Super Battleships We Will Never See

most of these were envisioned before the reality of naval aviation sank in but the plans were kept and a few might have been laid down had the war dragged on. by 1942-onwards, they were likely envisioned to be flagships with psychological effect when used in non-combat roles (like treaty talks.) or perhaps in desperate defensive actions when the home front is threatened. the plans by both winners and losers were scrapped almost right after the war. so if hitler or tojo managed to hold on till 1948, we might have seen some of these beauties:

(mostly from the Chuck Hawks article)

super yamato - 6 20" inch guns. displacement would have been at least 20% more than yamato since the expected recoil was twice that of a 16" gun. also, japan lacked harbors deep enough so the supers would have been much wider than the yamato. the japanese believed the USN would not build BBs bigger than the iowa class, given the constraints dictated by things like the panama canal.

montana class - the japanese thought wrong. 12 16" guns with a max speed of 28 kts. really a stretched iowa, with no speed requirement for an escort battleship, but rather one intended to engage other BBs. authorized in 1940 but suspended in 1942. as a wartime expedient, a fifth and sixth iowa was ordered but neither were completed. yes, the montana might have seen daylight.

sovietskiy soyuz class - 9 16" guns, 28 kts. 4 were ordered in 1938, three were laid down but stopped in 1940. not likely to have come about, during the war but the pacific issue might have resumed construction.

the lion class - 9 16", 30 kts. different from the vanguard mainly in the tripple gun configuration. the vanguard was close in terms of expectations.

the H-series - the big question here is which actually came close to being built. envisioned to 'balance out' naval strength in the high seas. the h-38 class, namely the bismark and tirpitz, saw use. immediate series versions begun construction but halted immediately, the h-39 was to have 16" guns and these guns were actually built and converted to shore defense. the last in the series was the impossibly large h-44 displacing 120,000 tonnes, with 8 20" guns.

 

Ever played the game Navy Field? These ships are unlockable.

 

TNNNNTTT! another question please? hehe..

 

Bismarck and Tirpitz were not H-38. They were F and G. H was laid down, but little progress was made. The last variant that had any chance of construction was H-41. From H-42 on, the designs were nothing more than studies for the design bureau. They were not meant as a basis for construction.

 

Looking in a different direction here,the Hood may be a super ship of her day plus we will never see another one again.

 

I saw the Missouri, when it was still in active service, and there is nothing more impressive than an Iowa Class Battlewagon.

A few years ago I saw her at Pearl Harbor and It almost broke my heart.

Brad

 

Montana was the most powerful design among those that almost became a reality. A major step beyond Yamato.

 

I think i finaly understood this thread.
I would loved too see the too German aircraftcarriers that was never launch during ww2,for somereason that the productions were stop to concentrate on the u-Boats.

I would love to see these two ships,cause i am interested in them,not cause i wanted Germany too win.

 

The Graf Zeppelin design was one of the most comically mishandled projects of the period. I guess it's not surprising, since the Germans were trying their hand at an extremely specialized concept without having any experience whatsoever. If there had been any interest in carriers in 1935, they should have built themselves a Langley/Argus sort of ship right away. Baby steps.

 

However the italians managed to mess up their Aircaft carrier programme which was based on a liner- Aquilla?

Steve

 

Yes, they waited far too long. They share a common issue with the Germans, an overly powerful (politically) air force.

 

Aquila was much too complex for a merchant conversion but IMO less unsound than Zeppelin, but then the Italian shipbuilders are well known for "conversions" that costs as much as a new ship would (think Cesare and Doria or the post war Garibaldi and San Giorgio). Paradoxically work on the much less ambitious escort carrier Sparviero was a lot less advanced at the time of the armistice than Aquila.
BTW the problem with the air force was not solved until very recently, I believe the Italian post war recon planes like the Breguet Atlantique and Grumman Tracker had air force pilots and navy ASW operators.

 

Sparviero was more a catapult ship than a genuine carrier. Her air group would have consisted of little Ro.63 planes for ASW duty.

 

Well, one might also want to see the WWI BC class that ended up as Lexington and Saratoga, plus the Kaga and her half sisters. There were also UK BBs and BCs that had potential, and imagine what the Nelson and Rodney would have been if treaty limitations had not cut them down.

 

But then the British Fleet Air Arm suffered because of disputes between the Navy and RAF.

 

That's another good example of a design bureau stepping into a concept it had never attempted before, and failing on a grand scale. I think the Americans were truly fortunate that the battlecruisers that were so bad turned into aircraft carriers that were quite good.

Very true. The RN regained command of the FAA just before the war, but the damage had been done. An excellent study is found in American & British Aircraft Carrier Development 1919-1941 by Friedman, Hone, and Mandeles.

 

In addition to the super battleships (Montana class) that the US Navy had ordered was the little known battle crusiers the navy had in their inventory. Their classification were CBs, as heavy cruisers were CAs, battleships were BBs and so on. Six were ordered, two were delivered (the USS Alaska and the USS Guam) and 4 were cancelled (the USS Samoa, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Philippines). There is a well descripting article in Wikipedia that covers it, along with the super battleships of the Montana class as well.

 

The King George V class where first chosen to have 15" guns (16" was pondered on too, but it was decided 15" would be a balance of more guns and heavier shells), but as the Admiralty wanted another treaty scaling down battleship guns to a maximum of 14", they where given 14" instead.

 

AFAIK Sparviero was planned as true carrier with a full deck, one catapult and an intended air group of 30 Re 2001 fighters though that info is doubtful as the Re 2001 was phased out of production while she was still being rebuilt. (Same applies to Aquila I never found any info on what they intended to replace it with, the Re 2005 with it's suspect structurual weakness is not a good candidate for catapult assisted take off, possibly the radial engined Re 2002).
The were apparently plans for something like a MAC ship conversion of the 10.000t tankers Sterope, Giulio Giordani and Sergio Laghi but the first two were lost in 42/43 and I can't find any info at all on the third.