BattleshipsIt is perhaps typical of the ill-luck experienced by Arransia’s leaders that the one occasion in the steam era that the country managed to finance and construct a squadron of state-of-the-art warships, they were almost immediately rendered obsolete. In the period from 1890 onwards, battleship design seemed to have stabilised, and the government managed to scrape the funds together to order a quartet of ships that would be the equal of any in the world. The result was the four ships of the King Robert I class – the name ship, Queen Margaret, Brodie and King Malcolm VI, which entered service between November 1904 and May 1906. The displaced 18,500 tons, were 450 feet long, could steam at 18˝ knots, had 11" armour plating and mounted 4x12" and 8x8" guns. They also had an unusually high freeboard for battleships of their era and could maintain their speed and fight their guns in heavy seas that would leave most of their rivals floundering. In each individual characteristic apart from seakeeping they were equalled or slightly bettered by foreign ships, but when all aspects are taken together there is a strong case for saying that in 1905 they were the world’s most powerful battleships. The previous Arransian ships, the Danby class of 1898-1900, were much smaller ships of 12,000 tons with 4x10" guns. The ships - the Danby, Stainton, Hebburn and Howick - were a characteristically Arransian take on the pre-dreadnought battleship, with the emphasis on robust construction and seakeeping. Posterity has tended to criticise them for the their light main armament, but in fact at the the time many foreign navies were still using 9.4" or 10" calibres. They remained in commission until around 1920-22, and during the wars of 1910-19, when Arransia remained neutral, were heavily used on convoy duty. They were still more than a match for pretty much any cruiser afloat. The four ships of the King Robert I class were sufficient for naval reference books of the day to elevate Arransia from the ranks of “Other Navies” to those of “Great Powers”, where, in general, the country remains today, as one of only five in the world to possess an ocean-going fixed-wing aircraft carrier. Unfortunately, within a couple of years of their introduction, the advent of the all big gun, turbine-powered battleship of the Dreadnought type had put them in the category of those that could neither fight nor run away. Nevertheless, they remained heavily-armed and armoured vessels that any foreign navy would think hard about taking on, and they were kept in commission throughout the 1910s and 1920s. As Arransia remained neutral during the 1910s, they were never tested in battle. Indeed, in 1926-27, the four took part in a world cruise along with the newer Great Bear and Revenge, and the non-expert eye might well have concluded that Arransia’s six battleships made her a formidable naval power. In 1930, due to the recession, they were laid up in reserve, and never went to sea again. Three were scrapped in the late 1930s, but the Malcolm VI was retained as an accommodation ship at Beadnell and survived the war only slightly damaged. In the 1950s she was restored as a national monument and today is a major tourist attraction at Beadnell Dockyard alongside the 1800s wooden two-decker Hydra, looking resplendent in her traditional colours of black hull, white uppers and buff funnels. Some wags have suggested that due to the advanced age of the aircraft carrier Queen Margaret (which is now some years older than the Malcolm VI when she opened to tourists) the old battleship might as well be restored to active service. The crippling cost of these four ships, and the rapidly escalating size of Dreadnoughts, meant that Arransia did not lay down any new battleships for another ten years, although numerous studies were undertaken. The war caused many foreign building programmes to be suspended, and eventually in 1916 Arransia had the confidence to order a pair of new ships that would not be rapidly outclassed. These, however, were deliberately not intended to be the equal of the biggest foreign ships, but to be vessels strong enough to act as a deterrent. Named the Great Bear and Revenge, they were completed in 1921 and 1922. They displaced 28,000 tons, had a maximum speed of 25 knots, and mounted 8x14" guns in four twin turrets. They were also some of the most comprehensively armoured and protected battleships ever built, and when put to the test proved extremely difficult to sink. Both ships were extensively modernised in the late 1930s with new anti-aircraft armament and radar, the Revenge also receiving a new and more built-up bridge structure. During the Great War, the Revenge was sunk in November 1944 after an epic battle with the two larger Brunswickian battleships Aubourg and Visser State, during which the latter was severely damaged and needed six months in dock for repairs. The Great Bear survived the war, although for the last two and a half years she was effectively stranded in the Terrapin Islands as lack of oil fuel and Brunswickian command of the seas made the prospect of a successful breakout back home very unlikely. In the 1950s, although in a poor mechanical condition, she carried out shore bombardments as part of the unsuccessful campaign to maintain control of Lower Mumba before being finally withdrawn from service in 1960 and scrapped in the mid-70s after fifteen years laid up in the Embo Firth. The prosperity of the 1920s led the Arransians to consider a further pair of battleships, provisionally named Leviathan and Triumph, which would advance to 35,000 tons and 15” guns, and also a speed of 28 knots. These never got beyond the outline design stage, and were cancelled due to the Depression. These ships, together with the Great Bear and Revenge, would have made Arransia the world’s foremost naval power relative to her size of population. A new battleship, another Queen Margaret, was laid down in 1941 with a view to completion in 1945. The design was effectively an updated version of the Leviathan, with the armament in one twin and two triple turrets rather than four twins, allowing more weight to be devoted to anti-aircraft armament. Although nominally claimed to be 34,500 tons, the blueprints suggest a standard displacement nearer 39,000. The Queen Margaret would have been the most comprehensively armoured battleship ever built and a match for any other single ship in the world. She was within a month of launching when irretrievably damaged on the stocks at Elswick by some extremely brave and determined Brunswickian air raids, something that still rankles with the Arransians. Her completion would undoubtedly have made a significant difference to the course of the war. A sister ship, provisionally named Sovereign, was to have been built on the same slip, but obviously was never started. In the 1950s Brunswick offered to transfer one of their battleships to Arransia, but the Arransians probably wisely declined as battleships were now of limited use in a world dominated by air power. The guns intended for the Queen Margaret were used in the war-built Mayonnaise battleship Alliance, which in comparison was something of a makeshift vessel and nowhere near as well armoured. Nevertheless, she served in the Mayonnaise fleet for many years after the war. While Mayenne was able to continue shipbuilding throughout the war outside the range of effective Brunswickian bombing, land warfare was always given priority of supply, and Mayenne completed less than a sixth of the Brunswickian warship tonnage between 1942 and 1949. The Arransians never made any attempt to have warships built in Mayenne, although they did plan to have the Queen Margaret completed there.
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