What if HMS Nelson & HMS Rodney were built for speed?

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00:00 What if HMS Nelson & HMS Rodney were built for speed?
12:50 Washington Naval Treaty
25:40 Comparison of the Legend Vitals Design
38:30 Shameless Book Plug
40:30 The 15in/50
53:20 The Royal Navy's Fast Ship Force
01:06:10 How other nations react & how it would evolve post 1930
01:19:00 Either Treaty with Construction or Treaty doesn't Change...
01:31:50 Finale

[lindsaybaker]

15 inch 50 cal guns for across the whole battle line, existing and planned ships would have made a wiser choice in guessing.

[USAACbrat]

hi doc, got the construction blues yet?

[tekteam]

If these speedy 15"-armed Nelsons were to trade in their 6" guns for 4.5' BD mounts, it would need at least four of the dual 4.5" DB mounts per side to have sufficient secondary firepower against both aircraft and lighter combatants.

[juicysushi]

I think that what gets built depends a great deal on how the British sell the fast Nelrods. If you just build them as a statement, it means everyone else needs to re-think how they build their fleets. If you get a little creative, you can maybe delay the realisation for a few years that could delay the response long enough that a RN advantage can last for quite a while. If you present the 15/50s as a cost savings measure (“common guns on every ship”) then while it makes the RN look weak, it also makes building in reply a harder case to sell for other navies. A couple of “leaks” that the higher-pressure boilers didn’t work properly and they were only good for 26kts “in real life, ” and it’d take until maybe 1931 or 1932 before anyone else realized what was really going on. At which point the R-class replacements could be near and everyone else is still in their slow battle line headspace.

If it’s the former scenario, though, and you’re the RN, do you offer the French the old 15/42s in the early 1930s to increase commonality between the fleets and speed up their process? Or do you not trust the French government at that point?