The R's

[LGKMAS]

Looking at the RN in early mid 42. The Admiralty have seen fit to send me the 4 Rs. What can I do with them? They are too slow to dash in and do a bombardment of Burma. They are a huge Betty Magnet, giving VPs to the IJN. And if the KB head for the IO, then they are normally regarded as dead meat. I could send them off to bombard Pegu or Moulmein but the meagre results from that would be far offset by the VPs offered up.
They are not equipped with a reasonable AA suite. What do people do with them? Park them at Aden or Capetown until they are withdrawn? Somerville sent them off to Addu Atoll whenever there was a danger o an engagement so RL they were regarded as fairly useless. Maybe as a surface escort to Capetown/Perth convoys?

[Jorge_Stanbury]

they are not 1st line, but the Japanese typically uses 2nd rate ships in the Indian ocean.
Their AA is at a cruiser level, not great, but not bad.

they are Betty magnets, but they are so well armored that they can usually survive some level of battle damage that would sink most any other ship; I think they are good invasion fleet escorts; slow speed is no longer an issue and the capability to draw and absorb damage is great. They can also support a landing as naval bombardment; where you are hit-and-staying, and not hit-and-running

Historically they were used as convoy escort; if your opponent likes raiding, you can add a degree of insurance by using them to guard your important convoys

[mind_messing]

They're in the same class as your USN slow BB's, just without the fairly meaty AA suite of the late upgrades to the USN slow BB's.

The slow speed relegates them to pretty much invasion support duties as in any sort of surface combat role their slow speed and low manoeuvre screams "Long Lance" to me.

For me, their ideal roles are:

1. Bombardment TF as part of a larger invasion fleet (saving fast BBs to do any surface combat duties).
2. Embedded directly into amphib task forces to soak CD fire during the landings.
3. Last ditch surface combat TF, acting as screen for amphib ships during an invasion.

The convoy escort role also works, but I'm not hugely convinced about putting a 178 VP ship at risk for to save a gaggle of 7-10VP merchantment. I think that's a role better served by the older British CL and any of the Dutch CL's that escape from the DEI.

In terms of where to use them, I think you're right that the Indian Ocean isn't the right spot for them, so move them to the Central Pacific and just join them on to the USN slow BB fleet. That's the best move to my thinking, as it covers the inadequacy of the small RN commitment in the IO while allowing them to actually be used.

[RangerJoe]

It is not worth the VPs to protect the merchantmen. It is worth that cargo that is currently carried and any future cargoes carried.

[Jorge_Stanbury]

It might not be worthy to escort fuel or supply, but I had used them to escort important cargo like army divisions or brigades

It is also very unlikely (but not impossible) that a sub will sink it; as these ships can easily survive a torpedo or even 2

[CV10]

Like some others have mentioned, I've used them to provide a covering force for troop transport convoys. In conjunction with HMS Hermes in a separate air group running her swordfish on ASW, you can provide pretty good anti-surface and ASW screens for your arriving LCUs, though you'll still be vulnerable to air attack.

LGKMAS, you hit the issue right on the head in your first post. The R-class BBs were not considered assets by Somerville nor anyone else in the Eastern Fleet. A fleet air arm pilot described their primary function as being to immobilize 3,000 trained officers and men and that the whole lot would have been sunk if Somerville had tried to use them.

[Andy Mac]

They do have the powerfull 15" BL gun so whilst slow death traps they do have teeth and decent xp if they get in amongst a careless players convoys or invasion TF's and in close combat will do well v most jap BB's ironically jap CA's are probably a bigger threat to them

I try not to use them unless in desperate need they tend to act as convoy escorts for troop convoys to stop surface raiders (but I play v ironman with far more surface raiders on the convoy lanes)

[dr.hal]

Like all old BBs (including the ones at Pearl) they are relics of a bygone era (although many at the time didn't realize it). We modern players know just how vulnerable they are, but most didn't back then (although senior leadership did). In truth they were sent by Churchill to boost morale in the wake of the sinking of the PoW and Repulse. Most of the troops and sailors at the time didn't know what an empty gesture it was. But it did perk up an otherwise very dismal series of events culminating in the loss of the "Gibraltar of the East." As the game doesn't take into account overall systemic morale the reason for these ships to enter into the theater of operations is somewhat lost. However much like the re-floated old US BBs, they do have teeth as Andy indicates and can do some real damage as overgrown monitors once air supremacy has been established.

[Jorge_Stanbury]

i think a key element was the level of modernization achieved before the war; old ships that were modernized in the mid 30s (think Kongos, Nagatos, Renown, some QE) were a lot more useful and some had very successful WW2 careers

[CV10]

The R-class spent most of their careers in the Home Fleet escorting convoys. IIRC, HMS Ramilies was temporarily sidetracked from screening a convoy of Canadian soldiers to help hunt for the Bismarck, but it was for a very short period of time.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: CV10

The R-class spent most of their careers in the Home Fleet escorting convoys. IIRC, HMS Ramilies was temporarily sidetracked from screening a convoy of Canadian soldiers to help hunt for the Bismarck, but it was for a very short period of time.

I think Revenge was with a convoy when Scharnhorst and Gneisenau came calling. The latter two quickly decided to follow the orders not to take risks.

[CV10]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: CV10

The R-class spent most of their careers in the Home Fleet escorting convoys. IIRC, HMS Ramilies was temporarily sidetracked from screening a convoy of Canadian soldiers to help hunt for the Bismarck, but it was for a very short period of time.

I think Revenge was with a convoy when Scharnhorst and Gneisenau came calling. The latter two quickly decided to follow the orders not to take risks.

I think that's right. IIRC, the sinking of HMS Rawalpindi by those two led the Admiralty to assign a battleship to each major convoy.

HMS Revenge had a bad accident on one of those runs. She rammed and sank one of the boom defense ship in Halifax harbor, and every time she entered port thereafter, the remaining boom defense ships would stage exaggerated abandon ship drills.

[splashell]

I've been thinking about these 4R's since it's coming timely in my game. The role of these old and slow dreadnoughts during WW2 is indeed well and historically known as gun platforms against shore/invasions targets. But it is only after the Allies go on the offensive, which may take quite a while on average. What are they used for in the meantime?

In this era it's hard to think of many good uses for them, but what if a good use in itself would be to reinvent the old "fleet-in-being" doctrine? It requires absolutely no moving anywhere, they can just sit in port and do their job, acting as an deterrent for attack/invasion efficiently. They can't run, so it is a very high risk proposition to send them anywhere where they could potentially need to run from, so just keep them in safe places. If the enemy invades with a crushing force and manages to sink them (either by air or sea) then fine, but I think the defender has a very high chance of inflicting crippling losses to the enemy aircraft and attacking ships as well.

I mean in practice, if you own a highly valuable forward base that you want to keep control of, and consider at least a moderate chance to get attacked/invaded by the enemy, you can stock this base full of fighters, enough supplies, fuel, aviation and naval support. The fighters will pretty much negate the air threat for the base (and the BBs), and the slow BBs there pretty would make the enemy think very hard, provided he has recon, whether he really wants to fight a surface carnage on terms where his air superiority is mostly or totally negated. In case the enemy attacks with massive force, you may lose these BBs yes, but they can still potentially inflict very heavy losses on the attacker. In fact I think this would be a very good bang for buck using them. Japan gets 10 BBs and even the slowest might outclass the British R's, but in the end it's better that the 4 R's go down fighting on a pretty level field like they were meant to, rather than keep them doing nothing in Capetown waiting for eventual offensives. So in all the plus side in this is that they won't need to run anywhere, and can potentially go down fighting while inflicting heavy losses on the attacker, given enough air support and perhaps supporting cruisers/DD TFs.

[Jorge_Stanbury]

It goes to timing; early war you won't have enough fighters to get proper protection; if Japan sees this "built", it will send the KB, which will defeat the fighters, and then put enough torpedoes to sink or neutralize the R class battleships

then use amphibious advantage to quickly grab that base, lots of easy victory points, fuel and supply for Japan

then the damaged battleships has to move out of the recently captured port, they would be so slow/ damaged that a few DDs or cruisers would be enough to sink, more victory points for Japan

[splashell]

Yes indeed it comes down to whether the fighter cover is "really" enough, which it probably won't. Of course Pearl Harbor would've probably been quite a bit different as well with a pre knowledge of a strike. It's a hard proposition, though even the full KB strike wings should suffer quite severely against decent amount of fighters and heavy FLAK, but probably never enough to risk several BBs.

[RangerJoe]

Against the computer, I have used them to sink IJN CAs and even find CVs at night. But I also had air superiority in the area.

If they can surprise the enemy, then they can be quite effective.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: splashell

I've been thinking about these 4R's since it's coming timely in my game. The role of these old and slow dreadnoughts during WW2 is indeed well and historically known as gun platforms against shore/invasions targets. But it is only after the Allies go on the offensive, which may take quite a while on average. What are they used for in the meantime?

In this era it's hard to think of many good uses for them, but what if a good use in itself would be to reinvent the old "fleet-in-being" doctrine? It requires absolutely no moving anywhere, they can just sit in port and do their job, acting as an deterrent for attack/invasion efficiently. They can't run, so it is a very high risk proposition to send them anywhere where they could potentially need to run from, so just keep them in safe places. If the enemy invades with a crushing force and manages to sink them (either by air or sea) then fine, but I think the defender has a very high chance of inflicting crippling losses to the enemy aircraft and attacking ships as well.

I mean in practice, if you own a highly valuable forward base that you want to keep control of, and consider at least a moderate chance to get attacked/invaded by the enemy, you can stock this base full of fighters, enough supplies, fuel, aviation and naval support. The fighters will pretty much negate the air threat for the base (and the BBs), and the slow BBs there pretty would make the enemy think very hard, provided he has recon, whether he really wants to fight a surface carnage on terms where his air superiority is mostly or totally negated. In case the enemy attacks with massive force, you may lose these BBs yes, but they can still potentially inflict very heavy losses on the attacker. In fact I think this would be a very good bang for buck using them. Japan gets 10 BBs and even the slowest might outclass the British R's, but in the end it's better that the 4 R's go down fighting on a pretty level field like they were meant to, rather than keep them doing nothing in Capetown waiting for eventual offensives. So in all the plus side in this is that they won't need to run anywhere, and can potentially go down fighting while inflicting heavy losses on the attacker, given enough air support and perhaps supporting cruisers/DD TFs.

Your scenario totally overlooks the opportunity cost to the Allies in protecting these ships. Whereas there is no opportunity cost imposed upon Japan.

Alfred

[Blackhorse]

In 1939, the British Admiralty rejected First Lord Winston Churchill's proposal to strip off one or two turrets from the R-Class BBs, and add torpedo blisters, heavy AA, and reinforced deck armor. Churchill wrote in The Gathering Storm:

"I deeply regretted that I was never able to achieve my conception of a squadron of very heavily deck-armoured ships of no more than fifteen knots, bristling with anti-aircraft guns and capable of withstanding to a degree not enjoyed by any other vessel afloat both air and underwater attack...
Throughout the war the Royal Sovereigns remained an expense and a liability, They had none of them been rebuilt like their sisters the Queen Elizabeths, and when, as will be seen in due course, the possibility of bringing them into action against the Japanese Fleet which entered the Indian Ocean in April, 1942 presented itself, the only thought of the Admiral on the spot, of Admiral Pound and the Minister of Defence, was to put as many thousands of miles as possible between them and the enemy in the shortest time possible."

[Ian R]

Part of the problem with the "R"s is that they were effectively a cheaper, smaller, slower & austere version of the preceding Queen Elizabeths. Their manner of construction* made them more difficult & expensive to modernise than the QEs, although they all did receive AAA upgrades, modern optics and the like in the '30s. In any event, only 3 of the 5 QEs were extensively modernised. Barham got a less extensive rebuild, and Malaya's was never carried out. The outbreak of war scuttled any ideas about more extensive rebuilds of the Rs. The mainly operated as heavy escorts for convoys, and did some fire support work.

The 3 remaining Rs (one was sunk 1939, and one was loaned to the USSR) were worn out by 1944; two were decommissioned as training ships and ultimately cannabalised to keep Ramilles operational as a bombardment platform off Normandy. All 4 of these ships should be withdrawn from the map by January 1944, never to return.

*Edit - their dimensions - length and width - were unsuitable to attempting to rebuild them as faster BBs, at least not without considerable reshaping of the hull by lengthening it, and then installing more powerful modern machinery. All of which was too expensive and not worth the effort.

[RangerJoe]

By that time, the British probably needed the manpower from their crews for other much more important ships.

Royal Oak was sunk at Scapa Flow by Gunther Prien's U-47.