[DesertFox]

I really do not want to talk about HMS Dreadnought herself but more about other navy's dreadnoughts

The USS South Carolina and her sister were developed before the US had particulars of HMS Dreadnought but it sounds like SMS Nassau and her sisters were developed as a direct response to HMS Dreadnought

First off, is that actually true?
Second, what legacies of previous designs are carried within her design?
Third, what she a hurried design possibly even still in development after being laid down?

This post has been edited by DesertFox: 04 June 2008 - 1122 AM

[jwduquette1]

DesertFox, on Wed 4 Jun 2008 1621, said:

I really do not want to talk about HMS Dreadnought herself but more about other navy's dreadnoughts

The USS South Carolina and her sister were developed before the US had particulars of HMS Dreadnought but it sounds like SMS Nassau and her sisters were developed as a direct response to HMS Dreadnought

First off, is that actually true?
Second, what legacies of previous designs are carried within her design?
Third, what she a hurried design possibly even still in development after being laid down?

You might try asking your question over on the Dreadnought Project Forum -- a lot of Dreadnought grogs over there.

http://dreadnoughtpr...7aa57f292481776

[aevans]

DesertFox, on Wed 4 Jun 2008 1621, said:

First off, is that actually true?
Third, what she a hurried design possibly even still in development after being laid down?

These two questions kind of go together.

The Germans did delay about a year longer than usual between their last pre-dreadnought and SMS Nassau. So they must have been considering developments overseas to some degree before going ahead. There's a certain degree to which design must be set before one begins construction. Armament and general layout have to be known, because they affect hull design and you can't bend metal until you know what shape to put it in. Having said that, minor details are changing all the time during construction.

Quote

Second, what legacies of previous designs are carried within her design?

Flush deck with little fore to aft downward sheer (compare to US Wyoming class)

Compact secondary battery, balanced fore and aft biased mounts

VTE engines (Germans don't convert to turbines until Kaiser class)

[irregularmedic]

It just so happens that I am in the middle of reading a monumental tome entitled 'Dreadnought' and just reached the point wherein the author is actually starting to discuss dreadnoughts at page 468! :blink: Needless to say it gave a VERY comprehensive lead up the point of the development of the battleship encompassing virtually everything you can think of from about the mid 1800's up until WWI.

Anyway on page 469 it says:

Quote

The genesis of the Dreadnought traditionally is traced to an Italian, Vittorio Cuniberti, the chief constructor of the Italian Navy. Cuniberti had already designed four light battleships, the Vittorio Emanuele class, each carrying two 12-inch and twelve 8-inch guns, for his own navy. When his design for a larger, more heavily armed ship for the Italian Fleet was rejected, he received permission to write an article for Jane's Fighting Ships, calling for a 17,000-ton ship carrying twelve 12-inch guns. The article appeared in the 1903 annual edition of the publication and although it galvanized naval thinking on the matter of the all-big-gun-ship, it may not have had quite the pioneer effect claimed for it at the time. Several powers, including the United States and Japan, were moving in the direction of larger, faster, heavier gunned ships. In the spring of 1904, the U.S. Navy presented to Congress an appropriation request for two 16,000 ton ships each carrying eight 12-inch guns. The Americans moved slowly; the South Carolina and the Michigan were not authorized until the spring of 1905 and not laid down until the autumn of 1906, Japan laid down two large 20,000-ton, 20-knot "semi-dreadnoughts" (they carried four 12-inch and twelve 10-inch guns) in the spring of 1905.

The author doesn't name the class of ship that the Japanese vessels are.

Quote

Cuniberti's article and reports of American and Japanese designs may have reinforced Fisher's belief that the fast all-big-gun ship was the warship of the future, but in his Memoirs, the British admiral gives no credit to Cuniberti or any other foreigner. He states that he personally first conceived the fast, big-gun battleship (which he half facetiously dubbed H.M.S. Untakeable) at Malta in 1900, where he discussed his ideas with W.H. Gard, then chief constructor of the Malta dockyard.

Fisher goes on to direct a committee designing the Dreadnought, "the committee sat for seven weeks from January 3 to February 22, 1905". This committee essentially refines and executes the concept Fisher already has in his head for a fast, all-big-gun battleship. When and how he reached this concept would appear to be open to conjecture.


Clear as mud? ;)

Ill be able to answer your last question tomorrow. It was pure serendipity that I finally reached the above page just as I was arriving home on the bus this morning. I'm only a couple of pages past that but won't have a chance to read more until late tonight and tomorrow, but I'm sure the book will enlighten me as to whether the Dreadnought was hurried and/or whether it was still in development while being laid down. I do know that it was a close thing whether or not they were going to put steam turbines in rather than reciprocating engines. Fisher was insistent on speed being a priority but turbines were still VERY new and having some teething problems. The committee was torn:

Quote

To go ahead and order an essentially untried system for a ship of the size and significance of the Dreadnought was an enormous risk. As the moment of decision approached, Philip Watts, who had expressed no opinion, was asked what he thought. Watts replied succinctly. "If you fit reciprocating engines," he said, "these ships will be out of date within five years." that decided it; the Dreadnought would have turbines.

This post has been edited by irregularmedic: 04 June 2008 - 1208 PM

[DesertFox]

Actually as far as books, I prefer The Battleship Dreadnought by John Roberts...the drawing of the vessel are so vivid you could almost rebuild her from the drawings

[Getz]

aevans, on Wed 4 Jun 2008 1152, said:

These two questions kind of go together.

The Germans did delay about a year longer than usual between their last pre-dreadnought and SMS Nassau. So they must have been considering developments overseas to some degree before going ahead. There's a certain degree to which design must be set before one begins construction. Armament and general layout have to be known, because they affect hull design and you can't bend metal until you know what shape to put it in. Having said that, minor details are changing all the time during construction.
Flush deck with little fore to aft downward sheer (compare to US Wyoming class)

Compact secondary battery, balanced fore and aft biased mounts

VTE engines (Germans don't convert to turbines until Kaiser class)

Strictly, Von der Tann was the first German Turbine Dreadnought.

My understanding that the Nassaus were derived from a Lord Nelson equivalent Pre-Dreadnought design. I've also read that there was an 8X11" intermediate design that was abandoned as it didn't have enough firepower compared to it's rivals (apparently they would have had a six gun broadside, although I'm not clear on the actual turret layout).

The Nassaus were only ever going to be VTE powered but I'm pretty certain the Germans wanted a turbine powered design for the Ostfriesland's (in fact I've seen a design Ostfriesland class proposal with a Dreadnought like turret arrangement that was probably turbine powered) but they didn't yet have the capacity to build enough turbines for both the BB and the BC program.

This post has been edited by Getz: 04 June 2008 - 1222 PM

[aevans]

Getz, on Wed 4 Jun 2008 1719, said:

Strictly, Von der Tann was the first German Turbine Dreadnought.

My understanding that the Nassaus were derived from a Lord Nelson equivalent Pre-Dreadnought design. I've also read that there was an 8X11" intermediate design that was abandoned as it didn't have enough firepower compared to it's rivals (apparently they would have had a six gun broadside, although I'm not clear on the actual turret layout).

The Nassaus were only ever going to be VTE powered but I'm pretty certain the Germans wanted a turbine powered design for the Ostfriesland's, but they didn't yet have the capacity to build enough turbines for both the BB and the BC program.

That makes sense.

You're right, I forgot about the battlecruisers, maybe because the Germans actually thought of them as evolutions of the cruiser (see Blucher, a clearly intermediate type between armored cruisers and battlecruisers).

[Tiornu]

Referring to the Satsumas as "semi-dreadnoughts" strikes me as rather silly. The fact is that the Japanese had the option to build dreadnoughts and specifically chose otherwise due to the imposing technical demands. An early design in the Satsuma project showed a main battery of eight 12in guns all mounted on the centerline.
The appearance of Dreadnought had a significant impact on Japanese design, and Invincible caused a complete stop in armored cruiser design, despite the fact that Japanese armored cruisers had already designed armored cruisers with a big-gun main armament.
For the Germans, you may want to look at Greissmer's books. Apparently the designers were still debating 21-24cm designs before they got word about Dreadnought. And then there's Blucher, of course.

[DesertFox]

aevans, on Wed 4 Jun 2008 1252, said:

VTE engines (Germans don't convert to turbines until Kaiser class)

I would strike that VTE engines were not a "deal breaker" which US vessel classes able to reach 21 knots with forced lubrication and for extended lengths of time.

[aevans]

DesertFox, on Wed 4 Jun 2008 2124, said:

I would strike that VTE engines were not a "deal breaker" which US vessel classes able to reach 21 knots with forced lubrication and for extended lengths of time.

I don't think they were either. I was just answering the question about similarities between the last German pre-dreadnought class and their first dreadnought class. The Nassaus were rated at 19 knots and achieved 20 in trial. The Helgolands were rated at 20 knots and, except for the lead ship (which came close), achieved 21 on trials. I don't think they saw VTE as a critical handicap to the dreadnoughtness of their BBs.

This post has been edited by aevans: 04 June 2008 - 1639 PM

[Getz]

aevans, on Wed 4 Jun 2008 1633, said:

I don't think they were either. I was just answering the question about similarities between the last German pre-dreadnought class and their first dreadnought class. The Nassaus were rated at 19 knots and achieved 20 in trial. The Helgolands were rated at 20 knots and, except for the lead ship (which came close), achieved 21 on trials. I don't think they saw VTE as a critical handicap to the dreadnoughtness of their BBs.

That said, while the VTE engined Dreadnoughts were capable of similar maximum speeds to Turbine powered Dreadnoughts, they could not maintain similar sustained speeds.

At high revolutions the vibrations of a VTE engine cause it to literally shake itself to pieces, and they cannot put up with that kind of punishment for long. Turbine powered ships can cruise at near maximum speed for essentially as long as they have fuel on board and the stokers can keep working (a vital, but oft overlooked limitation on the performance of coal fired ships).

Furthermore, even if the VTE powered ship is able to maintain it's speed for a significant length of time, there is still the issue of vibration to deal with. Significant vibration can seriously degrade a ship's fire control performance as it becomes much harder to take accurate range cuts, and particularly severe vibration has been known to damage optical equipment, especially when mounted high up or close to the origin of the vibration.

Therefore, a VTE powered battleline may have a maximum speed of 20 knots, but they will probably only have a sustained cruising speed of about 15 knots and battle speed of 18 knots. A turbine powered battleline will have a cruising and battle speed much closer to it's maximum speed.

This post has been edited by Getz: 04 June 2008 - 1802 PM

[aevans]

Getz, on Wed 4 Jun 2008 2255, said:

Therefore, a VTE powered battleline may have a maximum speed of 20 knots, but they will probably only have a sustained cruising speed of about 15 knots and battle speed of 18 knots. A turbine powered battleline will have a cruising and battle speed much closer to it's maximum speed.

I think you underestimate the effect of stoker endurance.

[DesertFox]

I will have to look up in Friedman on the USS Delaware with sustained cruising at full speed and how long it was able to carry its top speed. It was a significant period from what I remember reading.

How much the vibration effect fire control seems to be up to some debate. With the Delaware, it did not appear to be a particular concern but when discussing the Texas in the 1930s it did seem to be a problem. A factor might have been steadily improved fire control but that is a guess I will admit.

One item with the German fleet was that they were designed as a comparatively short range force and likely would only operate for a day or two at a time before heading back to sheltered waters. They never had to be designed to cover the Oceans of the world like the British and American navies especially the Pacific in the American case. I know that part of the crew of German vessels were normal berthed ashore.

[dpapp2]

aevans, on Wed 4 Jun 2008 1625, said:

I think you underestimate the effect of stoker endurance.

More important on destroyers, than ships with significantly larger crews, you can have more stokers available. Destroyers had similar SHPs as 21kts battleships.
One reason that early destroyer trial speeds were higher than max speed in service was that the companies got extra stokers on board for the trials. As the trials lasted 4-8hrs at full-power in RN practice, it could make several knots of difference.

[Tiornu]

Quote

One item with the German fleet was that they were designed as a comparatively short range force and likely would only operate for a day or two at a time before heading back to sheltered waters.

Would someone like to compare range figures for German and other battleships?

[DesertFox]

Tiornu, on Wed 4 Jun 2008 2037, said:

Would someone like to compare range figures for German and other battleships?

In this case, I mean more than fuel at least for battleships...It makes sense too and is not really a knock against their design but they were not really designed to operate in the Pacific (for example)

edit: Noted a problem.....I believe when I listed the range of South Carolina in Wiki it was its "Cruising Radius" and it was changed by someone to "range" but cruising radius is really the waypoint where you can turn around and go home where range is total range if I understand.

This post has been edited by DesertFox: 04 June 2008 - 2001 PM

[Grapple]

DesertFox, on Wed 4 Jun 2008 1932, said:

I will have to look up in Friedman on the USS Delaware with sustained cruising at full speed and how long it was able to carry its top speed. It was a significant period from what I remember reading.

The book, “Naval Reciprocating Engines and Auxiliary Machinery”, 1914 has the following quote from an article called Engineering Progress in the US Navy.

Quote

The full-power twenty-four hour run of the Delaware, made without preparation immediately after her arrival home from Chili, demonstrates this reliability of the present type of battleship engines very thoroughly. As stated, without any preliminary preparation of engines or machinery, the vessel put to sea, and upon getting well clear of land a full-power run of four hours was started, during which time the vessel averaged 21.86 knots per hour. Without intermission the vessel continued on for twenty hours longer, averaging for the full twenty four hours a speed of 21.3 knots, the ship automatically slowing down as the fires became dirty and the personnel fatigued.

[DesertFox]

Grapple, on Wed 4 Jun 2008 2053, said:

The book, “Naval Reciprocating Engines and Auxiliary Machinery”, 1914 has the following quote from an article called Engineering Progress in the US Navy.

Is there an online copy of this book available or anything? I have a feeling that the local library would have a fit if I request if from them and curious what other interesting tidbits are in it

[zaevor2000]

Tiornu, on Wed 4 Jun 2008 1937, said:

Would someone like to compare range figures for German and other battleships?

Radius in nautical miles/knots

German

Deutschland class-- 4800/12
Nassau class-- 9400/10
Helgoland class-- 3600/18
Kaiser class-- 7900/12
Konig class-- 8000/12
Bayern class-- 5016/12

von der Tann-- 4400/14
Moltke class-- 4120/14
Seydlitz-- 4200/14
Derfflinger class-- 5300/14

British

Lord Nelson class-- 9180/10
Dreadnought-- 6620/10 OR 4910/18.4
Bellerophron class-- 5720/10 OR 4250/18.3
Collingwood class-- 6900/10 OR 4250/18.7
Neptune-- 6330/10 OR 3820/18.5
Collossus class-- 6680/10 OR 4050/18.5
Orion class-- 6730/10 OR 4110/19
King George V class-- 4060/18.1
Iron Duke class-- 7780/10 OR 4840/19
Agincourt-- N/A
Erin-- 5300/10
Canada-- 4400/10
Queen Elizabeth class-- 4400/na
Revenge class-- 4209/na

Invincible class-- 3000/25
Indefatigable class-- 6330/10 OR 3140/22.8 OR 2290/23.5
Lion class-- 5610/10 OR 2420/23.9
Tiger-- 4650/na
Renown class-- 3650/na
Courageous class-- 3200/na
Hood (1920)-- 4000/10

US

Connecticutt class-- 5000/10
South Carolina class-- na
Delaware class-- 9000/12
Florida class-- 6720/10 OR 4600/19
Wyoming class-- 8000/10
New York class-- 10000/10
Nevada class-- 10000/10
Pennsylvania class-- na
New Mexico class-- 10000/10
Tennessee class-- na
Colorado class-- 10000/10

Japan

Satsuma class-- na
Kawachi class-- 2700/10
Kongo class-- 8000/14
Fuso class-- 8000/14
Hyuga class-- 9680/14
Nagato class-- 5500/16

Italy

Vittorio Emanuele class-- 11000/10
Dante Alighieri-- 5000/10
Conte di Cavour class-- 4800/10
Caio Duilio class-- 4800/10

All figures are as built.

The Germans had a longer range than would normally be expected (perhaps a design consideration due to the lack of overseas fueling bases available to the British. The American ranges are surprising compared to the British until it is taken into consideration the numerous overseas fueling opportunities for the British combined with the vast expanses of the Pacific that the Americans had to take into consideration (namely the distance to the Phillipines).

I hope this helps!

Frank

This post has been edited by zaevor2000: 04 June 2008 - 2245 PM

[DesertFox]

zaevor2000, on Wed 4 Jun 2008 2333, said:

Radius in nautical miles/knots

The Germans had a longer range than would normally be expected (perhaps a design consideration due to the lack of overseas fueling bases available to the British. The American ranges are surprising compared to the British until it is taken into consideration the numerous overseas fueling opportunities for the British combined with the vast expanses of the Pacific that the Americans had to take into consideration (namely the distance to the Phillipines).

I hope this helps!

Frank

What is your source...Mine on the US Navy disagrees on a few especially the later classes.....Will post tomorrow morning