The "Nelson" with large guns. The battleship "Collingwood." United Kingdom
The British G3-class battleships are among the most famous “victims” of the Washington Naval Treaty. We’ve written about the most well-known variant of this class, so to speak, on our website. But there were other variants as well, and we’ll discuss one of them below.
As is well known, the largest main-caliber guns on British battleships were mounted on the “Nelson”-class battleships; their caliber was 406 mm, or 16 inches. Battleship designs developed immediately after World War I called for a main caliber of 419 mm (16.5 inches) or even 457 mm (18 inches). However, the Washington Naval Treaty put an end to all these projects, and the result of all this work was, so to speak, the “Nelson”-class treaty battleships.
While working on these battleships, the option of arming them with 419-mm main-battery guns was also considered. However, it was impossible to install nine such guns per ship under the Washington Treaty, so it was proposed to install six of these guns in three turrets, arranged in the same way as on the Nelson-class ships.
However, the admirals decided that nine guns were better than six—even if the latter were slightly more powerful—and scrapped the project. But in the game World of Warships, they decided to revive this design. Even though such a project existed, no blueprints have ever been found online. So I very much doubt that the developers had access to a detailed design. Therefore, this ship can be considered at least half an alternative design. This is because the placement of the smaller-caliber guns and other external components and mechanisms is the developers’ own invention.
Regarding other characteristics of the ship: Its displacement is not known with certainty. However, it is certain that it must comply with the contractual limits—that is, it must not exceed 35,000 metric tons.
The anti-mine armament consists of 152-mm guns mounted in six twin-gun turrets. This also includes six 120-mm multi-purpose guns. Four of these are located at the stern and two in the forward superstructure area.
The ship’s air defense is quite powerful. In addition to the 120-mm guns mentioned above, which provide long-range air defense, six 8-barrel 40-mm Pom-Pom guns and 24 single-barrel 20-mm Erlikon guns will engage air targets at close range.
The armor on this ship is roughly the same as on the Nelson, starting at 356 mm at the main belt. Its maximum speed is 25 knots.
In conclusion, I’d like to assess whether such a ship could have made a difference if it had been built. In my opinion, it’s unlikely. Moreover, I think the admirals were right to reject this option, given that the hit rate of the main battery guns is quite low; when firing salvos of six shells, it was possible to fail to score a single hit at all. And even if hits were scored, the destructive power of the 419-mm shells isn’t so radically different from that of the 406-mm shells that the greater power of the larger shells would compensate for the smaller number of hits.
