I don't disagree that ultimately surface raiding proved a failure, because the units undertaking the raiding were invariably operating in an isolated fashion, were outnumbered, and vulnerable to damage. But this was not the product of the ship undertaking the mission, it was the inherent risk required for a nation heavily outnumbered having to take risks to get anything at all out of their surface fleets. And the nation undertaking the raiding is strategically pursuing a policy of "sea denial", whilst the nation undertaking the movement of goods across the ocean is pursuing a policy of "sea control".
Yes, hence my comment that a design more optimized for such a purpose would have been preferable. A optimal raider whose' primary target is unarmored and possibly unarmed merchants does not require 11 inch guns to be subdued. The prescence of such a raider or worse, a group of raiders (like the wolf pack concept employed by U-boats) will still require great resource commitment on the part of the defender to counter. This in fact became the primary reason why Donitz continued the Uboat war from 1943 onward despite the acknowledgement that the returns vs. losses were unfavorable.
Whilst I agree that a single 8 inch cruiser was a dangerous opponent to an isolated Panzerschiff, it would have been outgunned and the odds heavily against it. Call the Pocket battleships a political statement if you like, but I believe they were designed for a purpose, and that purpose was the very thing you term "bugaboo"….to defeat anything smaller and faster than it and be able to outrun anything big enough to kill it.
I never said they wern't designed for a purpose. The primary purpose was political, a statement of Germany's determination to get out from under the shackles of Versailles. The naval purpose was commerce raiding. The ship's succeeded in that they caused quite the sensation when deployed due to their very heavy armament which caused panic and stress in many quarters due to the idea that they could defeat anything they could not outrun, with the exception of the three surviving British battlecruisers. Even professional naval circles grew concerned. Technical minded men tend to think along lines of strength vs. weakness on a ship for ship basis. The Panzerschieffs in fact sparked a new naval arms buildup with the French laying down the Dunkerque class in 'response' to the PzSchf, which in turn sparked a response from Italy etc etc. The USN also responded eventually though more so to reports of ultra powerful Japanese cruisers and the Scharnhorsts.
However....ultimately it was not Dunkerque, Alaska or any other ship whose design included a specific response to a ship type that sank AGS. It was three individually weaker ships. Hence yes, i term the panic revolving around the "faster than anything it couldn't outgun" a bugaboo caused mainly by organizations outside the militaries of the world. The ships were a concern....but as some historians later concluded, the non-panicy, less expensive solution was to simply compensate with the resources at hand, not build expensive ships to one-up the new design, none of which ultimately faced or sank a Panzerscheiff. All this belies the concept of the Commerce Raider. Thats the political part.
I don't recall saying the PzSchf was a "bad design"....what i said was that for her primary "Naval" function....aka 'raiding', her design was not optimal. But in the end an optimal commerce raider would not have made as big a splash on the world scene. The UK has always faced the prospect of inferior naval powers responding with a commerce war. Even during the War of 1812, despite overwhelming naval superiority, Yankee privatieers caused a good amount of grief to Britian's merchant fleet. Germany building a series of smaller, commerce raiding cruisers with large endurance, great speed and a more typical cruiser armament that is more than adequate in dealing with the merchants of the world as well as defending against enemy cruisers, would have alarmed the British government but her response would have been the same.....more cruisers and the building of fast battleships.
If you want to talk about "bugaboo" I think all this inference about the New Orleans being far superior to British heavy cruisers is the real bugaboo. They were superior, make no mistake, but one only has to examine their performances in the opening months of the pacific to see just how limited these ships were as well.
What I said was that a 2nd generation cruiser, such as NO class vessel would be a more formidable threat. I don't agree that the Savo Island debacle discredits the NO as a a class. It did expose weaknesses, most of which were not integral to the design itself. It is a noted irony that the losses hit the USN's theoretically best class suffered the worst during the fight but that only emphasises the point that in actual warfare, outside of paper studies, its often circumstances and damage that get a ship, not what the engineers and drafters predict. For example subsequent study of the battle by the US BeauOrd cited the overabundance of ready ammo and flamable materials, particularily in the vacinity of the aircraft hangers as primary factors in the losses of the ships present. (Astoria was the best example). Quincy and Vincennes' primary loss factor was torpedoes, but the aiming of such was aided by the bright fires started on the ships. Underwater protection was seconded to shellfire protection in the class....a neccessity given the tonnage restrictions under which the designers worked. However compensations to protect bouyancy and power were worked in as well.
The performance of Boise, (a CL but also a 2nd generation cruiser with heavier armor and thus similar in relation to the 1st generation treaty cruisers), and San Francisco (a NO class vessel) yielded much better results in the test of combat, in spite of the latter's point blank experience with a 14in armed battleship firing high incendiary ammo at her. She was struck at least 45 times from all gun-types and hit by a crashing airplane earlier in the day which started severe fires. All of the damage and the over 20 fires started during the night battle were brought under control and the ship survived. Boise survived a diving shell hit into her primary magazine while even more impressively, the cruiser Savannah survived a smart bomb hit of the same type that sank the battleship Roma over in the Med Theater. Subsequent further night actions in 42 showed that USN heavy cruisers and 2nd generation light cruisers in general had a very good chance of surviving one, even two powerful torpedo hits. Overall I think they showed great durability given the ordinances and situations they faced. New Orleans herself ate a Long Lance which caused a secondary ammo explosion tearing off her entire bow between Turret 1 and 2. The ship survived with her intact bulkheads limiting progressive flooding. Sister ship Minneapolis ate two LL's and survived. The NO class as a whole, with the exception of Tuscaloosa all suffered major war damage. Only during Savo, The USN's greatest blue-water debacle, were ships of the class lost. (Quincy, Astoria, Vincennes). Would any other cruiser have faired better? All ships have flaws, but 'flawed design' as a whole? I don't agree.
