USN Hybrid Battleship 1924?

[Aquila 1127]

Does anyone know about this?
This was in a Japanese magazine as a "US Navy Aviation Battleship".

According to the magazine, this was studied by the US Navy in October 1924 and was inspired by a proposal for a British "Hybrid battleship" published in Brassey's Naval Annual in 1923.

General characteristics:
Displacement : about 36,500t
Length : 700ft(214m)
Main Battery : 9-16"guns

I have been unable to find any other information other than this magazine.
Does anyone have any information on this ship?

 

[Hood]

Not quite.
It was a design drawn up by the Preliminary Design Branch of the Bureau of Construction and Repair in 1924 in an attempt to depict the British Nelson-class that were then building for the Office of Naval Intelligence. It was known the Nelson's had all their armament forward but the USN seemed not to understand why they were laid out that way due to differences in armour practice between the two navies. So they assumed the aft end was a carrier deck and doodled the ship accordingly. They not only got Nelson's armament and machinery layout wrong but they seemingly had no idea the flight deck as sketched was unusable! But ONI seemed convinced the sketch was feasible but by the end of 1925 it was apparent the Nelson-class were not hybrids.

But it was never an official design intended for the USN. There was indeed a very similar design in US Naval Institute Proceedings in March 1923, by T. G. A. Strothers billed as a 'Future Fighting Ship' which was based on HMS Hood in design. It is possible it influenced the Preliminary Design Branch in some way when they drew up their interpretation of what the Nelson-class might have looked like.

The drawing you have posted looks like a colour reconstruction of a speculative sketch in The Hybrid Warship: The Amalgamation of Big Guns and Aircraft by R. D. Layman and Stephen McLaughlin, who based their sketch off the official sketch design which was also shown.

[As this is a real speculative design, this thread does belong in this section.]

 

[Aquila 1127]

Thanks for the reply.

That is very interesting information.
But for me it is difficult to access the contents of that book

Can you show me the details of it ?
(And sorry for my poor English)

 

[pathology_doc]

I can only imagine the topweight issues that would come with carrying a 16 inch triple that high up. That alone should have tipped someone off that they might be barking up a wrong tree!

 

[MrMemerMan]

I actually have some information. From a PDF of Norman Friedman's US Battleships book. There is a design that looks very similar.

 

[publiusr]

Isle was to be similar, IIRC.

 

[MadRat]

Wouldn't it make more sense to use aft turrets. Such a hybrid wouldn't want to chase after battleships, but rather stand off and disengage when overpowered. Would be totally unable to return fire when moving away. Your bridge can shift to a side and your deck can sit above turret-level if you limit it to two tiers. A first turret just sits below the second, but even with the third, like one that was otherwise an amidship location. Leaves two turrets for firing in egress.

 

[TomS]

Wouldn't it make more sense to use aft turrets. Such a hybrid wouldn't want to chase after battleships, but rather stand off and disengage when overpowered. Would be totally unable to return fire when moving away. Your bridge can shift to a side and your deck can sit above turret-level if you limit it to two tiers. A first turret just sits below the second, but even with the third, like one that was otherwise an amidship location. Leaves two turrets for firing in egress.

Probably. But remember that this wasn't a clean sheet design for the USN. It was an attempt to understand what the RN was doing with the Nelsons. We knew they had three turrets forward, but didn't understand the new British protection standards that had driven them to this configuration. So, the USN constructors speculated that perhaps this arrangement was intended to free up space aft for a flight deck. How such a ship would operate tactically was left for future consideration.