Postwar Projects
Following the end of the First World War, Spain did not participate in the Washington Naval Conference which limited naval, and especially battleship, construction among its signatories. Despite this, battleships of the 35,000 long tons (36,000 t) displacement class were considered by the Royal Spanish Navy in the early 1920s, while in the early 1930s proposals for a "reduced Nelson type" ship were proposed, however nothing came of either project.
After his victory in the Spanish Civil War, Generalissmo Franco's plans for the Spanish Navy included the acquisition of four modern battleships, and a variation on the Italian Vittorio Veneto class battleships - also known as the Littorio class - was considered the favored candidate. In late 1939, a Spanish mission to Italy received assurances of technical support for the construction of ships of the class in Spanish yards, and a slipway of sufficient size to construct two ships at a time was built at Ferrol. However, Italy's entry into the Second World War, combined with the limited resources of Spain, led to the cancellation of the project.
A "super-Washington" cruiser type was also projected as part of Franco's naval expansion plans, with some designs proposed for the type calling for an armament of six 12-inch (300 mm) guns; alternatively, some have speculated that the Spanish desired to purchase the two triple 283-millimetre (11.1 in) turrets that were available following the decision by the German Kriegsmarine to rebuild the damaged battleship Gneisenau with twin 381-millimetre (15.0 in) weapons. However, the war situation meant that nothing was to come of this project either.
Read more about this topic: List Of Battleships And Monitors Of Spain
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