Username: Larry
Nickname: Official USAF Sycophant
Posts: 1369
Date: 5/27/05 20:39
British warship reconstructions
Another aspect of the D.K. Brown book is that the large warship reconstructions performed by the British all seem to have turned out less well than hoped. In fact, most seem to have been large wastes of resources, and unfortunate diversions of effort for staff at the dockyards and DNC. My question is, why did so many large ship reconstructions turn out so badly for the British? Leaving aside Victorious, I will be more specific, and ask why British ships, as an example Eagle and Ark Royal, were such mechanical wrecks after their extensive reconstructions?
Ark and Eagle both had service lives plagued by mechanical defects, equipment failures, inadequate electrical systems, etc. While they were "old" ships in terms of age from being laid down, neither served more than 20 years in commision. Why was their physical condition so much worse than seemingly comtemporary American ships such as the reconstructed Essex class? Many reconstructed Essex class served longer, with more time deployed in combat and other stressful situations, than the Eagle and Ark Royal. Was there a difference in design philosophy that lead to British ships being intended for shorter lives? Did the US spend much more on its reconstructions to bring the ship infrastructure up to date?
One thing the Brown book does not explain is how the Admiralty Board decided to go with reconstructions, instead of new construction. There is brief mention of the belief that reconstructed ships would be cheaper than new; but after some early experiences, it must have been plainly obvious that it was extremely difficult to accurately forecast how much reconstruction of aged or obsolescent ships would cost once in the dockyard, and that the results obtained were generally far from ideal. Was there a more general resistance in the governments of the day to new constuction that prevented the Admiralty from being able to get more new, large warships? Just glancing at the numbers, it seems that the British could have afforded a couple of carriers of a CVA-01 type had resources been allocated differently. Instead, many tens of millions of pounds were poured into aging ships of very limited capabilities.
"USAF can rapidly deliver massive quantities of precision and non-precision weapons against any adversary, anywhere in the world, at any time."
Username: The Argus
Nickname: I Like to Watch
Posts: 636
Date: 5/27/05 23:25
Re: British warship reconstructions
I think it basicly comes down to the sickness in British shipbuilding. The whole industry came down with a cold in 1918, that turned into pnumonia in 1921 and never really recovered. Even WWII left the UK shipyards underutilised by a signifigant percentage (~25% IIRC).
This decline crept into everything, especially the drawing offices. There is nothing worse than a declining industry for retaining intellectual skill. Then when the demand ramped up it was backs against the wall time.
I've got a lovely book of photographs The British Destroyer by TD Manning, that makes the point that build quality in British ships declined steadily with each war, how WWI built ships were inferior to pre war, but about on par with between the wars and that in comparision with even WWI ships, WWII standards were utter rubbish.
The point is not that wartime standards were slacker than peacetime, the drivers are obvious, but that they didn't recover after the wars, each conflict just erroded the over all standards rather than being a blip. Again the reasons for this aren't hard to spot, after WWI, we had the contraction followed by the Washington build holiday then the depressions, it's no wonder the yards looked to ecconomies. And the same pattern reappeared after 1945, jacked out industries struggling to make ends meet day to day, looking to crimp every penny they could.
So it's little wonder that a WWI built Destroyer could take a year or so of war, twenty years of peace and another five years of war before beeing utterly clapped out, but a WWII built ship couldn't struggle through twenty years of peace without being dockyard queen.
It all boils down to the retention of skill, from the end of WWI British shipyards were either struggling for survival or swamped with work and struggling to catch up. They never had a period of steady growth to sort things out again properly, or the chance to make a fesh start, so problems compounded. And when it came down to it, they just couldn't do as good a job (painful as it is to say).
shane
Rule .303
Shoot straight, you bastards.
Username: FrMichangel
Nickname: New Guy
Posts: 3
Date: 5/28/05 7:56
Re: British warship reconstructions
Several different versions of this have been given to me over the years, but they coincided on one point: The practice of the Navy of endlessly changing its mind in mid-refit, with enormous amounts of re-thinking, re-specifying, and ending up with a result which is not an harmonious design but a hodge-podge cobbled together. I've had that from both shipbuilders and Navy friends.
FRM
Username: WarshipAdmin
Nickname: Greg
Posts: 1935
Date: 5/28/05 12:29
Re: British warship reconstructions
Interesting. The same trend has continued - when I joined LandRover in 1978 we were building engines and gearboxes using WW2 machine tools.
In the same timeframe the Japanese companies bought machine tools based on a cost benfit analysis, once they reached that predetermined life, they replaced them. That was typically 4 years.
Username: MarkSheppard
Nickname: Slightly oblivious
Posts: 901
Date: 5/28/05 23:01
Re: British warship reconstructions
I've got a lovely book of photographs The British Destroyer by TD Manning, that makes the point that build quality in British ships declined steadily with each war, how WWI built ships were inferior to pre war, but about on par with between the wars and that in comparision with even WWI ships, WWII standards were utter rubbish.
Can you define how build quality declined?
Was it in the neatness of the Riveting/Welding, or the quality of the material used? IE, instead of using a high quality grade steel, they went to a lower grade one?
Username: Seer Stuart
Nickname: The Prince of Darkness
Posts: 3682
Date: 5/29/05 3:40
Re: British warship reconstructions
Shane -- The whole industry came down with a cold in 1918, that turned into pneumonia in 1921 and never really recovered.
I'd put the start of the decline a bit earlier than that but fundamentally I think that's spot-on. Building standards were in almost continuous decline from the beginning of the 20th century and they haven't bottomed out yet.
This decline crept into everything, especially the drawing offices. There is nothing worse than a declining industry for retaining intellectual skill.
That's not so true. The problem wasn't so much lack of talent - the designers were and are as good as any and better than most - but the numbers of them fell dramatically and the older ones were never replaced so there was a bottleneck of senior designers, the guys who do the supervising. As a result, a lot of stuff was done by junior designers and trainees and didn't get the checking it should have done. That also hasn't been fixed - its one of the problems hammering the Astute program.
how WWI built ships were inferior to pre war, but about on par with between the wars and that in comparision with even WWI ships, WWII standards were utter rubbish.
I agree; in 1954 British cruisers had their hull lives rated to qualify them for rebuilding. The WW2 built ships were rated at a hull life of ten years (that's ten years from completion, not ten years from 1954).
Mark -- Can you define how build quality declined? Was it in the neatness of the riveting/Welding, or the quality of the material used? IE, instead of using a high quality grade steel, they went to a lower grade one?
Basically, its appallingly sloppy workmanship. Bad welding, bad riveting, sheer stupidity (there is a story I could tell about a submarine that had one of its pressure hull segments welded on upside down but I won't), deliberate obtuseness, sheer bloody-mindedness, refusal to accept modern working practices in a world where the old ways dodn't work any more. A pointer to where the problem lies is that shipyards that don't build steel ships, don't have the same problems.
Nations do not survive by setting examples for others.
Nations survive by making examples of others
Username: Seer Stuart
Nickname: The Prince of Darkness
Posts: 3683
Date: 5/29/05 3:44
Re: British warship reconstructions
The practice of the Navy of endlessly changing its mind in mid-refit, with enormous amounts of re-thinking, re-specifying, and ending up with a result which is not an harmonious design but a hodge-podge cobbled together. I've had that from both shipbuilders and Navy friends.
That's what happened in the Victorious rebuild. They'd virtually finished reconstruction when they decided to reboiler the ship and had to tear her apart again.
Why did the Navy do the rebuilds, not build new ships? Easy answer. New ships came out of capital expenditure, rebuilds out of maintenance. It was politically easy to get maintenance money but almost impossible to get capital.
Nations do not survive by setting examples for others.
Nations survive by making examples of others
Username: The Argus
Nickname: I Like to Watch
Posts: 641
Date: 5/29/05 10:27
Re: British warship reconstructions
That's not so true. The problem wasn't so much lack of talent - the designers were and are as good as any and better than most - but the numbers of them fell dramatically and the older ones were never replaced so there was a bottleneck of senior designers, the guys who do the supervising. As a result, a lot of stuff was done by junior designers and trainees and didn't get the checking it should have done. That also hasn't been fixed - its one of the problems hammering the Astute program.
I totally agee with what you are saying Stuart, I was just coming at it from a different angle. In my experience, walk into any drawing office and the key people will be those with the greatest experience of the most diverse projects what eve their 'official' status. In a declineing industy, you've got fewer projects and less new blood comming into the system. So all the experience ends up being concentrated into fewer people. Then of those younger people who do develop the touch, are less inclined to hang around. Worse the less skillful are kept on because there is no one to replace them, which only compunds the pvoblem of supervision.
On the otherhand I don't see all the problems with the wartime conctruction as being related to the sickness of the industry. Wartime ships were deliberatly made to a lower specification, hulls were thinner, and detail design was 'simplified' which usually means compromised in longevity terms. IIrC wartime DD hulls were 1/16th thinner for example.
Your 'pointer' is interesting, Steel Workers Union?
shane
Rule .303
Shoot straight, you bastards.
Username: The Argus
Nickname: I Like to Watch
Posts: 642
Date: 5/29/05 10:59
Re: British warship reconstructions
Stuart has covered most of it, but as far as I can tell the decline wasn't in specification so much as standards, quality. As far as I can tell this was mostly driven from the top down for most of the period, corner cutting to save money. But that eventually becomes ingrained on the shop foor, and then everything go's to hell in a handbasket rather quickly. I mean the result is tollarable when goodworkmen are being forced to compromise, but when you've no longer got the man behind the tool giveing a damn...
For example, woodwork in pre WWI ships was imaculate, even the most utilatarian stuff was pure cabinety. By the end of WWI it was more like superior carpenty, and by the end of WWII it was getting towards home handyman grade. My great grandfather put it quite well, he used to say that before 'his' war (14-18) you never saw a screwhead, after the war they at least lined the slots up neatly, after WWII you were just thankful if they used a screw rather then a nail. Of course he was a Sunbeam trained mechanic so quite snobbish about craftsmanship.
shane
Rule .303
Shoot straight, you bastards.
Username: The Argus
Nickname: I Like to Watch
Posts: 643
Date: 5/29/05 11:17
Re: British warship reconstructions
Lord, if you're working in 'Shinto Blue Heaven' (Ford Australia) then half your current (Barra etc) tooling is built on 40's and 50's machines, well at least anything with a Marand Precission label on it. And it's none the worse for that IMHO.
To my mind machinetool age is more an indicator of management than the quality of the product. I mean you CAN do superb work on old machines, just as turning out junk on the latest gear is only made easier by CAD/CAM if that's the desired outcome.
I don't think the Jap's superiority was because they turned over their machines every 4 years, it was more to do with the fact that the management actually realise they had to take their plant into account. For my money working a machine to death over 4 years, is just an excuse not to spend any money on maintainance, which is accountantancy over engineering. And a 4 year cycle isn't really gaining much from technological development anyway.
To my mind it's a better idea to spend the cash and buy the best Hella (as Ford does), then work it properly for 10 to 15 years, spending the money on maintainince, then update when it needs it's first rebuild. Yes it costs a little more in upkeep, but I look at that as moral building.
A company that cares about it's tools and makes a point of doing a 'proper job,' undercuts the prime excuse the shop floor has for getting cynical about quality - the boss doesn't care so why should I? Been there, done that.
Of course I don't manage a factory...
shane
Rule .303
Shoot straight, you bastards.
Username: Nik aka Speaker To Cats
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 118
Date: 5/29/05 16:32
Re: NASA
I'm not familiar with current US military project scandals ( Sgt York ?? StarWars ?) but an obvious example is NASA.
Behold the Skylab, Shuttle, ISS & Shuttle replacement(s) debacles...
They even managed to wreck the DC-X after it successfully demonstrated VTOL...
Happens I used to know one of the designers on UK's P1154 project, the super-sonic plenum-chamber-burning successor to Harrier. It looked a world-beater. When the project was killed, drawings & jigs were destroyed to preclude second thoughts. The design team were gutted. Almost to a man, their health failed within the year: diabetes, cancer, heart-disease, stroke...
Do that to a couple of projects and ( mixing metaphors ;-) you've malted your seed-corn.
Username: MarkSheppard
Nickname: Slightly oblivious
Posts: 903
Date: 5/29/05 16:37
Re: British warship reconstructions
On the otherhand I don't see all the problems with the wartime conctruction as being related to the sickness of the industry. Wartime ships were deliberatly made to a lower specification, hulls were thinner, and detail design was 'simplified' which usually means compromised in longevity terms. IIrC wartime DD hulls were 1/16th thinner for example.
That's the odd thing; Liberty ships were mass produced in the US, on deliberately simplified plans, built using a lot of unskilled labor, yet other than some problems with the welding cracking in extremely cold weather (which was eventually solved), they went on to steam around the world well into the 1970s...
Username: p620346
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 165
Date: 5/29/05 16:56
Re: British warship reconstructions
"Why did the Navy do the rebuilds, not build new ships? Easy answer. New ships came out of capital expenditure, rebuilds out of maintenance. It was politically easy to get maintenance money but almost impossible to get capital."
Sounds just like the 1880s USN. There was money for "repairs" but not for new ships, so they jacked up the name and built a new ship under it although it did take a long long time to do so.
Username: drunknsubmrnr
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 1075
Date: 5/29/05 17:17
Re: British warship reconstructions
That also hasn't been fixed - its one of the problems hammering the Astute program.
And the Upholders.....
Kevin
Dum spiro, spero
Username: K Newman
Nickname: Bubblehead Cop
Posts: 2305
Date: 5/29/05 17:55
Re: NASA
Much of the problem with NASA has to do with Congress and not the agency itself. True, NASA management made some wrong turns, but it's hard to be bold and do things that capture the world's imagination when Congress keeps gutting their budget and politics override projects. NASA's issues began when Congress cut the Apollo project early.
Username: The Argus
Nickname: I Like to Watch
Posts: 644
Date: 5/29/05 18:03
Re: British warship reconstructions
Mass production is its own saviour. For the process to work, the components have to be kept within tollerable limits.
I don't know if you're much of a gun nut, but there's a lot of ho-ha over Winchester M70's made before 1964. Partly it's becuase they have claw extractors, but a lot of it is becuse they were 'handmade,' in essence, one craftsman assembled the whole weapon. But all this means is the result was a direct reflection of the fitter's skill, a good one produced a thing a beauty and a joy forever, a bad one and you got a gun that could shoot around corners, almost everytime you pulled the trigger.
Much of the problem with British industries was that most of them were not true 'mass production' operations. They were semi-mass production. Production lines generally fall into one of three kinds, and it's not so much a matter of what is on or in the line as what's next to it.
a) Semi-mass production, next to each station there's a work bench with a vice, a file, a hammer and a selction of parts.
b) Mass production - the only thing next to the line is a reject bin.
b) Modern 'best practice/Quality Controled' Mass Production has nothing next to the line but a big red STOP button.
A part turns up at the station:
In a type a) shop the worker makes it fit, or finds a part that does fit with the least work from the pile.
On a type b) Line if the first part won't fit, it gets chucked, along with the next and the next untill one does. The accountants make sure the reject bin stays fairly empty - we hope.
In a type c) operation, if the part won't fit, the line stops, they hold an enquiry, and charge the cumulative costs to who ever made the part in the first place.
Most American industry was type b, and where America fell down was in not advanceing to type c) untill Japanese competition forced them too.
The key you'll note is not in 'design,' it's in the tollerances of the ALL components. Because all the components on a finished product are within spec, they work within spec (give or take). Reliability of a product is a design function, but consistancy of that relaibility, that fact not that your car will drive for a 10,000 miles, but that every car will do 10,000 is whats at stake here.
The 'Unreliability' of British vehicles and the 'Reliability' of American ones in WWII wasn't really a design problem at all. In fact the 'Average' American vehicle of some types could be less reliable in terms of milage, compared to a good example of the UK equivilent. But for an equal sized sample there were a lot more 'Average' US examples than 'Good' UK ones, so the aggragate worked out in favour of the US and quite rightly too.
Then there's the matter of servicability, get a spare part for the product of a type a) line, and you in the same position as the man who built the product in the first place, only without a pile of other examples to sort through. Tab A has to fit into Slot B, but the tollerances are so wide that there's every chance Tab A's too thick, or Slot B's too thin, so it's out with a file. Wereas with a type b), the spare has a much better chance of fitting straight up. So seviceing is easier and more likley to be done, reduceing down time and enhanceing reliability.
the RR Merlin is a good example, when Ford UK was asked to make it, they said no, because the tollarances were too wide. This isn't to say it was a sloppy design, it's just the RR used a far higher degree of hand fitting. the Merlin was redrawn for Packard to mass production tollarances which is why the two are largely un-interchangable.
Oh and the Hero here isn't Henry Ford, its the 'Other Henry' Henry Leland, a most remarkable chap, started off making guns with Colt IIRC during the Civil War, then went to work for Pratt & Whitney who were and old and respectable machine tool makers, long before they turned their hands to areo engines, the Lee Enfield line for Australia was one of theirs. In many ways Leyland was also America's Whitworth, he did a lot of work in grinding, IIRC invented the table surface grinder as we know it amougnst other things. Then he went to Cadillac and won a Dewar Trophy, by assembling a car at randome from a pile of parts before copleating the ususal grueling endurance trials. Then he founded Lincoln to make Liberty engines, as his last harrah (and got royaly screwed).
Ford pinched 'Arsenal Manufacture' to build cars, but it was Leland who got the industry from type a) to type b).
To get back to ships, a Liberty Ship was a no frills article, but the parts were made to a respectable standard, and the saveing came from ecconomies of scale and the reduction of time through the widespred use of sub assemblies that fitted together properly.
In WWII US naval construction (and I'm partly guessing here), not only was the same culture of things fitting on arival a great benifit, but mostly they managed the remarkable build times through throwing a lot of people at it. More to the point people who were largely new to the game, and so had to learn the text book way, without the the time to pick up bad habbits.
In the UK, you had a culture were nothing was expected to fit as delivered, that only got worse as the war continued 'There's a war on you know.' Plus a lot less labour available in the first place, and a work force that in the big yards had picked up all the bad habbits of two generations of corner cutting. Oh yes and everything had to be done yesterday, were 'today' was good enough in America, more speed - less haste.
AND THEN, the UK designs were cut back to the 'no frills' level as well. In short, you could be sure that two parts fitted together, but you couldn't be sure they were in the relationship the designer intended them to be in, which throws up yet another factor.
As Stuart as underlined, the UK drawing offices were vastly over stretched, now so too were the US ones, but in America you only had to make one set of drawings for say a class of escorts, and up date them to reflect changes to the design. In the UK they had to be constantly revised for every hull to take account of every missed dimentional tollerance. This is a gross simplification of course, US ships required on the job revisions too, no steel survives contact with a shipyard dimentionally intact, to mis quote VonC, but it was on a much smaller scale.
sorry for the long reply - hobby horse time.
shane
Rule .303
Shoot straight, you bastards.
Username: K Newman
Nickname: Bubblehead Cop
Posts: 2306
Date: 5/29/05 18:09
Re: British warship reconstructions
The was no loss of quality in World War II era production in the US. The Brits had a much smaller population to draw from to run their plants. The US, with a much larger population and economy, could absorb both the increased production brought on by the war despite so many skilled workmen being drafted into the Armed Forces. World War II was much more of an all-out effort for the UK than it was for us.
The Brits were also in desperate straights in the early part of the war, they need war material NOW to stay in the war. A ship that lasted only a decade was good enough.
We also made changes in the way we produced things in order to allow for workers will less skill than usual to produce quality items. Welding was one thing that was changed. For example, somebody figured out that welding a vertical bead down was easier than welding up, which had been the normal way of doing things.
Username: K Newman
Nickname: Bubblehead Cop
Posts: 2307
Date: 5/29/05 18:18
Re: British warship reconstructions
The US also had the advantage of ramping up war production three years before we entered the war, which I will give FDR credit for doing. Many of the ships that were available for service after Pearl Harbor were laid down in the late 30s when the storm clouds were still on the horizon. That early ramp-up of production benefited the Commonwealth and the Sovs when Lend-Lease kicked in.
Username: MarkSheppard
Nickname: Slightly oblivious
Posts: 904
Date: 5/29/05 19:44
Re: British warship reconstructions
Argus:
I don't know if you're much of a gun nut, but there's a lot of ho-ha over Winchester M70's made before 1964.
I'm more of a battle rifle nut, to be specific; AR-15s, FALs, Garands, Kar98Ks, etc, with the occasional hunting rifle such as the Model 700...
As Stuart as underlined, the UK drawing offices were vastly over stretched, now so too were the US ones, but in America you only had to make one set of drawings for say a class of escorts, and up date them to reflect changes to the design. In the UK they had to be constantly revised for every hull to take account of every missed dimentional tollerance. This is a gross simplification of course, US ships required on the job revisions too, no steel survives contact with a shipyard dimentionally intact, to mis quote VonC, but it was on a much smaller scale.
Ah I see what you're getting at; in the US, the steel fit together pretty much as designed, plus or minus a bit of error, allowing the ship to stay within the design tolerances that had been calculated by the shipwright; but in the UK, whole steel sections came in the wrong size, and the UK shipyards had to find some way to make 'em fit instead of throwing them in the reject pile, as there was intense time pressure; so they made do with the flawed pieces that were too short or too long; so as a result the margin of error on UK built ships was so huge that it went far beyond the design tolerance of the original design, making the hull wear out very fast.
sorry for the long reply - hobby horse time.
No problem, it was very informative, thanks for taking the time to type all that out.
K Newman:
We also made changes in the way we produced things in order to allow for workers will less skill than usual to produce quality items. Welding was one thing that was changed. For example, somebody figured out that welding a vertical bead down was easier than welding up, which had been the normal way of doing things.
I can see how that would not have been accepted in UK yards; "We've been welding steel up since we began welding, and we're not going to change!" due to the unions, increasing the time pressure leading to more shortcuts.
Plus, you have to wait for a different union to move the parts themselves, if we go by Anvil of Necessity, increasing time pressures even further...
Username: NewGolconda
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 946
Date: 5/29/05 22:44
Re: British warship reconstructions
I think you have to break it down a little more than that Mark. British machining in essence reflected the methods that were prominent when they were industrialised. They placed more reliance of master tradesman individually machining to tolerance than the US, who industrialised with the assembly line and replaceable parts much later.
But this would apply to ships machinery, auxiliary machinery, gun mountings and other equipment fitted to the ship. And to vehicles, aircraft engines, gun mountings etc. When it worked it worked quite well.
None of this really goes to the strength of the hull though. There was very little pre fabrication in British shipbuilding until the frigate building programme mid world war two and the daring class destroyers post war.
There was some assembly of frames off the slip, there is that famous photo of Dreadnoughts frames all in a big pile before she was laid down.
I dont know what the specific quality issues were but guessing the quality of the steel, the galvanising it got before it was assembled, the care with which it was prepared to specific thicknesses and size (at the yard?) and the care that went into welding or riveting it together.
I dont think it was all beer and skittles in the US either during WWII. Some Liberty ships I think broke up at sea, and very few lasted very long at all after the war. The welded US built escort carriers were spoken off poorly in comparison to the British built escort carriers (especially for cold water service?). Something tells me the US built DEs were no great shakes for build quality and longevity, and I have read complaints from USN officers on the build quality and longevity of the Gearings, for example. Where they may be different is the care that went into major vessels.
Canadians too I have seen it written that they built numbers of flower class corvettes with ungalvinised steel truly short lifecycle warships
Username: kdahm
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 258
Date: 5/29/05 23:08
Re: British warship reconstructions
The other major difference that I have read about was in the US and UK systems of producing detailed drawings.
For example, for the Garand the drawings were fully dimensioned and test fixtures for virtually every part made. The major parts were guaged individually in the fixtures with simple go/no go guages, and the ones that passed went to the assembly line.
Larger objects, including ships, had final drawings in a similar manner so that there was little room for interpretation on the production side.
The UK practice was to have drawings with fewer dimensions and to rely on the expertise of the workmen to fit everything together. This meant that the 5.25" mounts did not have interchangable parts, and probably lead to some of the KGV's 14" turret woes. Also, repairs to major systems, even with drawings, were difficult in distant ports because of the amount of fitting required.
Karl
In the course of any project, at a certain time it becomes necessary to shoot the engineers and build the damn thing.
Username: NewGolconda
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 947
Date: 5/29/05 23:48
Re: British warship reconstructions
This meant that the 5.25" mounts did not have interchangable parts, and probably lead to some of the KGV's 14" turret woes. Also, repairs to major systems, even with drawings, were difficult in distant ports because of the amount of fitting required.
The 14in problems were due to overly complex specifications for gun elevation and flash protection (according to The Big Gun) and the need to go into service without normal peacetime trials.
The 15in/42 calibre twin was probably the most reliable heavy gun mounting ever fitted to a ship and used similar technology in its design and construction.
Repairs while taking longer were also simpler as you didnt have to wait for a part to arrive or be in stock in Durban, you just turned one to the specifications you needed. If you were a cruiser or battleship, you could probably do it onboard.
Username: Dick B
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 434
Date: 5/30/05 0:08
Re: British warship reconstructions
Cupla comments - between bouts of saving democracy and western civilization; I worked for Naval Architects, Navy Yards, and Private Yards as a marine piping designer. USN had and still has its own problems in this area.
One major squawk I have is with CAD. Building ships (or aircraft) is not a computer sim game. When I began, it was necessary to start in the Pipe Shop, at the bottom. From the bilges you progressed through the machinery spaces, the hull generally until you arrived at the Drawing Office, with some idea of how ships go together; what's possible and what's not; etc, etc.
On the board, you started over again, learning the drawing process - i.e. learning to produce useable working drawings from which the shops could actually build the ship. Every day, you had to trot out the ships and perform 'shipcheck' for your betters, which process taught you a great deal about ships, their innards and workings. One day might be electrical, the next auxiliary machinery, and so ofrth.
Then came the merciless process of "Checking" your work, wherein the Checker - aka 'He who Sits at the Left Hand of God' liberally daubs your drawing with gallons of red ink, and dumps it uncermoniously on your board. Peers come by and cluck sympathetically, while the SUIT glowers at you from behind his partition.
What happens now, is, some kid, green as grass and wet as water, is hired on to operate the CAD system, utterly innocent of ships, the Trades, coordination, the fine points of pipe fabrication, tight spaces in Engine Rooms and all that; who proceeds to generate a ream of basically useless paper. Happily, he clicks away on template symbols, most of which he has no idea of their significance; working from a P & ID generated by his mirror image down the hall, thinking he's actually designing the Emergency Ballast Blow System. A passed CAD kid, gives the output a cursory glance and issues the project.
That's when the Fitters; Shop guys, and the ship's engineers, if present, turn the newly printed CAD drawings over, and sketch out what it should REALLY look like.
I have worked with a Chinese gentleman, graduate ME, whose entire previous experience was with fire protection sprinklers in commercial construction. Nice fella, though.
Another engineer came to us from Arthur Anderson, where he did some sort of statistical mumbo jumbo; and lastly, my friend, Steve, a proud 'Aggie' graduate in Agricultural Engineering. If they ever need to grow corn on DD21, he can help 'em.
Username: DocMartyn
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 1983
Date: 5/30/05 0:15
Thanks Shane, even I understood that
I worked as a carpenter in the holiday of 1980. I was putting "Duck-Boards" down at the British Leyland at Cowley, this was to keep the workers feet out of the inch or more of oil and grease on the production line. They did have the bins you described, but they fell between a) and b). All the rejected parts would be sent off to a workshop, where the speciallists would build an engine ot gearbox, out of all the parts that didn't fit. I never saw a single man their who liked what he was doing.
Username: Admiral Beez
Nickname: New Guy
Posts: 2
Date: 5/30/05 2:00
British post-war warships seem to be just fine...
...in the long term.
Just look at the number of British built warships from the 1950s onwards still in active service. As you would expect, many have been upgraded as time goes by, but they're all still examples of good British ship building.
Leopard class (1957) - Bangladesh - Abu Bakr and Ali Haider
Leander class (1971/2) - Pakistan - Zulfiquar, Shamsher
Leander class (1970/4) - Chile - Condell, Lynch, Ministro Zenteno
Leander class (1971) - New Zealand - Canterbury and Wellington (now training ship)
Leander class (1963/7) - Ecuador - Presidente Eloy Alfaro, Moran Valverde
Hermes (1959) - India - Viraat VSTOL carrier
Tribal class (1962/4) - Indonesia - Tiyahahu and Hasanuddin
Amazon class (1974/8 ) - Pakistan - Tariq, Babur, Khaibar, Badr, Shah Jehan, Tippu Sultan
Sir Lancelot (1964) - Singapore - Perseverance
Rahmat (1971) - Malaysia - Rahmat
Type 42 (1976) - Argentina - D1, D2
Broadsword class (1979/86) - Brazil - Greenhalgh, Dodsworth, Bosisio, Rademaker
Niteroi class (1976/77) - Brazil - Niteroi, Defensora
County class (1966/67) - Chile - Blanco Encalada, Cochrane
Oberon class (1976) - Chile - O'Brien
Black Swan class (1949) Egypt - Tariq (now training frigate)
Vosper Mk5 type (1971/2) - Iran - Alvand, Alborz, Sabalan
Username: NewGolconda
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 948
Date: 5/30/05 2:34
Re: British post-war warships seem to be just fine...
You should have included the Victorian monitor Cerberus circa 1869. She is still doing sterling service as a breakwater and thus has a much higher operational efficiency that most of the ships you have listed
Username: robert
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 194
Date: 5/30/05 6:13
Re: British warship reconstructions
"To my mind machinetool age is more an indicator of management than the quality of the product. I mean you CAN do superb work on old machines, just as turning out junk on the latest gear is only made easier by CAD/CAM if that's the desired outcome. "
Well put. At GE they had some old star engine lathes from the 40's for the rework. Then there were the LeBlonds with vacuum tubes... It wasnt until the blackbelt projects started coming back with results pointing to lack of repeatability that upper level management started to look at equipment maintenance.
I'm surprised to see the 4 year value in Japan. I suppose there could be some tax reasons for it. I would argue that there have been a number of significant changes in machine tools over the past 15 years and rebuild vs buy/trade would be dependent on the machine and application.
rt
Username: Jimlad1
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 688
Date: 5/30/05 9:45
Re: British warship reconstructions
With regards to the list of ships, having a UK hull is one thing. Having an operational employable UK hull is something else. I have a fairly good idea of what is currently operational on that lot and its nowhere near as many as are on that list :)
Username: The Argus
Nickname: I Like to Watch
Posts: 645
Date: 5/30/05 14:12
Re: Thanks Shane, even I understood that
No problems Doc.
The joys of selected manufacture, the process you discribe is type a), just a slightly more sophistocated example. Should have shot their bloody acountant though, any man skilled enough to do a decent cut and shut job on a reject pile is utterly wasted doing it, and half the cost of the whole exercise would have tightened up tollarances enough to make the whole business moot.
You put your finger on the heart of the matter though, the problem is largely one of motivation, it's a moral issue. Anyworkman even the most cynical want's to be able to take a little pride in what they do, it might not be fun, but at least if they get the feeling they are doing a decent job there's some mental recompence for all the crap.
The problem of 'industrial pride' as I like to think of it, sufferes from two main obsticles. Firstly, although the effects can be measured after the event, it's larely intangiable, so it's damn hard to get bean counters to pay any attention to it at all, let alone take it seriously. Secondly as soon as the mental condition of the shop floor comes up, so too does unionism, r thefear of it, and management's knee jerk is to shy away from anything that might strengthen that.
As far as I can tell the traditional western approach to industrial management is they want their workers grey, depressed and under the thumb. With dictatorship comes the urge to make the peons obident cyphers. Good tradesman who do take pride in their work are generaly prickily bastards to boss around, they say No. Safe in the knowladge that their skills are both valuable and transportable. Whats worse is they also generally know their jobs better than management, so when they argue, they're often right, very embarassing.
You're average westener can't be proud and not be bolshie, on the other hand you can't do a decent job without a bit of pride.
shane
Username: The Argus
Nickname: I Like to Watch
Posts: 646
Date: 5/30/05 14:24
Re: British warship reconstructions
Robert, I agree totaly. With my 10 year figure i was being very generalistic, it has to be taken on a machine by machine basis, with all the factors like taxation factored in.
But the thing is for general production/jobbing work if you buy the best available at the time, 10 years is a very viable lifetime, even 20 isn't pushing it too far. An 80's vintage Hella machining station is still capable of turning out work up to a modern standard for automotive use, and the only thing that becomes a problem is supporting the old computer systems. Re-fit them ever ten years or so with modern kit, and Bob's your uncle.
With stuff all in the maintainance budget, even 4 years is goingto kill even the best machine. Don't keep an eye on the wipers and replace them, then you'll be scoring slides in a year.
Then there's the tendency for the accountants to say - it's only got to last for 4-5 years so way spend money on the good stuff, buy some Chinese piece of junk and pocket the difference. Fine have I ever mentioned the Chinese Univesal head I saw at a machine tool expo, I never knew there wererr 365 degrees in a circle... one for every day of the year I suppose.
shane
Username: The Argus
Nickname: I Like to Watch
Posts: 647
Date: 5/30/05 14:32
Re: British warship reconstructions
I don't doubt the steel arived from the mill in the right size, it's just the sloppy workmanship from that point on that was the problem.
As NG said, it was a hand made culture, which is fine if you take the time and have the resources to do the job properly. It's just not the most efficent way to do the job and has less scope for making mistakes and getting away with it.
shane
Username: Nick Sumner
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 272
Date: 5/30/05 15:08
Re: British warship reconstructions
Was cheapness itself part of the problem?
As we've discussed on Bob Henneman's board in the first half of the 20th Century British warships were much cheaper than their foreign equivalents - its roughly 2 1937 KGVs for a Bismarck or a Richlieu in cost terms but interestingly a Bretagne was only worth 50% more than an Orion and a Baden was a little cheaper than a Revenge.
In the production balance had cost control triumphed over quality?
(Really interesting discussion by the way.)
Username: The Argus
Nickname: I Like to Watch
Posts: 648
Date: 5/30/05 16:38
Re: British post-war warships seem to be just fine...
Alas the old girl is in dire need of a refit. Typical state government, IIRC it was going to cost 3 million dollars back in the 70's now it's over 12, see a stitch in time saves...
shane
Username: Admiral Beez
Nickname: New Guy
Posts: 3
Date: 5/30/05 16:39
Re: British post-war warships seem to be just fine...
Well of course many of these vessels are near or past their best before dates; some of them are well over forty years old and still operational. However, if we look back only to the 1990s many of these warships from the 1950s onwards were still in operational shape. Here in Canada, for example, we were able to keep three to four Oberon class SSKs operational for over 30 years; which is a testament to both Canadian ability and British shipbuilding skill.
Back to the present; the fact that British post-war built warships such as these are still active demonstrates that Brit-built warships are designed with many decades of usefulness. This seems contrary claims in this thread that warships built in Britain after 1918 were short-lived by design.
Username: The Argus
Nickname: I Like to Watch
Posts: 649
Date: 5/30/05 16:44
Re: British warship reconstructions
On the whole I don't think so, prior to WWII British yards were the most efficent in the world, if their standards had slipped a bt, they were still more the capable. The two Queens for example, set the standard for efficent construction in the day.
But during the war year, there's no argument that they were cheap ships, cheap ships built under great pressure by second rate labour.
After the war, then yes I do get the impression UK yards had a tendency to under quote just to get the work. Look at the recent Albion class comming out of BAe. The yards said what you want'll cost this much, the MOD said we've only got half that, and the yard said ok, we'll build it, but go easy on the quality control.
shane
Username: Admiral Beez
Nickname: New Guy
Posts: 4
Date: 5/30/05 16:47
Argus and inflation
"IIRC it was going to cost 3 million dollars back in the 70's now it's over 12, see a stitch in time saves..."
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi
"What cost $3,000,000 in 1970 would cost $15,113,738 in 2005." Thus, it is actually less expensive to fix Argus now, AND you've managed to operate the ship for approx. 30 years without having to incur the expense.
Username: Admiral Beez
Nickname: New Guy
Posts: 5
Date: 5/30/05 17:01
Veteran destroyer could return to the UK
http://www.navynews.co.uk/articles/2005 ... 030301.asp
"Whimbrel now ENS Tariq retains many of the features which helped her and the rest of the Black Swan class of sloops defeat the German U-boats in one of the crucial campaigns of World War II.
And now, six decades on, plans are in hand to return the 62-year-old warship to the UK as a permanent memorial."
Not bad for an wartime British-built vessel. By all accounts here, she should have sank at her moorings by now.
Username: drunknsubmrnr
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 1077
Date: 5/30/05 17:30
Re: British post-war warships seem to be just fine...
Here in Canada, for example, we were able to keep three to four Oberon class SSKs operational for over 30 years; which is a testament to both Canadian ability and British shipbuilding skill.
Ummm...what do you mean by operational?
Our time between major failures was roughly 7 sea days. IE one week at sea, before something major broke and we had to go in.
The O-boats were always crap. It's quite well documented that the RCN only accepted them because it was either the Oberons or nothing.
Kevin
Username: Admiral Beez
Nickname: New Guy
Posts: 7
Date: 5/30/05 21:24
"O-boats were always crap"
As a civie, I'd always read that the O boats were one of the most successful SK designs, with very quiet running abilities and overall excellent capabilities. With Canada, Britain and Australia, IIRC being amoungst many O-boat users, they can't have been all that bad?
Your experience of 7 days at sea before repairs seems terrible. However, how does this compare with other SSKs from the 1960s and 1970s? If you were in a Soviet Whiskey or Romeo class SSK, or a Chinese Ming class, French Daphne Class or Dutch Zwaardvis class how would reliability compare?
I would imagine that the O-boats seem much better than the Victorias do today re. reliability.
Username: The Argus
Nickname: I Like to Watch
Posts: 651
Date: 5/30/05 21:33
Re: British post-war warships seem to be just fine...
'Short lived by design', was in refference to WWII built ships, not everything since 1918.
The point here is not one of totality, it's a matter of degree in a generalisation. You've got a list of surviving UK built ships, go compile one of US built vessels and see how it compares.
Look I'm a dyed in the wool anglophile and it it hurts me to say all this, but the evidence is clear that UK standards dropped steadily after 1914 (for good reasons and bad). In terms of technology, I'd say the UK improved it's grasp of the state of the art over a simmilar time frame. To compare realitive mastery of technology between WWI and WWII, you'd not have got the UK into the comtempoary parallels of Radar, Collossus, Jet engines back in 1915. There was a huge slump in UK technology across the Edwardian period, the routes that the Uk pioneered, she then lost in all sorts of fields.
shane
Username: Jimlad1
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 689
Date: 5/30/05 22:52
Re: British post-war warships seem to be just fine...
I agree on the comments on UK ships, I'm an RN officer and I think certain types of ship were pretty gash :)
Lets look in more detail at the list below shall we:
Leopard class (1957) - Bangladesh - Abu Bakr and Ali Haider
Barely able to float, totally obsolete for about 25 years with nightmare spares issues.
Leander class (1971/2) - Pakistan - Zulfiquar, Shamsher
A gun frigate with minimal capability.
Leander class (1970/4) - Chile - Condell, Lynch, Ministro Zenteno
Leander class (1971) - New Zealand - Canterbury and Wellington (now training ship)
Terrible maintenance problems apparently and in dire need of replacement. Only run on as NZ cant afford a new ANZAC.
Leander class (1963/7) - Ecuador - Presidente Eloy Alfaro, Moran Valverde
Both effectively unarmed exocet leanders. No missiles - can you spell target.
Hermes (1959) - India - Viraat VSTOL carrier
Tribal class (1962/4) - Indonesia - Tiyahahu and Hasanuddin
Amazon class (1974/8 ) - Pakistan - Tariq, Babur, Khaibar, Badr, Shah Jehan, Tippu Sultan
The Amazon class are legendary for their issues, I'm amazed PAkistans run them for as long as they have.
Sir Lancelot (1964) - Singapore - Perseverance
Rahmat (1971) - Malaysia - Rahmat
Type 42 (1976) - Argentina - D1, D2
One hasnt been to sea for over a decade, the other is a helicopter carrier now. (Limited extension to flight deck) with no real sea dart ability, making them pretty looking hulls with no missiles.
Broadsword class (1979/86) - Brazil - Greenhalgh, Dodsworth, Bosisio, Rademaker
Ones in reserve and ones been attacked by mistake by the argies, and the Brazillians are reportedly having big problems with seawolf. An ASW intensive frigate isnt great for a third world showboat navy.
Niteroi class (1976/77) - Brazil - Niteroi, Defensora
Never saw RN service.
County class (1966/67) - Chile - Blanco Encalada, Cochrane
GLAMORGAN was sunk in the ocean recently on her way to the breakers. I believe the others have long since not been operational in any real form.
Oberon class (1976) - Chile - O'Brien
Black Swan class (1949) Egypt - Tariq (now training frigate)
Vosper Mk5 type (1971/2) - Iran - Alvand, Alborz, Sabalan
Username: NewGolconda
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 948
Date: 5/30/05 22:57
Re: British warship reconstructions
I dont think its a cheapness issue the cost advantage is most stark in the mid 1930s and those are the ships least effected by the build quality issue. The war built ships were more expensive (as expected though).
I think the costs relate for a real and significant comparative advantage in ship building, due to lower labour costs, more efficient yards (on a manpower basis) and in comparison to the US cheaper raw materials.
An associated factor was that the ships were less complex to some degree than equivalent US or German vessels and fitted out to simpler levels.
Before the treaties the British ships had the advantage of being able to build heavy for cheapness, where as congress in the US imposed displacement limits on ship so the US got more value out of weight control in terms of combat potential, even if that cost more.
A drop in standard spurred by the emergency war program of 1914 makes the most sense. That construction programme was amazing in every respect and its achievements particularly in machinery fabrication could only be dreamed about in 1940. I think Shanes argument is it they learned to cut corners in 1914-18 and they never learned to uncut them.
But to re iterate dont imagine everyone else was perfect either. I am not sure if I would rather a bay class frigate or a captain class for a commission in the far east in 1958.
Username: NewGolconda
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 949
Date: 5/30/05 22:58
Re: Veteran destroyer could return to the UK
Beez are you sure people are actually saying what you think they are saying?
Username: The Argus
Nickname: I Like to Watch
Posts: 652
Date: 5/30/05 23:27
Re: British warship reconstructions
They learned to cut corners in 1914-18 and they never learned to uncut them.
Thats it, and they learned to cut even more corners in 39-45 with simmilar results.
I think the WWI program was amazing, for all the short cuts they took, the volume of hulls that were still good enough to survive two decades of peace and another world war... But that industry 'died' through Washington build holidays and the Depression.
shane
Username: drunknsubmrnr
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 1078
Date: 5/30/05 23:57
and large quantities of it......
The Oberons were quite popular because they were the cheapest long range SSK class available. Both the RCN and RAN wanted Barbels, but they were too expensive. It was already clear by the time the Oberons were purchased that they were obsolescent, if not obsolete.
The USN & RN routinely deployed for 60-90 day patrols, without suffering catastrophic breakdowns. That was wartime, when they kept going after we would have turned back in peacetime, but there's a big difference in availability.
The Oberons seem about the same as the Victorias. There just wasn't as much publicity. Keep in mind that we were the only country to buy British twice, and they pretty much had to give them to us.
Kevin
Username: K Newman
Nickname: Bubblehead Cop
Posts: 2312
Date: 5/31/05 3:36
Re: British warship reconstructions
One trick EB used was to bend PVC pipe to design and then take it down to the boat to see if it fit. If so, then they would fabricate the CRES version of the pipe and install it in the boat.
Username: K Newman
Nickname: Bubblehead Cop
Posts: 2313
Date: 5/31/05 4:04
Re: British warship reconstructions
The problem with the Liberty ships was with the design, not workmanship. The hulls were too stiff due to all-welded construction. Doubler plates were riveted on and that fixed the problem.
US crews weren't too happy with the CVEs because they were built on merchant hulls and not naval hulls. Compartmentation and the ruggedness of construction wasn't up to normal USN standards. Both the Liberty ships and the CVEs were something that could be built rapidly and despite their shortcomings, they served well. Again, the problems were deliberate design decisions and not the quality of workmanship.
Username: Theodore
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 2959
Date: 6/2/05 17:00
Re: British warship reconstructions
Repairs while taking longer were also simpler as you didnt have to wait for a part to arrive or be in stock in Durban, you just turned one to the specifications you needed. If you were a cruiser or battleship, you could probably do it onboard.
Simpler still would be having interchangeable parts and a full set of drawings so that Durban could make one guaranteed to work on the first try - and if they had the drawings, they could have it waiting for you when you arrived.
Username: Theodore
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 2960
Date: 6/2/05 17:06
O-boat failures
What kinds of things broke?
Username: drunknsubmrnr
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 1079
Date: 6/2/05 18:21
Re: O-boat failures
i) Electrical failures. (Surprise!) Things like sparks shooting out of the motors and generators, caused by the electrical insulation breaking down. For a while it was extremely dangerous to walk aft between the motors and generators to the torpedo room.
ii) The donks shared a lube oil tank. Therefore, whenever Bert spontaneously discombobulated, Ernie had to be shut down, and vice versa.
iii) The HP system O-rings tended to fly about the spaces for no particular reason. At very high velocity.
iv) The hydraulic pumps, along with the rest of the VP machinery, tended to die with alarming regularity. If the masts were up at the time, there was a good chance that drop. Not good for the optics/valves.
v) The Freon tended to dump. We nearly lost somebody once that way.
We had issues that weren't the builders fault too, like the electronics difficulties with heat, wrapping our tail around both screws (Very Embarassing), losing a tail (Not Quite as Embarassing, but Still Bad) etc.
Dum spiro, spero
Username: NewGolconda
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 951
Date: 6/3/05 0:21
Re: British warship reconstructions
Perhaps but they had the industrial system they had. It worked well enough for running a global navy for 60 years, quant enough though it might seem in 1940. There were apparently British cabinet discussions in the mid 1930s where the re armament programme leaders asked for and were refused permission to recruit skilled machinists from the singer sewing machine company.
Understanding the level of technology and the way they worked I think is a powerful insight into the RN and its equipment choices.
A modern RN task force could pull into Durban in 1942 with.
A battleship with 14in and 5.25in guns.
A carrier with 4.5in guns.
A cruiser with 6in and 4in guns.
Destroyers with two different marks of 4.7in gun, neither really dual purpose and both using two different types of ammunition. Some of the destroyers would have single 4in and 3in HA guns on their quarterdeck.
Two corvettes with the auxiliaries each with a WWI pattern 4in gun.
Thats one type of heavy mounting, one type of intermediate mounting. Two dual purpose mountings, three low angle destroyer gun types and two different HA guns.
Thats nine different types of gun mounting on about that many ships. For the USN that would be a logistical nightmare impossible to support with their way of doing business. For the Royal Navy, the dockyard crew would come aboard and be able to turn out whatever was needed for whatever they had to work on at the time. Obviously not ideal but their very different support mechanisms meant that frequent changes in calibre for destroyer guns was not the problem it would be in a 1960s navy or the USN.
It wasnt really feasible for the British armament industry to change the way it worked between the wars. Even if it was, what advantage would their have been? They learned to mass produce the repeatable things they needed, shells, small arm ammunition, small arms, internal combustion motors. Perhaps to different standards to the US, but in a functional manner. But the great armament concerns? Should they have discarded their master tradesman? Gone for detailed specifications implemented by large numbers of less skilled workers producing the same thing over and over? When they still had the master tradesman from the pre WWI period, who could turn their hand to a 4.5in gun and then a 5.25 gun without blinking? Who did the work at far less cost than other industrial systems?
They proved less amenable to the WWII war emergency program than the WWI version. But I dont know that they had any other choice other than to work with the industrial system they had built 40-60 years before.
Username: K Newman
Nickname: Bubblehead Cop
Posts: 2317
Date: 6/3/05 1:47
Re: O-boat failures
But the beer fridge was so reliable that it could have flown on the International Space Station.
;)
Username: Dick B
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 435
Date: 6/3/05 1:53
Re: British warship reconstructions
We used a soft rod like #3 rebar, and called it Template Wire.
How you doin' these days?
Username: K Newman
Nickname: Bubblehead Cop
Posts: 2321
Date: 6/3/05 3:09
Re: British warship reconstructions
I'm good. I dropped you a line a while back, but didn't get a reply. How about touching bases with me at
sobersubmrnr@netscape.net?
Username: drunknsubmrnr
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 1081
Date: 6/3/05 14:01
Re: O-boat failures
We were willing to compromise on many things, but cold beer isn't one of them. We bought solid, American-made Westinghouse beer fridges.
Unfortunately, they're only for export.
Kevin
Username: p620346
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 166
Date: 6/3/05 16:04
Re: British warship reconstructions
A modern RN task force could pull into Durban in 1942 with.
A battleship with 14in and 5.25in guns.
A carrier with 4.5in guns.
A cruiser with 6in and 4in guns.
Destroyers with two different marks of 4.7in gun, neither really dual purpose and both using two different types of ammunition. Some of the destroyers would have single 4in and 3in HA guns on their quarterdeck.
Two corvettes with the auxiliaries each with a WWI pattern 4in gun.
Thats one type of heavy mounting, one type of intermediate mounting. Two dual purpose mountings, three low angle destroyer gun types and two different HA guns.
Thats nine different types of gun mounting on about that many ships. For the USN that would be a logistical nightmare impossible to support with their way of doing business. For the Royal Navy, the dockyard crew would come aboard and be able to turn out whatever was needed for whatever they had to work on at the time. Obviously not ideal but their very different support mechanisms meant that frequent changes in calibre for destroyer guns was not the problem it would be in a 1960s navy or the USN.
In contrast, a USN task force would only have 16-in & 6-in main battery guns and 5-in/38, 40mm & 20mm AA guns. There might be a few old 5-in/25s and possibly some 1.1-in AA but not many.
Username: K Newman
Nickname: Bubblehead Cop
Posts: 2324
Date: 6/4/05 11:27
Re: O-boat failures
You said they were Canadian made!
Too bad you couldn't have had a Westinghouse electrical system. Or propulsion plant, for that matter.
Username: drunknsubmrnr
Nickname: Old Friend
Posts: 1085
Date: 6/4/05 12:43
Re: O-boat failures
The BEER was Canadian made. We wouldn't compromise on that either.
:D
Kevin
Username: K Newman
Nickname: Bubblehead Cop
Posts: 2326
Date: 6/4/05 21:51
n/t
Username: The Argus
Nickname: I Like to Watch
Posts: 657
Date: 6/4/05 23:18
Re: British warship reconstructions
Yep and that's the point.
The US system was standardised across the board, where as the UK was not standardised, so was more tollerant of nonstandard elements that would have been a disaster in a fully standardised system.
It was an old fashioned way of working, but it did work because the system was geared to it.
A dealer can service your car, and so can a general mechanic, but the general mechanic has no problem doing your neighbours Ford or your Chevrolet.
shane
Username: K Newman
Nickname: Bubblehead Cop
Posts: 2326
Date: 6/5/05 8:28
Re: British warship reconstructions
US yards were (and still are) capable of turning out parts as well.
That interchangeability of part among US ships was a far more efficient system. Parts could be swapped between ships if need be and the fleet train's job was greatly simplified. We also had a fleet of tenders and repair ships which, when paired with another fleet of floating drydocks, allowed the USN to set up a small shipyard anywhere a ship could anchor.
BTW, also keep in mind that US yards like Norfolk Navy Yard and Mare Island Navy Yard made extensive repairs to badly damaged RN ships. Those yards also conducted overhauls on RN ships. Doing that work in the US kept valuable capital ships from being bombed in drydock.
