Carriers!!

The definition of Light and Heavy Cruisers is always a fun debate. I admit that most books quote 6in or less and you are a light cruiser, 8 in or more and you are a heavy.

However this throw up all sorts of anomalies.
To call a 10,000 ton Brooklyn with 15 x 6in guns, 8 x 5in and 5 inches of Armour on Belt and Turrets, more in places, a Light Cruiser
and a 8,200 ton Exeter with 6 x 8in, 4 x 4in and a paltry 3 inches of armour and 2 inches on the Turrets a Heavy Cruiser is misleading to say the least.
The Brooklyn will penetrate the Exeter almost every time and stand an excellent chance of not being damaged by the Exeter.

In debates I used to take part in we used to say that
Light is Taken to be less than 6,500 tons
Medium 6,500 to 9,000 tons
Heavy 9,000 plus

Using this process
light covered the ex WW1 cruisers, Modern AA cruisers such as Dido and Atlanta/Oakland and Italian ships
Medium covered most of the late 30's and smaller WW2 new build cruisers such as the Exeter, Leander, and others armed with about 8-9 x 6in or 6x8in.
Heavy Cruisers were just that 8-10 x 8in or 12-15 x 6in armed cruisers.

If you wish to stick with the traditional definition, then I do not argue and agree with you.
However you should remember that you are putting the Cleveland and Brooklyn with their massive 6 in Gun batteries and thick armour in the same category as the Atlanta with its 5in Guns and armour that was little more than splinter proof.

I hope that explains the logic behind the definitions that I am using.

They did!
Omaha, Cincinnati and Marblehead were involved in southern France landing, and some others made some shore bombardment in the Pacific ocean.

Max

The Atlanta class cruisers were designed for AA defense. They were more a "large" destroyer more than anything else.

Thats why we called them light cruisers, as with the British Dido class they were considerably larger than a destroyer and had armour protection over vitals so you couldn't call them a destroyer.
Designers at the time were highly skilled at getting a lot out of a small displacement. The British Arethsa class weighed less than an Atlanta but had 6 x 6in and 8 x 4in and there are other examples such as the French Mogador class which they called a destroyer but carried 8 x 5.5, they were also considered to be light cruisers in the classification that we used.

At least these had a common basis i.e. their size. The weapons and systems carried tended to cary according to their role. The Atlanta and Dido were aa cruisers. The Arethusa designed to go after raiders. The Mogador was a shorter range vessel of great spead designed to hit hard and get away. Generally ex WW1 light vruisers were used to go after merchant raiders or were converted to AA vessels.

It made more sense than putting an ex WW1 Light cruiser in the same category as a Brooklyn. At least I have tried explained why my initial statement was that the USA basically didn't have any light cruisers at the start of the war.

I like to go with the traditional classification.

8" guns = Heavy Cruiser
6" guns = Light Cruiser
5" guns = Destroyer

As I said before, if you insist on sticking to the traditional definition then I wouldn't argue but in view of the obvious anomalies can I ask Why?

The French had a good number of 5.5in armed destroyers can I ask where you would put these?

Finally the Japanese Heavy cruisers were originally armed with 15 x 6in and then rearmed with 10 x 8in. Light before the refit and heavy afterwards, just food for thought.

I have to go with syscom here. This is just off my own opinion but I go with syscoms system here, except for maybe the Destroyers because there were light cruisers with 5 in turrets as well.

Fair enough. As I said, I was explaining the logic behind the descriptions that I was using, but if people wanted to stick with the older traditional descriptions with all their anomalies then I wouldn't argue.

Part of it was also the armor ratings of the ships.

So now how would we get back to aircraft? Or really Carriers?

AS for classification of crussiers, the number and size of guns are important but also the total displacement.

Also any one know the ships that tookplace in operation "Anvill"? This is I think the invation of Sothern France.

No, we can't get back to carriers until I can get my 2¢ on cruisers . . .

Telling heavy cruisers from light cruisers is not all that difficult, in fact, the difference was spelled out in the 1930 London Naval Treaty:

INTERNATIONAL TREATY FOR THE LIMITATION AND REDUCTION OF NAVAL ARMAMENT, 1930
. . .

Article 15

For the purpose of this Part III the definition of the cruiser and destroyer categories shall be as follows:
Cruisers
Surface vessels of war, other than capital ships or aircraft carriers, the standard displacement of which exceeds 1,850 tons (1,880 metric tons), or with a gun above 5.1 inch (130 mm) calibre.

The cruiser category is divided into two sub-categories, as follows:
(a) Cruisers carrying a gun above 6.1 inch (155 mm) calibre;
(b) Cruisers carrying a gun not above 6.1 inch (155 mm) calibre.
Destroyers
Surface vessels of war the standard displacement of which does not exceed 1,850 tons (1,880 metric tons), and with a gun not above 5.1 inch (130 mm) calibre.

. . .

Thus heavy cruisers had guns greater than 6.1 and light cruisers had guns greater 5.1 and both were greater than 1850 tons displacement.

Where there is some confusion is why US heavy cruisers were designated CA and light cruisers were CL. Well, we can dispense with the CL simply by saying it stands for Cruiser, Light, which, of course it does. This nomenclature stemmed from when the USN first adopted letter designation hull numbering system in 1920. In establishing the system, scouting cruisers re-named light cruisers. The folklore was that BuShips was determined that no USN ship would be designated CS, as in "cruiser, scouting", so scouting became light. With the treaty in 1930, it just so happened that the CLs fit neatly into the light cruiser category. CA as a hull designation for heavy cruisers goes back to the first USN cruisers which were known as Armored Cruisers. This in 1920, at the same time they created the CL hull designation for light cruisers, heavy cruisers became CA, for Cruiser, Armored. Truth be known, actually there were Cruisers and Light Cruisers, "Heavy" was something that just crept into the nomenclature over time . . . obviously, if you had a "Light" cruiser, then the bigger one must be "Heavy."

You may now discuss a much better topic: Carriers

Regards,

Rich

Thanks for the info there.

Good stuff R Leonard!

Damn, thats where I have been going wrong all these years. All those scores of Fletcher destroyers were really cruisers all the time.
Japs didn't stand a chance going against cruisers in destroyers.

Seriously its interesting stuff and shows how the world moved on from 1930

thanks for the help, I was just trying to keep us close to the topic.

So group, if we have this cruisers stuff sorted out how much firepower is needed to protect our Cariers?

Say for Tran atlantic and Pasific crossings in Spring of 1943 or so.
Was there a major differance in the group make up between the two oceans? If so why?

Carrier's are not intended to fight ship-ship in surface engagements, so cruisers with lots of AA guns would be the most usefull.

The difference between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans is the vast ranges in the Pacific dictate that ships with a large radius of action would be the most logical choice.

Anyone would think that the USA first thought of the AA Cruiser

MP-Willow said:

So group, if we have this cruisers stuff sorted out how much firepower is needed to protect our Cariers?

Click to expand...

The awnser to this one is easy. Just as much as you could carry.

Escorting BB's were also a help if for no other reason that they tended to attract incoming bombers and were generally big enough to take the hits without suffering too much. The fact that they also carried a lot of AA gear and just as importantly made for a stable gun platform didn't do any harm.

As for the Atlantic vs Pacific the threats couldn't have been more different. In the Atlantic any escort should be biased against submarines, in the Pacific against aircraft for the obvious reason that the Germans didn't have any carriers or aircraft to operate from them, and the Japenese Submarine fleet achieved very little.

syscom3 said:

Carrier's are not intended to fight ship-ship in surface engagements, so cruisers with lots of AA guns would be the most usefull.

The difference between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans is the vast ranges in the Pacific dictate that ships with a large radius of action would be the most logical choice.

Click to expand...

Agreed because just about all Carrier engagments are fought with the enemey never seeing each others carriers. They fight each other with there aircraft. The best thing would be Anti Aircraft ships to help defend the Flat Tops and ASW ships.

thanks all, the Japs really missed out if they could have used the subs even a little like the Germans or us, that would have made for some big problums.

What do youi all think?