Tropic of Capricorn:
Brazil’s Fleet, Part One
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
July 2020

Our Tropic of Capricorn game is part of our Second Great War at Sea alternative-history story arc, in which the Great War ends in late 1916 and the great empires of Eastern Europe survive to wage war a generation later. The Second Great War erupts in 1940, and soon pulls in the three naval powers of South America (Argentina, Brazil and Chile), with Brazil unwillingly dragged into the war on the side of the Central Powers while Argentina and Chile fight alongside the Allies, who are the aggressors in this war.

The Second Great War is a battleship war (that’s why I designed it). Like the other participants in the Second Great War, the Brazilian battle fleet is built around its battleships. The Brazilians receive seven battleships in Tropic of Capricorn and four more no very good ones in the expansion, Tropical Storm. Their fighting power ranges from “Death Star” on down to “barely mobile target.” We looked at the new Brazilian battleships included in Tropical Storm in an earlier installment. This time, let’s look at the Brazilian battleships found in Tropic of Capricorn.

The Super Battleship

At the core of the modern Brazilian fleet are two German-built ships of the Königin Luise class. The High Seas Fleet built four of them for their own use, and two more (the maximum allowed for export, under the Vienna naval limitations agreement that governs such things in the world of the Second Great War) for Brazil.

Königin Luise is this world’s more powerful version of the famed battleship Bismarck. She carries bigger guns, with eight 420mm (16.5-inch) guns in four twin turrets, and has eight 150mm (5.9-inch) and sixteen 105mm (4.1-inch) guns, slightly fewer 150mm guns than Bismarck. Like the Nazi Kriegsmarine, the Imperial German Navy of this reality lacks a useful dual-purpose secondary weapon and has to arm its heavy ships with two different calibers, one to engage surface targets and one for use against aircraft.

Like Bismarck, she features extensive internal sub-division and underwater protection, and can make 29 knots at full speed. She does not share Bismarck’s innovative and highly troublesome high-pressure steam power plant, relying on more conventional boilers and geared turbines. The Germans equip their heavy ships with helicopters rather than seaplanes, preferring the anti-submarine capability offered by the helicopters to the greater scouting range of fixed-wing planes. Königin Luise has extensive aircraft-handling facilities and an air group of eight light helicopters.

Germany has cheated on the naval limitations agreed at Vienna in the early 1920’s, as have most nations in the Second Great War story. Königin Luise is listed as carrying 16-inch (406mm) guns, the maximum caliber allowed, and as displacing 35,000 tons.

The two Brazilian units, Monte Santiago and Tuyutí, are the most powerful warships in the Second Great War’s South American theater. Their deployment will eventually be decisive.

The Super Dreadnought

Following Brazil’s sale of the incomplete Rio de Janeiro to Ottoman Turkey in late 1913, the Brazilians expressed interest in replacing her with a larger, more powerful ship designed to the latest standards. The Vickers combine offered a number of large ships armed with 16-inch guns, a weapon not yet deployed on a battleship, while Armstrong, which had built Rio de Janeiro, offered several designed featuring the 15-inch (381mm) Mark I rifle that armed the new Queen Elizabeth and Royal Sovereign classes then under construction for the Royal Navy.

The 16-inch gun offered substantially more range and hitting power, and even more prestige, but it suffered from the undeniable drawback that it did not as yet exist. The Brazilians settled on Armstrong Design 781, a very handsome ship resembling Queen Elizabeth and likewise carrying eight 15-inch Mark I guns in four twin turrets. The first unit, to be named Riachuelo, was ordered in May 1914 and would have been laid down in September but for the outbreak of the First World War. Two further units were discussed but never formally approved or ordered.

Riachuelo would have been slightly longer than Queen Elizabeth, 660 feet overall compared to 643 feet, but displaced slightly less, 30,500 tons against 32,000 tons for the British ship. The armament would have been the same (the eight 15-inch guns and fourteen 6-inch guns in an armored casemate), but Riachuelo would have burned coal where the British ships would be powered by oil. Where Riachuelo was expected to make 40,000 horsepower for 22.5 knots, Queen Elizabeth was expected to churn out a maximum 75,000 horsepower and touch 25 knots (the only ship of the class to actually run trials, Barham, fell just short of 24 knots on the deep-water measured mile).

In our Second Great War history, the three sisters were ordered and laid down in early 1914, suspended during the conflict and completed for the Brazilians afterwards. They underwent extensive rebuilding in American shipyards during the 1930’s, but to a somewhat different design than that to which their British near-sisters were reconstructed. The American naval architects went with a much smaller bridge structure than was added to the rebuilt British ships, and fitted them with eight 5-inch dual-purpose guns in twin gunhouses, plus 40mm light anti-aircraft guns and British-style athwartships catapult for seaplanes.

Their original coal-fired machinery has been replaced by new, smaller and more efficient boilers and engines, allowing for improved internal sub-division. They’ve also received a “torpedo bulge” like the older American battleships. They’ve retained their outer hull and their heavy guns, but almost everything else has been replaced or rebuilt. The result is a vastly improved fighting ship, though it does not have great speed. Neither do their British near-sisters, despite Royal Navy hints to the contrary.

Riachuelo and her sisters carry seaplanes rather than helicopters; when rebuilt, the Brazilians had not adopted German doctrine regarding ship-borne aircraft and followed American practice. Brazilian capital ships are about evenly split between those that carry seaplanes and those that operate helicopters, and that’s considered an advantage as it gives the Brazilians both long-range recon ability and short-range anti-submarine capability.

With the two new German-built fast battleships, the Brazilians have a core of five powerful, modern heavy ships that the Argentines can’t match. The Argentines have two fast battleships, smaller and less power than those built for Brazil. While the three rebuilt old Argentine dreadnoughts are faster than Riachuelo they can’t match her firepower or absorb nearly as much punishment.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published an uncountable number of books, games and articles on historical subjects; a few of them were actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children and his dog, Leopold. Leopold enjoys gnawing his deer antler and editing Wikipedia pages.

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