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Vanguard was a product of a lack of turret building capacity, not of shipbuilding capacity, she was a ship afterall. Specifically, there were seven turret erecting pits active in the UK in the late 1930s, it would have been possible to open another three though it appears a decision to do so was never taken. Vanguard allowed the RN to get to a three ship per year battleship programme without opening the additional pits and training the men to use them. Had the additional three been opened it would have made for the tantalising option of building two fast three turret ships and one slower four turret ship every year.Hood is entirely correct that the Vanguard concept was compared directly to big 9.2" cruisers and it was found every time to be better to have a smaller number of Vanguards over a larger number of 9.2" cruisers for a given amount of money, and I suspect manpower. The Vanguard concept was not universally loved, several senior offices were sceptical of using Lion levels of armour (also in short supply) to carry what was now seen as a relatively light main armament, but nobody seems to have been of the view that large cruisers were a better option. I have seen suggestions that additional units would be possible as Revenge class ships were withdrawn from service.The Vanguard process is interesting for another reason. The Board was starting to think about speed and 31 knots was originally requested. To save time the Lion machinery was used instead of a bespoke set which took the design speed to 30.5 knots. The ship as completed beat that design speed by over a knot on trials, she would have made a good companion to the reconstructed Hood.
Vanguard was a product of a lack of turret building capacity, not of shipbuilding capacity, she was a ship afterall. Specifically, there were seven turret erecting pits active in the UK in the late 1930s, it would have been possible to open another three though it appears a decision to do so was never taken. Vanguard allowed the RN to get to a three ship per year battleship programme without opening the additional pits and training the men to use them. Had the additional three been opened it would have made for the tantalising option of building two fast three turret ships and one slower four turret ship every year.
Hood is entirely correct that the Vanguard concept was compared directly to big 9.2" cruisers and it was found every time to be better to have a smaller number of Vanguards over a larger number of 9.2" cruisers for a given amount of money, and I suspect manpower. The Vanguard concept was not universally loved, several senior offices were sceptical of using Lion levels of armour (also in short supply) to carry what was now seen as a relatively light main armament, but nobody seems to have been of the view that large cruisers were a better option. I have seen suggestions that additional units would be possible as Revenge class ships were withdrawn from service.
The Vanguard process is interesting for another reason. The Board was starting to think about speed and 31 knots was originally requested. To save time the Lion machinery was used instead of a bespoke set which took the design speed to 30.5 knots. The ship as completed beat that design speed by over a knot on trials, she would have made a good companion to the reconstructed Hood.
