The Ship Model Forum

[quote="Cliffy B"]Heck, you could always construct a scenario that one of the KGVs limped back to the US/Canada and was so bad off she wasn't worth repairing, you could use her 2 quad 14" turrets.[/quote]

Not even necessary, most of the 14”/45s were recovered from the Arizona & Oklahoma. There were even plans to restore Oklahoma but it was decided that she was too old. The Jean Bart could easily been refit with these guns, giving her 8-14”/45s in her original turrets (same broadside as the Kongos & greater than any German short of Bizmark). Or even an ad-hoc mixed armament of 4-15” & 4-14” (or 4-15”&3-16”/45s).
If she was being completed around ‘45/’46 then she might have been rebuilt to carry 5-Mk16 6”/47 DP turrets, 3 aft & 1 each side as well as 3”/50s in place of the 40mm quads.

The damage done by [i]Massachussetts[/i] and the carrier planes was impressive but not that serious. The armour only failed in one area. All the rest was enough to put the ship out of action for good, but repairing the damage was not at all a big issue. The French yards that took [i]Jean Bart[/i] on hand after the war were themselves only recovering from wholesale destruction from the retreating German army, but the real issues to complete [i]Jean Bart [/i]was availability of equipment, chiefly armament, not repairing battle damage.

But I certainly agree that by 1941, the USA was already the largest and most productive economy in the world, removed from the war zone and nearly fully mobilised. There is not much that could not be done in US naval yards, if given appropriate priority. In fact, nearly anything can be done if money and resources are no issue. The only question is whether completing an oddball French battleship would have taken priority on completing say the [i]USS Missouri[/i]? Or a few [i]Essex[/i] class CVs that would definitely have been much more useful to win the war, even in the eyes of big gun minded admirals.

The fact that the French navy ultimately completed [i]Jean Bart[/i] is a proof of the value of the design, even in the post war world though.

Well remember what happened to her after [i]Massachusetts[/i] mauled her! You could make a case for almost a complete rebuild from the hull up given all the damage she received. If her main battery was THAT incomplete then what about using US guns that we were already building? Give her one turret to [i]Richelieu[/i] then install a triple 16"/45 or 16"/50 in each barbette. I know the sizes would differ and that could prove problematic with fitting different turrets and what not but its an option.

Heck, you could always construct a scenario that one of the KGVs limped back to the US/Canada and was so bad off she wasn't worth repairing, you could use her 2 quad 14" turrets for [i]Jean Bart[/i]. Again I know size differences with any other turrets then the ones she was designed to carry would cause problems but if they wanted to they could probably perform the swap.

Just some thoughts.

[quote="Cliffy B"]As far as senors and fire control go, just look at USN BB (probably a South Dakota Class) of the time and copy and paste :big_grin: 4 Mk-37 directors with Mk-12/22 radar for the 5" battery, Mk-13(?) main battery director atop the forward superstructure. Probably an SC air search, SG surface search, and a YE Homing Beacon for aircraft. Most ships had 2 air search/surface search sets for coverage limitations and backups, especially the Carriers and Battleships.

How advanced was [i]Jean Bart's[/i] construction at the time? Might be able to redo the superstructure arrangement if she wasn't too advanced. Would definitely set her apart from her sister ship and not just look like [i]Richelieu[/i] with 5"/38s hehe

It would be nice to spread the secondary battery out amongst the sides of the ship instead of concentrating it full astern like the 6" battery was. Not sure if they'd keep those guns or just nix em in lieu of more 5" and quad 40mms though. Aircraft may or may not be retained. A lot of UK BBs re-built in mid '40s did away with their aircraft in favor of more AA guns so they'd probably go the same route with Jean Bart. If not you could re-build the stern and maybe add a more extensive hangar facility for some Kingfishers or Walruses! I still think the 6" battery would go since the 5"/38s are more useful as a DP gun.

Anyone have a high-res line drawing of the ship? I always start sketching up my whiffs with some tracing paper laid over a printout and go crazy with all the possibilities until something fits. Might help you decide on locations of weapons and what not. Don't claim you can't draw either!!! Draw a simple hull shape and start adding different boxes and circles for all the weapons and viola! :big_grin:

Hope that helps! Glad to see the whiff community growing! :cool_1:[/quote]She was not too advanced, I think maybe 65%-70% might be a good estimate. She had only one 15" main gun quad turret and I don't believe her secondary guns were fitted yet. She still had only the one main gun turret and no secondary guns when she had it out with the USS Massachusetts during the Torch landings in 1942. A good portion of her upper superstructure was built though.

Take a look on Wiki at these pics of here in Casablanca during 1942 and it gives you an idea:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Jean_Bart_damaged_01.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Jeanbart.jpg

I could scan some of the drawings I have available. As far as drawing, I'm a draftsman and engineer by trade, so I can draw, on a computer using CAD at least. With a pencil, not so much. :big_grin:

I have another idea for the Jean Bart, a hull extension and a third quad 15" turret in an aft mounting. Twelve 15" in three quad turrets, two fore and one aft. All secondary guns located amidships in this design. I think this was one of the designs tossed around for the next couple of French battleships to follow Jean Bart. They also had a design with one quad 15" forward and one aft (Gascogne I think).

There is a lot of room for whiffery here I think. :thumbs_up_1:

The big technical problem in your scenario (even admitting its political plausibility) is that Jean Bart had only one main armament turret fitted in 1940 before she escaped Saint Nazaire. The four 380mm guns of B turret could not be installed on time and were left behind as the captain refused to take them on board the ship because he was very concerned (rightly so as it happened) that Jean Bart would get grounded in the Loire river estuary, as the canal that had been dredged for the ship was very tight. Jean Bart was stuck two times in the epic escape to the open sea.

I doubt that even the US war industry would have been able to manufacture 4 large calibre naval guns while in full war effort. As a matter of fact, that question was investigated in 1943 after Jean Bart and Richelieu joined back in the war and at that time it was decided that completing Jean Bart as a battleship was of marginal military value considering the huge industrial effort required. Beyond the main armament issue, even secondary 5in guns and directors were in big demand and rather scarce at the time. Alternative options were explored, such as completing the hull as an aircraft carrier, but to no avail. Instead, it was decided that Jean Bart would donate her only 4 main guns to the Richelieu so that one French battleship at least could contribute in the war.

In the very interesting uchrony [url]http://www.1940lafrancecontinue.org/[/url] that is working on an alternative history based on the assumption that France did not leave the war in 1940 but battled on from North Africa, the team decided that Jean Bart was completed as an aircraft carrier. [img]http://www.1940lafrancecontinue.org/FTL/images/navires/fr_conversions/CV_Jean-Bart.jpg[/img]
Even in that context, the CV Jean Bart is a moderately successful ship as it can deploy about 50 aircraft, rather less than a much smaller Essex.

Even after the war, the French navy thought very hard about what to do with the ship, including scrapping her, but in the end, the heavy guns that the Germans had seized and transported to Norway to serve as coastal artillery were returned to France, which permitted the navy to complete Jean Bart to a modified design, with arguably the most advanced AA ever installed on a battleship.

This scarcity of main guns means that in 1943, there were only 10 undamaged and serviceable 380mm guns (6 on the Richelieu and 4 on the Jean Bart) available to the allies to fit to French battleships, i.e. only enough for one of them, as it happened. Manufacturing ammunition specifically for French battleships was already a big effort for the US war industry. I doubt that manufacturing heavy calibre guns as well might have appeared worthwhile or even possible at the time.

Nonetheless, in your alternative history, you are free to disregard such limitations on the main guns. If you do so, I suppose that your reborn Jean Bart would look very much like a South Dakota class US battleship, with the standard radar fit of US capital ships.

As far as senors and fire control go, just look at USN BB (probably a South Dakota Class) of the time and copy and paste :big_grin: 4 Mk-37 directors with Mk-12/22 radar for the 5" battery, Mk-13(?) main battery director atop the forward superstructure. Probably an SC air search, SG surface search, and a YE Homing Beacon for aircraft. Most ships had 2 air search/surface search sets for coverage limitations and backups, especially the Carriers and Battleships.

How advanced was [i]Jean Bart's[/i] construction at the time? Might be able to redo the superstructure arrangement if she wasn't too advanced. Would definitely set her apart from her sister ship and not just look like [i]Richelieu[/i] with 5"/38s hehe

It would be nice to spread the secondary battery out amongst the sides of the ship instead of concentrating it full astern like the 6" battery was. Not sure if they'd keep those guns or just nix em in lieu of more 5" and quad 40mms though. Aircraft may or may not be retained. A lot of UK BBs re-built in mid '40s did away with their aircraft in favor of more AA guns so they'd probably go the same route with Jean Bart. If not you could re-build the stern and maybe add a more extensive hangar facility for some Kingfishers or Walruses! I still think the 6" battery would go since the 5"/38s are more useful as a DP gun.

Anyone have a high-res line drawing of the ship? I always start sketching up my whiffs with some tracing paper laid over a printout and go crazy with all the possibilities until something fits. Might help you decide on locations of weapons and what not. Don't claim you can't draw either!!! Draw a simple hull shape and start adding different boxes and circles for all the weapons and viola! :big_grin:

Hope that helps! Glad to see the whiff community growing! :cool_1:

Okay, so I have this crazy scheme for one of the Trumpeter Jean Bart kits I have in the stash. :thumbs_up_1:

Suppose the Jean Bart raised steam and escaped the German invasion in 1940, as she actually did. However, instead of heading to Casablanca to stay there, she loaded provisions in Morocco and made her way to the Atlantic coast of Africa and eventually after France fell she made her way to Canada to prevent her capture or sinking. After the US enters the war, she sails for New York Navy Yard and gets completed using US weapons, sensors and equipment. I'm thinking along the lines of the Richelieu but also with secondary guns (5"/38 twins possibly) and a bit more comprehensive. Maybe even a later war or 1946 completion with some 5"/38 twins and some twin 3"/50 mounts.

Thoughts? Ideas? Sensors and radar are not my strongest suit, so any ideas there would be welcome.