a way, this was a price for Britain being first into the Industrial Age. Machinery was issue as the RN had remained conservative on the issue of steam plants, not adopting small tube boilers until 1918 and rejecting high pressure, high temperature plants when tests on destroyers in 1920-22 were less than successful. Armor plate was not an issue, but Britain was behind the US in adopting welding and developing protective plate that could be welded. They did develop "D" (Ducol) steel for welded construction that could be used as protective plating, but unlike STS, it rated somewhere between mild steel and homogenous/non-cemented armor. As far as guns, there would be no problem producing sufficient 16" and 18" guns, the British already having built and deployed an 18" L/40 gun, but Britain lagged behind the Germans, French and US in developing steel alloy hooped guns that were lighter for their bore size. The worse issues were, first, the over-reaction to the battle cruiser losses at Jutland, that were more the result of improper ammo handling than inherent flaws in British turrets, in more complex anti-flash systems and the inexperience of the British in designing and building three gun turrets. The 16" gun turrets that went on to arm the "Nelson" class still did not generate its theoretical rate of fire even in 1940. What was worse, the British came away from post-war armor and shell trials on ex-SMS Baden convinced that their shells were too heavy and too slow. The 16" Gun Mk.I (L/45) was the result, firing a 8crh, 2,048lbs AP shell at 2,700 fps, ranging to over 40,000 yards at 40 degrees with Mk.I rifling. The long bodied shell and the large charge resulted in increased and unacceptable erosion and a loss of accuracy at long range. New rifling (Mk.II) and de-rating the gun to 2,614 fps reduced range and penetration while improving service life and accuracy to just acceptable levels. The adoption of a heavier 6 crh shell (2,250lbs) would have resolved many of these issues at the cost of probable handling problems with the shorter shell, but the RN could not find the funds for a new shell for two ships until 1937, at which point they had run out of time. These same issues would have plagued the 18" gun Mk.II (L/45) and its three gun turret (it was to fired a 2,837lbs shell at 2,700 fps). While these would be the first British capital ships with an "all or nothing" armor system, had they followed the "Nelson" design, there would have been an "Achilles" heel, a space existing between the top of the sloped internal belt and the main armor deck. Also, the G3, in the opinion of its designer, would probably not make its designed speed. These ships, however, would have a new fire control system, the result of studies of the experience of the Great War. Unfortunately, the retention of DC power and of "step by step" transmission of data between the directors, Admiralty Fire Control Table (AFCT) and turrets would be less efficient than the American system adopted in the "Colorado" class. Still, the G3 class while classed as "battle cruisers" were really "fast battleships". The first four G3 ships were ordered in late 1921 for laying down in 1922, but were suspended during the Washington Treaty Conference. Had they been laid down, they would have been completed in 1926 given available funding and peacetime work schedules. David Brown gives 50-50 odds that they would never have been laid down and completed, given the economic situation in Britain in 1922. Four N3s would have been laid down, if funded, when the G3s were launched and would have completed in 1928, with four more G3s in 1930 and four more N3s in 1932. There would have been limited reconstruction of earlier classes, mainly the rebuilds of "Repulse" and "Renown" and bulging the rest of the "R" class battleships, the deployment of HACS, 4" AA guns and the 2pdr Mk.VIII automatic gun. The RN had the heaviest armed AA batteries on capital ships in the world in the 1930s. Unfortunately, they picked a non-tachymetric AA fire control system, that despite constant modification even into WW2, never equaled the performance of the tachymetric systems adopted by the US and Japan. In the meanwhile, all the 12" gun dreadnoughts, pre-dreadnoughts and armored cruisers were gone, for disposal, sale, disarmed or scrapped. The 13.5" gun super-dreadnoughts would be next, having gone into Reserve between 1922 and 1926, the crews going to new construction. On the other hand, the "E" class cruisers were probably the best light cruisers in the world when completed and the twin turret an excellent design applied to capital ship secondary battery and future cruisers. All cruisers of classes before the "C" classes would have been disposed of, except for the Australian "Town" class. British destroyers were also superior in layout and performance, leading to a number of exports to other navies. In submarines, the initial priority would be large patrol types for a Pacific war. British warship. With the German fleet gone, the only possible enemies were the Japanese and Italians. The British didn't take Mussolini seriously and expected the French Navy to handle the Italians with some assistance. The Japanese, on the other hand, were identified as the main threat in 1919 to Britain's interests in China and her SEA colonies. The war plan went pretty much like "Orange". The Japanese would be successful early, seizing Hong Kong and Shanghai and penetrating the SW Pacific to capture Brunei and its oil. The British, leaving a covering force in European waters would deploy the majority of the fleet to the East, initially on Indian Ocean and Australian ports/bases and eventually Singapore, when it was complete. From there, the British would establish a distant blockade of Japan with subs and cruisers, while moving forward to recapture Hong Kong and other points from which a close blockade and bombing campaign could be conducted. The IJN battle fleet would come out to break the blockade, the British Fleet would meet and defeat it in a "Jutland" some where south of Japan and the blockade and bombing would force the Japanese to admit defeat. The greater aggressiveness of Italy with its conquest of Ethiopia in 1935-36 and the rise of Hitler from 1933, drew more and more of the fleet to the Med and Home waters, putting this strategy in danger as less and less of the Fleet could be deployed to the Indian Ocean. But between 1922-1935, a British intervention with or without US support against Japan's actions in China would have gone this way. It should be noted that time went on, the British tried harder and harder to get the US to take a coordinated response to Japanese aggression. As far as the US, the British were determined to keep the entente that they had developed since 1850 and refused to contemplate a war with the US, despite the occasional Anglophobia of senior USN leaders in the 1920s. As an example, the US was excluded as a possible enemy that the British would confront under the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902.
Royal Navy - The British Empire came out of the Great War with renewed prestige, and with a massive war debt (much of it held by US banks), the promise of social programs that kept the troops and people motivated and a recession as government spending declined. In the fiscal year for 1918, the Naval Estimates exceeded 350,000,000 pounds sterling. For the 1920 Fiscal Year, the estimates were for 157,528,800 pounds, a decrease of over half. In 1923, it was 58,000,000 pounds. Like the aftermath of WW2, the government concentrated on rebuilding the merchant marine, deliberately cancelling warships to open slips and docks for commercial construction. The there were other issues. The planned G3 and N3 classes had hit the limit for British warships in tonnage and length. There were only four building slips for warships (there were two commercial slips for large passenger liners) that could build ships of 45,000 tons and over 825 feet in length. There were only five dry docks in the Empire (six when the KGV dock in Singapore was completed) that could handle such ships. This limitation would remain in existence through WW2 because the massive costs that would be involved in expanding warship construction and infrastructure. In a way, this was a price for Britain being first into the Industrial Age. Machinery was issue as the RN had remained conservative on the issue of steam plants, not adopting small tube boilers until 1918 and rejecting high pressure, high temperature plants when tests on destroyers in 1920-22 were less than successful. Armor plate was not an issue, but Britain was behind the US in adopting welding and developing protective plate that could be welded. They did develop "D" (Ducol) steel for welded construction that could be used as protective plating, but unlike STS, it rated somewhere between mild steel and homogenous/non-cemented armor. As far as guns, there would be no problem producing sufficient 16" and 18" guns, the British already having built and deployed an 18" L/40 gun, but Britain lagged behind the Germans, French and US in developing steel alloy hooped guns that were lighter for their bore size. The worse issues were, first, the over-reaction to the battle cruiser losses at Jutland, that were more the result of improper ammo handling than inherent flaws in British turrets, in more complex anti-flash systems and the inexperience of the British in designing and building three gun turrets. The 16" gun turrets that went on to arm the "Nelson" class still did not generate its theoretical rate of fire even in 1940. What was worse, the British came away from post-war armor and shell trials on ex-SMS Baden convinced that their shells were too heavy and too slow. The 16" Gun Mk.I (L/45) was the result, firing a 8crh, 2,048lbs AP shell at 2,700 fps, ranging to over 40,000 yards at 40 degrees with Mk.I rifling. The long bodied shell and the large charge resulted in increased and unacceptable erosion and a loss of accuracy at long range. New rifling (Mk.II) and de-rating the gun to 2,614 fps reduced range and penetration while improving service life and accuracy to just acceptable levels. The adoption of a heavier 6 crh shell (2,250lbs) would have resolved many of these issues at the cost of probable handling problems with the shorter shell, but the RN could not find the funds for a new shell for two ships until 1937, at which point they had run out of time. These same issues would have plagued the 18" gun Mk.II (L/45) and its three gun turret (it was to fired a 2,837lbs shell at 2,700 fps). While these would be the first British capital ships with an "all or nothing" armor system, had they followed the "Nelson" design, there would have been an "Achilles" heel, a space existing between the top of the sloped internal belt and the main armor deck. Also, the G3, in the opinion of its designer, would probably not make its designed speed. These ships, however, would have a new fire control system, the result of studies of the experience of the Great War. Unfortunately, the retention of DC power and of "step by step" transmission of data between the directors, Admiralty Fire Control Table (AFCT) and turrets would be less efficient than the American system adopted in the "Colorado" class. Still, the G3 class while classed as "battle cruisers" were really "fast battleships". The first four G3 ships were ordered in late 1921 for laying down in 1922, but were suspended during the Washington Treaty Conference. Had they been laid down, they would have been completed in 1926 given available funding and peacetime work schedules. David Brown gives 50-50 odds that they would never have been laid down and completed, given the economic situation in Britain in 1922. Four N3s would have been laid down, if funded, when the G3s were launched and would have completed in 1928, with four more G3s in 1930 and four more N3s in 1932. There would have been limited reconstruction of earlier classes, mainly the rebuilds of "Repulse" and "Renown" and bulging the rest of the "R" class battleships, the deployment of HACS, 4" AA guns and the 2pdr Mk.VIII automatic gun. The RN had the heaviest armed AA batteries on capital ships in the world in the 1930s. Unfortunately, they picked a non-tachymetric AA fire control system, that despite constant modification even into WW2, never equaled the performance of the tachymetric systems adopted by the US and Japan. In the meanwhile, all the 12" gun dreadnoughts, pre-dreadnoughts and armored cruisers were gone, for disposal, sale, disarmed or scrapped. The 13.5" gun super-dreadnoughts would be next, having gone into Reserve between 1922 and 1926, the crews going to new construction. On the other hand, the "E" class cruisers were probably the best light cruisers in the world when completed and the twin turret an excellent design applied to capital ship secondary battery and future cruisers. All cruisers of classes before the "C" classes would have been disposed of, except for the Australian "Town" class. British destroyers were also superior in layout and performance, leading to a number of exports to other navies. In submarines, the initial priority would be large patrol types for a Pacific war. British warship. With the German fleet gone, the only possible enemies were the Japanese and Italians. The British didn't take Mussolini seriously and expected the French Navy to handle the Italians with some assistance. The Japanese, on the other hand, were identified as the main threat in 1919 to Britain's interests in China and her SEA colonies. The war plan went pretty much like "Orange". The Japanese would be successful early, seizing Hong Kong and Shanghai and penetrating the SW Pacific to capture Brunei and its oil. The British, leaving a covering force in European waters would deploy the majority of the fleet to the East, initially on Indian Ocean and Australian ports/bases and eventually Singapore, when it was complete. From there, the British would establish a distant blockade of Japan with subs and cruisers, while moving forward to recapture Hong Kong and other points from which a close blockade and bombing campaign could be conducted. The IJN battle fleet would come out to break the blockade, the British Fleet would meet and defeat it in a "Jutland" some where south of Japan and the blockade and bombing would force the Japanese to admit defeat. The greater aggressiveness of Italy with its conquest of Ethiopia in 1935-36 and the rise of Hitler from 1933, drew more and more of the fleet to the Med and Home waters, putting this strategy in danger as less and less of the Fleet could be deployed to the Indian Ocean. But between 1922-1935, a British intervention with or without US support against Japan's actions in China would have gone this way. It should be noted that time went on, the British tried harder and harder to get the US to take a coordinated response to Japanese aggression. As far as the US, the British were determined to keep the entente that they had developed since 1850 and refused to contemplate a war with the US, despite the occasional Anglophobia of senior USN leaders in the 1920s. As an example, the US was excluded as a possible enemy that the British would confront under the Anglo-Japanese alliance of 1902.