WesWorld

Folks:

The three Hyderabad-class cruisers were designed and laid down in the late teens. They were intended to be a scourge of light cruisers, and at the time, seemed to be just fine for the job.

Since then, the Cleito Treaty has arisen, and the limit for a Type A cruiser has been fixed at 13,000 t, well in excess of Hyderabad's 8,400 t. Consequently, a number of navies are operating Type A cruisers far superior to the Hyderabad class.

In 1928, SR Hyderabad (see half-way down this page, http://wesworld.jk-clan.de/thread.php?th…36bdb564cec48a7 ) see will head into port for her mid-life...something.

Considering that India will not be able to replace these vessels until at least 1936, it's important that a balance be found between cost effectiveness and capability. So I ask you learned gentlemen, what would you do with the Hyderabad class:

-Don't even bother with a refit

-Give 'em a refit, upgrading the torpedoes and secondary armament

-Rebuild them ala the Japanese Furataka class

-Rebuild them as big light cruisers; given that India tends to understate the size of its warships, a reduction of actual size to ~8200 - 8300 t would probably have India claiming them to be just a few kilos under 8,000 and thus light cruisers in all respects.

-Rebuild them as coastal defence armorclads

-Have them join Japan's Kongos in a freakish and unexplained incident, thus allowing replacement tonnage to be built immediately.

-Sell them to the Philippines, who are known to buy almost anything.

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated...

I´d go with the last option! *g*

Seriously, it´s a difficult problem you´re facing. Before going into detail - is there enough CL tonnage left to convert them into CLs? It won´t help much if a refitted/rebuild CA eats up most of your remaining CL tonnage allotment which should be better spend on purpose build units.....

Quoted

-Sell them to the Philippines, who are known to buy almost anything.

Ah, but I have other plans for that tonnage...




I'd suggest rearrangeing their armament (but keeping it at 210mm) for a 6-gun broadside - perhaps arranged Yubari-style?.

Keep in mind: the Doc is using springstyle. Her main guns are thus simed as in turrets with barbets. That´s important to consider as barbet diameters can hardly be changed and as it is there is only one ammo hoist per mount. Even if you fit a twin turret on top of those barbets you´ll suffer from a very low ROF. A FURUTAKA-style modification includes the complete replacement of her barbets - which needs a reconstruction, not a rebuild according to our rules. A rebuild rules include only the replacement of guns (a 6" triply by a 8" twin) if the barbet remains the same....

Let's see...

4 Kolkata class CL: 16,000 t
5 Columbo class CL: 21,000 t
2 Trincomalee class CL: 12,000 t
3 Hyderabad class CA: 25,500 t
+4 Agra class CL: 28,000 t

For a total of 102,500 t of 132,000 t. Two of the Kolkatas can be replaced in 1930 and 1932 respectively, reducing that total to 94,500 t.

So you´ve enough tonnage left for 4 7,500ts cruisers. Or probably 5x 6kts. That´s not too much even if you can replace some older ships in about 5 years. So I won´t waste this tonnage.

When examine HYDERABADs capabilites I noticed she´s not lacking much given her size and age. Her armor suit gives her a comfortable protection against light cruiser gunfire and at least decent protection against shells of up to 210mm caliber. Her speed is on the lower end and her range should be better but how much could be gained by a rebuild (especially because you´re using springstyle)? Not much, I fear.

You could try to get her a new set of turbines, re-hape her bow to lengthen her 3-5 meters. This will probably gain you a knot (hardly, you´re already using oil fired boilers, so the difference will be marginal) of speed and some hundred or thound miles of range. However, as explained above you can´t replace her single turrets by twins - except you accept a ROF of max. 3 shots/barrel/min. Doesn´t sound that attractive, does it?

I´d do it this way:

Take her out of commission in 1928 and get her a refit. Modern FC will compensate for having only 5 guns per broadside. Enhanced heavy and light AA will increase her close range defensive capabilities. Reshape her midship section by trunking her funnels together (make it 2 instead of 3). You´ll thus gain better arcs for your AAA and propably enough deckspace to install a catapult.

Such a refit is quite cheap and she´ll be back for trials in 1929 and, depending of the month you started her refit, into service. Thus your relatively small navy won´t loose some of her more powerful units for long.

With this new configuration she might be able to serve for another 4-5 years - which is enough for her replacement to be at hand. Note that you can replace cruisers laid down prior to 1-1-21 16 years after EIS and lay down a replacement 13 years after EIS.

My 0,02€...

If the refit was postponed a few more years it might be useful to convert them to AA cruisers. They are large enough to accept numerous AA batteries along with the associated fire control.
Or in the interim leave the centerline main battery in place (a 6" Fletcher DD layout), add more medium caliber guns and improve engineering, fire control and habitability.

Thanks for the comments thus far.

Hooman: A refit would take about six months, a shakedown cruise another two months (per our rules). Figure one ship gets done in each of 1928-1930, and I'll have the Agra class coming into service at this time to balance out the temporary losses.

John: in the interim case, would you leave the two beam turrets in place, or remove them and just have the four centreline guns as the main battery?

You could replace a single turret with a twin mount, with the rate of fire reduction, but gain the 6 gun broadside....or remove the beam turrets and place a deck mounted twin...someplace on centerline. This one will be difficult for the guns crews to use, but it might work.

Why must the ship wait to be replaced? They are not capital ships so there is (as far as I know) no memorandum on cruiser construction, nor a set limit of the time a ship must be in the water before being replaced. Only the amount of tons you might have and the capacity for you to build.

If she is slow (under 24 knots) then reclassify it as a coastal defense ship and free up your cruiser tonnage. Or, only this thought, modify her to be slower to fit this classification in name, increase her range, shell storage, or add more deck mounted guns (if there is space). They would make good escorts for convoys between your nation and your allies.

Of course if India under reports its tonnages, it might also under report its engine speeds, so that it might be reclassified as a coastal defense ship but actually still be the cruiser it once was (engine limiters come time mind).

Just a thought

The Cleito Treaty specifies replacement for everything that is somehow restricted - from subs and destroyers up to battleships.

Hyderabad has a top speed of about 30.6 knots, so she'd require a rebuild (and removal of machinery) to classify as a CDS. And when I note that tonnages are under-reported, I'm still talking within our 5% "Gentlemens' Limit".

I originally did sim the ship with mounts, rather than turrets, but consensus seemed to be that turrets were needed for guns this large.

I think 7.5" guns are the largest guns you can put in sheilds and even then they likely cumbersome mounts.

The Hyderbads are slightly larger than my Medusa class CA's and pack a considerably larger punch, I'd keep em arround in their current guise and increase the AA and secondary's if at all possible, perhaps removing the wing turrets if nessassary but that would reduce their battery to just 4 guns.

I'm sure if their armament was changed to a CL caliber India could get away with including them in their CL tonnage. Refiting your Kolkata class CL's ( their recent refit reduced them from 4535 tonnes down to 4290 tonnes) will free up some CL tonnage to make up for the excess weight of the Hyderbad's.

For their size, I think the Hyderabads are not bad, if a tad slow. They're just small for heavy cruisers nowadays.

Granted, I'd be curious to see how the three of them, with fifteen single guns on the broadside, did against two full-sized treaty cruisers with six triple turrets on the broadside.

I have no doubt that the class could be reconstructed as nasty light cruisers...it just takes up a lot of my resources to do so (almost as much as building an Agra from scratch).

You could always contract the work out to a wealthy nation and spread the price out over several quarters giving you new ships now and monthly bill to pay...

Crazy Sam's House of Reconstruction!

No money down!
No interest!
Pay for two cruisers and we'll gut the third for free!

You could go halfway. Rebuild one or two as "large" light cruisers, and leave one as a heavy cruiser.

Or use one as a target to see just what it takes to sink one, and use that information to design a better cruiser.

Quoted

Originally posted by The Rock Doctor
Hooman: A refit would take about six months, a shakedown cruise another two months (per our rules). Figure one ship gets done in each of 1928-1930, and I'll have the Agra class coming into service at this time to balance out the temporary losses.

So the plan sounds like a good idea to you?

I'd leave them as is. They are fine for cruising the Indian Ocean. Anything really costly would be just a waste. A simple refit would be best, then phase them into more secondary roles as your newer cruisers are built.

My default plan was to refit them with extra torpedoes and AA, modernize fire control and what-not, and deploy them to whatever's considered "secondary". Right now, that'd be the west coast, where the only immediate neighbour is Great Britain. As a bonus, I don't recall Britain having (or really desiring) the huge heavy cruisers some others do...

Sounds like I should stick with this plan.

If you really wanted to go wild - remove all the non-centerline main battery, install landing craft boat davits and troop space. You would have a APD on steriods.
(It would also change the classification of the ship, I don't know how that would affect treaty issues)

A "One Ship Invasion Force", eh?

Well, I do need to gather an amphibious capability at some points...but some of the sticklers around here would still classify her as a heavy cruiser. And I just don't have the slack tonnage to get away with such a thing without neglecting other core obligations.

Might be an interesting way of spending coastal defence armorclad tonnage, though...