Battleship size growth if WWI didn't happen

[Cjc]

Assuming ww1 hadn't happened and the dreadnought race had continued, were would the battle ship sizes have stoped.

Largest ships with significant design work that were done in OTL seam to me to be 80,000-90,000 tons with close to 1,000 feet leanght and 8×20'-21' guns, would there have been bigger ships biult or was that the largest realistically possible for ships like this.

 

[CV12Hornet]

IMO it would top out around 60,000 tons normal/70,000 tons full load. Yamato/Montana-sized, essentially. You might get a few one-off 80,000-ton monsters, but such ships would require expensive infrastructure upgrades on top of their already eye-watering cost, and are smack dab into the realm of diminishing returns.

 

[Yellow Palace]

There was actually a more-or-less linear trend in battleship size from DREADNOUGHT through to the Washington Naval Treaty, with ships consistently gaining about 1,500 tons per year. Interestingly, YAMATO more or less falls on that trendline.

If the last battleships are built around the same time as in OTL, they're likely to get up to 75,000 tons full load - slightly bigger than YAMATO and MONTANA, but not enormously so.

 

[drwells42]

Certainly they could have gotten up to 80,000 tons and 1000 feet long, with a large number of 18" guns.

The Tillman design studies were based on the US limitations of the Panama Canal locks, as well as other harbor restrictions. The Brits were always concerned about ships being small enough to get into Portsmouth. The H-class design studies showed that the Germans would have run into draft restrictions because of the shallow waters of the North Sea approaches.

The Tillman IV-2 ships would have cost $50 million each, which at the time was a huge sum of money, so financial restrictions might have limited the arms race.

 

[EwenS]

By the end of the 1930s most nations were running into problems with the physical size of the infrastructure needed to construct the new generation of large warships beginning to be designed. That then became the limiting factor rather than tonnage per se.

The US invested heavily in its Navy Yards starting in 1938. But before they could lay down the Montana class, new building docks had to be constructed starting at Philadelphia. These were 1,092ft long and 150ft wide.

HyperWar: Building the Navy's Bases in World War II [Chapter 8]

The French also had problems. The length of the building dock at Brest meant Dunkerque was built with a separate bow section, added after she was moved to the fitting out dock. Richelieu was built in 3 sections in the same facility.

The French then planned a new facility with a larger construction dock and a couple of dry docks at Brest (the Lannion docks) but these were incomplete when France fell.

Jean Bart was the first ship built in a new facility at St Nazaire.

Britain also had problems. During WW1 the Fairfield yard had to realign the slipway on which the Admiral class Rodney (860ft) was to be constructed and relocate part of an adjoining building. There were few dry docks able to accommodate Hood for example. It became a real problem in WW2 when the Malta class carriers were being designed for example. Size was limited by available dry docks and building slips were having to be modified to take them. IIRC 900ft waterline length was then seen as the limit.

Plans for new dry docks at the Portsmouth and Devonport RN Dockyards were often talked about but came to nothing.

 

[Dilandu]

Assuming ww1 hadn't happened and the dreadnought race had continued, were would the battle ship sizes have stoped.

Most likely 50.000-60.000 tons and 16-18 inch guns would be the upper limit. Larger ships just could not be produced in any significant numbers.

Also most likely there would be renewed interest in "second-rate" capital ship - like Fisher's "light battlecruiser", Japanese "X cruiser", American "scout battleship". Something between the light cruiser and full-size battlecruiser/fast battleship. I imagine a quite large number of 20.000-25.000 ton ships build in such niche, essentially becoming the backbone of the fleet (while "proper" battleships became strenghtening force)