battlecruiser HMS Tiger survives til Second World War?

[Dilandu]

and the Tiger being considered a capital ship in the overall Royal navy quotas, t

Well, she was used mainly as training ship post-war. And technically, the transfer of the ship from RN to RAN jurisdiction would be considered internal transfer; i.e. it would not violate WNT, as long as Australian Navy is considered to be part of British total.

Saving her from London Treaty would be more tricky, but probably doable, if Australia would refuse to participate in such talks, arguing that such limitations would affect Royal Navy far more than Japanese, and thus represent a direct threat to Australian safety.

 

[zoeafr]

Well, she was used mainly as training ship post-war. And technically, the transfer of the ship from RN to RAN jurisdiction would be considered internal transfer; i.e. it would not violate WNT, as long as Australian Navy is considered to be part of British total.

Saving her from London Treaty would be more tricky, but probably doable, if Australia would refuse to participate in such talks, arguing that such limitations would affect Royal Navy far more than Japanese, and thus represent a direct threat to Australian safety.

Yes, I understand all that; but during the 20's, the Australian government put very little funds into modernization of the HMAS Australia; so, when arguing that it would be a priority for the pacific defense, the counter argument would be why then didn't the Australian government finance any funds to the navy? and to top that, if the Australian government didn't have funds available and it was a priority, Why then didn't the Royal navy finance the refits? So, the priority is hard to justify when there's no will from either party........

 

[Dilandu]

Yes, I understand all that; but during the 20's, the Australian government put very little funds into modernization of the HMAS Australia; so, when arguing that it would be a priority for the pacific defense, the counter argument would be why then didn't the Australian government finance any funds to the navy? and to top that, if the Australian government didn't have funds available and it was a priority, Why then didn't the Royal navy finance the refits? So, the priority is hard to justify when there's no will from either party........

Because HMAS Australia was outdated and spending money on her was considered impractical. HMS Tiger, on the other hand, is at least as good as Japanese Kongo-class battlecruisers, and have much greater standing value.

 

[zoeafr]

Because HMAS Australia was outdated and spending money on her was considered impractical. HMS Tiger, on the other hand, is at least as good as Japanese Kongo-class battlecruisers, and have much greater standing value.

Yes of course, but the HMS Australia wasn't in that bad of a shape in the early twenties; it is the government that let it rot to despair because of a lack of will.... Should the Tiger have been transfered during that period, the same thing would have happened to it.......

 

[Dilandu]

Yes of course, but the HMS Australia wasn't in that bad of a shape in the early twenties

She was not in a bad shape, but she lacked function to perform. She was both too slow to hunt enemy light cruisers, and too slow to evade Japanese battlecruisers. And she could not fight them either without a substantial refit - which was simply not practical for the single ship.

 

[zoeafr]

She was not in a bad shape, but she lacked function to perform. She was both too slow to hunt enemy light cruisers, and too slow to evade Japanese battlecruisers. And she could not fight them either without a substantial refit - which was simply not practical for the single ship.

Again, I understand; the point is there was no will to spend anything on it; I'm not aware whether the Australian government pleaded with the Royal navy to get a more updated ship, but again, it is hard to justify an argument of priority when neither the Australian government nor the Royal navy puts any effort to remedy the situation....
Also here we must not forget that it is the Royal navy and the U.S. navy who decided on the parameters of the London treaty, it wasn't imposed on the Royal navy.....

 

[Pirate Pete]

VERY LATE to this discussion, but it took me an age to locate the source of this attachment…
Oscar Parkes’s British Battleships…
Interesting statement about POTENTIAL speed for Tiger (and Queen Elizabeth class)…
So, perhaps a re-engineering could result in a speed increase….

 

[zoeafr]

VERY LATE to this discussion, but it took me an age to locate the source of this attachment…
Oscar Parkes’s British Battleships…
Interesting statement about POTENTIAL speed for Tiger (and Queen Elizabeth class)…
So, perhaps a re-engineering could result in a speed increase….

Hi Yes, I had read about those boilers and turbines; it would have been a first choice, but only if the Tiger would have had a full reconstruction. At that early time, this machinery was still in ''prototype development'' though it showed reliabity and performance. Two decisions came against it; the development was still at an early stage of reliability, so time was needed to achieve full production if the admiralty would put orders in. Though the QEs' were still at the design stage at that date, it was calculed that this machinery wouldn't be ready in time, and during that time, it was also argued that a mix coal/oil machinery was still the most reliable option since not all the far away colonies had access or the logistics for oil. This was the main reason the Tiger got what it had, with the QEs' taking the oil only machinery; they would more probably stay closer to the bigger bases which had the infrastructures for oil refills and repairs.
The other reason is that the admiralty, in my view and some of the authors of the books I read, was mostly composed of people with more conservative views; maybe they had more insight on the matter than we do now in the political and experience environment and that weighed in the balance.
The small boilers did achieve the reliability later, when the admiralty relented and decided on the option, but it was too late for the early ships until a full reconstruction would happen. The new type of machinery was not an interchageable unit, and though much smaller, all the surrounding accessories, needed to be re-adapted to the new set up, and sometimes new systems would have to be installed; result, a very expensive option, and time consuming installation made it imposssible to just alter the machinery quickly and cheaply.
In a scenario where the Tiger is the training ship and not the Iron Duke, nothing would have been possible until late 1936 and 37; that would mean no time, no large funding, and not much leeway to get the ship in dry dock. So the only possibility would have been a re-installation and modification of the main belt, conning tower, re-installation of ''Q'' barbette and turret, and the removal of what wuld hve been left of the 39 boilers ( apprx. 13 left for the 18 knot max speed dictated) and installation of the old and refurbished Warspite boiers (24) plus the installation of some Queen Elizabeth refurbished boilers which have been very recently taken out on her reconstruction (15) for the total of 39 put back in the pervious boiler places; no machinery change would have been necessary and the new ''oil only'' power would have been somewhere in the neighborhood of 125000 SHP. Next, a slightly thicker (10 in.) and longer ( spanning the length between ''A'' and ''X'' barbette) outer main belt, an upper and small lower 6 in. belt (an extension only for the top, and a 4 feet wide addition under the main belt) also extended to the same barbettes, the torpedo protection system, thicker deck plating ( ''slap on'' decking, no deep restructuring) and AA armament....Extra weight of the AAs' offset by the removal of the first two 6 in. guns on each side and the torpedo system.
Here is my last iteration of what I think is a logical re-arragement..... The first two are the original set up, the next two are what I came up with.
AA armament consists of :
Original 8 13.5/45 primaries
Original 8 6in. secondaries in casemates minus 4 ( two first ones on each side, previously 12 units)
New 10 QF 4/45 HA MKXIX in 5 twin turrets
new 24 2 pdr (40 mm) vickers QF MKVIII octuple in 3 units
new 12 2pdr (40mm) Bofor QF MKXI in 6 twin arrangement
new 32 1 pdr (20mm) Oerlikon QF MKXI in 16 twin arragement
new 4 1 pdr (20mm) Oerlikon QF MKXI in 4 singles on superstructure

A total of 72 AA armament, not counting the HA 4/45

Plating additions can be seen on th diagrams
This is not an absolute and comments and suggestions are more than welcome

 

[Owens Z]

VERY LATE to this discussion, but it took me an age to locate the source of this attachment…
Oscar Parkes’s British Battleships…
Interesting statement about POTENTIAL speed for Tiger (and Queen Elizabeth class)…
So, perhaps a re-engineering could result in a speed increase….

Good, Pirate Pete; this is interesting. I have read the Oscar Parkes classic but don't own a copy. HMS Tiger fresh from the builder briefly did a tad over 29 knots with engine forcing during her trials at normal displacement, and is credited with about 28 knots during WW1 service when the bridge ordered full speed ahead (assuming a calm or moderate sea). That's with her original coal-fired boilers and direct-drive turbines.

Reduction gears mean added weight, and as Scott Kenny pointed out, manufacturing such a transmission is an exacting and expensive process. And the second law of thermodynamics means that there will always be a bit of power wasted by friction in the gears. But with all that said, geared turbines put so much more of the engine's effort into the water that they immediately became the standard. Two Royal Navy destroyers launched in 1911 were the first to use reduction gears as an experiment, and the Courageous-class battlecruisers launched in 1916 were the first capital ships with this feature. So an alternate history where it instead was HMS Tiger (launched at the end of 1913) as the first capital ship with geared turbines, and small-tube boilers, is within the realm of possibility. I am not too enthused, because I think my different alternate history, which allows machinery a quarter-century more advanced, would result in a more formidable WW2 ship. But I'm glad to learn that my estimate of the revised maximum speed is roughly the same as what the famed naval architect Sir Eustace Tennyson D'Eyncourt believed (he was also the foresighted chairman of the "Landship Committee" that invented tanks).

 

[Owens Z]

Recently I was able to read the 1999 book The Grand Fleet: Warship Design and Development 1906-1922 by David K Brown at my local public library, and I found it to be well written and informative. Author Brown wrote in a footnote on p25, "There was discussion over the possibility of all oil fuel for Tiger but it was rejected". On p101 he stated that HMS Tiger endured fifteen 283mm AP shell hits, plus one 149mm hit, during the Battle of Jutland, mostly from SMS Moltke. (Wikipedia says eighteen shell hits, but doesn't cite a source.) Q turret had its armored roof blown in and was put out of action but her other three turrets kept shooting. And obviously Tiger didn't explode like battlecruisers HMS Invincible, Indefatigable, and Queen Mary (and Hood in 1941) did from much fewer hits, killing almost their entire crews. On pp155-56 is an annotated list of the sixteen hits on Tiger during Jutland; interesting.

During the earlier Battle of Dogger Bank Tiger took six hits by German shells, but she was promptly and fully repaired after both Dogger Bank and Jutland, and by all accounts the battlecruiser was in good condition when she was selected for scrapping after the 1930 London Naval Treaty. Seen in hindsight, an ill-advised decision by British authorities.

 

[zoeafr]

Recently I was able to read the 1999 book The Grand Fleet: Warship Design and Development 1906-1922 by David K Brown at my local public library, and I found it to be well written and informative. Author Brown wrote in a footnote on p25, "There was discussion over the possibility of all oil fuel for Tiger but it was rejected". On p101 he stated that HMS Tiger endured fifteen 283mm AP shell hits, plus one 149mm hit, during the Battle of Jutland, mostly from SMS Moltke. (Wikipedia says eighteen shell hits, but doesn't cite a source.) Q turret had its armored roof blown in and was put out of action but her other three turrets kept shooting. And obviously Tiger didn't explode like battlecruisers HMS Invincible, Indefatigable, and Queen Mary (and Hood in 1941) did from much fewer hits, killing almost their entire crews. On pp155-56 is an annotated list of the sixteen hits on Tiger during Jutland; interesting.

During the earlier Battle of Dogger Bank Tiger took six hits by German shells, but she was promptly and fully repaired after both Dogger Bank and Jutland, and by all accounts the battlecruiser was in good condition when she was selected for scrapping after the 1930 London Naval Treaty. Seen in hindsight, an ill-advised decision by British authorities.

Yes, I had read that too in one of my books, though from memory I don't remember where I saw the passage.
It is one one '' could have been, should have been''.....

 

[Archdude]

Recently I was able to read the 1999 book The Grand Fleet: Warship Design and Development 1906-1922 by David K Brown at my local public library, and I found it to be well written and informative. Author Brown wrote in a footnote on p25, "There was discussion over the possibility of all oil fuel for Tiger but it was rejected". On p101 he stated that HMS Tiger endured fifteen 283mm AP shell hits, plus one 149mm hit, during the Battle of Jutland, mostly from SMS Moltke. (Wikipedia says eighteen shell hits, but doesn't cite a source.) Q turret had its armored roof blown in and was put out of action but her other three turrets kept shooting. And obviously Tiger didn't explode like battlecruisers HMS Invincible, Indefatigable, and Queen Mary (and Hood in 1941) did from much fewer hits, killing almost their entire crews. On pp155-56 is an annotated list of the sixteen hits on Tiger during Jutland; interesting.

During the earlier Battle of Dogger Bank Tiger took six hits by German shells, but she was promptly and fully repaired after both Dogger Bank and Jutland, and by all accounts the battlecruiser was in good condition when she was selected for scrapping after the 1930 London Naval Treaty. Seen in hindsight, an ill-advised decision by British authorities.

Cool book and great comment