Greek Large Cruiser Design 1939

Greek Large Cruiser proposal from DNC


This warship is based on the Dido but on an enlarged hull.
The DNC or Director of Naval Construction was assigned to create studies for a warship of the Hellenic Navy in 1939.
Her design specifics are these:
3x2 254mm Guns 6x2 102mm DP-AA guns, armour would be between 178 and 228mm with a displacement of 17-18500 tons engine would be 140K shp for 61 km/h

Jemiba said:

Tzoli said:

The DNC or Director of Naval Construction was assigned to create studies for a warship of the Hellenic Navy in 1939.

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Then that's a real proposal, isn't it ?

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The proposal was real but no drawing was ever found if any was created in the first place.
I think they were to replace the decommissioned Kilkis and Lemnos (Ex Mississippi and Idaho)

I hope, you don't mind me moving your post to this section, but as it is a real proposal
it is more appropriate to this section here. I think.
BTW, with this calibre, wouldn't it have to be regarded as battleship with regards to the
Washington Treaty ?

Jemiba said:

I hope, you don't mind me moving your post to this section, but as it is a real proposal
it is more appropriate to this section here. I think.
BTW, with this calibre, wouldn't it have to be regarded as battleship with regards to the
Washington Treaty ?

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I'm not sure! there were no drawings exist and I've used the Dido as a basis.

And no, with this conception Battleship would be the American Alaskas, the German Deutschlands the Japanese B-65 and the British Churchill Cruiser

Actually, they were "capital ships" in the terms of the Washington Treaty, I think.
"All other warships were limited to a maximum displacement of 10,000 tons and a maximum gun calibre of 8 inches".
That's what made the Deutschland class "Panzerschiffe" eventually unattractive, as long as Germany agreed to the terms
of the Treaty.
So those "cruisers" would have to been regarded as capital ships. The given data make them look really good compared
to the "pocket battleships", epecially with regards to armour, although I don't know the distribution.

At that time the Greek Cruiser born the war seemed unavoidable, and at the time of the British Churchill design, the US Alaska and the Japanese B-65 the war was raging and all treaties were nullified.

The Greeks only asked the British to design the ship it isn't clear if they would had to build it or other countries like Sweden or the major countries

Treaties were nullified indeed with regards to maximum tonnage, that was allowed to be build. Greece was out of
consideration by that treaty, but I think, that the definition of ship types was generally accepted. The Kilkis and
Lemnos (x USS Mississippi and Idaho) could have been regarded as coast defence ships only then, so this type
may have been a reasonable decision.
Again about the descision to move it to the Naval Projects section: As you confirmed, it was actually a proposal by
a professional design team. All criteria fulfilled !

Under the various treaty definitions in force for the signatories at the time (virtually none by 1939) these would have been considered capital ships. However, Greece was not a treaty signatory so that is irrelevant.

The interesting thing is that in 1938-39 the RN considered similar ships (9x 9.2/10 inch guns)- I have yet to find any graphical representation of these either.

JFC Fuller said:

The interesting thing is that in 1938-39 the RN considered similar ships (9x 9.2/10 inch guns)- I have yet to find any graphical representation of these either.

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I would not call them Capital ships as I not call the Deutchlands, their followups the D-class and the P-class cruisers as battleships.
I call them Big Gun Cruisers, which they are!

Those are the Churchill Cruisers I've mentioned earlier, and actually to my knowledge they would been armed with 3 quad 234mm (9.2inch), 6x2 114mm (4.5inch) guns, 4 quad 533 (21inch) torpedo tubes, 152mm Belt and 89mm Deck armour and 80.000shp engines.

Following your supposition, those Greek cruisers were intended as a replacement of the only "capital ships"
the Navy had then. So, the decision for Greece probably was between a coast defense ship, maybe similar
to the Finnish Illmarinen, or a cruiser like ship like the ones shown. It principly was the same situation, that
eventually led to the "Panzerschiffen" of the Deutschland class. By the authors of the Treaty of Versailles the
coast defense ship was expected as the probable solution, not the over gunned cruiser.
One of its adversaries may have been the "Sultan Selim Yavuz", x SMS Goeben, the latter surely a capital
ship,although already quite outdated then. "Capital ship" means nothing more, than the most powerful fighting
ship of a Navy and if built, it surely would have been for Greece. s a sidenote: For Austria and Switzerland that
term probably would mean something like a river monitor or gunboat. But in general speaking, I still think something
more, than a cruiser was meant.

At that time Turkey indeed could be seen as a potential enemy but it's single Battlecruiser the TCG Yavuz Sultan Selim was kept more in the Black Sea against the Soviet Black Sea Fleet than in the Aegean or the Mediterrenean Sea.
The other threat was Italy, and against them a more nimble and faster cruiser was a better option then a slower Coast Defence ship.
So we have and outdated and small Turkish fleet of one WW1 BC and a pair of WW1 light cruisers with some destroyers and submarines, on the other hand Italy have a modern fleet of 4 Modernized Battleships, 4 new under construction, numerious modern heavy and light cruisers with many destroyers and subs.
Not to mention Italy's annexation of Albania and Mussolini's idea to restore the Roman Empire.

Was there any other proposal for that kind of ship?

KonTim said:

Was there any other proposal for that kind of ship?

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For Cruiser sized ships which had bigger than 20cm or 8inch Cannons I only know of German, Italian, Spanish, Soviet and British designs. There were plans to rearm the Brooklyns with 5 single 12inch guns.
For Large cruisers/Battlecruiseres
on the US side: Alaskas, their predecessors the CA-2D design and the 1933 Study.
France had the Donkerque and the 1928 proposal
Netherlands the Design 1047
Japan the B-65 (Not B-64 which was the Amagi!)
Germany had the KW 45, KW 50 and O classes
Itlay had the Mini Littorio: the design 1933, and earlier concpets: the design 45367 and design 1928
Soviets too had their share: Frunze conversion, Italian Ansaldo proposal, Project 25, Kronshtadt and Stalingrad

I mean if there were any other proposals for Hellenic Navy.I remember that data calls for a 10'' or 11'' ship.Does anyone has more evidence?

I don't know about those, except the WW1 BB proposals from France and Germany

Necroing this thread- TZoli, do you happen to recall the sources you used to create this?

For my last post I'm not sure, if a moderator could get the image code then maybe I can re-post that as well.
As for the first opening post here is my very old drawing of:




I was told that the DNC Proposal for Greece was based on the hull of the Dido but enlarged to take the twin 10" guns and 6x 4" twin AA guns.
I presume the hull shape was intended to replicate that of the dido.

I might able to post some new info later about this DNC big gun cruiser

A friend of mine shared me some more info on this design.
The following data table was from Johns and Lillicrap Constructors Workbooks at the NMM Plans & Photos department at Woolwich:


The story behind their request seems to be found here:
(When I will have time will read it)

And if you check the bottom of the data page you could see that the 9,2 and 10" guns were to be of new development seems to be scaled down version of the 12"/50 Mark XIV cannon:

And a last bit of info from my friend:

As for 8" and 9.2" large cruisers, the Admiralty 8" were scaling up from late 30s treaty limit 10,000ton designs, through a 12500 tonner to one of over 15000tons.

The 9.2in began large, around 20,000 tons, and moved to 8in guns because of the very long timescale of actually designing and building working 9.2" guns and turrets.

Given the RN pressure to get KGVs and Lions afloat, the chances of Greece getting a battlecruiser must have been near zero. The RN liaison officer in fact tried to persuade the Greeks that a KGV was what they really needed. [sell them one, and get another Lion??]

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I don't really see the connection with Dido at all. From that table its clear that the hull, machinery, armament and armour are completely different in every way from Dido.
It would seem nonsense to take the smallest light cruiser the RN had to inflate its size into a battlecruiser. Even using a Town-class hull as the basis would be equal folly. It seems more likely that the Greek proposal was based on the other battlecruiser designs c and d as seen on the table you posted.

What I've meant by Dido or enlarged Dido is the shape of the hull

The pictures on top of the thread have disapeared...

A handsome ship!

Tzoli said:

A friend of mine shared me some more info on this design.
The following data table was from Johns and Lillicrap Constructors Workbooks at the NMM Plans & Photos department at Woolwich:

[Snip]

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Coming back to this, I realize I never asked for a source. Would you happen to know which book/essay this is from?

Kingpin6100 said:

Tzoli said:

A friend of mine shared me some more info on this design.
The following data table was from Johns and Lillicrap Constructors Workbooks at the NMM Plans & Photos department at Woolwich:

[Snip]

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Coming back to this, I realize I never asked for a source. Would you happen to know which book/essay this is from?

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Erm...erm....erm...
Did you actually read what you quoted???

A friend of mine shared me some more info on this design.
The following data table was from Johns and Lillicrap Constructors Workbooks at the NMM Plans & Photos department at Woolwich:

I might make a normal drawing on these designs someday
Thje good about this table that it shows that the armament considered for them were of new development rather re-use of old WW1 and őre WW1 stock guns.

Tzoli said:

Kingpin6100 said:

Tzoli said:

A friend of mine shared me some more info on this design.
The following data table was from Johns and Lillicrap Constructors Workbooks at the NMM Plans & Photos department at Woolwich:

[Snip]

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Coming back to this, I realize I never asked for a source. Would you happen to know which book/essay this is from?

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Erm...erm....erm...
Did you actually read what you quoted???

A friend of mine shared me some more info on this design.
The following data table was from Johns and Lillicrap Constructors Workbooks at the NMM Plans & Photos department at Woolwich:

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Apologies, let my clarify: while that's where the data is from, I was wondering where the the table itself was from, as it appears to be from a book

My friend ( Smurf ) did not stated but I suspect Warships International

I suspect given that this is "Table 68" and the footnote includes reference to "Table 82" it would be from a book rather than a magazine article, probably Smurf's own book on British cruisers that was only briefly in print (sadly).

Hood is correct. He knows I'm a bit of a stickler for detail, so:
I suspect the Dido connection might arise from a [Christmas IIRC] Own Designs competition on Shipbucket, for which I was asked to set a target. I noted that Lillicrap, head of cruiser design, was seconded to produce capital ship designs for discussion at Geneva in 1936, The data available was that in the above table. I thought it a good target, because (a) there were NO DRAWINGS by Lillicrap, but his experience with cruisers would provide hints to stimulate competitors imagination.
There is no other connection between Lillicrap's designs in columns a and b and the other columns cdfgh which are RN studies from 1938 onwards. The basis of the study for Greece in column e is set out in the last two paragraphs, especially the 1936 London Treaty prohibiting 'cruisers' between 8000 and 17500 tons.

Kingpin6100 said "let my clarify: while that's where the data is from, I was wondering where the the table itself was from, as it appears to be from a book"
If you know which book, and if you have read its introduction which explains the rather condensed layout of the tables, you can find where I found the original information. For example, the references at the foot of each column are to the workbooks of Constructors Lillicrap and Johns. The background to the Greek request is from ADM116/4200. The design study for Greece was in Johns workbook, not Lillicrap's. My book was entitled "A Directory of British Cruiser Designs" so it was important to direct readers to where the information came from, and so where to check it or to find more detail (if any).

That all this data is in the same table was simply to allow easy comparison of a set of roughly comparable designs all from the mid to late 1930s.
Other tables were restricted to a single design and its various versions produced before the final design.
My whole book attempted to cram as much information as possible on to as few pages as possible, to keep costs down, with the original intention of 'print on demand'. Keele University was set up to do that, but the University authorities decided at the last minute not to extend that facility outside University departments.

Kingpin6100 also asked "Erm...erm....erm...Did you actually read what you quoted???" a question with which I have some sympathy.
I find Tzoli a bit imaginative with his comments, and a somewhat cavalier with proper reference to others' work. It was well through this post before he mentioned Smurf, and I was a bit surprised that he thought I was not sending him my own work and that the table might be from the American "Warships International"
His first post said
"Greek Large Cruiser proposal from DNC. This warship is based on the Dido but on an enlarged hull."
It wasn't.
What he meant was "I have based my guess at this warship on the Dido"

Enough said, I think.

Tzoli said:

There were plans to rearm the Brooklyns with 5 single 12inch guns.

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Are there any details on this project?

biber550 said:

Tzoli said:

There were plans to rearm the Brooklyns with 5 single 12inch guns.

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Are there any details on this project?

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Only some:

The Brooklyns appear to have been well liked when they entered service. In June 1939 the captain of th Philadelphia described her lines, both above and below water, as splendid. In general he deemed the ships highly satisfactory, although he did want future ships of the class to mount "larger guns, consideration being given to guns as large as 12-inch, in order that they might outrange the vessels of the same tonnage, and that when present in a Fleet action they might in an emergency take their place in the battle line in order to obtain a dispersion of enemy fire, and a concentration of our own."

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And based on the President's proposal:

President Roosevelt criticized the new 8,000-ton 6-in-gun cruisers, saying they were underarmed, and in May 1939 he asked hether they could be armed with four 11-in guns to "have a good chance of standing up against the German pocket battleship type." sketch designs A through D showed alternative notional ll-in/50 and 12-in/50 batteries, and speeds of either 33 knots on 90,000 SHP or 35 knots on 100,000 SHP. Not surprisingly, there was very little armor, only a 3-in belt in the l l-In, 33-knot case, and only 1.25 inches in the 12-in gun, 35-knot type, with 1.25 inches of deck armor in each case. Even against a 6- in-gun cruiser, that would buy an immune zone, for the best-protected case, only 300 yards wide (16,700 to 17,000 yards). BuOrd estimated that manufacture of either a new 11- or 12-in turret would take thirtythree months: six weeks to design the gun, six months for general arrangement drawings of the turret, twelve months for detailed drawings, and fifteen months more for prototype construction, with one turret every two months thereafter.

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Tzoli said:

Only some:

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Thank you!
I will add more German projects of large cruisers

That is the P class. Well known design though a different variant known, I doubt the Germans offered that to Greece or any export design after 1936/37 close to WW2
From which book that was from?

Tzoli said:

From which book that was from?

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Gröner, Erich (1990). Deutsch Warships: 1815-1945 . Vol. I: Große Oberflächenschiffe. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-790-6.

Tzoli said:

I doubt the Germans offered that to Greece or any export design after 1936/37 close to WW2

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Of course! It's just that this topic is already as a guide to large cruisers.

Here is my new drawing with much more accurate information:


The designs had these characteristics:
Dimensions: 205,74m(pp) x 23,16m x 7,31m
Displacement: 18.550tons (Standard)
Engines: 140.000shp Parsons Steam Turbines, 4 shafts
Speed: 61km/h (33knots)
Range: Unknown, likely 18.500km at 28km/h (10000nm at 15knots)
Armour: 76mm over machinery, 102mm over magazines Deck, 229mm over magazines, 203mm over machinery Belt
Armaments:
3x2 10"/50 (254mm/50) BL Mk VIII Cannons
6x2 4"/45 (102mm/45) QF Mk XVI DP-AA Guns
6x4 40mm/39 QF Mark VIII Pom-Pom AA Guns
4x4 12,7mm/60 MG Mk III AA Guns
2x Floatplanes

Tzoli said:

The designs had these characteristics:

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I read that the projects of large cruisers were based on the project of the cruiser Belfast.

Handsome ship!

Tzoli said:

Here is my new drawing with much more accurate information:

DNC Design for Greece by Tzoli on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com

The designs had these characteristics:
Dimensions: 205,74m(pp) x 23,16m x 7,31m
Displacement: 18.550tons (Standard)
Engines: 140.000shp Parsons Steam Turbines, 4 shafts
Speed: 61km/h (33knots)
Range: Unknown, likely 18.500km at 28km/h (10000nm at 15knots)
Armour: 76mm over machinery, 102mm over magazines Deck, 229mm over magazines, 203mm over machinery Belt
Armaments:
3x2 10"/50 (254mm/50) BL Mk VIII Cannons
6x2 4"/45 (102mm/45) QF Mk XVI DP-AA Guns
6x4 40mm/39 QF Mark VIII Pom-Pom AA Guns
4x4 12,7mm/60 MG Mk III AA Guns
2x Floatplanes

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So goodlooking RN large crusier

Which is the other quad turreted model?