User:The ed17/Sandbox/Brazilian battleship Riachuelo


 * Main article -- not all information is accurate here: South American dreadnought race

Riachuelo was intended to be a Brazilian super-dreadnought battleship (encouraçado). The ship was designed as the replacement for Rio de Janeiro, which had been sold to the Ottoman Empire. She would have been named in honour of the Battle of Riachuelo in 1865. Riachuelo would have been built by Armstrong Whitworth in Elswick, who submitted four plans for the ship. She was ordered in May 1914, but the outbreak of the First World War, when British yards stopped work on foreign projects to concentrate on building ships for the Royal Navy, meant that the vessel was never constructed.

Background
A South American naval arms race involving Brazil, Argentina, and Chile was kindled by the former's 1904 naval building program. Although it originally called for smaller ships, the completion of the United Kingdom's HMS Dreadnought (1906) meant that centerpiece of the new fleet, three battleships, were relaid with dreadnought characteristics, becoming the Minas Geraes class and utilizing twelve 305-mm (12-inch)/45 calibre guns. Also, the order was reduced to two; a third would follow after they were completed. Argentina, whose fleet was entirely "outclassed" according to Conway's, responded&mdash;after some debate&mdash;with an order for two Rivadavia-class battleships from the United States, with an additional option for a third if Brazil followed through and constructed its third. In response to Argentina, Chile increased a previous order of one 23000 LT battleship to two larger ships of the Almirante Latorre class from the United Kingdom. These were to be armed with ten 355-mm (14-inch)/45 calibre BL guns. In response to these developments, Brazil&mdash;whose third ship had been laid down as Rio de Janeiro &mdash;sold Rio de Janeiro to the Ottoman Empire and pursued an even better design.

Construction
The Brazilian government placed an order for the Riachuelo at the Armstrong Whitworth shipyard in Elswick in May of 1914. However, Britain declared war on the Central Powers on 4 August 1914, and all foreign battleship construction was diverted to wartime causes. Thus, the Riachuelo was never laid down, and because she was not under construction, she was not seized by the British, unlike the Turkish battleship Reshadieh and Sultan Osman I, the old Rio de Janeiro.

Original proposals
Armstrongs presented Brazil with four proposals for their new battleship in September 1913. These would have been for a ship displacing between 31000 LT and 36000 LT, and carrying varying numbers of 356 mm, 381 mm or even 406 mm guns. The secondary batteries would have been split between 152 mm and 76 mm weaponry, with the latter further subdivided into anti-destroyer and anti-aircraft. All appear to have been based on designs then building in the United Kingdom.

"A" was the most detailed proposal. Vanterpool comments that it was "obviously an improved [Chilean] CHILEAN BATTLESHIP Almirante Latorre." It called for twelve 356 mm/45 calibre guns in six dual turrets&mdash;a 20%increase in the number of guns and turrets over the Chilean ship&mdash;the fore and aft pair superfiring. This arrangement gave five of these turrets large firing arcs of 300&deg; or greater. A small bridge and two closely-spaced funnels were incorporated far towards the bow. To save weight, small-tube Yarrow boilers were planned.

"B" took the British Iron Duke-class battleship and made most of the components larger, including the armament, while also increasing the speed to Queen Elizabeth-class battleship levels. "C" did the same thing, but increased everything to an even larger extent. Vanterpool believes that this design was similar to the Japanese Tosa-class battleship of the early 1920s. "D" was an amalgamation of "A" and "C," taking the latter's hull and mounting twelve 381 mm guns in "A"'s arrangement.

Design 781
Most sources do not mention that Brazil actually ordered a battleship; Conway's even remarks that "Brazil had not selected from the four design variations".

Three further design proposals were submitted in February 1914, and Brazil chose what was labeled as Design 781. Riachuelo was then designated as ship 879 by Armstrong. Design 781 was vastly different from "A" through "D". Although it was inferior in armament and speed, it was quite similar to the Queen Elizabeth and Revenge-class battleshipes then actually building, and so therefore may have been a more practical design. It was also much better armoured than either "A" or "B".

Armament
The main armament of the Riachuelo most commonly suggested in the original four plans was either ten or twelve Vickers-Armstrong 38.1 cm Mark B guns, which were designed specifically for the ship in 1912. Eighteen of those guns, which weighed 223 tons each, were later sold to the Spanish Navy and were used as coastal artillery defences, the last of which was placed in inactive reserve in 2008. Each gun had an arc of fire of about 300°, meaning that the could train 150° to the left or right. The guns could have been depressed to negative five degrees and raised to forty degrees. Each gun fired either an armour-piercing or high explosive shell, both of which weighed 885 kg, although the high-explosive shell was about thirty centimetres longer than the armour piercing. The ship would have been able to fire armour-piercing shells at a muzzle velocity of 762 m/s which gave a range of 35100 m at maximum elevation. Their rate of fire was about two rounds per minute. Other primary armaments would have been twelve 14 in or ten 16 in guns. Nothing is known about the planned secondary and tertiary armament of the ship, including where her torpedo tubes would be, or if she would even have had any.