N3 class (NB) - Guide 072

The N3 class, never-built battleships of the Royal Navy are today's subject.

Next on the list:
-Tillman Battleship Special
-Deutschland class (1930)
-KMS Graf Spee
-Tone class
-HMS Warrior (1860)
-IRN Potemkin
-Hipper class
-KMS Prinz Eugen
-Yamato class
-Italia class
-Tsesarevich
-Βασίλισσα Ολγα (Basilissa Olga)
-Nagato class
-Monitor Parnaiba
-G-class destroyer
-HMS Glowworm
-Town class cruisers
-USS Wichita
-Lord Nelson class
-Essex class
-Slava (Pre-dreadnought)
-USS Massachusetts
-Pensacola class
-HIJMS Oyodo
-Riachuelo (NB)
-I-19
-HMS Ark Royal
-ORP Błyskawica
-USS West Virginia
-Amagi Class
-Tosa Class
-Alaska class
-Derfflinger class
-Yorktown class
-Tre Kronor class
-Nelson class
-Gato class
-Admiralen class
-H class (NB)
-Greek 'Monarch' class destroyers
-'Habbakuk' project
-USS Texas
-USS Olympia
-HIJMS Mikasa
-County class
-KMS Tirpitz
-Montana class
-Florida class
-USS Salt Lake City
-Storozhevoy
-Flower class
-USS San Juan
-HMS Sheffield
-USS Alaska
-USS Texas
-USS Johnston
-Dido class
-Hunt class
-HMS Vanguard
-Mogami class
-Almirante Grau
-Surcouf
-Von der Tann
-Massena
-HMCS Magnificent
-HMCS Bonaventure
-HMCS Ontario
-HMCS Quebec
-Lion class BC
-USS Wasp
-HMS Blake
-HMS Romala/Ramola
-South Dakota (1930's)
-SMS Emden
-Väinämöinen and Ilmarinen
-Destroyer Velos
-U.S.S. John R. Craig
-C class
-HMS Caroline
-HMS Hermes
-Iron Duke
-Kronprinz Erzerzorg Rudolph.
-HMS Eagle
-Ise class
-18 inch monitor
-Mogami
-Vanguard
-De Zeven Provinciën
-South American Dreadnoughts
-Fletcher class
-USS Langley
-Kongo class

Specials:
-Fire Control Systems
-Protected Cruisers
-Scout Cruisers
-Naval Artillery
-Tirpitz (damage history)
-Treaty Battleship comparison

[glennpettersson]

"The slow speed would have been the biggest issue going forward". I see what you did there👍😀.

[Aelvir]

1:53 TECHNICALLY Conqueror (I guess now Thunderer) only uses the main guns and main battery layout of the L2 design but the rest of the ship is a 1944/1945 Design Lion-class battleship with its 12x2 4.5"/45 Mk V secondaries replaced with 8x2 5.25”/50 guns in the same turrets as Vanguard. The Lion-class Hull does make sense as both Conqueror and Thunderer were the third and fourth Lion-class battleships.
So essentially Conqueror/Thunderer is really just a 1944 Design Lion-class battleship with different armor, L2 guns, and Vanguard secondaries. Though I would’ve preferred it if they kept the original secondaries of the 1944 design tbh. 5.25s are overused on Royal Navy battleships in that game and would make more sense as the game states the year of design being 1949. By 1944 the 5.25s were already being phased out in favor of the superior 4.5" guns and 5.25s being mounted on a ship designed postwar makes literally no sense.

[sergarlantyrell]

I've never understood the argument in favour of 2-gun ("twin) turrets over 3-gun ("triple") ones from a survivability point of view... Sure if one turret gets knocked out in a 3x3 arrangement 1/3 of the firepower is lost compared to 1/4 in a 4x2 arrangement.
But if you loose 1 turret of a 3x3 arrangement, then you're reduced to 6 guns, exactly the same number as if you lost one turret on a 4x2 arrangement, you're also down to 6... So there's no penalty for using 3-gun turrets.
You just get 1 extra gun when all turrets are working for a substantial reduction in weight. It seems like a win-win.

[chrishopwood]

Just imagine if this had been built in secret. Germans launch the bismark. Bismark goes to sea. Meets N3. Sinks to the bottom of the sea. GG

[McRocket]

I did not realize these interim British designs would have been as great as they sound.

[paulmanson]

Your series is just excellent. Robert Heinlein the science fiction writer was an Annapolis graduate and served as a gunnery officer on a battleship, with the captain Ernest King, later chief of naval operations during WWII. With that personality as leader, the fact he was praised meant competence.
The only detailed information on battleships I read was stuff he wrote during the WWII period. This your series is so much more detailed and explores the years of engineering changes from preDreadnought to 1945 . Well done.

[sse_weston]

And people said Conquerer was just something thought up by Wargaming only, there *were* designs! :D

[benlaskowski]

Saw the G3 video too. The retouched pictures are very nice.

[scottjackson]

Watching videos like this about ships in service for the first 50 years of the 20th century is fun. Perhaps it's time to to some on ships which served during the last 50 years; of the 20th century. USS Chicago and Albany come to mind. Also my ship: USS Ranger CV-61, fits this category.
For example: between 1950, and 1970. Surface warships changed a great deal. Especially the aircraft carrier.

[DZ-qjbr]

Sad to see these ships didn't get built but seeing how the war ended i wouldn't complain

[godalmighty]

It's worth keeping in mind that the RN often took worse case scenarios with ship speeds, a 23 knots design might be closer to 24/25 etc. Even the Rodney on deeply worn out boilers was able to exceed design speed and hit an estimated 25. With sufficient modernisation (and the budget to do so) the N3 could have been a 26 knot ship. Not fantastic but it puts into the gap between battleship and fast battleship.

Great video, as usual, and thanks for putting more volume in!

[kyle]

These are really interesting because of seeing all the ways designers played around with turret placement. I for one still believe that the 4 double super firing (2 forward, 2 aft) turrets or the or 3 turret with three gun (2 forward in super firing postions, 1 aft) make the most sense. You are not blocking the guns fire with anything or as little as possible.

[brianthesnail]

They do look a lot like early versions of what eventually turned into the Nelson class battleships which had triple 3 x 16 inch main gun turrets all forward facing.

[watcherzero]

It would have made a great centre of a fleet. Alright it couldn't force a battle due to speed but if your in a scenario where your opponent has to come to you, for example blockading a fleet in port, then it would have been an extremely difficult obstacle to overcome.

[jamesb]

Once the G-3 and N-3 were known, the US would have made a major shift. And who knows what would have been launched after that. Both designs though and the follow on O-3 Nelsons were in truth a bit eccentric. Some of the design parameters used for justifying the odd placement of the midships turret made no sense. The layouts of the engineering spaces were especially cramped and it lead to significant compromises. Did it never occur to the designers that sometimes ships retreat and need to have guns that could fire at a pursuer? Nor did the final design include much room for modernization. The G-3's and N-3's wold have been hard pressed to find a place to put extra generators. In the Nelson, there was no room for even minor system tweaks. Modernization of the Renown and QE's were substantially helped in the 30's by higher pressure systems taking up less space. The Nelsons were plagued by issues where even minor equipment upgrades could not be fitted. I think the G-3's would have been good ships, but the N-3 was too slow and would have been a difficult monster to justify.

[Wongwanchungwongjumbo]

The Former British Battleships Nelson and Rodney were N3 type Battleships.

[EdGreenLondon]

A fascinating look at my second favourite design thank you!

The purpose of the N3s was to be the battlefleet's heart, and the final offensive or defensive ultimate weapon. When comparing them to the battleships of other nations one should consider that few of those could have hoped to stand toe to toe with the G3 "Dreadnought hunters" - the use of the N3s would have been most critical when either the Royal Navy, its victim had no-where to run.
Projecting forward to encounters in WW2 the O3 and KGV classes rapidly gained straddles or hits in many engagements those near 3, 000 lb projectiles, nearly 50% larger than those that did for Bismarck combined with armour that was vastly superior to anything that ever set to sea would make them monstrous weapons.
I suspect that the heavy escort duties would still mainly have fallen to the R class battleships which performed them superbly as they would have been far less fuel hungry and were still more than a match for anything less than a Bismarck or Yamato (given radar developments). As bombardment ships - those giant HE rounds would have been quite something!

[aaronreiche]

I am a world of warships player I certainly knew that the conqueror form the game represented the L2! it was basically war gaming's perspective of how such a design would look like when modernized after ww2! the ship in game also has a higher speed! one thing I was shocked about though, Is the fact that the L3 wasn't the ship that came into game as it would have had superior fire power and a more efficient configuration of the main guns! but the 419mm gunned conqueror came into play in the later development phase of the RN BB line! not many people really like playing with the 457mm guns but people don't like playing against the 419mm guns! the ship isn't played too much in world of warships because with the 419mm guns, it is basically the definition of over powered!

[whipple]

I gather the image at 3:15 is a PhotoShop mangling of NELSON or RODNEY???