CSS Honduras (Mon-1918 (1938-mod))

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The completion of the fourth Georgia class battlecruiser as a ship to carry, launch and recover wheeled aircraft left the CSN with four triple 14" turrets to do something with. The CSN had taken note of the shore support ships used by the British forces along the coasts of Galipoli and the English Channel, which the British had termed Monitors. The style of ship built by the British did not suit the CSN as the distances a CSN Monitor would have to travel precluded the very slow nature of their designs. What the designers ended up with was a slowish, shallow draught, pre-dreadnought type ship. The two ships were designed with speed of building in mind. A normal capital ship of the time would have had a draught of about 28-30 feet, the two Honduras class had draughts of 18-20 feet. This allowed them to get much closer to the coast, while the placement of the shafts and screws meant that if the ship did run aground the screws would not be damaged and allow the ship to kedge off.

A very bluff hull shape was needed to take the two triple turrets in a ship of that size. The original design was for a 15,000 ton ship but this grew as features were added and subtracted and the eventual standard displacement went to 17,500 tons (which is the size the last of the pre-dreadnought Lord Nelson type was). The ships though the engines were capable of 35,000shp were only ever credited with 25,000shp  which would have given them a speed of 18-20 knots. Secondary and tertiary guns of 6" and 3" for anti-torpedoboat duties were fitted and added to by the fitting of three 3" AA guns before completion. The ships were classed as Monitors throughout their careers though they ended up doing the duties of semi-dreadnought battlecruisers. This was done to avoid the ships being listed as battleships/battlecruisers in the Geneva conferences on ship reductions.

Along with the other older CSN capital ships the two Honduras class ships went through a rebuilding phase during the mid 1930's. The rebuilding undertaken for these two ships was more extensive than most. A new flared bow was fitted to improve the hull coefficient and help to improve the speed of the ship provided by the new propulsion system. Twin 3.9" were fitted for a dual-purpose role while the light AA armament of 40 & 20 mm  guns rounded out the gun armament. With their role supposedly being that of shore support ships they were fitted with a cross deck catapult and hangar to carry two-three aircraft for spotting duties. The time was taken to improve the deck armour which was increased to 4".

CSS Honduras on bombardment duties.

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