Shipbucket

FLUFF: THE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE WASHINGTON NAVAL TREATY AND FRIGATES.

As previously discussed, the 1922 WNT in the RTL was not very effective at below the capital ship level;

• Tonnage limitations
  Country Capital ships Aircraft carriers
  British Empire 525,000 tons 135,000 tons
  (533,000 tonnes) (137,000 tonnes)
  
  United States 525,000 tons 135,000 tons
  (533,000 tonnes) (137,000 tonnes)
  
  Empire of Japan 315,000 tons 81,000 tons
  (320,000 tonnes) (82,000 tonnes)
  
  France 175,000 tons 60,000 tons
  (178,000 tonnes) (61,000 tonnes)
  
  Italy 175,000 tons 60,000 tons
  (178,000 tonnes) (61,000 tonnes)

Since France proved the stumbling block on submarines and the USN was not about to accept a 1.5/1 cruiser ratio with the British; the fight for parity or ratio below the capital ship level went by the boards. Instead the British wanted to use the Hawkins class as the basis for a maximum cruiser size as to displacement and armament. Fair enough. The French thought they were cheated (they were) in this category as the great three blue water powers placed an upper bound they could live with which militated against the super destroyer qualities that France wanted top restrict the American, British; but mainly Italian cruiser classes.

20.3 cm guns on 10,000 long tons displacement would eventually result in the Algerie, but RTL war experience showed that the French might have had a point with smaller more efficiently balanced in sea qualities and gun power super destroyers of the 5000-7000 tonne class (Didos for example) than with large 10,000 ton tin-can type cruisers. Washington treaty cruisers were notable for a one bomb or torpedo and they were kaput reputation. Notwithstanding the several examples of famous US cruisers being shot and torpedoed to pieces, only to live and fight another day, the closer examined and clearer record shows that a Cleveland or Pensacola was dead meat if hit with a Japanese 800 kg bomb or Type 93 torpedo.

AU ALTERNATIVES:

The USN in the AU Washington Naval Treaty looks more like this.

• Tonnage limitations
  Country Capital ships Aircraft carriers
  British Empire 525,000 tons 135,000 tons
  (533,000 tonnes) (137,000 tonnes)
  
  United States 395,000 tons 270,000 tons
  (401,338 tonnes) (274,,333 tonnes)
  
  Empire of Japan 315,000 tons 81,000 tons
  (320,000 tonnes) (82,000 tonnes)
  
  France 175,000 tons 60,000 tons
  (178,000 tonnes) (61,000 tonnes)
  
  Germany 175,000 tons 60,000 tons
  (178,000 tonnes) (61,000 tonnes)
  
  Italy 175,000 tons 60,000 tons
  (178,000 tonnes) (61,000 tonnes)

That reduces the battle-line to 12 existing US battleships but allows the US to build up to 8 aircraft carriers. This includes 198,000 tons for the Lexingtons and allows 72,000 tons for the two additional carriers after the Lexington conversions enter service. The three converted "experimental" Derfflinger conversions are not counted toward the carrier tonnage. The British keep their four WW I curiosities and their Argus and Hermes are not counted toward their carrier tonnage, while the Japanese are allowed four new builds of their own and keep both the Hosho and the to be built Ryujo as their two "experimentals".

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On the cruiser question, the USN may call their bodyguard ships "frigates" to distinguish these fleet attached units from the traditional "independent" cruisers, but the ships still count toward the cruiser tonnage totals. as amended in the 1930 London Conference.

• Tonnage limitations
  Country Cruisers Destroyers
  British Empire 339,000 tons 235,000 tons
  (344,400 tonnes) (238,771 tonnes)
  
  United States 325,000 tons 270,000 tons
  (330,215 tonnes) (274,,333 tonnes)
  
  Empire of Japan 208,850 tons 151,000 tons
  (212,201 tonnes) (153,423 tonnes)
  
  France 135,000 tons 105,000 tons
  (137,166 tonnes) (106,695 tonnes)
  
  Germany 135,000 tons 105,000 tons
  (137,166 tonnes) (106,685 tonnes)
  
  Italy 135,000 tons 105,000 tons
  (137,166 tonnes) (106,695 tonnes)

None of the parties could agree on submarines, except that Germany pledged to have none and the Japanese demanded parity. In the end, a compromise was reached whereby signatories pledged not to exceed their destroyer tonnage allotment for the submarine tonnages they would build, but they, except Germany, could build whatever kinds of boats they desired. For France and Italy, this meant small submarines and lots of them. For Japan this meant a defacto limit of 100 boats, because nothing short of a U-cruiser could operate in the Pacific in that AU era. America had her own submarine tradition left over from Mister McKinley's Navy that would practically limit her to about the same number of boats as Japan. Both nations would cheat on this ill-defined area with mixed AU results. Japanese boats would be well-armed and of good quality, but not well used. American submarine boats would be like other American warships, about average in overall; quality with somewhat marginal weaponry in the beginning, but rapidly capable of good use once the bugs in the crews and the weaponry was shaken out.

FRIGATES:

A cruiser by any other name is still a cruiser, unless you designed it to not be a cruiser. The role of the Laredos is somewhat different from the RTL Omaha class they are intended to emulate.

Specifications for the Laredo Class
Type: Light cruiser
Displacement: 8,050 long tons (8,179 mt)
Length: 550 ft (167.64 m)
Beam: 59 ft 1 in (18.0 m)
Draft: 20 ft 0 in (6.10 m)
Installed power: 100,000 shp (74,570 kW)
Propulsion: 12 Manitowoc diesel electric generator sets. 8,333 hp (6,414 kW) ea.
Speed: 35 knots (65 km/h) on trials
Endurance: 9,000 nautical miles (17,000 km) at 10 knots (19 km/h)
Complement: 26 officers and 285 rates
Armament:
Laredo;
8 × 5.9 in (150 mm)/50 cal guns (4x2)
8 × 1.18 in (3 cm)/50 cal Winchester Gatling guns (8x1)
10 × 21.65 in (55 cm) torpedo tubes (2x5)
Lincolnton;
8 × 5.9 in (150 mm)/50 cal guns (4x2)
8 × 4 barrel 1.18 in (3 cm)/50 cal Remington 1q auto-cannon (8x4)
10 × 21.65 in (55 cm) torpedo tubes (2x5)
Lawrence:
10 × 5.9 in (150 mm)/50 cal guns (4x2)
8 × 4 barrel 1.18 in (3 cm)/50 cal Remington 1q auto-cannon (8x4)
10 × 21.65 in (55 cm) torpedo tubes (2x5)
Armor:
Deck: 1.57 in (4 cm)
Belt: 3 in (7.5 cm)
Aircraft carried: 1 catapult and 1 seaplane. for the Laredo and Lincolnton classes.

The Americans build 4 Laredos, 6 Lincolntons, and 10 Lawrences for half their eventual allotted 1931 London Conference Washington Treaty cruiser tonnage. They were authorized 18 "heavy cruisers" to the UK's 12 and Japan's 10; Germany's, France's, and Italy's 7 each. Obviously with 165,000 tons left, the Americans are not going to be able to build 18 of the 10,000 ton cruisers, light or heavy, if they do not cheat. Nevertheless they will try to build 18 and not cheat too much.

We'll see what they came up with in a nonce.

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1931 fleet totals by type and nation^1

• Nation:......................UK...........US...........Japan..........France.......Italy......Germany
  Battleship...................12...........12^2 .......6^3............6..............6...........4
  Battlecruiser.................4...........................4^4............1..........................
  Aircraft carrier...............5(2)........6(3)........5(2)............1..........................2
  Heavy cruiser...............10 .........11.............7 ...............5..............4..........3
  Light cruiser.................27..........25...........13................9 ...........10...........7
  Destroyer leader.............6.........................10 .............10..............4...........7
  Destroyer...................151.........180...........75..............67............59.........35
  Cruiser submarine...........3...........................5................3..............1............
  Coastal submarine ........25.........................11...............73............48............
  Patrol submarine...........55...........67^5.......89................3 ............20...........
  Total major warships....300.........304..........227............178...........152........58

^1 This breakdown is according to British classification and nomenclature. Each navy has its own peculiarities. The USN for example classifies 20 of its light cruisers as "frigates".
^2 US battleships do not exactly match European conventions, but then neither do Japanese examples either. By giving up battlecruisers, the Americans sacrificed a "fast squadron" which means a great deal in terms of battleship tactics as understood in 1922. It was frankly a gamble on the ability of the aircraft carrier to replace the battlecruiser in the role as a scout/raider.
^3 The Japanese argued strongly for the Tosas to redress what they saw as a gun-power imbalance vis a vis the Americans.
^4 The Japanese do not consider the rebuilt Kongos to be battlecruisers. The British did. The Americans argued by that definition to add 135,000 tons to their own carrier tonnage.
^5 The average American submarine is huge by foreign standards, but is not rated a cruiser/raider as the British define it, because the Americans point to its limited armament and cruising radius to sustain their claim that it is strictly a patrol submarine. That American subs re-fuel, re-arm and re-provision routinely at sea, and have done so for decades, seems to have escaped the British Admiralty's notice.

Examples of US destroyers in this AU ~ 1930.

These seem like intensely full hulls that would be fortunate to achieve more than about 25 knots. On the plus side, they would certainly keep the sea in bad weather!

I may have to tweak that a bit.

General characteristics of the Duncan Smith and Sitting Bull classes
Type: Destroyer
Displacement:1,850 tons standard, 2,663 tons full load
Length: 348 ft 3 in (106.15 m)
Beam: 36 ft 1 in (11.00 m)
Draft: 16 ft 5 in (5.05 m)
Installed power: 6 Manitowoc/Westinghouse diesel-electric generator complexes; 2 final drive electric motors, 64,774 shp (48,134 kW) on trials
Propulsion: 2 shafts
Speed: 35 knots (65 km/h; 40.27 mph) on trials ^1
Range: 5,640 nmi (10,450 km; 6,490 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Complement: 10 officers, 182 enlisted (peacetime); 16 officers, 235 enlisted (wartime)
Armament:
Duncan Smith class as designed:
8 x 3.9 inch (10 cm)/50 caliber guns (4x2)
4 × 1.18 inch 50 caliber Winchester Gatling guns (3 cm/L50)
10 × 21.67 inch (55 cm) torpedo tubes (2×5) (two mounts centerline)
8 × K gun spaces (not yet available as the US Navy had reservations about the submitted designs)
Sitting Bull class as designed:
4 × 5.9 inch (15 cm)/50 caliber guns (2x2)
4 × 1.18. inch 50 caliber Winchester Gatling guns (3 cm/L50)
10 × 21.67 inch (55 cm) torpedo tubes (2×5) (both mounts centerline)
2 × Depth charge racks in lieu of K- guns
Typical 1934 survivors: (Sitting Bull class)
4 × 5.9 inch (15 cm)/50 caliber guns (2x2)
4 × 1.18. inch 50 caliber Winchester Gatling guns (3 cm/L50)
10 × 21.67 inch (55 cm) torpedo tubes (2 × 5) (both mounts centerline)
8 × K-gun depth charge throwers (backfitted)
2 × depth charge racks (often removed to free up working space on these crowded ships)
Notes: fuel capacity: 444 tons (2,929 barrels) of heavy diesel fuel distillate known as Navy Special Fuel Oil # 12.

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FLUFF: FUBUKI or BUST

The RTL Japanese have generally been innovative when it comes to technology. The British have always claimed that Jackie Fisher invented the dreadnought, but post Russo-Japanese War, the IJN did a curious thing. They tried to build their own dreadnought, but ran into a technical glitch when their gun foundries could not produce enough 30.5 cm guns. The mixed armament secondary battery was of 25.4 cm guns so the Satsuma and the Aki just missed the cut. It was even beaten into commission by the USS South Carolina (1910).

Once again the Japanese used their WWI experience, to attempt to leapfrog the other navies afloat. This time in the RTL, it is the Fubuki class. However, the Japanese once again, despite their innovative ways, fudge the bucket. In the RTL, the TOMORUZU sallies from Sasebo and turns turtle and capsizes (1934?). OOPs.

A good one quarter of the Japanese navy is so defective by American standards.

Not British standards, which is even more stringent about seaworthiness requirements, but the rather laxer American standards.

American answers to the Fubukis will in the AU be rather slower and a bit beamier. But they won't capsize in a Halsey typhoon episode.

Adjusted the hull for drag. Now we have a 33 knot ship.

FLUFF: IN THE DAYS BEFORE RADAR, HOW DO YOU FIND THEM?

Back in the days of Sampson and Schley, when the USN was learning how fleets actually worked, there was a genius named Samuel Pierpont Langley. Now he would embarrass himself with the Langley Flyer and be ridiculed by the general public for his debacle on the Potomac. However; One of the reasons the USN liked him and stuck by him, was because while he was lousy at developing airplanes, he could detect cows in the dark using their body heat at a range of a quarter mile or about 400 meters. That is a cow. The Navy requirement and application for hunting down icebergs in the dark is obvious.

Oddly enough the thermopile array Langley invented, Tesla refined and Parker ultimately perfected after the Titanic sank RTL (1912) was quite effective at noticing the temperature differences put out by a warship's engine room against; say, the Venezuelan coast (Germans, Italians and the sneaky British in 1903.). Aha. Passive infrared detection. Now you can shoot them in the dark. Not so fast, ladies and gerbils. The bolometers let you know something, like a heat blob, was out there and at which arc of the horizon the lookouts should train their telescopes to find that iceberg or warship. It did not give a bearing solution like a telescope did, nor could you use it to triangulate a vector solution. Otherwise everybody would be using such detectors to shoot each other pre WWII. Obviously in the RTL (and in the AU) this does not happen. The IR television detector invented by the mad Hungarian, Kálmán Tihanyi, in 1929 for the British as an air raid warning device, little better than the Langley bolometer, will eventually give you that ability to sight and shoot, but in 1929 Britain as a state secret, means the Germans and the Americans will not get it first and not before 1938. RCA and AGA will need at least ten years to figure out how to make it work.

Nevertheless the bolometer, or the thermopile, is useful and almost everybody naval has some variant available, if for no other reason, as a navigation aid warning device. It is sort of akin in class to a Huhlsmeyer radio-based collision warning system; that being a type of primitive radio echo set that pings off hard metals at extremely short range (1-3 kilometers) and can wake up the sleeping lookouts. It can actually be useful, that IR detector, with 1920's technology out to about 15,000 meters for icebergs and ships. That was what Parker's patent claims in 1914.

What about Reginald Fessenden, the Canadian born, American radio pioneer? Why should his name come up in this AU speculation? Fessenden developed an early form of underwater oscillator that could not only send sound into water from a pressure actuated copper plate, but could hear the return echo in an inversion of the same process. This, too, was a RTL outgrowth of the Titanic disaster. The frequencies were too long wave acoustically to develop the device as a true targeting mechanism against subs, but it was a sonar and it could let you know if an iceberg or a large submarine was within three kilometers of you and it could point you at the object within a 20 degree smear. It would be the British scientist, Ernst Rutherford, about 1916, who would develop a directional hydrophone that could steady down a bearing only solution that makes depth charge overruns on shallow dived submarines possible. The Germans and the Americans would work on captured or copied British sets in the 1920s to the point that German acoustic underwater sensors on the Prinz Eugen in 1941 could detect British warships on a smear bearing over 40,000 meters away (beyond British surface search radar capability at the time), during the Bismark hunt. This was how she was able to dodge the British after she separated from the doomed German battleship. American sets could eventually hear the Tokyo Express revving up for a run down the Slot in a similar fashion at similar ranges, once the Yankee tincan sailors discovered/learned that nasty trick from their own submariners. It made for some spectacular American destroyer torpedo ambushes late in the Solomon Islands Campaign. It is still used today by competent submarine forces to hunt their prey and avoid enemy ASW forces.

In the AU, the Americans get there by 1929. After all, Mr. Teddy Roosevelt's navy in this AU has the Fessenden Oscillator (Gertrude, 1912) that they use as an underwater telephone.

I really wonder what made you lower the draft and and say that made the ship faster

The speed of a vessel is defined mostly by 2 things: the wavemaking resistance and the hull resistance. At low speeds, the waves a ship makes are relatively small, and at top speed at least 70% of the resistance is wavemaking resistance.
The wavemaking resistance can be lowered by having longer, sharper and narrower hulls. A sharper, narrower hull makes lower waves, the length is because of the hull speed of a ship (look up this definition on wikipedia, they describe it better then I can do here)
the hull resistance is mostly defined by the area the water flows around (the area of the submerged hull plating) and the shape of the stern.

By your modification, you actually made the ship slower. You lowered draft but kepth length and displacement the same (or at least, you kept the same equipment on board) which meant an larger beam was required to keep this weight afloat. This increases wavemaking resistance. In addition, it lowers hull volume, so you will have to put smaller engines on board, which means less power.
In the case you did not increase beam, you would have lost stability (which would make the ship slower in any non-flat sea conditions) and increased the 'fullness' of the hull (defined by the block coefficient) which means more wet hull plating area, a less sharp bow and a less optimal stern. This means both your wavemaking and hull resistance increase.
You also made the 'round' part of the stern shorter, which would increase wet hull plating area and made the shape of the stern less optimal.

Increasing speed can best be done by increasing the ships length, increasing the ships power and making the hull less full (lowering the block coefficient, by increasing length, draft and sometimes beam but keeping the displacement low)
To get this ship to a speed of 33 knots, you will have to do all 3, as you have quite a lot of equipment on board and very little engine space.

_________________
Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

I measure drag by wetted surface area. I admit that the tail end is a big problem, but where do I put rudder steerage and aft mag spaces with all else I've got going on at the aft end? I did not change the beam at all as the deck space will carry that deck top equipment load. And bear in mind that the diesel electric complexes are distributed so that the internal volume is not handled the same way as an oil fired boiler steam turbine electric generator system as the US used in the RTL for her larger warships is/was; or as oil fired boiler direct drive turbines on her destroyers and smaller cruisers were. The DEC spaces are somewhat correct I think. The big problem is actually the piping.

As for the deck top equipment, what can I say about it? In my defense I say this. The Fubuki is much much worse in this regard and that was a real ship.

If I have to, I'll go to 90,000 hp and be done with fudging the bucket.

Hopefully the next offering will be more to your liking.

About 60 feet longer, with more horsepower and internal volume than the previous offering.