How many other BBs were prevented by the 3 Yamatos?

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: herwin
Per DK Brown:

River class DE (UK): £240,000; Colony class DE (US): £570,000
Empire class (UK): £180,000; Liberty ship (US): £450,000

Warship costs
KGV (UK): £7,493,000
A-DD (UK, 1928): £221,000
B-DD (UK, 1929): £219,000
F-DD (UK, 1933): £243,000
E-DD (UK, 1934): £247,000
H-DD (UK, 1936): £254,000
Tribal (UK, 1938): £359,000
J/K-DD (UK, 1939): £401,000

And, I was hoping to close it out earlier, but I guess I need to make my point explicitly--'Aryan efficiency' is science fiction.

Yeah, well, I lost 20 pounds on the Nutri-system, plan. Well, that's cool, But that's not really what Brown says, if you know your stuff. Anyone in the biz knows exactly what Brown is saying. And anyone in the biz, knows exactly how to dial Brown's numbers into an objective, comparison.

Your little Internet sources are meaningless to people who understand costs, contracts, and the realities of ship construction.

So other stuff is cool, but I really don't think you want to play in this arena. This is like the little dot that Kenney put on the piece of paper in front of Sutherland.

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: JWE

Yeah, well, I lost 20 pounds on the Nutri-system, plan. Well, that's cool, But that's not really what Brown says, if you know your stuff. Anyone in the biz knows exactly what Brown is saying. And anyone in the biz, knows exactly how to dial Brown's numbers into an objective, comparison.

Your little Internet sources are meaningless to people who understand costs, contracts, and the realities of ship construction.

So other stuff is cool, but I really don't think you want to play in this arena.

Actually, my copy of Brown is over on the corner of the desk, but I see your point. I have taught software systems costing, and the details matter there, too. The details always matter more than the non-experts imagine.

[DuckofTindalos]

Just give up, already. Nobody's buying it.[8|]

[LiquidSky]

Hmm...not sure what to think, other then it does seem to not matter how much anything cost compared to how much could actually get done.

[DuckofTindalos]

Nail on the head there.[;)]

[bklooste]

In my mod they got the same tonnage but were allowed to keep building some existing ships.

2 Akagi
2 Tosa ( Tosa and Kaga)
2 Kongos converted to target ship and gunnery practice

For London agree to no 16" guns 1  Kongo scrapped.

For war
2  Tosas get a Kongo like makeover , 2 Kongos are rebuilt from target ship  ( giving 3)

Instead of the 4 Yamatos  ( Note the #4 was 30% completed thats 21K)  ~230,000 tons they build
2 30K Battle ships , I used the Harima from Iron Storm  (60k - turrets) ( These reuse turrets from rebuilds )
2 Ibuki Class CA (22K)  ( Also instead of the Tone's making 4  Ibuki)
2 Improved Soryu CVs  (50K) ( one still under construction at the outbreak)
Kongo style rebuilds of Ise and Tosa class

The Yamatos are ordered but wont start till 42 so its up to the player. The Tonage left was used on building better light cruisers.

Note i consider the first 2 Yamatos historically were accelerated due to the time , size and research required  ( and they built it in 4 years) .

Shipywards is not an issue i put every ship on the spread sheet (Also consider they build like *6 the tonnage in 44 also ! )  note the expansion did cause like a 2 month gap for the Yamatos.

Tosa before being scrapped

[Historiker]

"In April 1939, the naval attaché in Tokyo calculated that, given warship costs and the money appropriated for the Imperial Navy by the Diet, the Japanese were building eight (SIC!) battleships of about 40.000tons." Admiral Harold Stark considered this to be reasonably certain in 194. The War Plans Division and the Office of Naval Intelligence listed with a "small margin of error" eight battleships armed with twelve 16in guns as a conservative (SIC!) figure.
The Naval War College instead saw in June 1940 only four modern battleships with nine 16in guns on the game board.
Muir, Malcolm: Rearming in a Vacuum: United States Navy Intelligence and the Japanese Capital Ship Threat, 1936-1945, in: THe journal of military history 54 (1990) p 478.

[RyanCrierie]

American ships were a lot more expensive than comparable UK ships, even though UK shipbuilders were hardly the most modern or efficient.

Vanguard to Trident quotes a 1954 Admiralty report that rates the hull lives of British cruisers to qualify them for reconstruction. The WW2 built ships were rated at a hull life of ten years (that's ten years from completion, not ten years from 1954).

British Shipbuilding never really recovered from the "rush job" mentality of the First World War; then the long interval of intween the wars in the 1920s where no new orders were being built; thus forcing the letting loose of a lot of skilled workers and designers.

For example, while the British ship designers in WWII were just as talented as their counterparts in WWI; there were a lot fewer of them than in the last war; and there was a deficit of senior designers; the ones who do the supervising and checking. So a lot of work was done by Junior designers and trainees which wasn't checked over.

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: RyanCrierie

American ships were a lot more expensive than comparable UK ships, even though UK shipbuilders were hardly the most modern or efficient.

Vanguard to Trident quotes a 1954 Admiralty report that rates the hull lives of British cruisers to qualify them for reconstruction. The WW2 built ships were rated at a hull life of ten years (that's ten years from completion, not ten years from 1954).

British Shipbuilding never really recovered from the "rush job" mentality of the First World War; then the long interval of intween the wars in the 1920s where no new orders were being built; thus forcing the letting loose of a lot of skilled workers and designers.

For example, while the British ship designers in WWII were just as talented as their counterparts in WWI; there were a lot fewer of them than in the last war; and there was a deficit of senior designers; the ones who do the supervising and checking. So a lot of work was done by Junior designers and trainees which wasn't checked over.

I'm writing this as a systems engineer, not as a naval architect; however my systems engineering experience includes submarine and surface vessel design. (I had to understand the systems issues in amphibious force ship design that affected combined arms command and control, and I designed systems for SSNs.)

The lack of experienced senior designers in the RN expressed itself in small but catastrophic design errors. For example, RN cruisers were designed in such a way that a serious hit in the engineering spaces would capsize the ship. The carriers had a similar design error, but that actually reflected a more long-standing problem. The IJN Kongo class (representative of pre-WWI UK design practice) lacked subdivision over the main deck level, so certain types of battle damage would--again--capsize the ship.

The IJN had similar problems, as did the Soviet Navy during the Cold War. In fact, most navies have had these problems. It's hard to get the details right, and the details matter in naval architecture.

Isn't that right, JWE?

[DuckofTindalos]

So many words...[8|]

[herwin]

Why don't you simply hit the green dot?

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: herwin

Why don't you simply hit the green dot?

because he couldn´t reply then... [;)]

[Historiker]

[:D]

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: herwin
I'm writing this as a systems engineer, not as a naval architect; however my systems engineering experience includes submarine and surface vessel design. (I had to understand the systems issues in amphibious force ship design that affected combined arms command and control, and I designed systems for SSNs.)

The lack of experienced senior designers in the RN expressed itself in small but catastrophic design errors. For example, RN cruisers were designed in such a way that a serious hit in the engineering spaces would capsize the ship. The carriers had a similar design error, but that actually reflected a more long-standing problem. The IJN Kongo class (representative of pre-WWI UK design practice) lacked subdivision over the main deck level, so certain types of battle damage would--again--capsize the ship.

The IJN had similar problems, as did the Soviet Navy during the Cold War. In fact, most navies have had these problems. It's hard to get the details right, and the details matter in naval architecture.

Isn't that right, JWE?

If your question is, do details matter in marine architecture, then yes. Frankly, Harry, they are all that really matters. The science is fairly well understood, but the discipline of naval architecture is the art of choice between and among a multitude conflicting alternatives, depending solely on the details.

However, I know absolutely nothing about warship design imperitives. That is way out of my scope and way out of my league. Calculating all that stuff isn't too hard, after the fact, given all the mechanical parameters, but there's just no way of knowing what and why the designer did what he did.

It's a lot like modern racing boats; you pour millions into a design concept, and the other guys pour their millions into their design concept, and then you race and somebody wins, and that's cool, but frankly, nobody has a frikkin clue as to specifically why. I think it's a matter of concept facing concept. This is fundamental in boat design, and very likely extends to warship design. Losing doesn't mean the concept is wrong; a bit more, or less, breeze; a bit more, or less chop; a bit more, or less, shift; it could well have gone the other way.

Details are all that matter.

[mariandavid]

My attempt to answer assuming that the question was just how many battleships could be built. Making the following assumptions
 
- using the identical 16" gun barrels and mountings (twin turrets therefore) to the Mutsu class and her basic blueprints
 
- using machinery that is no more complex than that in use in other ships (an easier way since battleship machinery was space determinant) - the same machinery as a Mutsu class but with up to 20% more output.
 
- using the same number (only) of secondary or tertiary mounts but with whatever guns are in current production.
 
- whatever armour you want taking into account the impact on speed - noting that an extra turret implies a working cost of 10% more displacement
 
Assuming these three (there are others of course) then three for every one Yamato - built at the rate of #1 two years earlier, #2 six months earlier and #3 about a year later (not sure of the last).
 
Explanation: The greatest limitation was in design and testing of a primary gun system. Copying an existing one saves enormous amounts of money and time. Since there were very few gun foundries that could work at this scale, construction could only be accelerated by starting even before ship construction (note that I am assuming two slips in two different yards and that the spare Mutsu class barrels could be used). Often forgotten is the financial constraints Japan was under (assumption here that the BB programme is parallel to a carrier one) - in this respect the greatest cost of all would come from designing and fitting a completely new design of propulsion equipment. The # of mounts is an interesting one - it seems that although it is 'easier' to add a new turret - which is basically a vertical block of turret/shaft/shell/powder magazine (ie add a 5th turret to a Matsu to give a layout like a Mogami CA) - it is much trickier to mess around with designs when adding new gun positions with their associated need for magazines under armour, access to the distributed electric network etc. Hood for example probably blew up when the magazine for three twin AA guns added close to her rear turrets in 1940 and shoved in somewhere convenient but outside full protection were hit.
 
Hope this helps - it produces some adequate if not superb ships that could face a treaty battleship in most respects at considerably lower costs. And that I think would sell it to the Privy Council and the Army - because only two arguments could convince them; either to build the very best or as many as money and resources allowed. Alas if on the other hand you want quasi battle-cruisers the best you could manage would be a measly 1.75 to 1 of the Yamato - not a good exchange.  
 

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: mariandavid

... Assuming these three (there are others of course) then three for every one Yamato - built at the rate of #1 two years earlier, #2 six months earlier and #3 about a year later (not sure of the last). ...

md,

not a naval designer, but a process/production engr. Viewed from my perspective, I would agree with your "thumb at arms length" analysis here.

What JAP, and GER, lacked was design consistency and understanding the value of mass production. They assumed that since they could meet not western production totals that they had to have best "one - ofs". Yes, but no. What they could have done was to look at shorter, high volume runs. The value of mass production is a declining incremental alogrithm; value of the 3rd unit is not as great as the 2nd etc. Thus for any production run in an increasing technological environment, you can rather precisely calculate when you change up to the next best tech level. Neither side really did these calcs very well, but JAP and GER had the most to lose by not doing them. The allies had the economic might to recover from errors or slight inefficiencies created by this.

Applying that here, getting 9 pretty good BB's for 3 really good ones is to me a classic example. The 9 would have been of more value, and we probably under-estimate how fast those last 3 would have come down the slipway.

[bklooste]

Anyway back to the topic
 
If Japan got more allowance with the treaty (ie 70 instead of 60%) thats 52,000 tons more  - it is worth noting the tapping was a major US win as you can see by the difference it makes to the at start forces.
 
1920's
 
The followings are near certainties no one is going to build new ships when these were all partially complete.
- Tosa and Kaga would be completed .
- Amagi and Akagi would be completed as  Carriers.
 
Japan has 65K left then
Tosa and Kaga would need to loose about 3500 tons each to fit in 35000 ton limit ( Smaller torpedo bulges ,no casements could account for most of this you could also run less machinary)
 
You then have 2 options
- Drop a Kongo class ship to training ship and have 25K tons spare.
OR
- shave 5K tons of your other ships or more of the Tosa and Kaga
 
 
With regard to carriers
 
At the time of the treaty you have 9000 tons more a total of 89000 as carriers. So this would be the 2 Akagi class  ( 2 * 26.9K)  , leaving 35K.
 
Historically Amagi is destroyed by earthquake so the tonage needs to be replaced since you cant pinch the Kaga.
 
After Hosho the Ryujo would not be built instead it is anyones guess ( anyone seen any IJ CV designs for the 20s) but they have 35200 tons or 62100 tons after the earthquake. It is likely these ships were built consecutively  based on earlier experience.
           As an example 
                    10K enlarged Ryujo 1921 
                    14K  the second in 1924
                    2*19K in  27 and 29 .
 
 
1930's , the building of ships in the 20s results in Japans shipyards being in better condition.
 
With battleships it is pretty much as Historical however with 2 more ships in the line better able to deal with US ships the lack of a good Battle cruiser/ fast BB becomes apparent and will probably precede the Yamatos especially after the cancelled Number 13 class fast Battleships. Note Historically the specification for the Yamatos were 30+ knots.
 
The other thing to keep in mind is refits ..152,000shp cruiser sized power plants become available in the mid-late 30's the Kongos were refitted but other ships can be as well. Many of the refits can remove the poor firing arc Turrents which allong with cheap cruiser 152,000shp propulsion allow on the cheap Battle Cruiser  (8 *14" (4*2) ,33Knots)  . Diesel engines can also reduce bunkerage and be combined with Turbines.
 
I have plotted every Japanese Capital ship on the slips and there is no real issue worst case you can kick an Aux or liner of the slip .  When they needed more slips they just built one and the time to expand the dry dock to the Yamato class they could build another slip. ( they built quite a few in 43-44) . It is also worth noting that some ships were off the slips much quicker than others (eg Susuka vs rest of her class). I count 5 35K capable slipways and another 7 for ships of around 10K tons.
 
 
I would just trade tonnage for tonnage . They built 3 * 72K tons + 0.3 * 72K + 10K (support ships) . Which is 247K tons of ships and i would add they were also rushed , required LOTS of difficult to make plate , expanded yards and a lot of experimentation for a new 18" gun. About  165K of this was ready at the start of the war and the rest later. Excluding the extras this would buy you  15 Soryus ( but not the aircraft ! )  You cant beat this for impact but its not realistic due to Battleship doctrine
 
Here is a likely one
60K Building 2 Cheap Battle Cruisers
47K equivalent rebuilding more existing ships with better deck armour , plant and AA.
90K building 2 Fast Battle ships
50K  build another 2 Shokaku class
 
pick 80K tons which is still under construction at war start , so probably the fast battleships have just started.
 
 
 
 
 

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: bklooste

Anyway back to the topic

If Japan got more allowance with the treaty (ie 70 instead of 60%) thats 52,000 tons more  - it is worth noting the tapping was a major US win as you can see by the difference it makes to the at start forces.

1920's

The followings are near certainties no one is going to build new ships when these were all partially complete.
- Tosa and Kaga would be completed .
- Amagi and Akagi would be completed as  Carriers.

Japan has 65K left then
Tosa and Kaga would need to loose about 3500 tons each to fit in 35000 ton limit ( Smaller torpedo bulges ,no casements could account for most of this you could also run less machinary)

You then have 2 options
- Drop a Kongo class ship to training ship and have 25K tons spare.
OR
- shave 5K tons of your other ships or more of the Tosa and Kaga

Or you can do what the signatories often did, which is to have it in limits 'on paper' but not in reality. Look at the Japanese cruisers, most of them realistically displaced well over the 10k limit.

With regard to carriers

At the time of the treaty you have 9000 tons more a total of 89000 as carriers. So this would be the 2 Akagi class  ( 2 * 26.9K)  , leaving 35K.

Historically Amagi is destroyed by earthquake so the tonage needs to be replaced since you cant pinch the Kaga.

After Hosho the Ryujo would not be built instead it is anyones guess ( anyone seen any IJ CV designs for the 20s) but they have 35200 tons or 62100 tons after the earthquake. It is likely these ships were built consecutively  based on earlier experience.
          As an example 
                   10K enlarged Ryujo 1921 
                   14K  the second in 1924
                   2*19K in  27 and 29 .


1930's , the building of ships in the 20s results in Japans shipyards being in better condition.

With battleships it is pretty much as Historical however with 2 more ships in the line better able to deal with US ships the lack of a good Battle cruiser/ fast BB becomes apparent and will probably precede the Yamatos especially after the cancelled Number 13 class fast Battleships. Note Historically the specification for the Yamatos were 30+ knots.

The other thing to keep in mind is refits ..152,000shp cruiser sized power plants become available in the mid-late 30's the Kongos were refitted but other ships can be as well. Many of the refits can remove the poor firing arc Turrents which allong with cheap cruiser 152,000shp propulsion allow on the cheap Battle Cruiser  (8 *14" (4*2) ,33Knots)  . Diesel engines can also reduce bunkerage and be combined with Turbines.

I have plotted every Japanese Capital ship on the slips and there is no real issue worst case you can kick an Aux or liner of the slip .  When they needed more slips they just built one and the time to expand the dry dock to the Yamato class they could build another slip. ( they built quite a few in 43-44) . It is also worth noting that some ships were off the slips much quicker than others (eg Susuka vs rest of her class). I count 5 35K capable slipways and another 7 for ships of around 10K tons.


I would just trade tonnage for tonnage . They built 3 * 72K tons + 0.3 * 72K + 10K (support ships) . Which is 247K tons of ships and i would add they were also rushed , required LOTS of difficult to make plate , expanded yards and a lot of experimentation for a new 18" gun. About  165K of this was ready at the start of the war and the rest later. Excluding the extras this would buy you  15 Soryus ( but not the aircraft ! )  You cant beat this for impact but its not realistic due to Battleship doctrine

Here is a likely one
60K Building 2 Cheap Battle Cruisers
47K equivalent rebuilding more existing ships with better deck armour , plant and AA.
90K building 2 Fast Battle ships
50K  build another 2 Shokaku class

pick 80K tons which is still under construction at war start , so probably the fast battleships have just started.

You also have the fact that post 1936, pretty much everyone was completely ignoring the treaties. The 1936 London Treaty failed when Japan did not sign, for example. After 1939, all bets were off, because Europe just erupted into another war.

Then all along there were the little tricks countries were using to skirt the treaty limits anyway. Japan built the Mogami's in a way that allowed for the 8in guns to be easily installed. The US did a study on a light cruiser/carrier hybrid (the flight deck cruiser) to get more flight decks not limited by the treaty limits etc. The shadow carrier programe...I can go on.

Cheating on the treaties was pretty much status quo, its just that is wasn't blatantly egregious.

[bklooste]

Or you can do what the signatories often did, which is to have it in limits 'on paper' but not in reality. Look at the Japanese cruisers, most of them realistically displaced well over the 10k limit.

Not so easy in this case as the Allies knew the exsiting weights of all the ships and hence would know these would be limited to 33K , you could argue you trimmed the weight from other ships with some proof. Note Histroically these ships were like 39K tons so even trying to get them down to 35 was hard ( though can be done as the Kaga came in pretty light as a carrier)

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: bklooste

Or you can do what the signatories often did, which is to have it in limits 'on paper' but not in reality. Look at the Japanese cruisers, most of them realistically displaced well over the 10k limit.

Not so easy in this case as the Allies knew the exsiting weights of all the ships and hence would know these would be limited to 33K , you could argue you trimmed the weight from other ships with some proof. Note Histroically these ships were like 39K tons so even trying to get them down to 35 was hard ( though can be done as the Kaga came in pretty light as a carrier)

Yep, and it sacrificed armor protection to get the weight down. It can be done, usually to the detriment of the vessel involved. Honestly, Kaga and Akagi might have been better scrapped and rebuilt from the keel up, in terms of function/displacement.