Battlecruisers vs Cruisers

I just think the one of the final designs of the Lexington Class battle cruisers were beautiful

Peter Gunn said:

As for the Alaska's... pfft anything goes, 12in guns were no longer battleship caliber weapons by 1944 so, large cruisers.

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So we need to classify the Scharnhorst type as cruisers.

Shortround6 said:

The Alaska's were used as carrier escorts because they couldn't figure out what else to do with them. The AA armament was good but it wasn't any better than the Baltimore's or even the Cleveland's.

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Baltimore - 12 x 5in DP 48 x 40AA 24 x 20AA
Cleveland - 12 x 5in DP 28 x 40AA 21x 20AA
Alaska - 12 x 5in DP 56 x 40AA 34 x 20AA

Thumpalumpacus said:

And given their size and manning, the Alaskas were horribly expensive platforms for such a mission.

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Send the bill to Janes ?

Reading Friedman's "US Cruisers An Illustrated Design History" the enthusiasm for a large "cruiser-killer" was embraced by many in the US in the 1930s including Admiral King (then the carrier force commander who saw them as the solution to the threat posed by Japanese Type A cruisers, with 8" guns and heavy torpedo armament, to his carriers) and Roosevelt. Work on such a design can be traced back to 11 March 1938 and outline designs were presented in April that year. There is no talk of them being a response to Japanese efforts at that point. In fact completely the opposite. Some senior officers were worried any advantage gained from having them would be short lived, and would trigger a response from the Japanese to match them. But there were higher priorities so 1939 was filled with much discussion.

By early 1940 it was felt that a new class of fast ships was desirable for independent operation against German raiders as evidenced by the threat from the start of the war (the cruises of Graf Spee, and Admiral Scheer in particular). It was also at this time that intelligence was emerging about Japanese plans for its own class of super-cruiser. It is from this period that a whole raft of design studies emerged, ranging from 17,200 tons to 38,700 tons standard displacement carrying 4-12 of the new 12"/50 gun.

But the whole concept was still not meeting with universal approval in the US Navy. King was their biggest proponent, emphasising in a July 1940 meeting that they were not intended to be part of the battle line but rather for use in raiding and carrier escort. This impacted the level of protection that the ships needed. Having chosen an outline design in July 1940, a detailed initial design emerged in Jan 1941 with the final design in July.

Friedman says this about them

"In general the ships mixed cruiser and battleship features. They were less well protected than battleships in that they had no armour against shells falling short and striking underwater, and no extensive side (antitorpedo) protection. On the other hand they exceeded cruiser standards in carrying their side belt up to the second deck between the end bulkheads; in a cruiser the belt extended only up to the third deck over the machinery, and only up to the platform over the magazine's. There were three rather than two side skins, to minimise the effects of near misses by bombs and to limit the extent of fore-and-aft flooding by torpedoes. Director leads were duplicated and there were two protected plotting rooms. Cruiser practice did show in the single rudder, which made the ships unmaneuverable."

Construction of 6 was authorised in July 1940. Alaska & Guam were laid down Dec 1941 & Feb 1942 with the remaining 4 suspended in April 1942 due to a steel shortage. Hawaii was laid down in Dec 1943, with the remaining 3 cancelled in June 1943.

Japanese plans included two "Super Type A Cruisers" in their 1942 Programme design work for which began in 1939. They would have been 31,500 ton stanndard displacement ships armed with 9x12"/50 but were replanned with 9x14" as a result of knowledge gained about the Alaskas. They never went beyond the planning stage. From "Warships of the Imperial Japaneee Navy 1869-1945".

Churchill's return to the Admiralty in Sept 1939 triggered a flurry of design work on a variety of heavy cruiser designs with 8" or 9.2" guns to combat the German pocket battleship culminating in a 21,500 ton design. But these all fell by the wayside by May 1940.

So as noted by others, the US Navy considered them cruisers. I'm happy with that description. But if anyone wanted to think of them as something else, feel free.

WARSPITER said:

So we need to classify the Scharnhorst type as cruisers.

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In 1944 the Scharnhorst was classified as sunk. And her sister wasn't far from it.

The BC lasted less than 30 years. Engagement ranges went from under 20,000yds to over 40,000yds. control went from short range finders in local control to radar and mechanical computers. . Propulsion went from men shoveling coal into 31 small boilers to eight large oil fired boilers making over 3 1/2 times the power.
AA guns went from a few bolt action rifles (or an officers pistol) to multiple power operated 5in guns in turrets firing proximity fuses.

Trying to come up with definitions or rules to cover the different ships looking back from 80 years seems rather pointless when the definitions themselves were changing every few years during the period the ships were in services.

Shortround6 said:

In 1944 the Scharnhorst was classified as sunk. And her sister wasn't far from it.

The BC lasted less than 30 years. Engagement ranges went from under 20,000yds to over 40,000yds. control went from short range finders in local control to radar and mechanical computers. . Propulsion went from men shoveling coal into 31 small boilers to eight large oil fired boilers making over 3 1/2 times the power.
AA guns went from a few bolt action rifles (or an officers pistol) to multiple power operated 5in guns in turrets firing proximity fuses.

Trying to come up with definitions or rules to cover the different ships looking back from 80 years seems rather pointless when the definitions themselves were changing every few years during the period the ships were in services.

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Which was the premise of this thread. Were the different types really needed ?

Most of the battle cruiser types ended up in the same class as the 1944 Scharnhorst so perhaps they should all start out as being of the class Large Target.

Trying to define the Battle cruiser type is definitely pointless as they themselves were an expensive solution with a narrow field of operation and were themselves
somewhat pointless in a short space of time (even though some looked pretty cool).

Shortround6 said:

This one seems to be kind of variable. I don't know what the US knew and when but the 1942 Janes reports 3 ships under construction with six 12 in guns of 12-15,000 tons. More like enlarged Deutschland's than than Scharnhorst. Janes might be a reputable source compared to internal memos.
The Alaska's were used as carrier escorts because they couldn't figure out what else to do with them. The AA armament was good but it wasn't any better than the Baltimore's or even the Cleveland's.

How much was Beatty and how much was higher up?
He was supposed to be the fast wing and to either the trap the German battlecruisers or lure the German battlefleet into the British battle fleet.

He only had 4 of the 13.5 in battle cruisers and the QE class as a fast battleship unit and they were about 3-5kts slower than the Battle cruisers. Leaving the 12 in battlecruisers home
when trying to face off against the five German Battlecruisers may not have been a good idea either. The North Sea was not noted for long range visibility and Beatty only had one ship (not counting the QEs) that had 6in secondary guns while every German BC had 5.9in secondary's. In poor conditions Beatty would have been out gunned,
There had been enough tip and run raids for each side to get a good feel of the speeds the other side could manage.

Would Jellicoe have agreed to Beatty leaving the 12in BC at home?




The poor Blucher was an in-between ship. Not only was stuck with 8.2 in guns but stuck with reciprocating machinery. However she was about 3-4kts faster than the other German armored cruisers so there wasn't good way to form a tactical unit with them. She was actually faster by 2-3 knots than the last British armored cruisers in theory but could not make full speed in her last action. She was about as fast (or with in 1/2 a knot?) as an Invincible if both were right out of dock yard.

Due to Fisher the British battlecruisers served from one side of the channel to the other. The 12in ships sacrificed armor for speed. They also sacrificed 2ndary armament. Fisher didn't believe in it. The ships should only have two types of guns. the biggest main main guns and the smallest guns that would stop a destroyer/TB. In Fishers world all fighting would be done in daylight with good visibility and the destroyers would attack at night at short range.
After the British slowly sorted though the Lions and reached the Tiger ( and screwed her up with large tube boilers) and had the Hood building so they reached the other side of the channel (road) Fisher came back and came up with the Renown and Repulse and the Courageous class which made the Invincible look like balanced ships and the British BC course veered back across the channel and practically ran aground.
The German BC progression was pretty smooth and was evolving into the fast battleship but the later versions were never completed.
The Japanese were the only other country to actually complete battle cruisers in WW I so the actual number of samples around the world was pretty small.
By the 1930s the revolutions in ship machinery meant that the naval architects didn't have to make same choices, they could get similar power from a much smaller weight-volume of machinery (which needed less armor).

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Preaching to the choir bud.

Thumpalumpacus said:

I stumbled across this video tonight, apparently posted 1 June, addressing this issue. The speaker makes some mistakes, I suspect mostly misspeaking rather than misstating facts, but it gives me food for thought all the same.


I post this not in agreement or disagreement, but simply because it seems pertinent.

Watching Drach's video on the Alaskas will help the viewer to follow this one, as it is a sort of reply.

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And Drach posted this today -- not exactly pertinent as it doesn't address BCs vs CAs, but BCs vs BBs. Anyway, I'm watching it now:


It falls afoul of a little special-pleading towards the end, in that it compares Hood to previous, extant battleships, while comparing Iowa to Montanas which never got built, but pretty solid all the same.

I agree with his conclusion, that both ships were fast battleships and not BCs. He's convincing enough that I won't refer any more to Hood as a BC, going forward.

ETA: I think Hood may be the most beautiful capital ship I've seen.

Re: Hood

Mmm... Good looking, most beautiful? Eye of the beholder, she does have nice lines though.

Certainly the Italian BB's were very good looking and a personal preference, I like the French BB's such as Richelieu, not to mention the mighty Iowa class.

Colorado class were the best looking BBs. The Lexingtons were the the most beautiful carriers.

SaparotRob said:

Colorado class were the best looking BBs. The Lexingtons were the the most beautiful carriers.

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For a long time my avatar at another forum was this iconic photo of Colorado entering New York's Harbor, in front of Manhattan.

Thumpalumpacus said:

For a long time my avatar at another forum was this iconic photo of Colorado entering New York's Harbor, in front of Manhattan.

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That's the image that comes to my mind.

SaparotRob said:

That's the image that comes to my mind.

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It's so beautifully art-deco.

Clipper bows. I love clipper bows.

I have a preference for a different ship but I can't remember it's name at the moment.

If you like the Colorado class - From a SC 768 sub chaser photo album in my collection :

WARSPITER said:

I have a preference for a different ship but I can't remember it's name at the moment.

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I think it's the one I chose in the Yamato v. Iowa thread. I'll even give the other guy Musashi as well.

SaparotRob said:

Clipper bows. I love clipper bows.

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I used to have a shot of these three in Tokyo bay but can't seem to locate it at the moment, this is two years earlier, not Colorado's but I also think the New Mexico's were good looking as well.

OK, let's go for a New Mexico class - From a SC 768 sub chaser photo album in my collection :

Nothing tops the Richelieu




Escargot on the quarterdeck followed by chateaubriand. A bottle of Courvoisier XO and cigars after.

Reluctant Poster said:

Nothing tops the Richelieu


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Escargot on the quarterdeck followed by chateaubriand. A bottle of Courvoisier XO and cigars after.

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You forgot the frog legs.