Raiding/Colonial Battlecruisers? (Concept)

[babylon218]

Hi All,

So, this idea came into my head earlier while reading R. Noppen, German Commerce Raiders 1914-18.  I was thinking earlier about the Baltic Battlecruisers laid down by Jackie Fisher during the WWI.  How effective would a 'light battlecruiser' be as a Raider?

You'd have a relatively light Battlecruiser, with long range and high speed (let's say 24-26kn in 1906), with 11-12in guns, enough armour to resist 8-11in shells at medium-long range respectively, and colonial service enabled.  In theory, you would deploy these ships to your overseas stations at the outbreak of war and use them to either invade the enemy's colonies or put them on raiding status, which the ships would be optimised for.  This way, the enemy would either have to send heavy fleet elements after these 'heavy raiders' or starve.

So, has anyone tried this?  Do you think it'll work?  I'm probably going to start up a new game to give it a shot and let you know what results I get, just thought I'd see if anyone had any insight.

[babylon218]

So, this is a quick mock-up of the concept in 1905.  Truth be told, I'm not certain you really need a third turret considering the operational nature of the concept early game, but on the other hand, it's good future-proofing.

[bcoopactual]

Huh, sounds like the concept for the Deutschland class cruisers of WW2 infamy.

At that weight, I doubt you would need to use the colonial service tag. It would cover the foreign tonnage requirement for most ocean areas I've seen without it. I haven't played the UK in a long time though so maybe they would need it. (I went and checked, the UK has two 21,000 ton required areas so this ship almost but not quite covers that with the colonial service tag. Make them 16,800 tons and they could do it by themselves. Interesting.)

It's an intriguing concept. It's essentially interception proof unless, like you stated, the enemy puts battlecruisers in the area to intercept them. I guess my first question would be how many can you afford to build and use just as raiders? Can just two or three cause enough sinkings by themselves to starve a United States or Great Britain into submission?

I would definitely like to hear how it worked out for you.

[JagdFlanker]

i havn't used raiders in a looooong time now, but from what i remember it's more of a quantity thing rather than a quality thing

however there's been a lot of patches since then so interested in your results!

[director]

I think it is an overkill of resources. You don't need major-caliber guns to sink merchant ships; 4" will do as well as 12".

If I'm raiding in a sea-zone where I have a base, I can use any ship. If I'm raiding in a sea-zone where I do not have a base, I want the cheapest alternative, since any battle damage removes the ship from play for the war (and random events may take it out for the duration, or permanently).

If I'm concerned about being intercepted I use big, fast and powerful light cruisers, or armored cruisers if I have them, or sometimes I risk my battlecruisers in 'sweeps' (assigning them to raid for a turn or two in hopes of intercepting an enemy cruiser or BC).

If you are getting good mileage from the design, then do what works for you. I find a superior light cruiser wins at most tasks I can give it - and while they aren't cheap they don't cost as much as a BC.

[oldpop2000]

Surface raiders in the Age of Steam and Iron are a big waste of resources. It's better to develop long range submarines, good torpedoes and put them in the sea lanes and let them go. Surface raiders have a poor return on investment.

[Airy W]

But building cruisers to hunt down enemy raiders and sink them is an excellent way to accrue warscore!

[oldpop2000]

Apr 24, 2017 19:26:52 GMT -6 Airy W said:

But building cruisers to hunt down enemy raiders and sink them is an excellent way to accrue warscore!

I can win the game without wasting precious resources on such ships, I can use my older ships or patrol planes when RTW-2 is available. I can think of many ways of accomplishing this task besides using convoys.

[Deleted]

well i did this a couple times. not intentional, but only because it was the only way to send ships out under blockade.
since my capitals have the quality advantage, 1v1 duel against the enemy interceptor is a good chance for a major victory. (seems only capital ship intercept capital ship raiders. also the AI never uses BCs as raiders.)
OTOH scuttles and interns are a b*tch. i'd say it's a 50 50 dice roll whether i lose a van or not, in that single turn where they are set as raiders.

however, actually, i don't think this is a bad idea. iirc a 11 incher mini BC is slightly cheaper than a CA of equal tonnage, yet a lot more powerful. you can use it just like a CA, either for raiding or as a colonial cruiser or even better a more potent invasion force. however this should be a late game thing, early game 11" is still front-line service material. so push back the timing to like 1915 and should be good i think.

[oaktree]

Apr 24, 2017 21:31:35 GMT -6 skwabie said:

well i did this a couple times. not intentional, but only because it was the only way to send ships out under blockade.
since my capitals have the quality advantage, 1v1 duel against the enemy interceptor is a good chance for a major victory. (seems only capital ship intercept capital ship raiders. also the AI never uses BCs as raiders.)
OTOH scuttles and interns are a b*tch. i'd say it's a 50 50 dice roll whether i lose a van or not, in that single turn where they are set as raiders.

however, actually, i don't think this is a bad idea. iirc a 11 incher mini BC is slightly cheaper than a CA of equal tonnage, yet a lot more powerful. you can use it just like a CA, either for raiding or as a colonial cruiser or even better a more potent invasion force. however this should be a late game thing, early game 11" is still front-line service material. so push back the timing to like 1915 and should be good i think.

Attached is a post-refit version of a "light" BC I built in 1917 in a game.  Designed to counter fast enemy CA, but it fits the general template of the Panzerschiffe.  The main refit item was removing the torpedo flats for on-deck mounts that could be fired at higher speeds.

The type performed pretty well.  I lost one that was under AI-control (support force) that got wacked by two full-size BCs.  Otherwise, these were able to evade enemy forces and did contribute as a tertiary battle line ship if I handled them carefully.  Including a BC battle where one was a flagship and I could not hide it on the edges. 

Attachments:

[babylon218]

Well, just completed a game as Germany where I used this concept. Unfortunately, I only had two wars and in both cases I was able to put the enemy under blockade, so I couldn't test the raiding capabilities of these ships, but the SMS Moltke performed well invading French possessions in Southeast Asia and obliterating a French CA in only a couple of salvos. Ultimately built 4 such BCs, with 2 'fleet' BCs and focusing primarily on BBs. However, so far, the concept seems solid. Further testing will be required as to its raiding abilities though.

[joebob73]

If you're willing to "cheat" a little bit you can build this as a legacy ship.  Once you unlock oil firing+steam turbines you can refit for 27-28 knots to keep up with modern cruisers.  Once equipped with modern fire control and +1 13" guns, it'll out-shoot any cruiser you'll run into.  Refitting the secondaries to 5" guns with less armor is also useful to clear out enemy DDs.

[babylon218]

Okay, so, from that last game as Germany, I think there might be something to this theory.  For middling powers like Germany, it's not that likely you'll be able to overtake Britain in capital ship tonnage anyway (and from my experience, it's possible but extremely difficult to keep up with the US).  From that, Tirpitz's use of the Ostasiatische Kreuzer Geshwader and Raeder's surface raider doctrine can come together here.  In both cases, the idea was the raiders would force Britain to pull heavy units (in Tirpitz's case, Battlecruisers and in Raeder's case, Battleships) off the blockade to chase down these raiders.   Now, Raeder had the problem that when he used heavy raiders, they had to launch from Germany already under blockade.  By contrast, the East Asia Squadron enjoyed early success in WWI because they were already on their war station, but lost their CAs at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in December 1914 and the Protected Cruisers were scattered over the next year, with SMS Emden sinking the following March and Karlsruhe exploding at sea shortly after.

When I had my war with France, I already had both my 'colonial Battlecruisers' on their war stations (South- and North-East Asia respectively, with the two consolidating their efforts in SE Asia against French Indochina), so they were already in that position where they could do the most damage for least risk.  However, I would say that this still wasn't a completely fair test of the concept: France had no Battlecruisers of her own and only 1 Dreadnought (compared to my 3 and, shortly into the war, one Fleet Battlecruiser on Home Station), so they really had no heavy forces to respond with at all.  I could have put them in the Med and they'd have thrived just as well simply because France was militarily incapable of matching them.  I'm going to need further testing of this concept.

However, I'm pretty impressed with the concept so far: given their role, I suspect you could make do with anywhere between 2 and 4, depending on budgetary constraints.  You shouldn't need anymore than that - especially if you want Fleet Battlecruisers available as well.  Also, a Battlecruiser like this, built to the latest tech in 1906, will last until the end of the game.  Again, this still needs further testing, but I would describe the concept so far as promising.

[babylon218]

Okay, so, an unintentional revival of this concept (or rather the Colonial Battlecruiser concept) has arisen in my current GB game.

Picture, if you will: the year is 1904; turbines have been developed; you have 3 centreline turrets researched; the United States has 3 Battlecruisers and a Dreadnought already building...

And no one has developed superfiring or wing turrets on BBs yet!

The result was the HMS Indefatigable:

Indefatigable0.bmp (300.05 KB)

Basically, I had a coastal raid by Germany against shipping near Hartlepool where I ended up against 2 German CAs with 8" guns and with only a pair of CLs myself.  Oh, and they had the same top speed.  By some small miracle I managed to keep them busy long enough to escape into the night and get into port without the Germans sinking anything, but I pictured the Admiralty following such a humiliation.  Already behind America in all-Big Gun Capital Ships and now being hounded by a superior German force in our home waters.

Indefatigable was basically me working off a tantrum and making sure I had a BC design ready until I developed the necessary tech to build a true BC.  She's essentially my frontline Pre-Dreadnought Battleship design with a top speed of 26kt, a 6" secondary battery and no tertiaries.  She's also slightly up-armoured and obviously larger (though, surprisingly, only by 800 tons).  I included Colonial Service on her purely out of pragmatism: as soon as I developed tech to properly build true BCs, she was going to be pretty pointless on the frontline, but I didn't want to sink that many resources into her just to scrap her, so I prepared her for colonial duties.  Basically, I accidentally revived the colonial battlecruiser concept I first tried out in my Germany game.  She's replaced two of my Colonial/Second-Rate Battleships.  Almost a year later and I still don't have the tech to develop a true BC (though I have at least got wing turrets to build Dreadnoughts now), so I lay down a second ship, Inflexible.  The very next month(!) I develop Cross-Deck Fire.

The words 'about time!' don't quite do my response justice.  Needless to say, I cancelled Inflexible and started on my cross-deck Battlecruiser with an 8-gun broadside.

I've now caught up with the US in BC construction because they've switched focus to BBs (which is where I'm basically neck-and-neck with them), but I'm wondering if I shouldn't build a couple more 'second-rate' battlecruisers for colonial service to basically chase down raiders.

[theexecuter]

It's actually very close to the intended original use for the US Lexington class battlecruisers. A fast, long ranged force capable of operating independently in the Pacific...forcing the enemy to over concentrate while granting the US the capability to project force in more places faster.

Airplanes were better at the role...but since we don't have them in the game...