In the 18th century, the dominant capital ship type was the third-rate "seventy-four" (named for its 74 guns) ship of the line with two decks which balanced speed, manuevering, cost, and firepower. Larger second-rate and first-rate ships with three decks were mostly used as command ships due to their cost and inferior speed/manuevering. Considering the technological limits of the era, the convergence on similar designs sharing many traits is natural.
So the question is could we have a generation of battleships with similar characteristics? It seems an "optimal" design for a battleship is plausible given the escalation of tonnage in the 1910s and inherent technological limits such as the guns you can build (larger shells/velocity means shorter gun barrel life), the amount of crew needed, the rate of fire, the fire control systems, and the limitations on naval armour where ships can't practically armour themselves against guns of a certain size.
This makes me think you could standardize the battleship on a design equivalent to the 18th century third-rate "seventy-four." OTL, the closest equivalent would be the USN's "Standards" of the 1910s, but I'm thinking of something more like the logical conclusion of the battleship. The biggest issue would obviously be the quickly advancing technology of the 20th century and its impact on naval warfare. As for the naval treaties which limited the size (and thus the need to increase size as a counter), we'd likely need to butterfly away World War I entirely and keep navies focused on and able to obtain battleships. While the naval races of the 1900s/early 1910s wouldn't last forever, we could easily see a renewed naval race by the 1930s or so TTL. It is noted that tonnage on battleships and battlecruisers was constantly increasing and eventually you would hit a plateau like this.
As for what it would look like, my idea (based on my admittedly limited knowledge, I know there's people here who could devise something like this) for a battleship equivalent to the "seventy-four" being something like a Yamato-class with 17-18'' guns, 27-30 knots of speed, and maybe 75-80K tons displacement. The 18'' gun is probably the maximum feasible for rate of fire and range, while a ship can't be armoured much past 18'' guns without either slowing it down or putting in bigger engines (and thus increasing cost). The 18'' gun was used in Japan and Britain and planned for the N3 battleship so it seems like a weapon to standardise around. TTL, your "second-rate"/"first-rate" would be costly experiments at making larger ships with, say, 20'' guns which no country could sustain many of. If you wanted a larger ship, you'd likely increase the number of 18'' guns rather than use a larger gun.
The problem is you run into the pace of technology and the aircraft carrier will eventually come of age. The age of missiles will also arrive and you'll want to mount those on your battleships instead. Nuclear propulsion will also change the ideal battleship design (much as the seventy-four was obsolete in the years after 1815) and IMO you'd only ever have a few years of true BBNs instead of oversized Kirov-class missile battlecruisers. So you'd only have a 10 year or so period for these ships to exist but in that period you'd presumably have a "golden age" of battleships and dozens of examples of this ship produced by the US, Britain, Germany, France, and Japan with a few more produced by "second-tier" naval powers like Russia, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. I doubt your lower-tier naval powers like Brazil, Argentina, Sweden, Spain, Netherlands etc. would ever acquire one (unlike the seventy-four, where lesser states like Venice or Portugal acquired a few) when they could buy an "outdated" ship like an N3 battleship instead.
So my question is, is this sort of design plausible? What would the impact on naval warfare be--designs like these using a lot of interchangeable guns and parts are cheaper thanks to economies of scale? What sort of counters would be devised--would the rising cost of making a good line of battle make more "lesser" powers go for aircraft and carriers as a defense instead?
Thoughts?
So the question is could we have a generation of battleships with similar characteristics? It seems an "optimal" design for a battleship is plausible given the escalation of tonnage in the 1910s and inherent technological limits such as the guns you can build (larger shells/velocity means shorter gun barrel life), the amount of crew needed, the rate of fire, the fire control systems, and the limitations on naval armour where ships can't practically armour themselves against guns of a certain size.
This makes me think you could standardize the battleship on a design equivalent to the 18th century third-rate "seventy-four." OTL, the closest equivalent would be the USN's "Standards" of the 1910s, but I'm thinking of something more like the logical conclusion of the battleship. The biggest issue would obviously be the quickly advancing technology of the 20th century and its impact on naval warfare. As for the naval treaties which limited the size (and thus the need to increase size as a counter), we'd likely need to butterfly away World War I entirely and keep navies focused on and able to obtain battleships. While the naval races of the 1900s/early 1910s wouldn't last forever, we could easily see a renewed naval race by the 1930s or so TTL. It is noted that tonnage on battleships and battlecruisers was constantly increasing and eventually you would hit a plateau like this.
As for what it would look like, my idea (based on my admittedly limited knowledge, I know there's people here who could devise something like this) for a battleship equivalent to the "seventy-four" being something like a Yamato-class with 17-18'' guns, 27-30 knots of speed, and maybe 75-80K tons displacement. The 18'' gun is probably the maximum feasible for rate of fire and range, while a ship can't be armoured much past 18'' guns without either slowing it down or putting in bigger engines (and thus increasing cost). The 18'' gun was used in Japan and Britain and planned for the N3 battleship so it seems like a weapon to standardise around. TTL, your "second-rate"/"first-rate" would be costly experiments at making larger ships with, say, 20'' guns which no country could sustain many of. If you wanted a larger ship, you'd likely increase the number of 18'' guns rather than use a larger gun.
The problem is you run into the pace of technology and the aircraft carrier will eventually come of age. The age of missiles will also arrive and you'll want to mount those on your battleships instead. Nuclear propulsion will also change the ideal battleship design (much as the seventy-four was obsolete in the years after 1815) and IMO you'd only ever have a few years of true BBNs instead of oversized Kirov-class missile battlecruisers. So you'd only have a 10 year or so period for these ships to exist but in that period you'd presumably have a "golden age" of battleships and dozens of examples of this ship produced by the US, Britain, Germany, France, and Japan with a few more produced by "second-tier" naval powers like Russia, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. I doubt your lower-tier naval powers like Brazil, Argentina, Sweden, Spain, Netherlands etc. would ever acquire one (unlike the seventy-four, where lesser states like Venice or Portugal acquired a few) when they could buy an "outdated" ship like an N3 battleship instead.
So my question is, is this sort of design plausible? What would the impact on naval warfare be--designs like these using a lot of interchangeable guns and parts are cheaper thanks to economies of scale? What sort of counters would be devised--would the rising cost of making a good line of battle make more "lesser" powers go for aircraft and carriers as a defense instead?
Thoughts?
