Post Jutland French and Italian capital ship designs

[ceccherini]

After WW1 and before the Washington naval Treaty, the three major naval powers (UK, USA and Japan) were engaged in a new huge naval race, building or projecting battleships and Battlecruisers of unprecedented size and capabilities based on lessons of the war. I was wondering if the the other two significant navies of the era, that of France and Italy, had any planned reply in the form of comparable ships. Clearly postwar economy made difficult to imagine very large scale naval spending, particularly in the case of Italy that was on the brink of political revolution, but still at least some studying activities in the late '10/early '20 is both realistic and intriguing, given the somewhat unorthodox approach that characterized the ideas of French and Italian naval engineers in the big gun era. I know of several projects to complete Caracciolo and Normandies in a modernized form, of the development of the french 45 cm gun and the intention to build up to 11 battleships equipped with it and of the Cassone's sketch of a 18" inch gunned battlecruiser but nothing less vague. Have any of you more infos?

 

[Tzoli]

From around 1920 Nabor Soliani drawn up two designs one was basically a modern armoured cruiser early heavy cruiser with 2x2 20cm guns and numerous 102mm and 76mm guns, the other was using the same hull but armed with 2x2 381mm cannons basically the Italian idea of the Glorious small BC's
Design A:

Nabor Soliani Cruiser design in colours by Tzoli on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com

https://imgur.com/0PWmrav

Design B:

Nabor Soliani Revised Cruiser design in colours by Tzoli on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com

https://imgur.com/OcK02gt

I do not know any 1920's Italian Capital ship designs other then the battlecruiser, Admiral Ferrati produced a large number of designs for the Caracciolo class in 1913/14.
The French was even less vague as you written only a battleship program and the big 45cm cannon suggests plans, which seems to be lost. Though what became the Donkerque class Battlecruisers could be originated back to an 1926 battlecruiser design of 17.500tons and 305mm Armament (2x4)

 

[Dilandu]

The French was even less vague as you written only a battleship program and the big 45cm cannon suggests plans, which seems to be lost.

Considering the French general design school, I think it would probably looks somewhat like enlarged "Lyon"-class, with each pair of 34-cm guns replaced with single 45-cm. The most alterations would be on armor scheme; quite probably they would adopt all-or-nothing.

 

[Tzoli]

Yes I concur, though I would assume the battleships designed for the gun would range in size and armament from 4x2 to 3x4 or maybe go to 4x4 (IJN's no.13 preliminaries even featured 4x4 41cm or 4x3 46cm cannons). Or they just copy the QE and Revenge classes, I doubt they had access or any intel on the N3/G3 designs (Japan seems to have as I've found mentions in the Hiraga archve! )
for 4x2 I could see a Kongo arrangement as well. On the other hand the French really wanted quadruple turrets at WW1 because all 4 capital warship designs of the time (Lyon, Normanide, Durand-Viel BC, Gille BC) had all featured quads...

 

[Dilandu]

On the other hand the French really wanted quadruple turrets at WW1 because all 4 capital warship designs of the time (Lyon, Normanide, Durand-Viel BC, Gille BC) had all featured quads...

Well, French Navy in XX century seems to be more toward evolution rather than revolution - each new ship developed the previous design further forward. It seems logical to assume that hypothetical 1920s battleship would rely on the ideas from previous designs as well.

 

[ceccherini]

On the other hand the French really wanted quadruple turrets at WW1 because all 4 capital warship designs of the time (Lyon, Normanide, Durand-Viel BC, Gille BC) had all featured quads...

Well, French Navy in XX century seems to be more toward evolution rather than revolution - each new ship developed the previous design further forward. It seems logical to assume that hypothetical 1920s battleship would rely on the ideas from previous designs as well.

45 cm gun was the result of deep studies on Jutland battle, so I think it's implausible they would simply evolved a clearly obsolete design as Lyon. Also Normandie modernization plan give some indication of the perceived need of high speed and the willingness to go for a 6 gun main battery, completely subverting the prewar strong preference for more guns over larger guns. Quadruple turret equipped with 45 cm gun are clearly a possibility but much more a theorical one than a practical one. Also one must remember the dimensional limitation of the shipyard facilities in France that were a constant obstacles in naval planning since Bretagne so overall I didn't expect the kind of 50k+ tons monsters that were seriously proposed at the time in Japan and in the United States, I think a credible design could be a sort of enlarged and upgunned variant of the 1927 37000 ton battlecruiser, a fast ship with good but not balanced protection and 6 or at most 8/9 45 cm gun in twin or triple turrets. As for Italy, around 1920, it was decided not to complete Caracciolo as a battleship, officially on technical ground and not cost. This let around two years before the naval Treaty in which at least there should have been talks on future battleships.

 

[Tzoli]

Yes the French were very conservative tonnage wise or we just don't know all their designs. I suspect many papers were destroyed during WW2 when France was spitted between German occupied territories and the Vichy regime.

 

[Dilandu]

Quadruple turret equipped with 45 cm gun are clearly a possibility but much more a theorical one than a practical one.

I was talking about using the 34-cm quadruple turret as a basic for 45-cm dual - by replacing each pair of 34-cm guns for one 45-cm.

 

[ptdockyard]

General Ferratti proposed a massive battleship with sixteen 15" guns for Italy

General Ferrati’s 1915 battleship “G” series designs

General (naval engineers) Ferrati, based at La Spezia arsenal, was the designer of the first fast battleship class, the four RN Caracciolo. At the USMM (Italian Navy Historic Office) are stored a…

stefsap.wordpress.com

 

[ceccherini]

On page 43 of the monograph on Cavour and Duilio classes released in the latest issue of the magazine Storia Militare, Erminio Bagnasco, the main living Italian naval historian, reports that in the early '20 the technical department of Regia Marina was working on a 50000 ton+ fast battleship concept perfectly balancing armament, armor and speed, informally called "nave assoluta" meaning "absolute ship". I expect a kind of an italian N13. Hope one day some drawings will emerge.

 

[Archibald]

The five partially completed Normandie hulls dragged on their shipyards until 1926. One was turned into the Bearn carrier. Wish two others could have followed - with lessons learned from the Bearn (many) flaws.

 

[MJBurmaster]

And don't forget the fact that the French by implication acknowledged all of the foregoing deficiencies by seeking a Baden or Bayern after the war, running afoul of Italian objections.

And as to the Ferrati design, who can forget that Stefano introduced such to us on the old Never Built Warships forum? Certainly if Bagnasco can shed more light on the subject, let's hear from him!

 

[ceccherini]

And don't forget the fact that the French by implication acknowledged all of the foregoing deficiencies by seeking a Baden or Bayern after the war, running afoul of Italian objections.

And as to the Ferrati design, who can forget that Stefano introduced such to us on the old Never Built Warships forum? Certainly if Bagnasco can shed more light on the subject, let's hear from him!

Ferrati 1915 studies and "nave assoluta" concept are entirely separate things: the first are part of studies on improving the baseline Caracciolo class battleship at a time when Caracciolo's design started to look flawed protection wise and less than desidered armament wise as original specifications were reduced for cost consideration. Having turned back to the original intention to get a design with at least 12 main guns and more protection, Ferrati designed larger, more heavily armed and armored, somewhat slower designs but that was before Jutland. Bagnasco write, in a very brief note, of a totally different post Jutland requirement for a battleship whose characteristics could have been obtained only with a displacement of more than 50k ton according to the technical department of Regia Marina, without stating if any projectual activity ever started on the subject. We only know that post WW1 Regia Marina expected his future capital ships to be larger than 50000 tons, not necessarily implying that such ships were expected in a short to medium time frame, a thing made implausible by the terrible financial state of postwar Italy. Still there were discussions about the future of the battlefleet and I'm quite confident that something was put on paper. It seems that in the decade before the WNT and after his first generation of dreadnoughts (Alighieri, Cavour and Doria classes), Regia Marina had a very strong and persistent commitment to built world class battleships that was frustrated by political and economical factors.

 

[ceccherini]

I've found mentions of a private CRDA study made in late '30 for a battleship armed with 16 16"/56 guns in 4 quadruple turrets called 4-16/16-40. I suspect it is a plain internet invention because the reported displacement of 66000 ton full load seems far too low for such a massive armament, 16"/56 is a totally new gun but CRDA was just a shipbuilder and aircraft producer without any gun development capability and the name of the supposed study seems to refere to the number of gun per turret, the caliber of the guns, the number of the guns and the year but the caliber is in inches while from an Italian study one can expect a metrical dimension. Still if any of you has heard something more it would be really appreciated.

 

[Brickmuppet]

I've found mentions of a private CRDA study made in late '30 for a battleship armed with 16 16"/56 guns in 4 quadruple turrets called 4-16/16-40. I suspect it is a plain internet invention because the reported displacement of 66000 ton full load seems far too low for such a massive armament, 16"/56 is a totally new gun but CRDA was just a shipbuilder and aircraft producer without any gun development capability and the name of the supposed study seems to refere to the number of gun per turret, the caliber of the guns, the number of the guns and the year but the caliber is in inches while from an Italian study one can expect a metrical dimension. Still if any of you has heard something more it would be really appreciated.

66,00 tons seems...optimistic, but 16'56 was a real gun. It was the relined 18"48 and had been around since 1927. The gun (and occasionally its 18" sibling) figures in some paper battleship studies from the 30s. See here. http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_18-48_mk1.php

 

[ceccherini]

I've found mentions of a private CRDA study made in late '30 for a battleship armed with 16 16"/56 guns in 4 quadruple turrets called 4-16/16-40. I suspect it is a plain internet invention because the reported displacement of 66000 ton full load seems far too low for such a massive armament, 16"/56 is a totally new gun but CRDA was just a shipbuilder and aircraft producer without any gun development capability and the name of the supposed study seems to refere to the number of gun per turret, the caliber of the guns, the number of the guns and the year but the caliber is in inches while from an Italian study one can expect a metrical dimension. Still if any of you has heard something more it would be really appreciated.

66,00 tons seems...optimistic, but 16'56 was a real gun. It was the relined 18"48 and had been around since 1927. The gun (and occasionally its 18" sibling) figures in some paper battleship studies from the 30s. See here. http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_18-48_mk1.php

We are talking about Italian development not American one and the largest modern gun ever developed by Italy is a 406mm/50

 

[Brickmuppet]

Ah. Sorry. Had multiple tabs open. Thought I was in another thread.

 

[Grey Havoc]

We all have those days...