Which warship reconstruction was the most expensive? Which one the best?

The cost of one reconstruction of the HMS Renown was three times the price of the construction. Was it the most expensive reconstruction?

What was the limit of a reconstruction? I mean nearly everything was changed on some ships and building new ones would have been much less expensive i guess.

 

Don't have the figures, but the reconstruction of the Pearl Harbor fleet has to be right up there.

 

Renown's 1936 reconstruction cost(£3,088,008) was roughly the same as her original construction cost(£3,117,204). OF course this does not take into account any variation between the 1916 British Pound vs. the 1936 British pound.

However, I think you mean that the cost of her 1936 reconstruction was three times more expensive than her 1922 reconstruction(£979,927).


Most expensive reconstruction...Off the top of my head - USS Midway original 1945 cost ($85.6 million) vs. 1966 reconstruction cost ($202 million)

 

USS West Virginia's reconstruction cost was slightly less than her construction cost...Roughly $25 million(construction) vs $20 million(reconstruction)

 

What about the 4 italian BBs from WWI? They changed about everything, even the heavy artillery.
And the japanese reconstructions?

 

Just raw numbers but the Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH) of a Nimitz class costs over $2 billion.

 

Consider a Nimitz class construction cost was about $4.5 billion

 

Using http://safalra.com/other/historical-uk-inflation-price-conversion/ HMS Renowns 1916 build cost would have been around 4,500,000 pounds in 1936.

In comparison HMS Belfast of the Town class light cruisers launched in 1939 cost 2,141,514 pounds.

The USS West Virginia costing $25m in 1923 would have cost $25.73m in 1944. Considering the North Carolina class cost on average $60m each around the time of the rebuild a $20m cost was a bargain.

The US Midway based on the 1945 build cost of $85.6m would have cost $154.08m in 1966 so a $202m rebuild was a big waste.

 

What are you considering a "reconstruction"? Do the changes to the Glorious, Couragius, and Furious count? How about Lexington and Yorktown (although those were undertaken before completion)? Some of the IJN ships had some pretty significant mods as well, sufficient that some were upgraded from battlecruisers to battleships (Hiei and Kirishima and possibly others). The Nagato's and Hodd also underwent some seirous mods.

 

Where did you find the figures? For example, the USS Nevada which was just a few years older cost $5.8 million to originally to build. I can't find the cost of her reconstruction (and I think the salvage should be added), but my gut says more than it cost to build her.

 

http://www.usswestvirginia.org/stories/story.php?id=51

 

Also note that the $5.8 million cost does not include guns or armor.

This site: http://batdev.ussindianabb58.com/nevadabb-36class.html
gives Nevada's cost as $6,822,680 excluding guns.

 

Even at a million more than the figure I had, I would still love to find the cost of salvage and reconstruction.

 

a battleship remains a battleship but more modern = reconstruction
a battleship is changed into an aircraft carrier = conversion

I am talking about the reconstructions mainly in the interwar-period, when building new Battleships was not an option.
Some of these reconstructions seemed wasted money, the slow and almost obsolete japanese Fusos/Ises remained slow and almost obsolete.

 

That does much to clarify things.

Not from what I have read.

The reconstruction of the Fusos & Ises greatly improved their ability to take on the "standard" American battleships. The new boilers and turbines allowed the 4 Japanese battleships to make almost 25 knots. The gun elevations were increased allowing the Japanese battleships to engage targets at longer ranges. Armor thickness on the Japanese battleships was increased. Anti-torpedo bulges were added. Aircraft catapults installed. Finally, fire control equipment was improved.

This hardly seems to be "wasted money."

 

Underwater protection remained poor.
They were better ships for sure, but were very inactive after Midway.

 

Underwater protection was almost always an issue for battleships, and there was very little that could be done to compensate for it.

The Japanese battleships were very inactive before Midway. After all, they were held back awaiting the intended Decisive Battle...Which never came off as the Japanese had planned.

 

The Yamashiro apparently remained in action for a respectable time given the amount of gunfire she was being hit with. I don't see that the IJN battleships were any more obsolete than the US standards. Their problem was the IJN wasn't ready to "use them or loose them" until it was "use them and loose them".

 

Almost every Dreadnought-Battleship could survive a lot of hits. During the Battle of Jutland not a single one was sunk.

They weren't this bad, that's not the point, the IJN put much effort in the reconstruction and ended up with ships they considered obsolete after Midway. As Ise/Hyuga they were considered to be converted into very useless Hybrids. Even this strange Hybrids seemed better than the reconstructed battleships.

The Royal Navy didn't have enough money, but letting most of the old Revenge- and Queen-Elizabeth-Class BBs widely unchanged was not a bad decision. Saves a lot of money.