Modernise Vanguard and the KGV’s for the 1980s

[Temeraire]

For what it's worth @Temeraire didn't mention any Lions or more Vanguards in this thread's OP or in any of his clarifications.

I wrote that the Lion and Temeraire probably wouldn’t be built Here:

I doubt they would be built, even in a perfect timeline seeing as by the end of 1945 it was almost completely agreed that Vanguard was the last Battleship that would be built.
Not to mention the absolute lunacy of the later Lion class designs.
Some had basically no belt Armour
Some were essentially beefed up pre Dreadnoughts
And others were as big (dimensions wise) as a Nimitz class carrier
Yeah, not ideal

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

I wrote that the Lion and Temeraire probably wouldn’t be built Here:

And what about no extra Vanguards? Did I miss that too?

 

[Temeraire]

And what about no extra Vanguards? Did I miss that too?

IOTL no extra Vanguards got past the concept stage. And by the end of the war everyone knew Vanguard was going to be the last Battleship. So no more Vanguards sadly.

 

[Scott Kenny]

IOTL no extra Vanguards got past the concept stage. And by the end of the war everyone knew Vanguard was going to be the last Battleship. So no more Vanguards sadly.

How much budget do we have to bring the ships up to date? A relative shoestring like the US had with the Iowas, or can we afford a much more in-depth upgrade?

 

[World B4]

A single 15” main gun barrel per ship is fitted with a smoothbore barrel that fires a 6”sabot round containing a warhead or a war crime, the wmd delivery capacity is mandatory for the Cold War, the range on this type of weapon makes it a proper supergun. The other gun in that turret could be removed. Maybe 2 of these, the B and C turrets? Or just the C?

 

[Temeraire]

How much budget do we have to bring the ships up to date? A relative shoestring like the US had with the Iowas, or can we afford a much more in-depth upgrade?

Probably £10-20 million

 

[Temeraire]

A single 15” main gun barrel per ship is fitted with a smoothbore barrel that fires a 6”sabot round containing a warhead or a war crime, the wmd delivery capacity is mandatory for the Cold War, the range on this type of weapon makes it a proper supergun. The other gun in that turret could be removed. Maybe 2 of these, the B and C turrets? Or just the C?

I assume you mean X turret, but a super weapon like that does sound interesting. Maybe it’d give the 15”/42s a new lease on life.

 

[World B4]

Maybe it’d give the 15”/42s a new lease on life.

WW1 era solutions for WW1 era weapons

 

[World B4]

A turret could have its 15” guns replaced with a 14” guns to give it another source of heavy ammunition.

 

[World B4]

Or, a single 18” gun. Either it or a 16” gun would be another way to source heavy firepower, or additional range for a sabot round… that’s it. I’ve figured it out. The first turret is unchanged. The second turret has a single 16” gun with a smoothbore liner for long range sabot nukes, the 3rd has 14” guns, or maybe even one 14” and one 13.5”. The final tutu has a single 18” gun. All of these were scrapped before the vanguard, but that was scrapped 20 years before the 80s anyway. Now we have a bombardment ship that can fire at extreme ranges and packs a nice variety of round sizes to avoid both overkill and underkill, and won’t be crippled by one source of ammunition going out of stock.