Small battleship alternatives/ pocket battleship counters?

[Lascaris]

Dealing with a pocket battleship threat but with a twist. Instead of one of the great powers assume you have a nation that cannot build its own capital ships, that has to deal with a pair of pocket battleships around 1932. Say for example Goeben proved unrepairable and its guns were used for a pair of ships similar to the Italian UP102 and you need a Greek counter for example. (that's my working scenario at the moment. You could just as easily posit a pair of Argentine UP102s and Brazil needing to counter I suppose). What would be your options?

Possible French and Italian tenders look pretty obvious, in the French case Dunkerque was designed to meet the very threat, and in the Italian case there was the 1933 battlecruiser design which was broadly comparable but I'm less certain what the British or US tenders would be and I can't see British or US yards not interested in picking up the contract. In the British case you had a variety a 25-28,000t designs armed with 12in guns of course but all of them as far as I can tell were for slow ships around 23-25kts, the best of the lot speed wise was apparently the 12L design at 27kts which though misses from Friedman. I suppose you could exchange guns for speed (the later 12in designs had 10 guns in twin turrets, 3 triples or 4 twins seems more than sufficient alternatively). On the US side you had the 1933 battlecruiser designs, the Design A with 9x14in may be the best of the lot... and the biggest at 30,000t

On smaller alternatives Lillicrap around 1930 did design a 20,000t "battlecruiser" with 6x12in guns, that seems similar to the big cruiser the Greeks wanted in 1939 and would be still superior as a ship if not as much as something in the Dunkerque range. And of course you have Project 770 for Italy though it's perhaps slow and the 12in armed predecessors to Dumkerque. These would be more economical but not by much. And you could try the option of multiple cruisers but this does not work out for a smaller navy with finite resources as well as it did for the RN. Not when the pair of pocket battleships would be the strongest ships available to both sides...

Thoughts?

 

[SSgtC]

I don't respond with a capital ship. I go asymmetric. I respond with fast destroyers with a heavy torpedo armament, submarines, torpedo boats close to shore and air power. Now my enemy's ship can't even get close to shore to threaten me.

 

[Fluff]

I don't respond with a capital ship. I go asymmetric. I respond with fast destroyers with a heavy torpedo armament, submarines, torpedo boats close to shore and air power. Now my enemy's ship can't even get close to shore to threaten me.

I'd buy some high fallutin Martin B10's and bomb/torpedo your fancy ships, then I'd terrorize your capital city with daylight bombing, until you surrendered.

 

[SSgtC]

I don't respond with a capital ship. I go asymmetric. I respond with fast destroyers with a heavy torpedo armament, submarines, torpedo boats close to shore and air power. Now my enemy's ship can't even get close to shore to threaten me.

I'd buy some high fallutin Martin B10's and bomb/torpedo your fancy ships, then I'd terrorize your capital city with daylight bombing, until you surrendered.

You didn't read what I wrote, did you? I specifically mention air power...

 

[Lascaris]

I don't respond with a capital ship. I go asymmetric. I respond with fast destroyers with a heavy torpedo armament, submarines, torpedo boats close to shore and air power. Now my enemy's ship can't even get close to shore to threaten me.

Which is what the Greeks for example actually did in OTL, or at least planned to do but is not in the cards for our purposes here.

 

[SSgtC]

I don't respond with a capital ship. I go asymmetric. I respond with fast destroyers with a heavy torpedo armament, submarines, torpedo boats close to shore and air power. Now my enemy's ship can't even get close to shore to threaten me.

Which is what the Greeks for example actually did in OTL, or at least planned to do but is not in the cards for our purposes here.

Ok, well if I can't go asymmetric, I probably opt for something like the Alaska class (ideally, an Iowa or KGV would be better, but I'm assuming a full up battleship is not possible?). This way I've got a ship that's more powerful than anything faster (a very short list) and faster than anything more powerful.

 

[RanulfC]

Dealing with a pocket battleship threat but with a twist. Instead of one of the great powers assume you have a nation that cannot build its own capital ships, that has to deal with a pair of pocket battleships around 1932. Say for example Goeben proved unrepairable and its guns were used for a pair of ships similar to the Italian UP102 and you need a Greek counter for example. (that's my working scenario at the moment. You could just as easily posit a pair of Argentine UP102s and Brazil needing to counter I suppose). What would be your options?

Possible French and Italian tenders look pretty obvious, in the French case Dunkerque was designed to meet the very threat, and in the Italian case there was the 1933 battlecruiser design which was broadly comparable but I'm less certain what the British or US tenders would be and I can't see British or US yards not interested in picking up the contract. In the British case you had a variety a 25-28,000t designs armed with 12in guns of course but all of them as far as I can tell were for slow ships around 23-25kts, the best of the lot speed wise was apparently the 12L design at 27kts which though misses from Friedman. I suppose you could exchange guns for speed (the later 12in designs had 10 guns in twin turrets, 3 triples or 4 twins seems more than sufficient alternatively). On the US side you had the 1933 battlecruiser designs, the Design A with 9x14in may be the best of the lot... and the biggest at 30,000t

On smaller alternatives Lillicrap around 1930 did design a 20,000t "battlecruiser" with 6x12in guns, that seems similar to the big cruiser the Greeks wanted in 1939 and would be still superior as a ship if not as much as something in the Dunkerque range. And of course you have Project 770 for Italy though it's perhaps slow and the 12in armed predecessors to Dumkerque. These would be more economical but not by much. And you could try the option of multiple cruisers but this does not work out for a smaller navy with finite resources as well as it did for the RN. Not when the pair of pocket battleships would be the strongest ships available to both sides...

Thoughts?

As SSgtC notes the REAL answer is not to play the same game and come up with a better solution.. The problem of course is at this level of decision making it's not about capability, utility, or economics but politics and perception. Which means you're going to respond with a similar 'pocket-battleship' you can't use or even really afford and it's going to cost your Navy a lot of capability it could really use to get there. You're having to deal with a situation where both side may 'have' these ships but at the same time neither side can afford to actually plan or even threaten to USE these assets due to their over-burdened costs and sunk, (you hope not literally ) resources.

In the early 30s you have an aura and image to maintain to be a credible 'player' but in reality it's a fools game and obviously so as time goes on. Well, at least to the people who have deal with reality whereas politics and politicians don't often have to do that

Randy

 

[Grey Havoc]

Fast minelayers, purpose built or otherwise might be a good short term counter to enemy coastal battleships until you can get your battlecruisers online, depending of course on where the enemy is able to base his battlewagons for use against your country.