What if Monitors not included in Washington Treaty ?

[tigercat]

What if Monitors had been excluded from the Washington Naval treaty rather than counting towards Battleship tonnage. They would have developed more between the wars and been a much more attractive proposition for various navies.

[rickshaw]

What if Monitors had been excluded from the Washington Naval treaty rather than counting towards Battleship tonnage. They would have developed more between the wars and been a much more attractive proposition for various navies.

Monitors were designed for a specific task - shore bombardment.  While, because of their guns they were included in battleship tonnages, their utility was limited.   They couldn't compete against battleships.  If given a choice between developing a limited number of high speed, heavily armed and armoured battleships which could compete against other battleships and building weakly armoured, slow, monitors with big guns, the Admirals would invariably choose the battleships.

The naval mind is very much about matching like with like, Tigercat.   If you could envision a visionary, perhaps another Jackie Fisher who could and did try and think outside the square and produce an asymmetrical response to a problem, Monitors, if equipped with say, surface search and gun laying radar, which allowed big guns to be more accurate, then I could see your suggestion working.  Speed would be a less crucial factor - the enemy would have to attempt to close with you, rather than the other way 'round and your longer range and more accurate gunnery would be a decided advantage.

[Weaver]

If monitors wern't included in the Washington Treaty, then it would have to include a definition of the difference between a monitor and a battleship to stop the latter being constructed under the guise of the former. The nature of that definition would then be the deciding factor in how useful and attractive "treaty monitors" were. Note that the defintion wouldn't neccessarily be sensible or well thought out: by no means all the real treaty terms were....

[tigercat]

I did think that for example if the terms were too wooly you might remove all but one turret from say HMS Tiger and call her a monitor . However the turrets would be reinstatable in times of war. I would imaging the easiest  one to agree would be one turret.
THe RN might  see the need  to have a monitor if given enough speed and seaworthiness which  could double as a convoy escort akin to the R class battleships so wnat less restrictions on speed and tonnage


Rickshaw thats what happened in Real life.  They could build either Monitors or Battleships so chose Battleships

If they weren't restricted or in their own category the choice would potentially be  build battleships as laid out in the WNT  with all the restrictions and limitations and on top of that build moniotors either unrestrictedly or to a seperate clause as worked out
by the lawyers and politicians rather than either or.


What about crossing a Monitor with HMS Fearless to give some new kind of amphibious assault vessel with its  own landing craft


 

[Weaver]

If I was the OC an opposed beach landing, then I'd MUCH rather have my fire-support ships separate from my troop ships: that way the troop ships can go away to get me more reinforcements without taking my fire-support with them!

[tigercat]

Good point may not have thought it through entirely

[rickshaw]

If I was the OC an opposed beach landing, then I'd MUCH rather have my fire-support ships separate from my troop ships: that way the troop ships can go away to get me more reinforcements without taking my fire-support with them!

The roles tend to be mutually exclusive.  Your fire support ships tend to want to fire at longer ranges to avoid possibly shore defence guns while the troop carrying ships tend to want to close in, so that the transit time to the beach is less.  Putting your big guns on your troop ships tends to expose them to much.

[tigercat]

Bit of a flight of fantasy on my part there

Ok what possible limitations might be set out on Monitors

Length wise I can see a maximum of 450- 500 ft being a possibility
Plus maximum of 1 turret of battleship calibre guns

They were originally intended really for popping across the channel  with maybe the occasional longer journey. Some of the first ones were mostly a hull with a turret ,mast and funnel and not much else.


Terror's last CO's 1941 suggestion for improving the design of monitors

a) Speed of 18 knots to move with the fleet
b) longer range guns of 48, 000 yards
c) Carriage of own aircraft
d) larger store rooms and fresh water capacity
e) better W/T facilities
f) heavier stern anchor
g) more motor boats
h) better repair and workshop facilities

d- h were included in the design of the Abercrombie

I suppose Terror's CO's suggestion is more of Monitor for a Pacific/global war with longer distances to cover and a need to be more self sufficent although by that point their role had been replaced with aircraft

[Joe C-P]

Given a monitor limited by treaty to a single turret, limited speed and displacement, how would you "cheat"? Leaving room for more engines, that's a start. Designing the ships so they can take an mid-ship extension, and secretly pre-designing that extension? Building an extra turret or three in anticipation of said extension? Installing twin 12" but designing for a triple 14 or 16"? Leaving extensive water-floodable voids that can be quickly opened for further fuel, fresh water, and stores?

As for fire-support ships standing farther out to sea, more often ships, even BBs, moved close into shore, within shore battery range, to ensure more accurate fire, and more rapid, since the shorter flight time allowed for faster correction. Look at photos of the various invasions and you can see the ships are within sight of the shore. USS Texas famously moved inshore and shifted ballast to create a positive list to allow her to fire farther inland.

[tigercat]

depending on the limits on secondary armament you could have 2 6 inch turrets on the aft end

Say they were unlimited or the treaty drawers up got sloppy and left you with a bit of leeway

Historically Monitors have been slow and cumbersome but some of that is down to the fact that they were built in a hurry in wartime conditions and with whatever armament that was on hand

Lets say you started by asking former Monitor Captains and got a list of requirements similar to those  suggested by Terrors CO

So you build your 18 knot monitor with aircraft capability. Now maybe or maybe not  you manage to give the guns a range of 48 ,000 but say this is the 1930's and rather than recycling turrets you get to buld a bespoke 15 inch turret with that range and you equip the ship with radar and fire control facilities to exploit it 

That gives you a range of 27miles compared to say 18miles for a Queen Elizabeth class you add the aforementioned  2 x twin 6 inch turrets

This gives you a heavy convoy anti surface ship escort / monitor or if you look at it another way a possible commerce raider

[Weaver]

The type of cheating you'd have to eliminate would be building what amounts to a battleship then leaving enough out of it to get it to qualify as a "monitor" instead: a sort of BB equivalent of the convertible seaplane carrriers and replenishment ships which the Japanese built that could be quickly turned into aircraft carriers. If you're not careful, you end up with "monitors" that have one turret and three circular "holds" on the centreline, two shafts and two huge "storerooms" that just happen to line up with mysterious blanked-off holes in the hull, and one hell of a lot of freeboard "for good seakeeping", all built by navies that hold mysteriously large stocks of turrets and turbines close to shipyards.....

One way to get around it might be to specify the max. draft and length/beam ratio of a "treaty monitor" hull: it'd be hard to economically change the shape of a short, fat, shallow "inshore" hull into a long, narrow "deep water" one. Fairly easy to verify too, unlike displacement, which is suseptible to all manner of manipulation and misrepresentation. 

[royabulgaf]

It seems also at that time that monitors were fast becoming very large versions of the colonial gunboats.   Like tonnage, finances are fixed.  It seems that if monitors were needed in some conflict, some largish, sturdy tubs could be purchased and heavy guns could be mounted as deck guns. 

Also, if you are envisioning monitors as shore bombardment, presumably you have either fought your way there or are expecting a naval counterattack.  Either way you would have some battleships hanging around.