Royal Navy Interwar Captial Ships

[odysseus1980]

Agree with Tempest, the K3 is most beautiful of K series.

[JSB]

They are very nice, Looking at the numbers in the description I cant work out haw many guns they have ?( 18' and 6' ) have you pasted the wrong numbers for K3/2 ?

JSB

[smurf]

4x2 18" LII, L2, K2, M2. 3x3 18" LIII, L3, K3, I3, M3, N3. 2x3 18" H3a,b,c. 3x3 16" G3 (initially 16.5", or 3x2 18" possible if needed)
8x2 6" all the above. [J3 had 3x3 15" 50 calibre and 6x2 6"]
4.7" L2,L3, K2,K3, J3 had 6. All the rest 5, except LII 4 and LIII 4x4"
Pom-poms none on LII and LIII; 2 on M2,M3, N3; 4 on rest. Number of barrels not then decided, though G3 spec said 10.
[No 18" 45 cal ever produced. 16" guns and triple turrets fitted Nelson. Nelson spec was 4 eight-barrel pompoms but 8 single fitted. First 8-barrel pompom sea trials not until 1928 aboard Tiger. Production in 1929 and Valiant carried one from 1930]

[csatahajos]

Bravo Zulu on these Hood!

Not wanting to nitpick but: "he 'Ks', like the 'Ls' were unsatisfactory, they were too big (indeed K2 is the heaviest and longest of all the series) and it was felt they needed more protection and a 33kt speed to match the Lexingtons."

I3 was 915ft in length IIRC so technically it was the worst from a docking point of view. I'm not sure about the displ. from the top of my head but should be similarly high or the highest.

And beautiful drawings, all of them, can'T wait to see the H3a,b,c . Keep it up Sir!

[Hood]

Sorry guys, I've corrected the specs and I've also updated the pictures as I had one too many 6in turrets on the drawings!

[smurf]

@csatahajos Agree generally with " The 'Ks', like the 'Ls' were unsatisfactory" but that meant 'did not meet RN requirements',which was very difficult. They were much superior to anything planned elsewhere at the time. I3 was 925' oa, and like a 115' beam K3, needed the Gladstone dock at Liverpool or a floating dock. Too long for Rosyth or Portsmouth. In fact I3 reduced displacement (to 51,750tons) by concentrating the machinery aft and having shorter, wider 18" magazines concentrated in the widest part of the ship, with the third turret aft of the bridge. The H3 series lightened the ship by having only two triple turrets were thus shorter with smaller magazines and less armour. The other approach, G3, had smaller (16inch) guns. That not only led to lighter turrets, but to smaller magazines and a shorter ship (than I3 or the Ks; = Hs) needing less less armour. Blast problems would be smaller, too. Speed was up from just under 30knots for the Ks to just under 32.

Edit H3 two triple turrets - oops

[Hood]

Design J3 November 1920

I've re-started this thread, the *smaller* battlecruiser, the J3. Full details on p.1.

[emperor_andreas]

Very nice work!

[eswube]

Excellent!

[smurf]

Good work. J3 is more like a triple turret Hood than one of the K3 H3 G3 series. It is not a flush deck design, having a low quarterdeck though X turret on a level with A (very like Littorio). Both handsome ships. The aim seems to have been to see what could be achieved on a displacement about 10,000tons less than K3, more comparable with contemporary American and Japanese designs.