Royal Navy Interwar Captial Ships

[Hood]

I'm planning some more changes to the drawing, with a project this big things never move in parallel!

Next up will be a ground-up redraw of the G3 final design in all its glory.

[Hood]

Design G3 Final Design February 1921

The final design of the battlecruiser sequence, G3 was a development of the H3 series and the most impressive. A high metracentric height was designed in to allow G3 to remain stable with her spaces outside the citadel riddled with battle damage.
Displacement: 48,400 tons; dimensions 850ft (wl) length, 106ft beam, 32ft 6ins draught. Machinery 160,000shp for 32kts. Calculations showed 32kts just possible but the powerplant had been squeezed in the and the aft lines alerted causing a 7.5% performance penalty, later reduced to 4% from further Haslar tank tests, but 32kts might have been narrowly missed. Fitting a 180,000shp plant was briefly considered, it would have increased length by 25ft and only provided 0.5kt improvement.
Armament: three triple 16in turrets, eight twin 6in turrets, six single 4.7in HA, four multiple pom-pom mounts (10 or 8-barellled though the official plans show four 6-barelled experimental mounts), four 3pdr saluting guns, two submerged 24.5in torpedo tubes (6 torpedoes each, oxygen enrichment equipment would also be fitted). Each weapon system had director fire (two main director control towers, four 6in director control towers, one HA director control tower, one HA rangefinder, four pom-pom directors, two torpedo rangefinders and one conning tower rangefinder). The DNC wanted the torpedo tubes removed but was overruled. Two aircraft could have been carried on B and X turrets but no final decision was made.
Armour: main belt 14in inclined at 18 degrees (reduced from 25 degrees on the initial G3 design); 8-4in deck armour, 4in over machinery spaces (increased from 3in on the initial design), 8in with 9in slopes over the magazines and fwd and middle boiler rooms, 7in over aft 6in magazine and half of after engine room. The changes added 1,125 tons but savings elsewhere reduced the additional weight to 710 tons. The torpedo protection could withstand a 750lb charge, increasing the system to withstand 1,000lb would have increased the size of the ship too much.

The Legend was approved in August 1921 and four ships were ordered on 26 October from Beardmore, John Brown, Fairfield and Swan Hunter but almost immediately halted by a Cabinet order and then in February 1922 cancelled due to the Washington Treaty. It remains speculation if the order was serious or just a bargaining chip for the Washington talks, although it seems the Admiralty were keen to have them and still desired new battlecruisers though Britain was in a financial crisis and it seems unlikely they (or at least all) would have been completed. Names were never finalised and quoted names in several sources are speculative. From several viewpoints in term of armament and armour the G3 surpassed even later designs excepting the Yamato and even the Iowa (in terms of armour at least in this case). While the Japanese and Americans had developed the Amagi, Kii and Lexington to counter the Admirals, the RN had moved on further and the G3s made everything else under consideration at that time look obsolete. Their novel design was probably flawed given blast concerns with X turret given the experience of damage to Nelson and Rodney whenever they fired abaft of their beam with their forward turrets. However, in terms of fire control, turreted secondaries, extensive AA armament and their internal belt and torpedo protection systems they were far superior to any other design then under consideration. Anthony Preston Conway’s makes an interesting statement in comparing the development from Dreadnought to G3 in just over a decade.

Drawing Notes: This drawing is based off the official DNC plans drawn up in February 1921 and signed off by D’Enycourt and were so detailed that all but the minor details are essentially correct. The ship is shown with the armament depicted on the drawings, hence the early model turrets for the 16in Mk I and 6in Mk XXIII that differ from those eventually fitted to the Nelsons. Also note the experimental six-barelled pom-poms as shown on the drawing, basically six singles mounted on a common mounting. There is some debate as to whether ten or eight-barrelled mounts would have been fitted, had they completed then the eight-barrelled would have been fitted in the 1930s as they became available, the ten-barrel is a far more elusive beast and was probably speculative. Since there are barely any parallel sides and most superstructure surfaces are angled I have used a few extra shades to show the complicated shapes, the forward tower being a very complicated structure. I think this is the most accurate portrayal of G3 it is possible to get and I hope you enjoy it.

[eswube]

Fantastic work.

[Krakatoa]

Well done Hood, an excellent portrayal of a design that showed how good the RN designers could be with no restrictions.

[Charguizard]

I've been waiting for this one for weeks, and even then my expectations have been far surpassed. Great job!

[emperor_andreas]

AWESOME!!!

[John_McCarthy1]

looks great, I used to not care for and think the design of the G3/N3 battlecruisers looked really weird, but you know what after a while it's kinda grown on me. anyway great job man, looks awesome

[erik_t]

Hehe. I might say "beautiful, but heinous".

Excellent execution, as if da Vinci drew a burn victim

[KHT]

Joyous days for the awesome brigade. Always had a soft spot for these beasts.
Quick question: is there any particular reason for the superfiring forward secondaries having rounded turret faces? Are they unable to turn otherwise, or is it some other reason for it?

[Hood]

Many thanks for all the praises.
This was a lengthy and in-depth draw with much research along the way to make sure everything that wasn't on the plans is realistic.
The 3x3 portholes are much easier to work with (perhaps they should become the new standard?) and I've ditched the cartoon porthole blue and I think the outcome fully justifies the switch.
This also is my first 45 degree shading rule hull too, though I was pleased that my original 'by eye guessimate' wasn't too far off.

I actually quite like the looks, very purposeful and quite modernistic, especially compared with most ships of circa 1921. Big pluses are less masts and rigging to draw! I think Q turret was probably useless and that the layout eventually used on Nelson and Rodney made more sense, the H3 designs toyed with just two turrets but realistically nine guns had to be shorehorned in to make this a viable capital ship.

The forward superfiring 6in turret is shown that way on the plans, so I kept that for the depiction. There is nothing physically in the way to prevent rotation on a fore-aft axis. I suspect the main reason is blast, the muzzles are quite close to the roof of the lower turret and would probably cause some damage if fired directly ahead. Probably also allows better use of the arcs available to ensure the 6in battery coverage is as much as possible.