Steel of a Hundred Years Ago: Ships of 1920

High-pressure steam makes conventional machinery hazardous, while electric pod systems can reduce the amount of dangerous piping distributed through a ship.

Charles I's failure to make naval policy feel relevant to the public shows how fleet-building became entangled with the English Civil War.

USS T-1 shows why the US Navy wanted a long-range scouting submarine and why engines, hull pressure, and radio limits defeated the early concept.

T-1's re-engining shows how the US Navy relied on German MAN and British technology when domestic submarine diesels proved unreliable.

Use a continuous rolling build in which one new ship enters service at a regular interval and the oldest ship retires, preserving industrial skills and lowering lifecycle costs.

No; it was meant to watch hostile ports from a position where a visible cruiser would be too vulnerable to shore-based aircraft.

No; local operating conditions matter, and the South Atlantic is singled out as especially hard on ships.

USS Sapelo illustrates how oilers gave the US Navy global reach that the Royal Navy could obtain from its worldwide base network.

Its partly civilian status could give British auxiliaries access to neutral ports for supplies while they still supported the Admiralty and fleet.

Shirakaze provides a 1920 baseline for Japanese destroyer speed, guns, torpedoes, range, and later anti-submarine duties.

Not entirely; the Pacific's scale still made range essential, and short-legged destroyers required more tankers or more frequent refueling.

Hood and Lancastria show two very different forms of British maritime power entering service in the same month of 1920.

Yes; gray antifouling paint existed, and wartime dockyards could use the suitable coating they had available.

Yes; both were used to justify cuts or avoid spending elsewhere.

Yes; her cruiser-derived framing places her toward the cruiser side of the battlecruiser spectrum.

Potentially; two carriers and two battlecruisers on related Admiral-class machinery would have created a powerful, prestigious, and easier-to-support fast force.

Yes, at least in some ideas used for Vanguard's bow and hull.

Concentrated fire could break up the aircraft and make sure it was destroyed at range.

HMS Eskimo and HMS Nubian qualify, while failed U-boat torpedoes against HMS Warspite in Norway provide the clearest example.

She would probably have needed conversion into an aircraft carrier to survive the treaty settlement.

Potentially, and surviving sister ships would probably have encouraged earlier machinery and antiaircraft improvements across the class.

Britain's ability to contemplate ships such as Incomparable rested on decades of yard expansion beginning with the Naval Defence Act era.

She needed sufficient dock length, but she still fit most facilities and did not always require deeper dredging because her draft depended on loading.

Yes; based at Singapore with modern antiaircraft weapons and capable air groups, they would have been difficult to confront.

Probably not in the same form, because Britain would likely have negotiated a larger carrier allowance around the Admiral-class hulls it wanted to convert.

USS Tennessee combines turbo-electric drive, twelve 14-inch guns, long range, and a robust hull that survived Pearl Harbor and became an amphibious fire-support platform.

The rationale was weak, especially because the structure placed considerable weight high in the ship.

Yes; their heavy guns could continue supporting troops inland for as long as the battlefield remained within range.

K III shows the long-range, reliable submarine engineering the Dutch developed for service in the East Indies.

Yes; that was the US Navy's conclusion, so it did not treat the British losses as a decisive argument against Lexington's protection scheme.

Dutch long-range submarine engineering helped sustain German design knowledge between the wars.

Had planned Dutch battlecruisers entered service, Britain would have tried to acquire or destroy them rather than let capable hulls fall into German hands.

Ro-13 combined useful range and six torpedo tubes with conservative diving limits that exposed Japan's uneven submarine development.

The larger Scharnhorst force would certainly have had a major effect on the Royal Navy, but the exchange does not give a definitive verdict.

She would have been a very capable ship, though the exchange does not detail the required redesign.

USS Pope shows how a simple destroyer design, many experienced yards, and enormous orders produced the ubiquitous four-stack Clemson class.

Build up the bow and accept the extra weight, then use nine available 15-inch guns or continue the Nelson and Rodney 16-inch line.

Politicians feared the employment and constituency consequences of cancellation more than the direct financial loss alone.

Town class was the Royal Navy designation for transferred American destroyers, modified in service but not transformed into a fundamentally new design.

Nagato paired eight 16-inch guns with solid protection, but flagship status, fuel shortages, and conservative strategy kept her away from many decisive actions.

Only partly; domestic coal offered supply advantages, but quality varied and noisy coal handling was especially undesirable for anti-submarine escorts.

RMS Scythia served for 38 years as an Atlantic liner, troopship, war-bride carrier, and refugee transport.

Yes; some navies tried them early, but the systems were generally not very good.

Yamamoto's choices are placed within an institutional struggle in which the Japanese army and navy often sabotaged cooperation and weakened the war effort.

Possibly for medium-size or prestige services, while very small ships lack scale and very large ships carry high operating costs.

It lined up multiple external sources, including Canada and the Middle East, rather than relying on domestic production.

Lee's battlefield reputation needs to be judged against the uneven quality of the Union commanders he repeatedly faced.

No; new airfields would have needed construction for the proposed deployment.

Four-turret ships commonly used A, B, X, and Y, but ships with additional turrets required different practical naming schemes.

Thomas and Rosecrans rank among strong Union commanders here, while politics, theater, and the prominence of Grant and Sherman shaped their reputations.

Yes; the freed weight and space could support more power and perhaps allow one main turret to move aft.

Use cruiser-oriented battlecruisers as fast task-force ships and carrier escorts rather than expecting them to fight like fully protected battleships.