Michael, no offense intented, but you're sounding like lwd...
Argumentative, picking points, etc.
Where should I begin answering... your comments ?
Ah, your reply. I've read it... But I don't think we understand each other very well...
I'll make another try though, who knows ? Maybe it's the coffee ?
About the relative merits of reconstructed BBs/BCs. I don't keep them in high regard either. The Kongo/s and Duilio's were amongst the weakest capital ships of the war. I wouldn't want to let them under fire from a modern BB... (Kirishima and Washington...
)
But the RN also fielded a
vast majority of capital ships of WW1 vintage... And slow (< 23kts). The main armor of all RN BBs and BCs built before the 1930s wasn't enough to stop German 38, 32, or even 28cm gunfire at any likely ranges. This is mostly because the quality of the KC armor evolved quite alot after the first war... And the quality of teh AP shells also evolved alot... It was luck that RN capital ships weren't under fire from similar opponents [and in the few instances when they were, Hood blew up in 5 minutes, and Renown wasn't hit in the armored areas by Schar+Gneisneau. I guess we should leave out Warspite gettign hit by teh Fritz-X, as it's a to powerfull weapon...]
By the way, most of the German ships scuttled in Scapa Flow were ocean-going vessels, with acceptable range ~ 5000 miles and good sea keeping... You might want to look it up before plastering me with "
they were good for the Baltic only" and "
How can a large short range fleet capture remote territories in the face of an even larger fleet?".
At Scapa Flow there were some 50 German DDs... and 10 BBs and 5 BCs... And 8 cruisers... So it's not only the heavy ships, but also some serious escort force, which could be added to the small historical KGM of 1939...
And again, it's not about a "match-up", it's about Britain probably getting
her supply lines cut by repeated attacks with heavy ships and Uboats, against which it would not have the historical quantitative ratio that it had at the start of the war. In the historical battle of The Atlantic, the British were hard pressed, allthough having 15:0 parity in battleships, 6:0 parity in carriers, and about 150:0 parity in ocean-going destroyers in 1939.
With
some reconstruction work, the Von der Tann could reach, maybe 29-30kts, while the Derfflinger's coudl approach 28-29. Seydlitz maybe 28; Moltke was allready at 28+...
Even without machinery reconstruction, these ships had anyway speeds in excess of 26.5kts, and many close to 27kts. 5 of those ships survived the war. Add the 2 Scharnhorsts (large BCs in my opinion, as you know) and Germany would field 7 BCs in 1939. The ONLY British ships that could overtake them would
be Repulse and Renown.
"Those odds didn't work very well for Germany in 1916 - why would they work better for her in WW2 with the British far improved as a result of the dissapointment of Jutland? Dispersed or concentrated ultimate victory will go to the far larger navy"
In WW1, the RN didn't have to worry about the Med. In WW2,
it sent significant surface forces there. Also, the Pacific theatre did not engulf British warships in WW1,
while in WW2 it certainly did!
In the mean time, the Germans would have ALL their supposed ships
in one place... (in the Baltic) This would assure probable local supperiority in the North Atlantic, as a good number of RN BCs/BBs would be performing various missions in other theatres of operations.
P.S.: The costs of reconstructions are more tricky to assess. Inflation after WW1 was huge in many countries. So some expenditure done in 1918 Germany may not be relevant at all to some other expenditure done in 1928 Germany...
P.S.2: If an arms race would start again after WW1 (though I don;t know with what resources), the Germans would probably want to complete their 4 Mackensen's/Ersatz York's, and the BRitish would probably respond by completing all 5 Admiral class BCs... Again, the numerical advantage of the RN would be dilluted because of the many missions it had to carry out in WW2 as compared to WW1...