Deodoro da Fonseca-class battleship

"My god... what have I done?" -Head of Elsepth's design Bureau (1911)

12x 1 6"/45 BL Mark XII in casemates

5x 2 4.7"/43 QF Mark VII

4x 3 4"/45 QF Mark V

6x 1 2-pdr Vickers QF Mark II

1937

3x 2 18"/40 BL Mark I

6x 1 6"/45 BL Mark XII in casemates

9x 2 4.7"/43 QF Mark VII

4x 8 2-pdr Vickers QF Mark VIII

1944

3x 2 18"/40 BL Mark I

8x 2 5"/38 Mk. 12

6x 8 2-pdr Vickers QF Mark VIII

12x2 20mm/70 Oerlikon Mk. II

End Belts - 102mm

Deck - 76-127mm

The ***Deodoro da Fonseca*-class battleship** wasBrazilian superdreadnoughts, which participated in WWII. This unusual ship, which combined powerful main armament and thick armor was listed among the most distinctive (along with Nelson class) ships of the interwar period.

## Background

In 1910, following a Chilean order for new dreadnought, a team led by renowned naval architect Gustavo Elsepho created a design was known as the Vickers 477H Battleship - which quite understandably shocked the Chilean goverment. After a *long* period of considerations, Chile ordered single vessel of the class. However, with the outbreak of WWI, the hull was seized for use in the Royal Navy. Economical constraints prevented their completion and in 1919 the incomplete hulls were purchased by Brazilian Government after the head of the Brazilian Naval Committee misread the hull's characteristics (later inquiry found him guilty of taking bribes). Brazil was left with the incomplete hull and the decision was made to use it for an *interim* battleship design, instead of creating a new class of battleships altogether.

## Design

The original hull was 590 feet long at the waterline with a 15 foot ram bow and 15 foot stern overhang. It had a maximum beam of 91.5 feet and a draft of 28 feet.

Brazil requested new designs that were compatible with this unique hull. Vickers-Armstrong proposal (477H design A) combined the protection of a Queen Elizabeth-class battleship with an armament of 5x2 14" guns in 3 turrets forward and two wing turrets. This design was rejected by Brazil, who were already struggling to comprehend the bizarre vessel they had obtained and did not need it to get any stranger.

477H design B could be best described as a cramped Kongo-class battlecruiser with 15" guns, but this design was rejected owing to weak armor and secondary armament.

477H design C was reminiscent of planned N3-class. It was armed with 3x2 18" guns used on battlecruiser HMS Furious and a heavy turreted secondary battery along with a main belt increased to 14" thickness. This design concept was liked, but improvements could still be made. 477H design C2 cleared the firing arcs of the rear turret by re-configuring the machinery and superstructure. Additional casemate guns were added as the Brazillian goverment demanded more secondary firepower (despite Vickers' warnings about the wetness of the low casemates at the foredeck).

The ships ended up overweight at 29,494 tons normal displacement (The planned tonnage was 28,700t).

## Description

The Brazilian goverment considered the *Deodoro da Fonseca*-class surprisingly affordable given their capabilities, but were aware that the exceptional main battery salvo firepower masked rather significant problems. The ships had mediocre stability, largely because the 18" gunhouses were overweight due to the requirement to accomodate two planned 18" BL Mk. II guns. A mixed secondary battery using 6", 4" and 4.7" guns was impractical (especially 4" triple deck mounts which required *27 men each*). The usage of casemates was questioned by the new goverment and to add insult to injury the foredeck casemates were often wet to the point of un-usability. Due to a planning error, the 40mm "pom-pom" AA guns received only 150 shells each which was temporarily remedied by stowing additional ammunition on various decks (The AA magazines were enlarged to allow for 2500 rounds per barrel in 1937 refit). Underwater protection was fairly poor, and worst of all, the ships had poor cross-sectional strength.

On the other hand the ship outpaced and outgunned all other Pan-American dreadnoughts built up to date, and her armor protection - while still using an incremental armor scheme - was sufficient to reject all but heaviest shells. The vessel was spacious, providing crews with excellent working conditions and accomodation (Officers nicknamed her "Hotel Deodoro").

### Propulsion

The ships of the class were notoriously overpowered - original plan called for 25 knot battleship, which caused Deodoro da Fonseca to be powered by 20 Babcock & Wilcox water-tube oil fired boilers with power limiter set at 51,352 shp (-equivalent to 15 boilers - a limiter was set after the ship took huge amounts of water during sea trials) which allowed her to attain speeds of 23.5 knots for prolonged periods of time - mainly reached by alternation of running boilers, a practice prohibited by admiralty, but it was used repeatedly, most notably in 1945 when the ships chased after Kreigsmarine vessels, attaining 25 knot speeds for 8 hours).

### Armament

The ships as built were armed with what a US naval ataché described as "overwhelming firepower". The main battery consisted of 6 18"/40 BL Mark I guns in three two-gun turrets in an A-B-X layout. The B turret fired over the A turret without need of extended barbette. While rate of fire was poor at 1 round per minute, the throw weight greatly exceeded that of the Nelson-class battleships in the Royal Navy. The range of the main armament was comparable to older Colorado-class battleships in the US Navy.

The secondary battery consisted of 12 casemated 6"/45 BL Mark XII guns, with 6 guns per side. In practice only the rear 3 were used in anything but calmest waters. The poorly placed forward facing weapons were removed during refits in 1937.

The tertiary battery consisted of 10 (later 18) turreted 4.7"/43 QF Mark VII guns two twin mounts per side and one on the centerline, superfiring over turret X. These weapons were dual purpose, but the aft mount proved to be of little use and in the 1943/44 refit it was replaced in favor of two octuple pompom mounts. The 4.7" guns themselves were replaced by US 5"/38 twin turrets coupled with Mk. 37 directors.

The quarternary battery consisted of 12 4"/45 QF Mark V guns in triple mounts. These proved to be headache as they were manpower heavy, and were replaced by 4 twin mounts of 4.7" QF Mark VII guns in 1937.

Small, rapid fire AA guns were neglected early on and so ship received only 6 single barreled 40mm "pom-poms". AA was strengthened during later refits, to 48 40mm Pompoms in 6 octuple mounts and 24 Oerlikons in 12 twin mounts.

### Protection

Ships of the class were heavily armored (armor provision was roughly 45.2% of total weight (this figure was reached by King George V class or Yamato class battleships and funilly enough by russian Leningrad-class battlecruisers) earning them nicknames like Cockroach (US Navy/Royal Navy) or crew-preffered nickname tijolo de batalha ("Battlebrick").

14" uniform waterline centered main belt was 3.5m high and covered 61% of ship length. Uncommon feature was its 12 deg inward slope, which was copied from HMS Hood. Belt tappered down to 4" end belts. 8" thick upper belt of same length as main belt protected casemate deck and lightly armored hoists of secondary and tertiary armament.

Placement of armored deck remains controversial point of this ships - armoring main deck gave ship better resistance versus cruiser grade armament but served only to arm battleship grade guns. Yet still ship had respectable vertical protection ranging from 3" (fore and aft ends) to 5" amidships.

Torpedo defense system covered large portion of ship but it was shallow and hadnt utilised multiple layers. This almost caused loss of it during operation Pedestal. TDS was slightly improved by addition of bulges during 1943/44 refit but it still remained dubious at best.

Main battery turrets were protected by 14" turret faces, 8" sides and 12" barbettes. Casemated guns had 5.9" gunshields. Tertiary and quarternary battery guns were protected by extended 3" gunshields.

## Ships

### Deodoro da Fonseca

Flagship of Brazilian navy was built by Vickers-Armstrong. Her design was rightfully mocked during construction but she redeemed herself by causing international uproar when all details came to light and Brazil itself was called instignator of naval rearmament race. She and her sister was allowed to be constructed due to signing of Anglo-Franco-Brazillian naval treaty (also known as 8:5:3 treaty) - officially this treaty only enforced maximum allowed tonnage limit on Brazilian navy, but secretly Brazil agreed to provide escort to allied shipping in Carribean in case of war.

During her trials it was found out that foredeck casemates took dangerous amounts of water and design speed of 25 knots was not achievable without drowning casemate gunners. Large refit was planned in 1925, but outbreak of Anglo-French war thwarted the efforts. Due to lack of qualification \*whose\* ships was Brazil supposed to protect, she escorted both UK and occassional French convoys.

From May 1935 to June 1937 she was modernized in Rio de Janeiro Arsenal. Worn out main battery and 4" guns were replaced for new ones and 4.7" guns respectively. Foredeck 6" battery was removed and casemates plated over. Freed up place was used to enlarge ammunition magazines for AA guns. AA battery itself was bolstered by replacing single pom poms for octuple mounts and assignement several machine guns to ship (these were never delivered and as such they are missing from depictions on this page).

From 1939 Brazil provided escort for allied convoys in Carribean and Deodoro da Fonseca fired her guns in anger for the first time, briefly engaging german pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee. No hits were recorded and althrough she tried to give chase, crew lost visual contact soon.

In 1942 Brazil declared war on Germany and Italy. Deodoro da Fonseca and escorting force of 4 old destroyers was dispatched to Mediterranean. She arrived just in time of second battle of Sirte, rushing past retreating convoy and its escorts with guns blazing (admiral Philip Vian later recounted how he got heart attack when ship "looked like it suffered magazine detonation every minute or so") fending off *Littorio* and *Bolzano* - 4.7" and 6" guns couldnt cause substantial harm to heavy cruiser, but continuous barrage of Head Explosive, SAP and even several practice and illumination shells caused *Bolzano* to disengage with two chemical fires in rigging*. Deodoro* was struck with 10 8" hits but most of them shattered on upper belt. One shell went through smokestack and another detonated on armored deck, injuring crew of amidships 4.7" dual mount.

In August she participated in operation Pedestal. Watching over ships towing crippled USS Ohio, her AA crews fought off repeated air-raids downing 9 planes, until she arrived to Valetta. Ship received two torpedo hits in the process and developed 8 degree list to port which was fixed by counterflooding of starboard compartments. Damage was temporarily fixed (during time in Valetta harbor, crew received ship mascot - white brick from old Malta knights fortification) and ship headed to Alexandria for proper repair.

During her repairs, she received Mk 284 radar set. Her guns were put to good use during shelling of Sicily and later during Italy landings. Due to damage from earlier torpedo hits and low cross-sectional strength, she headed to US for her last major repair refit, arriving to Boston on 10th October 1943. Bulges were added, engines were overhauled again, 6" guns were completely removed and 4.7" guns were replaced for US 5"/38 with Mk. 37 fire directors and Mark 8 Fire Control radar. midships 4.7" turret was replaced by pair of octuple Pompoms and large battery of Oerlikons was added. Ship left Boston on 15th June 1944 arriving to European Theater just in time to provide fire support during last stages of battle of Cherburg.

In May 1945 she participated in what came to be known as Last Stand of Kriegsmarine. *Deodoro da Fonseca*, *HMS Redoubtable* and her sister ship *HMS Reactive*, along with several cruisers and destroyers formed vanguard of Force H steaming to meet remainder of Kriegsmarine in Denmark Strait. Orders were simmilar to those received back in 1941 - "*Stop German fleet by any means necessary"*. Admiral Hugh Binney decided to fly his flag from *Deodoro da Fonseca* since old superdreadnought was carrying better FCS than newer Redoutables. Apart of directing fire, *Deodoro* was supposed to act as shell sponge and divert fire from lightly armored ships.

Ship received heavy damage, mascot was shattered by one of hits, superstructure was almost gone, mast collapsed, turret B was inoperational with one shell penetrating barbette and magazine roof but luckily fuse failed to arm. Shell was thrown overboard after battle. *Deodoro* sank *Admiral Scheer* in two salvos and supported Redoutables in sinking of *H-39.* While her shells lacked power to penetrate main belt, unless fighting in *point blank* range, her 18" ammo proven to be too much for upper belts of german battleships, knocking out batteries due to concussions.

Ship developed slight list and had to be towed to harbor by *HMS Reactive*. Repairs lasted until January 1946.

When she returned to home port of Rio de Janeiro she resumed her flagship duties, but she spent most of next 13 years in port. Efforts were made to make her museum, but money were in short supply and so only turret A and new conning tower were preserved.