Could HMAS Australia have been saved from scrapping ?

[BlackBat242]

How about two or three of the 'E2' design (or Atomic Coyote's similar design) for the RAN? I will call them Tiger cubs as per author Alexander Clarke. They would not be laid down in the UK in 1913, but after the Armistice, so that their design can incorporate post-Jutland magazine protection improvements and the vast increase in attention to torpedo defense in 1919 as compared to 1913. (HMS Defence of comparable size exploded at Jutland, killing her entire crew.) And 1919 would allow a more efficient geared drive for the turbines, rather than the older direct drive. While sort of "pocket battleships", the Tiger cubs are not capital ships, and thus are not banned by the Washington Naval Treaty. As mentioned in post #69 above, Australia never did have a battle line, so the Tiger cubs not being powerful enough for the line is of no consequence. They would fit into the Sutherland drydock in Sydney.

As per the bolded part above...
E2 is a 15,500 ton "normal", 8x9.2" gunned warship.

(The table showing Warrior & Invincible as well as the "E" designs gives the "normal" displacements for Warrior & Invincible, so the tonnages given must also be "normal" for the "E" ships.)

That means on both tonnage and armament the historic Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 DOES consider them capital ships!

CONFERENCE ON THE LIMITATION OF ARMAMENT, 1922.

Article XI
No vessel of war exceeding 10,000 tons (10,160 metric tons) standard displacement, other than a capital ship or aircraft carrier, shall be acquired by, or constructed by, for, or within the jurisdiction of, any of the Contracting Powers. Vessels not specifically built as fighting ships nor taken in time of peace under government control for fighting purposes, which are employed on fleet duties or as troop transports or in some other way for the purpose of assisting in the prosecution of hostilities otherwise than as fighting ships, shall not be within the limitations of this Article.
Article XII
No vessel of war of any of the Contracting Powers, hereafter laid down, other than a capital ship, shall carry a gun with a calibre in excess of 8 inches (203 millimetres).

Once again, a rather different WNT1922 (or no treaty at all) must be in place for this plan to be allowable.

 

[ArtosStark]

Warship 2017 contained a "Warship Notes" short article by Ian Johnston about a "Canadian Super Yard" dating to 1910-11. He had been digging in the records of Fairfield in Glasgow and came across several plans for a new shipyard for Haifax in Canada, but with little additional information. There were 3 plans for yards if different sizes.

The largest covered 140 acres (none in Britain at the time exceeded 100 acres). It had 11 covered berths as 1x1,000ft, 1x800ft, 3x600ft, 6x500ft. There was also an 1,100ft dry dock capable of being divided in two.

On 9 March 1911 Fairfield's Chairman reported to the Board "negotiations regarding a Canadian shipbuilding programme and was authorised to proceed on the matter".

That’s very interesting. Sydney steel works were some of the largest in the British Empire and were connected to Halifax by both rail and coastal barge. And with some investment could probably learn to produce armour plate. Specialty items like large calibre guns (and possibly whole turrets, fire control equipment and the like would likely have to come in from Britain though. At least until and unless the capability was developed domestically.

I wonder where they would have put it?

Halifax Dockyard did not, I don’t believe, yet extend as far up the Narrows as it does currently. So maybe they could have put it there. More or less where Irving Shipyard or the container dock is now. It could also possibly have gone directly across the Narrows from the Dockyard in the area that is now the Dockyard Annex.

However, sounds like this may have been commercially owned with Fairfield’s involvement (unless they were just contracted to design it). If so, then perhaps a location in Bedford Basin would be chosen. Either near Dartmouth Slipways on the Dartmouth side or near Bedford on the Halifax side.

Either way, an interesting might have been. Thanks for that!

 

[Owens Z]

As per the bolded part above...
E2 is a 15,500 ton "normal", 8x9.2" gunned warship.

That means on both tonnage and armament the historic Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 DOES consider them capital ships!

Article XI
No vessel of war exceeding 10,000 tons (10,160 metric tons) standard displacement, other than a capital ship or aircraft carrier, shall be acquired by, or constructed by, for, or within the jurisdiction of, any of the Contracting Powers. Vessels not specifically built as fighting ships nor taken in time of peace under government control for fighting purposes, which are employed on fleet duties or as troop transports or in some other way for the purpose of assisting in the prosecution of hostilities otherwise than as fighting ships, shall not be within the limitations of this Article.
Article XII
No vessel of war of any of the Contracting Powers, hereafter laid down, other than a capital ship, shall carry a gun with a calibre in excess of 8 inches (203 millimetres).

Once again, a rather different WNT1922 (or no treaty at all) must be in place for this plan to be allowable.

I hear you, BlackBat, and I had known of the 10,000 long tons standard displacement limit ("standard" being a new measure, defined in the Washington Naval Treaty itself). But I didn't know the signed Treaty was meant to be retroactive like that. If so, how for example did big armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania (later Pittsburgh) stay in active USN service until 1931? She was certainly not one of the fifteen battleships that signatory United States retained after the Treaty, which are all accounted for. Nor was she disarmed. The famous "Treaty cruisers" were those built subsequent to ratification; or am I mistaken?

I had written in post #76 of the different thread "Post-1914 Pre-Dreadnought and Armoured Cruiser Modernizations " that:
...the Imperial Japanese Navy, having re-rated in 1912 their four big, shiny armored cruisers of the Tsukuba and Ibuki classes (each with four 12" guns) as "battlecruisers" (for prestige, to fill the new Royal Navy category before the Kongos were built), rued that re-rating just ten years later, when the Washington Naval Treaty classed all battlecruisers as capital ships and allowed only a strict limit to survive. The three surviving ships (Tsukuba exploded at anchor in 1917) had to be disarmed and go to the scrappers, although they had plenty of life left in their hulls. If the admirals had controlled themselves and simply kept the original 'armored cruiser' tag, then the ships could have had much longer, very useful lives... some of the even older armored cruisers were kept in the IJN till the end of World War 2, albeit in secondary roles...
If BlackBat is understanding the Washington Naval Treaty's terms better than I am, then I was wrong about the above, and the hefty Tsukuba and Ibuki classes were doomed anyway due to their weight, not their battlecruiser designation. What do the lawyers on this thread say?

I haven't yet been able to read the cited DK Brown book, but the 1913 E2 design's 15.5kt could not be a measure of standard displacement. The term would not exist for another nine years, until its legal definition was hashed out during the Washington Naval Treaty negotiations. But BlackBat's point stands, that whatever the standard displacement it would be well above 10k long tons. My alternate-history proposal was for two or three Royal Australian Navy Tiger cubs armed with 9.2-inch guns like the E2 or Atomic Coyote's slimmer 12kt design to be built in 1919-21, taking full advantage of WW1 combat experience yet slipping them in before the Washington Naval Treaty took effect. If that would not be legal as BlackBat states, then Australia is stuck. A Tiger cub would require even more gross cheating than German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer ("10kt" standard as per Treaty of Versailles; actually 11.5kt), Italian Zara class ("10kt" standard as per WNT; actually 11.5kt), and Japanese Takao class ("10kt" standard as per WNT; actually 11.3kt), and unlike those Axis-to-be cheaters Australia would have kept its word.

So we're back to retaining the flawed Indefatigable-class battlecruiser until WW2. Or believing (which is very possible) that Australia's actual modest fleet of cruisers, destroyers, and corvettes was in fact the best choice for the country's circumstances, considering all feasible alternatives.

 

[Dilandu]

That means on both tonnage and armament the historic Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 DOES consider them capital ships!

They have only 9.2-inch guns, though; by 1922 they likely would be considered armored cruisers. Which weren't actually covered by Treaty.

 

[BlackBat242]

How about two or three of the 'E2' design (or Atomic Coyote's similar design) for the RAN? I will call them Tiger cubs as per author Alexander Clarke. They would not be laid down in the UK in 1913, but after the Armistice, so that their design can incorporate post-Jutland magazine protection improvements and the vast increase in attention to torpedo defense in 1919 as compared to 1913. (HMS Defence of comparable size exploded at Jutland, killing her entire crew.) And 1919 would allow a more efficient geared drive for the turbines, rather than the older direct drive.

So you are assuming that your "laid down in 1919" ships would be completed before the treaty is negotiated - I was seeing the post-war virtual halt in construction having delayed them a couple of years - as it did the Hawkins class other than the lead ship. Even Hawkins took 3 years to build - the others took from just under 5 years to a little over 8 years to complete.

As such, these new powerful cruisers (much more powerful than any of the old (1905-1908) USN armored cruisers) would need to be specifically addressed in the treaty - and if not already completed may well not be allowed to be.

 

[EwenS]

It is worthwhile taking a look at Hansard for the debate on the Naval Estimates for 1919/20 that took place on 24 July 1919 to get a flavour of what was in the minds of those on the scene at the time, which is the context any change of RN plans must be read.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1919-07-24/debates/65a564d6-42b6-4297-929d-700fe802663e/NavyEstimates1919%E2%80%9320

For clarity, from Jan 1919 the First Lord of the Admiralty in 1919 was Walter Long MP.

A few highlights:-
Downsizing the RN through demob from its wartime size. And then.


"....At the date of the Armistice there were under order 302 warships and 806 auxiliaries. There arc now being completed 84 warships and 110 auxiliaries. They are ships which in the opinion of the naval advisers of the Admiralty are either essential in order to replace old ships to help to meet the ravages of the War or ships which were so far advanced in their construction that it would have been very bad economy to have scrapped them....."

The 84 were

"There is one battle-cruiser, the "Hood," which was in a very advanced stage of construction—we cancelled the other three—fourteen light cruisers, four destroyer leaders, thirty-three destroyers, and thirty-two submarines. Some of these were essential. Before the War, when we were threatened with the German menace, it was impossible to have ships for every purpose, and we had to abandon some of the work which our Navy has to do, and which it is essential it should do. I mean, for instance, what is known as showing the Flag in different parts of the waters of the Empire. I have no doubt from all I heard that the advantages which follow from our flag being shown all over the, world are enormous. For this purpose, of course, light cruisers are essential. With regard to the other ships, they are either necessary or they were under construction and so far advanced that it was not possible to take them up."

The other 3 Admiral class battlecruisers were cancelled on 27 Feb 1919. Rodney for example had only had a few thousand tons of steel laid down and was costing the RN money to preserve it on the slip. At the same time its builders were pushing to get the slip cleared so they could get back to building highly profitable merchant shipping.

".....Really we are not in a position at this moment to say what is an effective battleship. No one knows as yet—I hope we shall have more definite information shortly—what is going to be the precise form of naval warfare in the future. ....."

And while pay rates for sailors seems to have been dealt with promptly, that of officers was not. All that ate into the available RN budget.

 

[1635yankee]

So you are assuming that your "laid down in 1919" ships would be completed before the treaty is negotiated - I was seeing the post-war virtual halt in construction having delayed them a couple of years - as it did the Hawkins class other than the lead ship. Even Hawkins took 3 years to build - the others took from just under 5 years to a little over 8 years to complete.

As such, these new powerful cruisers (much more powerful than any of the old (1905-1908) USN armored cruisers) would need to be specifically addressed in the treaty - and if not already completed may well not be allowed to be.

I agree with your second paragraph[1]. These mini-battlecruisers[2] would be a point of negotiation in the WNT. I can see several possibilities:

1. The treaty requires them to be scrapped on the ways.
2. They get counted as capital ships
3. Cruiser limits get moved up to 9.2 in guns and 15,500 tons or something near that (France had 9.45 in guns, the USN didn't use fractions of an inch for any guns from 3 in up, so they'd want 10 in, and Japan had 10 in guns in service, so they'd probably want that bore, also)
4. They get a one-time exemption.
5. They can't be finished as mini-battlecruisers, in the same way that the USN' Lexington and Saratoga couldn't be finished as battlecruisers.

Nothing really happens from option 1 or 2.

I think that option 3 would be the most complex and difficult option (even worse than option 4). The UK's 9.2 in guns were the smallest in this range. France's was 240 mm (9.45 in) and Japan, the US, and Italy used 10 in guns. This would probably push the tonnage limit to something in the range of 17,500 to 20,000 tons. So, the WNT (if one could be settled upon!) could end up with article XI having a tonnage limit of 17,500 tons and article XII a limit of 10 in guns.

I think the first preference of the other WNT signatories would be for option 1: poking each other in the eye with a stick seemed to be a popular activity shortly after WW1. The Commonwealth would really dislike option 2: what useful capital ship gets scrapped? Option 4 seems quite unlikely: what does the Commonwealth concede to the other signatories to get this exemption? The Commonwealth dislikes options 1 and 2, but pushes for option 4. Nobody want's option 3 (the category is getting too close to existing, older capital ships). Nobody -- except the Commonwealth accepts option 4. This leaves, in my opinion, option 5 as the most likely. The results may be a bit small for carriers, but may be acceptable once bulged and getting those 3,000 tons allowed for underwater protection to be added on.




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[1] I'm sure that has made no difference to your day.
[2] "Dreadnought armoured cruiser" was already used.

 

[Dilandu]

The results may be a bit small for carriers, but may be acceptable once bulged and getting those 3,000 tons allowed for underwater protection to be added on.

There are sixth option - they may be downgraded in terms of guns to fit the limits. I.e. either re-armed with existing 7.5-inch/45 Mark VI guns, or their construction prolonged till the new 8-inch/50 Mark VIII gun would became available. This would basically solve the problem and also reduce their displacement somwehat. While they would still be bigger and better protected than WNT heavy cruisers, they would also be slower and less useful as scouts or trade protectors.