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Since this is strictly an opinion question, my initial thought is the first, most important job of a battleship is to kill other ships, especially other battleships, as quickly as possible. I think firepower should be the premium over protection within the confines of infrastructure (ports, slipways, drydocks, canals), unless there is an external non-military pressure (i.e., a treaty) limiting the design.

Balance might be desirable, even feasible, but given the decaying international situation in the second half of the thirties, the increasing likelihood that potential enemies will be throwing off the limits of the treaties and the threat of war increasing the potential for combat with such unrestricted ships, the focus should be in favor of inflicting as much harm as possible on such ships.

However, when applied to the RN, there are extenuating circumstances outweighing conventional wisdom. Among them the RN had financial issues. It was unable to afford to update all its capital ships. Also those same issues had lead to the some of the R's being in a poor material state with only one, Royal Oak, had really been updated in the 30s. (Even then, she didn't receive increased elevation to her main armament, though I digress....)

Also, the need to replace the R class means that a new a new class of capital ship needs to be laid down as quickly as possible. The extension of the building holiday increased that pressure, and put the earliest possible replacement laying-down date at 01 January 1937. That meant the design had to be ready at that date. Second London further complicates the situation, taking the caliber of the 35,000 ton limit down from Washington/First London 16 inches to 14 inches. While Second London, Article 4, Part 2 said

(2) No capital ship shall carry a gun with a calibre exceeding 14 in. (356 mm.); provided however that if any of the Parties to the Treaty for the Limitation of Naval Armament signed at Washington on 6 February 1922, should fail to enter into an agreement to conform to this provision prior to the date of the coming into force of the present Treaty, but in any case not later than 1 April 1937, the maximum calibre of gun carried by capital ships shall be 16 in. (406 mm.).

the RN correctly felt it couldn't afford to wait those extra three months the bulk of its battlefleet being older than either the US or Japanese battlelines.

Finally, diplomacy was a key to the Empire's strategy in the later half of the '30s to buy time to rearm. Diplomacy hoped to offset Germany with Italy until the Abyssinian crisis. And while it failed to keep Italy at the naval limitation table, it resulted it in the US agreeing to a lower caliber limit, but also yielded a limited German Navy. The RN very well couldn't go against the diplomacy carefully cultivated by the UK, nor could it even plan a ship in violation of that diplomacy.

My thoughts,

Big Rich

E F Draaijers wrote:

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Officially items related to propulsion and main armament are considered primary issues on military vessels, all other items are secondary, such as repairsystems and other things that make a ship running efficiently. Simply stated: a warship without propulsion cannot sail and without main armament cannot fight (in its main function at least).

[sarcarsm]I had no idea![/sarcasm]

Mike,

Call the Bureau of Construction and Repair and cancel that order for the barge with 12 x 18in/47s....

EFD,

'Battleship' implies a self-motive vessel. Though we did recently have an interesting coversation over of the Warship Projects Forums over how fast was fast enough for a 30s-40s BB...