Glider
Captain
I totally agree and in an earlier posting did say
'With hindsight scrapping the R Class in the 1930's and keeping the Cat might well have been a better bet but at the time the 'big gun' proponents had a bigger sway over developments.'
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The gun club wouldn't go for that. The RN, USN and IJN all wanted to fight a proper Jutland. A 15 inch is what you want when your battle fleet is slugging it out with the enemy battle fleet. Note that the Rs were no slower than the USN standard battleships. The Japanese seemed to value speed more than the other 2, but obviously for them firepower was the most important feature in a battleship, culminating in the Yamatos.
I totally agree and in an earlier posting did sayThe gun club wouldn't go for that. The RN, USN and IJN all wanted to fight a proper Jutland. A 15 inch is what you want when your battle fleet is slugging it out with the enemy battle fleet. Note that the Rs were no slower than the USN standard battleships. The Japanese seemed to value speed more than the other 2, but obviously for them firepower was the most important feature in a battleship, culminating in the Yamatos.
Defense of the beachheads. Duh.Dropping truth bombs
Can Emus swim?
Where does the koala fit in that list of killersAustralia is full of desert, sharks, spiders and crocodiles.
And the final boss Killer Emus.
So any invading army is not long for this earth.
Who needs battle cruisers!
I don't know how anyone could claim they were cost effective. Cost yes, 1.5 vs 2 million for a Lion. Effective no. 5,100 lb broadside vs 10,000, less accurate, shorter range. Much less well armored, worse underwater protection, 2 knots slower.
Interesting fact. New Zealand was the worst shooting British ship at Jutland. Supposedly 4 hits out of 420 shells fired.
Good for cruiser-killing, perhaps.
So any invading army is not long for this earth.
Fifth column.Where does the koala fit in that list of killers
Fifth column.
Pretty much what I've been saying for a few posts now, as demonstrated at the Falklands in late 1914; exactly the enemy that the New Zealand and Australia was expected to encounter in the Pacific.
Pretty much, the emus beat the Australian army's attempts at controlling them!
Looking back: Australia's Emu Wars
In 1932 Australian troops were dumbfounded when they found themselves outmaneuvered by clever birds during the Emu Wars.www.australiangeographic.com.au
Drop Bears.Where does the koala fit in that list of killers
In his book The Grand Fleet, D K Brown produced the following table:Let's put this into context, so you are suggesting that somehow the Australian and New Zealand governments knew this at the time? This is what Fred T Jane of Jane's had to say about the new Indefatigable in 1912, the year Australia and New Zealand were told they would be getting these instead of the First Class Dreadnoughts they wanted to pay for;
"The cost of construction was £1,547,42, which works out at about £82 10s per ton, as against the average £120 per ton that the Invincibles cost to build. she is the cheapest ship yet built for the British Navy."
There's no way either the NZ or Aussie governments in 1912 could have known what you're suggesting there, 'poster. Jane's was the industry's Wikipedia.
Looking back: Australia's Emu Wars
In 1932 Australian troops were dumbfounded when they found themselves outmaneuvered by clever birds during the Emu Wars.www.australiangeographic.com.au
Agreed. Fishers follies. I didn't come up with the list DK Brown did. His list was actually a list of large cruisers.Courageous wasn't a battle cruiser.
It wasn't anything!
If that was at Jutland then lordy lordy.
As can be seen the Invincible was an outlier, being far more expensive than the other prewar battlecruisers. Using it as a comparison smacks of cherry picking data to justify a poor decision. The cost of the Lion was known in 1912 and would have been a much more appropriate basis of comparison. A comparison the Indefatigable loses.
New Zealand was commissioned in 1912 (as were Lion and Princess Royal). Your statement that that was the year Australia and New Zealand were told they were getting the old style battlecruisers instead of First Class Dreadnaughts cannot be true. In fact Australia was ordered in 1909 the same year as Lion and Princess Royal.
I think we are agreeing. I am not blaming the Australians or New Zealanders for having the wool pulled over their eyes. The British were always good at fleecing the "colonials" (a term I detest). The British put a lot of pressure on Canada to buy one as well, which we successfully resisted.Yup, that's true, the dominion battlecruisers were launched in 1912 (not what I said), but that doesn't change the premise of my post, in that the ships were considered value for money at the time of their construction, regardless of what Brown wrote or the point you are making a hundred years later. Cherrypicking? The quote was from Jane's. Are you saying Fred Jane was wrong for making that comparison? You're presuming (again) that the New Zealand and Australian governments knew in 1909 what we do today and if Fisher is telling porkies about the capabilities of these ships, which we know he was, how would the two Dominions know any different compared to the Lions?
The dominions didn't want battlecruisers in 1909, that's not what they asked for. They wanted a semi-autonomous naval presence in the Pacific, either headquartered in Hong Kong or Australia, with two dreadnought class battleships. They expressly requested First Class Dreadnoughts but didn't seem to mind too much that that wasn't what they were to ultimately get. To be clear, neither country requested an Indefatigable class ship in 1909, and given a chance to choose, which they were not, they probably would have requested something better, that is, if they knew any better. Fisher wanted his most powerful ships in home waters, and, exaggerating the capabilities of the Indefatigable served more than one purpose, even Jane's was given suspect information in 1912, so how can you expect the New Zealanders and Australians to have known any different?
Well, since HMS Princess Royal was NOT "known as the Gin Palace", then I suppose it was nothing......Beattie, for all his youth and tenacity did enjoy the trappings of his position, which meant less time was spent doing the things he should have been doing in his position; the Princess Royal was not known as the Gin Palace for nothing.