RJGFox
I really should change my personal text
- Joined
- 25 December 2011
- Messages
- 2
- Reaction score
- 2
I have spent a very enjoyable evening reading a number of threads on alternative RNs, including, but not limited to:
Hood's large repair
A Royal Navy for the far east
They really demonstrate the breadth of knowledge and expertise here. While reading I was struck by a few thoughts about battlecruisers:
Taking this into account, and the RNs desire for fast ships, is there any suggestions in the historiography of what the Admiralty's approach to the replacement of these battlecruisers may have been? Assuming a 40/50-odd month build time, Repulse's replacement would have needed to have been ordered in the 1941/2 Programme?
It is compellingly attractive to say Vanguard is the answer - but she is a. the answer to a different question, and b. a few knots short of the speed of the battlecruisers.
My own thoughts are that the 'fast battleship' means that assumptions were that they would be replaced by a Lion, or a Lion successor, but welcome any further thoughts or insight anyone may have.
R
Hood's large repair
A Royal Navy for the far east
They really demonstrate the breadth of knowledge and expertise here. While reading I was struck by a few thoughts about battlecruisers:
- Famously, Hood was overdue a reconstruction, which, sans War, would have taken up approx. 1942-1945 - and given her 10 years of life if her engines were replaced.
- Renown completed a reconstruction in 1939 where she had also received new engines. This would have likely given her a another decade.
- Repulse completed a reconstruction in 1936 but her engines had not been replaced. By the mid 1940s she would have been worn out and even more unreliable than I understand she was. It appears unlikely to be economic at that stage to reconstruct a ship that is almost in her fourth decade.
Taking this into account, and the RNs desire for fast ships, is there any suggestions in the historiography of what the Admiralty's approach to the replacement of these battlecruisers may have been? Assuming a 40/50-odd month build time, Repulse's replacement would have needed to have been ordered in the 1941/2 Programme?
It is compellingly attractive to say Vanguard is the answer - but she is a. the answer to a different question, and b. a few knots short of the speed of the battlecruisers.
My own thoughts are that the 'fast battleship' means that assumptions were that they would be replaced by a Lion, or a Lion successor, but welcome any further thoughts or insight anyone may have.
R
