The Cockatoo Heavy Cruiser

Tzoli

Tzoli

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From the page 80 of the book: Cockatoo Island: Sydney's Historic Dockyard:
http://books.google.hu/books?id=1ulc79wlY54C&printsec=frontcover&hl=hu#v=onepage&q=cruiser&f=false

1924cruisercrop_zps0c4ec494.png



These cruisers are designed by Cockatoo Island naval Dockyards in 1924 and Vickers in 1929.
They resemble a significantly modified Hawkins class cruiser, with a similar hull shape and armour layout. Difference that this design have 2 more boilers but their layout as well the stac's and bridge shape are basically the same as the Hawkinses. This is due that the Australian are known data about these cruiser but not about the new Counties.

Armaments:
9x 8inch guns in 3 triple turrets
12x 5inch guns in casemates 6 per beam in a casemate deck from abreast the bridge to just forward of C turret, in a 4-cornered arrangement s 4-4 can fire forward and aft with a single on each beam abreast the forward stack, and a single on each beam abreast the mainmast.
4x 4inch AA guns on a raised platform with the mainmast in the middle of it.
4x 21inch Torpedo Tubes all submerged under the bridge, 2 port 2 starboard.

Triple turrets because at that time the Admirality considered these turrets for the Counties but later not pursued

As the image shows there is also an alternative position for the C turret shown. This could be a better placement for a future seaplane space or a possible place for a 4th turret if twin guns to be fitted.

Specifications:
Displacement: 10,000tons (probably light or empty)
Dimensions: 192m x 20.87m x 5.25m
Propulsion: 90,000shp 2 shafts
Speed: 61km/h (33knots)

Other Information:
The CA design was done quickly, as a sketch design by Cockatoo and Walsh Island designers to start work on cost estimates for the construction of such ships in Australia. At this point in time the Counties were still in early design stage, and therefore had little or no data on them. Apparently they did have full drawings for the Hawkins class - the nearest thing to a modern 10,000 ton CA that they had available. So they used an expanded version of the design, with data from Vickers on the planned triple 8" turret.

As a note it was a possible modernizations of the hawkins class with 3 twin 8inch gun turrets!

Another variant states from 1925 is that the same hull of the HMS Kent, Displacement of Light load draft under Washington Standard: 10000 tons. Engien with 80,000shp power, no data for speed but changed armament of 4x2 8inch, 4x1 4inch AA guns, 2 Pom Poms, 4 3 pounder saluting guns and two quadruple above water torpedo launchers.

Two ships to be built to replace the decommissioned and scuttled battlecruiser HMAS Australia as part of the "Empire protection plan".
Basically, to protect trade near & with Australia, and to provide their contribution to defense of the Commonwealth/Empire as a whole.

In the end, it was the expense of building these ships in Australia to a unique design that cancelled them in favor of buying two Kent class 8" cruisers "off-the-shelf" from UK shipyards in 1925.


1929 Vickers design by George Thurston, version Type A (type B have 4 twin turrets and Type C have 3 triple all forward!)
1929CockatooIslandsyddesign_zpsa4996c05.jpg
 
Tzoli,

That's much appreciated info for me. Many thanks!

Antonio
 
Thanks Tzoli ! Interesting design, that for me brings up the question, if it would have been possible
to modify the Hawkins class with twin, if not triple 8 inch turrets. Apart from the increased firepower, I
would regard the use of the common 8 inch ammo as a benefit against the 7.5 inch, which after WW I
became quite a rare type in the Royal Navy, I think.
 
Tzoli said:
In the end, it was the expense of building these ships in Australia to a unique design that cancelled them in favor of buying two Kent class 8" cruisers "off-the-shelf" from UK shipyards in 1925.
Click to expand...

That is true though Cockatoo dockyard was funded to build the 4-5,000 tonne seaplane carrier HMAS Albatross to provide some Australian work as an internalised ‘offset’ to the Country class cruiser buy. Of course while the British built ships may have cost less in outlay building the two heavy cruisers in Australia would have seen a fair slice of their larger outlay returned to the Government via various revenues and tariffs and much of the rest of the money grow domestic industry, not to mention save on the costs of building an effectively unwanted (and never used) ship: HMAS Albatross. Unfortunately the same mistake keeps getting made, over and over again…
 
A few points on this thread:
1. The 'X' turret position on the Cockatoo I. cruiser was a position for X twin turret in a possible 4 twin turret version. In fact the final contract proposal was for a Hawkins-like hull but Kent size and armament. (I have copies of the plans and contract documentation)
2. The Counties were ordered from UK because considerably cheaper, but also because of much earlier delivery. Getting Cockatoo Island to a state in which it could build large cruisers was not quick, with heavy reliance on Vickers for guns, turrets and armour. (Vickers also offered Australia a design 835X with 3x2 8in in 1923, based on Hawkins; and another 1074X with 3x3 8in or 1074C with 4x2 8in in 1923/24. Vickers also offered design 1144 a repeat Kent, but the contracts went to John Brown.
3. There were proposals in 1925 to give the RN Hawkins class twin 8in. Only 3 turrets were possible, as the hull aft was not deep enough for the fourth, and raising the turrets on an elevated barbette would put the displacement up to about 10600 tons, over the Washington Treaty limit. There was also political disquiet about the RN acquiring four more 8in cruisers so quickly after the disarmament treaty. [ADM1/8674/8]
4. Thurston's cruiser designs were first published in Brassey's Naval Annual in 1923, with more discussion in BNA 1925.
 
Hey Smurf!!! You are back???
 
Thanks Tzoli also for shared history about this study for two australian cruiser .
 
Tzoli,

yes, seen the line drawings but I recall one RN constructor noting that the RN disfavoured having torpedo tubes located high and when placing same on cruisers indeed had problems with placing them one deck lower as to seaworthiness, and definitely submerged tubes was not well considered after Great War experience.
 
As always great work Tzoli!
This project has been of great interest to me since I first heard of it years ago and I agree with Abraham that an Australian build of the two cruisers was very much a missed opportunity that would have been cheaper than buying two ships and building a seaplane carrier.

It is my understanding that the Town HMAS Adelaide, the last cruiser built in Australia, was at one point seriously considered to be ordered as a highly modified design based on the "Atlantic Cruiser" sketches, or even as a Hawkins Class. This makes sense as the Hawkins design was evolved from the Towns through the Atlantic Cruiser trade protection concepts. Ironically the reason Adelaide was built as a slightly modified Town was the concern that changing the design too much would significantly delay her completion date, considering the loss of critical components, including some machinery components, in transit from the UK delayed her completion until well after WWI, ordering an evolved design would not have made any difference to completion times. One of the reasons given for decision to order the two new cruisers from the UK was the excessive build time of HMAS Adelaide being seen locally as a failure of Australian shipbuilding.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but there were those who pushed for Adelaide to be a larger more capable design, and pushed for the two new cruisers to be built locally. History suggests that Australia would have been far better served doing that exactly that and then following on by building the replacements for the first three Towns (Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne) locally as well. Cost is not an issue as more money was wasted building Albatross than the local overheads would have cost, while the need for early delivery was not as urgent as suggested either as Australia was under no obligation to dispose of the battlecruiser Australia at all, let alone by a specific date, and the budget was so tight that many ships the navy had were laid up anyway. What happened was actually wasteful political and economic incompetence.

The ideal timeline would have been Adelaide ordered and completed as a Hawkins, which would have served as an evolutionary prototype for the first two post war cruisers. These ships, evolved from the already completed Adelaide, should have been completed sequentially without too much difficulty by the end of the 1920s perhaps early 30s and followed by three modified versions, perhaps with four triple 6" instead of buying the Modified Leanders. Leading into WWII Cockatoo would have been able to continue building cruisers and possibly even light carriers.
 
Yes the HMAS Adelaide had two projects for conversion into a sort of heavy cruiser:
www.deviantart.com

Modified HMAS Adelaide designs by Tzoli on DeviantArt

www.deviantart.com www.deviantart.com
dcn319m-d9398e05-9d75-4ff3-b4f6-5565fc1d60f3.png


Dimensions: 137,16 (pp) x 15,2 x 4,9m (141,73m on Variant B)
Displacement: 5.754tons (standard), 6.540tons (full load) (6.118tons (standard), 7.000tons (full load) on Variant B)
Armour: 19mm Deck, 76mm Belt
Engines: 27.500shp Parson Steam Turbines, 2 shafts
Speed: 47km/h (25,5knots)
Range: 7.700km (4.160nm)
Armaments:
4x1 7,5"/45 (190mm) BL Mk VI (5x1 on Variant B)
2x1 3"/45 (76mm) QF HA Mk II AA Gun
2x1 40mm/39 QF Mk II Pom-pom AA Gun
2x1 533mm Below Water Torpedo Tubes


Compare it to Adelaide as finished in 1922:

Dimensions: 131,06 (pp) 141 (oa) x 15,2 x 4,9m
Displacement: 5.550tons (standard), 6.160tons (full load)
Armour: 19mm Deck, 76mm Belt
Engines: 25.500shp Parson Steam Turbines, 2 shafts
Speed: 47km/h (25,5knots)
Range: 7.700km (4.160nm)
Armaments:
9x1 6"/45 (152mm) BL Mk XII Guns
1x1 3"/40 (76mm) QF Mk I AA Gun
2x1 533mm Below Water Torpedo Tubes
 
I know several years have passed, but I think it worth noting that Volkodav's comment "the need for early delivery was not as urgent as suggested either as Australia was under no obligation to dispose of the battlecruiser Australia at all, let alone by a specific date"
is incorrect.
The Washington Treaty was a treaty between USA, Japan, France, Italy and the British Empire.
Its Article XX listed (by name) the capital ships which could be retained (Australia was not one of them)

Article XX Part 2, item IV read
IV. The periods in which scrapping of vessels is to be effected are as follows:

(a) In the case of vessels to be scrapped under the first paragraph of Article II, the work of rendering the vessels incapable of further warlike service, in accordance with paragraph III of this Part, shall be completed within six months from the coming into force of the present Treaty, and the scrapping shall be finally effected within eighteen months from such coming into force.
The ships were listed:
Commonwealth (16), Agamemnon (13), Dreadnought (15), Bellerophon (12), St. Vincent (11), Inflexible (13), Superb (12), Neptune (10), Hercules (10), Indomitable (13), Temeraire (12), New Zealand (9), Lion (9), Conquerer (9), Monarch (9), Orion (9), Australia (8), Agincourt (7), Erin (7), 4 building or projected.*
 
Note further that it was not only representatives of the British Govt that were listed in the preamble as Plenipotentiaries for the British Empire, but also representatives from the Dominion of of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of New Zealand, the Union of South Africa as well as a representative from India. All these persons were also signitories of the Treaty on behalf of their respective Govts.

Treaty wording can be found here.
 
IIRC correctly, the US didn't specifically invite Australia to participate so Australia could have not turn up, not signed and retain HMAS Australia or that GB couldn't include HMAS Australia in her totals to dispose of as GB didn't legally own HMAS Australia. These cases were moot as the Australian government was more than happy to participate in disarmament efforts.
 
Dorknought said:
IIRC correctly, the US didn't specifically invite Australia to participate so Australia could have not turn up, not signed and retain HMAS Australia or that GB couldn't include HMAS Australia in her totals to dispose of as GB didn't legally own HMAS Australia. These cases were moot as the Australian government was more than happy to participate in disarmament efforts.
Click to expand...
The US considered Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa to be part of the UK militarily, as the structure of the British Empire's military commands was exactly that.

The US was always going to count all those nations' navies into the "British" total, whether they showed up and signed or stayed home and refused to sign.
 
BlackBat242 said:
The US considered Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa to be part of the UK militarily, as the structure of the British Empire's military commands was exactly that.

The US was always going to count all those nations' navies into the "British" total, whether they showed up and signed or stayed home and refused to sign.
Click to expand...
You might 'consider' me to be a party to a treaty I've never signed, but I might 'consider' myself differently.
 
BlackBat242 said:
The US was always going to count all those nations' navies into the "British" total, whether they showed up and signed or stayed home and refused to sign.
Click to expand...
Quite. As far as the rest of the world - and, at the time, a fairly large part of the Australian population - was concerned, Australia was as integral a part of the British Empire as Algeria was of the French Republic, or Alaska was of the United States.
Kanga said:
You might 'consider' me to be a party to a treaty I've never signed, but I might 'consider' myself differently.
Click to expand...
Try that argument with any number of laws that you've never personally agreed to. The positions are very nearly equivalent.
 
Dorknought said:
IIRC correctly, the US didn't specifically invite Australia to participate so Australia could have not turn up, not signed and retain HMAS Australia or that GB couldn't include HMAS Australia in her totals to dispose of as GB didn't legally own HMAS Australia. These cases were moot as the Australian government was more than happy to participate in disarmament efforts.
Click to expand...
Problem was, Australia didn't want to retain HMAS Australia. In 1920s, the military value of first-generation battlecruiser was very limited. Her speed was far too low to hunt enemy turbine cruisers - or run away from enemy battlecruisers. Both existing Japanese and planned American battlecruisers were overwhelmingly superior to HMAS Australia. Essentially, she served no purpose anymore.
 
Yellow Palace said:
Quite. As far as the rest of the world - and, at the time, a fairly large part of the Australian population - was concerned, Australia was as integral a part of the British Empire as Algeria was of the French Republic, or Alaska was of the United States.

Try that argument with any number of laws that you've never personally agreed to. The positions are very nearly equivalent.
Click to expand...
Substantial oversimplifications in both cases. In reality the dominions were behaving with increasing independence after WW1, such as Australia's position on New Guinea during the Versailles negotiations, which was recognised by the Balfour Declaration in 1926. Your second point comparing domestic law to international treaties is also pretty dubious.
 
Yellow Palace said:
Try that argument with any number of laws that you've never personally agreed to. The positions are very nearly equivalent.
Click to expand...
Yes but HMG didn't have the authority to scrap HMAS Australia as the ship was paid for and owned by the Australian Government.

Dilandu said:
Problem was, Australia didn't want to retain HMAS Australia. In 1920s, the military value of first-generation battlecruiser was very limited. Her speed was far too low to hunt enemy turbine cruisers - or run away from enemy battlecruisers. Both existing Japanese and planned American battlecruisers were overwhelmingly superior to HMAS Australia. Essentially, she served no purpose anymore.
Click to expand...
Yes, Australia didn't want to retain the ship but she was superior to any Armoured cruiser retained by either the US or Japan. Removing HMAS Australia made those old ships viable.
 
There's precedent from the Versailles Treaty that could have been applied. Woodrow Wilson specifically tried to exclude the Dominions - he and Australia's Billy Hughes seem to have hated each other on sight - but Canada and Australia weren't having it and Hughes totally put Wilson in his place when he tried to claim Australia wasn't significant enough to have a voice. "I speak for sixty thousand dead. For how many do you speak?" .

So the precedent for the Dominions to have a separate voice in international treaties existed. They were legally separate countries and there's plenty of precedent around countries in personal union with someone else's monarch that could have been applied. Ultimately the Empire wanted to avoid a new building race, and Australia and Canada didn't have any great desire to build significant fleets, but it could have gone differently if they had considered it a strategic imperative.
 
Regardless of whether Australia and/or the United Kingdom considered the former to be independent of the latter, the rest of the world wouldn't accept that to be the case in 1922, at least in matters of naval policy. If the Australian government refused to participate in the talks, then those talks would have broken down.

As far as HMAS AUSTRALIA goes, it was decommissioned before the Washington Treaty was agreed. The sole effect of the treaty was to require that it was disposed of within six months of signing - which, practically, meant scuttling - rather than being sold off for scrap a year or two later.
 
Yellow Palace said:
If the Australian government refused to participate in the talks, then those talks would have broken down.
Click to expand...
Which would have been a powerful argument for accommodating Australian desires. Remember, everyone wanted an agreement rather than a new arms race.
 
Dorknought said:
Yes, Australia didn't want to retain the ship but she was superior to any Armoured cruiser retained by either the US or Japan. Removing HMAS Australia made those old ships viable.
Click to expand...
Those armored cruisers were clearly obsolete and did not represent any significant military value anymore. It was obvious that they would be replaced with new construction as soon as possible. Retaining HMAS Australia for the remote probability that she would somehow meet an isolated armored cruiser was simply impractical.
 
Yellow Palace said:
As far as HMAS AUSTRALIA goes, it was decommissioned before the Washington Treaty was agreed. The sole effect of the treaty was to require that it was disposed of within six months of signing - which, practically, meant scuttling - rather than being sold off for scrap a year or two later.
Click to expand...
Exactly. From 1922 point of view, she was hopelessly obsolete - not fast enough to serve as cruiser, not armed or armored enough to survive meeting with battlecruisers. Basically the situation was:

* Against modern turbine light cruisers - HMAS Australia was next thing to useless, since she was unable to catch them.
* Against modern (well, at least coming to be modern) turbine heavy cruisers - HMAS Australia was, again, next thing to useless, because she could neither catch them, nor fight them without significant refit. Even first-generation heavy cruisers would have significant range advantage over old battlecruiser; and HMAS Australia armored deck was not designed to survive plunging hits from 8-inch guns.
* Against modern battlecruisers (like Japanese Kongo), not to mention the next generation ones (like Japanese Amagi and American Lexington) - HMAS Australia was worse then useless. She could neither fight them, nor run away from them.
* Against obsolete armored cruisers - even here HMAS Australia would not exactly fare well. While she would have some speed and artillery advantage, the last-generation Japanese armored cruisers (with 12-inch guns) and American armored cruisers (with 10-inch guns) would be pretty comparable opponents, especially if HMAS Australia would be forced to fight more than one.
* As part of Royal Navy combined force - HMAS Australia was, again, useless, since she was slower and less armed and armored than even the oldest British remaining battlecruiser (HMS Tiger), and putting her into battleship line would be suicidal.

So without some really major and costly refit - which would still be only a partial solution - HMAS Australia was of less use than Australian light cruisers.
 
DWG said:
Which would have been a powerful argument for accommodating Australian desires. Remember, everyone wanted an agreement rather than a new arms race.
Click to expand...
Which is, more or less, what happened. Australia was represented in the negotiations, as part of the British Empire. The Australian delegate signed the treaty. As a party to the treaty, it was bound by the obligations.

Where this discussion came in was the statement that Australia wasn't obliged to dispose of the AUSTRALIA. Part 1 Article II dictated that only certain specified capital ships could be retained. AUSTRALIA was not one of those ships, and was listed in Part 3 Section II as one of the ships to be scrapped. Therefore AUSTRALIA could not be retained.

In fact, Australian desires were evidently at least partly accomodated in that Australia was excluded from the prohibition on new fortifications or naval bases in the Pacific.
 

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