British hybrid battleships: projects and proposals

[sgeorges4]

the richelieu hybrid: https://www.laroyale-modelisme.net/t20387-jean-bart-hybride-1-400 (in french)

 

[Tzoli]

Yes I've based my drawing on this but used the original Richelieu superstructure with some modifications rather this British looking island bridge.

 

[sgeorges4]

ok ,the post also talk about how flawed hybrid like this would be

 

[Hood]

the richelieu hybrid: https://www.laroyale-modelisme.net/t20387-jean-bart-hybride-1-400 (in french)

That design was not related to the Richelieu class directly.
It was a sketch design (possibly traced over a Richelieu drawing in Jane's) by the Admiralty's Director of Plans, Captain Charles L. Daniel in April 1941 to illustrate his idea of having a hybrid battleship carrier with two quadruple 14in or 15in turrets forward to free the rear of the ship for the aircraft arrangements. It did lead to the DNC sketching up a similar arrangement in July with two triple 16in turrets forward (this design often being illustrated as the KGV/Lion hybrid in post-war literature on the subject).

 

[Julio Garay Terrazas]

Just in case, the british version...

 

[00-PureEvil-00]

What do I have on this topic currently:
1) George Thurston's designs published in 1923 and 1926 Brassey's Naval Annual (source: https://stefsap.wordpress.com/2016/05/26/royal-navys-hybrid-bbcv-designs-by-thurston/ )
2) A few proposals to build such warships dated 1940-1942 (found here: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/th...were-designs-and-proposals.35123/#post-412423 . Yes, I too was surprised to find it in a French-centered thread). Alas, not much info here.
3) Lion-class conversion (probably a misinterpretation of one of the proposals above). Again, not much info about this (aside from (probably somewhat speculative) characteristics from Tzoli's mega-table).
4) This bit of weirdness from Popular Mechanics: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/1943-british-battleship-aircraft-carrier-concept.33470/

Now, I'm looking for some more information about proposals mentioned in French carrier thread (point 2 in my list), and Lion-class conversion (if it was, indeed, a separate project). I will be very grateful if someone would help me with these. And of course, if you know about projects or proposals not present in my list, feel free to post them here.

 

[drwells42]

From Layman & McLaughlin's "The Hybrid Warship"

 

[Tzoli]

The Lion class BBCV was a real project:

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/royal-navy-lion-class-battleship-series-1938-1945.32456/page-3#post-432275

And

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/royal-navy-lion-class-battleship-series-1938-1945.32456/page-3#post-432748

 

[Nik]

'Neither Fish nor Fowl'...

Snag is that can carry neither sufficient air-wing to attack a 'Grand Fleet' ship without deploying nukes, nor have enough armour to go in 'Harms Way'. Plus, even with the RN carrier preference for armoured flight deck, the 'air-wing' part is horribly, horribly vulnerable to conventional or nuke-blast damage.

Bit like 'turret fighters', excellent for the tactics of eg 'Spanish Civil War', obsolete scant few years later...

As against that, if one or two built during the late 30s, would have made a fair escort for Atlantic convoys. Just enough air-wing to maintain a CAP, be Condor-bane, spot and strafe surfaced U-Boots. Just enough big-gun power to deter commerce raiders...

 

[Dilandu]

Snag is that can carry neither sufficient air-wing to attack a 'Grand Fleet' ship without deploying nukes,

Erm, a few shaped charge bombs (preferably guided or homing) would work splendidly on any battleship.

 

[royabulgaf]

'Neither Fish nor Fowl'...

Snag is that can carry neither sufficient air-wing to attack a 'Grand Fleet' ship without deploying nukes, nor have enough armour to go in 'Harms Way'. Plus, even with the RN carrier preference for armoured flight deck, the 'air-wing' part is horribly, horribly vulnerable to conventional or nuke-blast damage.

Bit like 'turret fighters', excellent for the tactics of eg 'Spanish Civil War', obsolete scant few years later...

As against that, if one or two built during the late 30s, would have made a fair escort for Atlantic convoys. Just enough air-wing to maintain a CAP, be Condor-bane, spot and strafe surfaced U-Boots. Just enough big-gun power to deter commerce raiders...

That makes sense, although cruiser or battleship guns may be overkill. But then, I imagine the excort would want the surface raiders to keep their distance. Getting in a gunfight with several thousand gallons of aviation fuel on board is unappealing.

 

[Scott Kenny]

As against that, if one or two built during the late 30s, would have made a fair escort for Atlantic convoys. Just enough air-wing to maintain a CAP, be Condor-bane, spot and strafe surfaced U-Boots. Just enough big-gun power to deter commerce raiders...

I think that's the ideal use-case, as convoy escorts.

Plus they could take a few Torpedo bombers and/or dive bombers with them to ruin any lone raider's day.

 

[YourChair]

While on the topic of Lion and Vanguard, does anyone have information on the full CV conversions for those two ships?

 

[Tzoli]

Not much, Friedman mentions in passing sentences that such conversion was considered when they were under construction but the expected air-group was considered too small for such large sized carriers compared to the ones under construction (Illustrious/Indomitable and Implacable). More info was likely in the respective ship covers or RN emergency war-plan discussion papers.

 

[Dilandu]

I thought AI did not existed when google skecth was a thing!

Ops. I meant, AH - Alternate History. Sorry(

 

[Tzoli]

Do we know more about the Battlecarrier proposal of Jean Bart?
PA-21 maybe it's designation, but maybe it's errenous based on the KGV BBCV proposal?

 

[drwells42]

Do we know more about the Battlecarrier proposal of Jean Bart?
PA-21 maybe it's designation, but maybe it's errenous based on the KGV BBCV proposal?

This is from Layman & McLaughlin's book "The Hybrid Warship".

 

[drwells42]

It is certainly a British proposal, so looking at French sources might not be helpful. As far as I know, this "design", (if such it can be called) didn't get much past the early discussion phase.

DRW

 

[drwells42]

I pulled out my copy of Layman & McLaughlin, and the details (to the extent there are any) are on pg. 114.

The proposal can be attributed to RN Director of Plans Capt. Charles L. Daniel, 3 April 1941. Apparently, he chose the Richelieu design because it had all its turrets forward, and thought it would be a convenient way to illustrate a hybrid with all turrets forward.

Eventually, this lead to the Lion-class based hybrid design from July 1941, but apparently that one didn't get much beyond the sketch phase either.

DRW

 

[Hood]

It was just an RN concept sketch inspired by Richelieu.

I've moved all these erroneously identified French hybrid posts into this thread.

 

[EwenS]

Moore "Building for Victory" has a bit about the Admiralty discussions on these hybrid carriers at a time in mid-1941 when the options under discussion were a small "aircraft destroyer" or some type of dual purpose battleship carrier (45,000 tons, 2 triple 16", cost £10m) / cruiser carrier (18,900 or 20,000 tons, 2 triple 8", cost £5.5m or £6m). The DNC (Sir Stanley Goodall) made the point about the options under discussion with some numbers:-

A squadron of 5 carrier battleships would displace 225,000 tons, carry 30x16" guns, and 70 aircraft. They would cost £50m

A force of 3 Lion class battleships and 3 Imdomitable class carriers would displace about 200,000 tons, carry 27x16" guns (3 triples per battleship) and 144 aircraft (48 per carrier - actually 3x45=135). Cost £50m

Then he posed the question "which of the above two forces would you rather command?"

DNAD Captain C Moody opined that they could get 3 aircraft destroyers for less than the cost of a single battleship carrier. (the aircraft destroyers being looked at were 8,350 to 13,000 tons speed 31.5-32 knots with 4x5" HAA and 4-6 twin 21" TT. This eventually became the 1942 light fleet carrier initially designed around an air complement of 24)

The only person seemingly in favour of the dual purpose ship was the Director of Plans Captain C S Daniels, and he had been replaced by Captain EGH Bellars by the time the discussion at the Admiralty took place. The best comment was by DGAAW Captain CMB Langley - "these abortions are the result of a psychological maladjustment" and "the necessary re-adjustment should result from a proper analysis of the question:- what will be a balanced fleet in 1945-50-55?"

By Oct 1941 the Naval Staff had binned the idea of the dual purpose ship.

Another point to consider is how long the battleship carriers would have taken to build. A late 1941 Admiralty study was 54 months for a battleship, 46 months for a fleet carrier and 28 months for a Fiji/Dido sized cruiser. The 1942 light fleet carrier was planned to take 24 months (the 5 wartime completions took 26-33 months). In 1941 the need, as shown by events off Norway and in the Med, was for new carriers ASAP, not in time to fight the next war.

 

[DWG]

The DNC (Sir Stanley Goodall) made the point about the options under discussion with some numbers:-

A squadron of 5 carrier battleships would displace 225,000 tons, carry 30x16" guns, and 70 aircraft. They would cost £50m

A force of 3 Lion class battleships and 3 Imdomitable class carriers would displace about 200,000 tons, carry 27x16" guns (3 triples per battleship) and 144 aircraft (48 per carrier - actually 3x45=135). Cost £50m

Then he posed the question "which of the above two forces would you rather command?"

I was going to use the exact same quote, though from Diary of a Wartime Naval Constructor, Goodall ed Buxton. And ISTR it's in DKB's Nelson to Vanguard as well. It's a good line.