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Post by ccip on Sept 11, 2015 12:49:08 GMT -6
While I don't have much to add to the discussion, I have to confess that RTW has turned me from a battlecruiser skeptic into a battlecruiser pragmatic - not a fan, but I've been finding them both a lot more useful and fun from a game perspective than I'd anticipated.
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Post by dickturpin on Sept 11, 2015 13:48:36 GMT -6
Also I disagree that the Battlecrusier was an evolutionary dead end. Far from it. While the Washington naval treaty prevented relaly large new cruiser designs, fast battleships like the refitted Kongo proved to be a very versatile and usefull class in the coming Carrier&airplane era. Thge Dunkerque class was a good design as was a victim of the political situation of France mroe than anything else. At the same time the tendency was to build new battleships to be faster. Take the USS Washington - it farewd well and imho would have been a much less usefull ship if they built her with the same parameters, but with a 23 knot speed with more impressive armor. What I'm saying is that the 1930s and ww2 era designs (especially US and Japanese ones) had a tendency to bring the BC and BB evolutionary lines togeather into the modern 27+ knot fast battleships. Were it not for the naval treaties, I think we would have seen CAs and more BCs, "fast battleships" and "pocket battleship" designs coming from all major nations. The Atago CA class or the Mogami CA would surely not exist in their RL forms had it not been for the naval treaties. This sums it up very nicely.
Things were heading in this direction anyway; Lexington, G3 and Amagi were all battlecruisers. Nagato had a top speed of >26 kts.
How cruisers may have developed without the London and Washington treaties is an interesting topic. A fast pocket battleship or cheap small cruisers is an interesting dilemma.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 11, 2015 13:56:55 GMT -6
Nations have a few possible choices when it comes to military innovations. They can adopt them, offset them with another technology( hence the submarine, mine and aircraft), form an alliance or simply become neutral so as not to have to deal with them. With technological innovation, like the development of the battlecruiser or all big gun ships, comes increased financial intensity. Simply put, more capital has to be dedicated towards the new technological innovations so sources for that capital have to be developed. Whether through loans, higher taxes or just printing more money and lowering the value of your currency.
With technological innovations and other major military innovations comes organizational changes and doctrinal changes. All these affect how a nation conducts war fighting. It was especially true around 1900 with the Fisher revolution. With the increased cost per unit of the new all big gun ships including battleships and cruisers, came the realization that you could not buy as many but the increased capability of the new ships provided greater capability to the navy. This was also true of the submarine, torpedo, mines, aircraft and possibly wireless communications. The last is not one that we consider a higher cost item, but it actually was due to the requirements of stable electrical power and specialized training.
As you play RTW, I suspect you will be exposed to these concepts and have to deal with them, to be successful, depending on the nation that you choose.
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Post by sabratha on Sept 11, 2015 14:50:03 GMT -6
It was especially true around 1900 with the Fisher revolution. With the increased cost per unit of the new all big gun ships including battleships and cruisers, came the realization that you could not buy as many but the increased capability of the new ships provided greater capability to the navy. I would agree strongly. I do not think all the planned designs that were on the table in the early 1920s would be built - even without the treaties, I think the finan cial situation would cause many of these to be abandonned. Especially the British N3 imho, but I'm certain the Japanese plans would have to be scaled down as well, with the Americans following suit seeing how they wouldn't need to race as hard against either. As for ship types, I think without the big naval treaties the "destination" of both BBs and BCs was clear. The modern 27+ knot Battleship, like the RL USS Washington was imho inevitable. Same sort of thinking was going on in Japan mind you - Hiuraga was already making designs like the "Kii-Owari" class, which were simply described as "Fast battleships". This was the future, treaty or not. Saying that the BC was a dead end and the BB was not is incorrect, as in a way both gave way to the new fast battleship. The fact that we decided to call the USS Washington, Iowa or the Yamato "BBs" and not "BBC", "HBC" or "FBB" is really a matter of convention. The possible "no-treaty" crusier designs are much less easy to predict. My best bet is that the ships like the San Francisco or the Atago would never be laid down. My best guess is that we would see two types of crusiers: 1) Smaller ones, but fast and with numerous medium caliber and AA guns. Something between the Brooklyns and teh Atlantas. These would perform fleet scout duties, as well as providing AA support for ships like CVs or AOs and protectign those from opfor DDs. 2) Ships like an enlarged Mogami, with 280mm main batteries and long range. These would perform traditional commerce raiding, but also engage in independant operations in support of lighter units, which would require speed beyind that of the main battle line (think of something like the Japanese Guadalcanal night missions or teh Lofoten raid etc). That's my best guess. As a fun fact: once me and some people from the naval wargaming scene had a springsharp "3 ships instead of the Yamato" contest. The goal was to design a class of 3 ships whose total tonnage and cost would roughly be equal to one Yamato BB. I remember everyone came up with something roughly similar, a ~23 000 ton and 280mm gunned warship, in essence a larger and better armored Graf Spee spinoff. As I later found out, the US Navy in the late 30s in fact assessed that the Japanese would build just such a class of ships. So the concept of a large CA with 280mm+ guns was certainly out there. |
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Post by thecarthaginian on Sept 11, 2015 14:54:30 GMT -6
No... Lexington was a different type of ship than the G3 and Amagi.
The latter two were not 'battlecruisers' except in name - British conventions tended to name anything faster than aprox. 25 knots a 'battlecruiser' and anything slower a 'battleship'... regardless of the level of protection. The G3 was truly a 'fast battleship' and the Amagi (with her nearly 10" belt covering all vitals) certainly qualifies. These ships represented the understanding that new technology could mean the end of the separate classes of 'fully armored' battleship and the armor deficient yet speedy battlecruiser.
They were, in short, less like a battlecruiser and more like really fast battleships.
The Lexington class was a mistake that the WNT /LNT saved the USN from making.
It was enormous - 45,000 tons - and had all the mistakes that lead to the demise of the H.M.S. Hood and her forebears: 1.) a thin armored belt, made too short to prevent plunging fire from topping it, 2.) a wholly inadequate deck, incapable of even protecting against the bombs of the day (as the Mitchell tests of 1921 showed) and 3.) boilers actually located above the armored deck in 'boxes' bereft of main belt protection. Finally, the Lexingtons would have shared another major problem of battlecruisers - inadequate hull strength - which showed up in a major way in the more thinly-armored British vessels. While some inventive solutions were developed, the issue was not entirely solved and could have possibly made for lots of operational difficulties once the ships entered active service.
Nagato was not a battlecruiser... ever.
She was a fast battleship from the outset, and calling her anything else is more an insult than a mistake. An improvement on the Queen Elizabeth and her sisters, both in terms of armament and armor, these ships never held any illusions of being anything but the world's most powerful battleship. She had none of the defining characteristics of a battlecruiser - no compromises were made in suitability against battleships to facilitate higher speed. She could face the most powerful enemies on the water and give as good as she got.
The only time a battlecruiser was used for its intended purpose was at the Falkland Islands.
And, Oldpop, like the HMMWV, the battlecruiser was a poor 'adaptor' to its new role of 'armored scout'... for the same reason: neither were armored, nor were they made to scout, and neither could outrun a bullet.
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Post by tmp on Sept 11, 2015 15:38:50 GMT -6
3.) boilers actually located above the armored deck in 'boxes' bereft of main belt protection. IIRC they're able to remove that "feature" from the later/final designs, as result of improvements in the machinery technology that occurred in the meantime. Initially some of the boilers were placed there simply because required engine power meant need for more boilers than the citadel was able to fit. |
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Post by thecarthaginian on Sept 11, 2015 16:07:15 GMT -6
As I later found out, the US Navy in the late 30s in fact assessed that the Japanese would build just such a class of ships. So the concept of a large CA with 280mm+ guns was certainly out there. The British had considered reviving the 9.2" guns after the invalidation of the treaties, IIRC. The USN built the Alaska to counter the non-existent Japanese cruiser you mention. The Japanese, too, considered something like this... but like the US, skipped the smaller 9"-11" gun designs and skipped right to a 12". Without the WNT/LNT, cruisers would have probably developed much like they did. Remember, we're dealing with a set of requirements that would not change a great deal (if at all) due to the treaties - this means that the solutions to the problem, all things considered, would look broadly similar regardless of their situation. Just because the treaty didn't say "you have to use 6" or 8" guns" doesn't mean that guns of that caliber (or similar calibers) wouldn't have been adopted organically Indeed, cruisers were generally on the path to do so by the end of the First World War anyway. HMS Hawkins (whether you love her or hate her) showed that the development of a 'medium gun cruiser' was in the works. While the Hawkins herself might have been a less-than-optimal solution, it did show that 6" guns were considered sub-optimal for dealing with similarly-armed ships, and that the British Royal Navy would develop a larger vessel for hunting them down. Without the WNT/LNT, the British still face the same external threats... and still see similar solutions. With 6" being considered inadequate and 9.2" being considered too large and requiring too large a ship (and the British lacking a current 8" design) then the 7.5" cruiser appears inevitable. Evolutionary designs would probably resemble the ARA Almirante Brown's more efficient layout of armored gunhouses on barbettes, but on a ship of an intermediate size between her and Hawkins. Once the British defined a ship class, other navies would be forced to counter it... simply because it existed. And unlike the British Royal Navy, other navies simply couldn't - as one German admiral so delicately put it - 'throw out an entire class of unsuccessful ship.' This meant that any ship built as a counter to the Hawkins and her intermediate-caliber spawn would see at least an average service life in another fleet. Another pair of ships showing the organic development of the light cruiser in the direction of the WNT cruiser are the USS Omaha and the Emden of the Reichsmarine. Aside from the Omaha's main battery being the bastard child of innovation and inertia, she shows the tendency toward a light, fast ship with light protection and a uniform main battery of director-fired 6" guns. Emden should have carried this trend to a more logical and revolutionary conclusion, placing all eight of her 150mm guns in splinterproof twin mounts... but her development was hindered by the limitations of the Allies. As a result, she ended up being little more than a slightly faster [/i]Cöln[/i]-class. Also, let us not forget the Yubari... though she was a one-off experiment, she also shows that the other side of the world was at least considering this kind of ship. Had vessels like the Omaha, the intended form of the Emden and the Yubari proliferated, then larger ships of a similar type would likely have been developed from them... because to kill someone else's ship with a reasonable degree of certainty and a reasonable chance of surviving, you have to have him "outnumbered, one to one." |
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Post by sabratha on Sept 11, 2015 16:11:46 GMT -6
No... Lexington was a different type of ship than the G3 and Amagi. The latter two were not 'battlecruisers' except in name - British conventions tended to name anything faster than aprox. 25 knots a 'battlecruiser' and anything slower a 'battleship'... regardless of the level of protection. The G3 was truly a 'fast battleship' and the Amagi (with her nearly 10" belt covering all vitals) certainly qualifies. These ships represented the understanding that new technology could mean the end of the separate classes of 'fully armored' battleship and the armor deficient yet speedy battlecruiser. They were, in short, less like a battlecruiser and more like really fast battleships. There you go. That was really my point, by even the early 1920s the BB and BC of old were getting blurred and things were moving fast forward to the modern fast battleships like the Washington. Hiraga's Kii-Owari design in many key details mirrors that of the future USS Washington - it had 10x16 inch main battery, 11.5 inch belt, 29knots to the 9x16 inch guns, 12 inch belt and 28 knots of the Washington. I don't think its all an accident. I think that the Washington and the Owari were just what the future would have been all about without the big naval treaties. Should the nations in questions have the funds to build all of them given the post-ww1 economic issues (in particular in Japan) and the soon to come great depression - now that's the big question. |
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Post by thecarthaginian on Sept 11, 2015 16:19:00 GMT -6
3.) boilers actually located above the armored deck in 'boxes' bereft of main belt protection. IIRC they're able to remove that "feature" from the later/final designs, as result of improvements in the machinery technology that occurred in the meantime. Initially some of the boilers were placed there simply because required engine power meant need for more boilers than the citadel was able to fit. Yes, they did... and yes, that was why - a citadel 800 feet long couldn't hold enough boilers. That almost sounds like Someone is trying to tell you that it's a Bad Idea (R), now don't it.  Still, it shows the kind of "compromises" that made battlecruisers what they were - inherently unsafe and occasionally borderline idiotic decisions regarding survivability made in the name of One More Knot (TM) - and provides a definite 'dividing line' between the battlecruiser (which was willing to make those compromises) and the fast battleship (which was not)... and to show that while the battlecruiser might have influenced the fast battleship, it did not give birth to it. The fast battleship follows the design linage of the slower dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts; it simply incorporates the increase in speed that was naturally available from increased technological development. PS: if you want to REALLY consider what classes of ships were affected most by the WNT/LNT, we should be looking at aircraft carriers. Imagine how slowly they might have developed had the world not been forced to convert the battlecruiser population over to become the first 'large airgroup' fleet carriers.  |
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Post by thecarthaginian on Sept 11, 2015 16:23:39 GMT -6
There you go. That was really my point, by even the early 1920s the BB and BC of old were getting blurred and things were moving fast forward to the modern fast battleships like the Washington. Hiraga's Kii-Owari design in many key details mirrors that of the future USS Washington - it had 10x16 inch main battery, 11.5 inch belt, 29knots to the 9x16 inch guns, 12 inch belt and 28 knots of the Washington. I don't think its all an accident. I think that the Washington and the Owari were just what the future would have been all about without the big naval treaties. Should the nations in questions have the funds to build all of them given the post-ww1 economic issues (in particular in Japan) and the soon to come great depression - now that's the big question. I don't argue that this is true - in fact, I completely agree that it is. I argue the fact that the battlecruiser 'gave birth' to the fast battleship (some people seem to think they did). Battlecruisers were defined by their compromises in safety (for lack of a better term) to develop speed. Fast Battleships sacrificed a small amount of speed (compared to BCs) for adequate protection against their counterparts. Looking at it in this light, the battlecruiser becomes a 'dead end' in ship evolution - too many problems to compensate for - and the battleship simply gives birth to a faster battleship, enabled by better propulsion technology. This obsoletes the concept of the battlecruiser altogether. And money is no object when blowing stuff up is concerned. No matter how bad a nation's economy is, they will always search for funds to make things that go *BOOM*. |
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Post by sabratha on Sept 11, 2015 16:30:05 GMT -6
Without the WNT/LNT, cruisers would have probably developed much like they did. Remember, we're dealing with a set of requirements that would not change a great deal (if at all) due to the treaties - this means that the solutions to the problem, all things considered, would look broadly similar regardless of their situation. Just because the treaty didn't say "you have to use 6" or 8" guns" doesn't mean that guns of that caliber (or similar calibers) wouldn't have been adopted organically Indeed, cruisers were generally on the path to do so by the end of the First World War anyway. HMS Hawkins (whether you love her or hate her) showed that the development of a 'medium gun cruiser' was in the works. While the Hawkins herself might have been a less-than-optimal solution, it did show that 6" guns were considered sub-optimal for dealing with similarly-armed ships, and that the British Royal Navy would develop a larger vessel for hunting them down. Without the WNT/LNT, the British still face the same external threats... and still see similar solutions. With 6" being considered inadequate and 9.2" being considered too large and requiring too large a ship (and the British lacking a current 8" design) then the 7.5" cruiser appears inevitable. (...) Once the British defined a ship class, other navies would be forced to counter it... simply because it existed. Another pair of ships showing the organic development of the light cruiser in the direction of the WNT cruiser are the USS Omaha and the Emden of the Reichsmarine. Aside from the Omaha's main battery being the bastard child of innovation and inertia, she shows the tendency toward a light, fast ship with light protection and a uniform main battery of director-fired 6" guns. Emden should have carried this trend to a more logical and revolutionary conclusion, placing all eight of her 150mm guns in splinterproof twin mounts... but her development was hindered by the limitations of the Allies. As a result, she ended up being little more than a slightly faster I agree to a point, but I do think you are missing the other part of the equation. The other navies would be forced to counter the upgunned ships, but this is true of the RN as well. Germany, despite its isolated position in the corner of the north sea (remember that back nobody assumed Germans would be basing in Brest at any point) and it having to build its navy from almost scracth still cuased quite a stir with the "Pocket Battleship". I imagine that without WNT/LNT Japan and the US would respond to the cruiser race by building a large, long range crusier armed with 10"-11" guns, precisely to top the British designs and undermine the RN commerce defence doctrine. Thus the RN would need to respond in kind. |
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Post by thecarthaginian on Sept 11, 2015 16:40:00 GMT -6
Germany, despite its isolated position in the corner of the north sea (remember that back nobody assumed Germans would be basing in Brest at any point) and it having to build its navy from almost scratch still caused quite a stir with the "Pocket Battleship". I imagine that without WNT/LNT Japan and the US would respond to the cruiser race by building a large, long range cruiser armed with 10"-11" guns, precisely to top the British designs and undermine the RN commerce defense doctrine. Thus the RN would need to respond in kind. I don't see the 10"-11" cruiser developing as a force... but that's just personal prejudice against the 'small big gun.' At some point, I think that we'd just see someone - likely the US or Japan - simply say "screw it, if we're gonna get there eventually, we might as well get there now" and drop an A-120/ Alaska-type design with 12" guns and blistering speed out there. But, then you are right back to the inevitable 'bigger guns but weaker ship' issue of the battlecruiser. You've got something great at handling another cruiser but 1.) the per-unit cost is prohibitive for a large build (unless it is in wartime) and 2.) your guns could theoretically harm a battleship, so you're likely to find yourself asked to 'harass' or 'flank' a real battleship - with predictably disastrous results. |
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Post by sabratha on Sept 11, 2015 16:41:07 GMT -6
I argue the fact that the battlecruiser 'gave birth' to the fast battleship. Battlecruisers were defined by their compromises in safety (for lack of a better term) to develop speed. Fast Battleships sacrificed a small amount of speed (compared to BCs) for adequate protection against their counterparts. Looking at it in this light, the battlecruiser becomes a 'dead end' in ship evolution - too many problems to compensate for - and the battleship simply gives birth to a faster battleship, enabled by better propulsion technology. This obsoletes the concept of the battlecruiser altogether. Well, its a bit of an issue of the "chicken or egg" sort. We could argue in the same manner that the classic ~21 knot battleship became an evolutionary dead end, because the speed and nature of the naval operations (plus airplanes and carriers etc) would otherwise relegate such slow BBs to ground support roles (as is what happened with the Idaho class etc in ww2). The "logical" evolution of the old style BB would be a "new style" 21-23 knot ship that uses the power of the new engines not for speed, but for much further increase in armor and number of guns. That's certainly not what happened and I think the cancelled 1920s "South Dakota class was the last relict of this sort of designs. I think the most adequate way to describe it is to say that both the old BB and old BC concepts gave rise to the modern fast battleship, because the latter was based on experience and designs of both types of the former. It is possibly best exhibited in the Hiraga designs, wher ethe Amagi inherits both Tosa-esque concepts as well as Kongo-esque doctrinal and engineering elements. By the time the Owari comes along, both evolutionary lines have smoothly melted into one. Its a very academic argument either way. |
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Post by sabratha on Sept 11, 2015 16:54:05 GMT -6
Germany, despite its isolated position in the corner of the north sea (remember that back nobody assumed Germans would be basing in Brest at any point) and it having to build its navy from almost scratch still caused quite a stir with the "Pocket Battleship". I imagine that without WNT/LNT Japan and the US would respond to the cruiser race by building a large, long range cruiser armed with 10"-11" guns, precisely to top the British designs and undermine the RN commerce defense doctrine. Thus the RN would need to respond in kind. I don't see the 10"-11" cruiser developing as a force... but that's just personal prejudice against the 'small big gun.' At some point, I think that we'd just see someone - likely the US or Japan - simply say "screw it, if we're gonna get there eventually, we might as well get there now" and drop an A-120/ Alaska-type design with 12" guns and blistering speed out there. But, then you are right back to the inevitable 'bigger guns but weaker ship' issue of the battlecruiser. You've got something great at handling another cruiser but 1.) the per-unit cost is prohibitive for a large build (unless it is in wartime) and 2.) your guns could theoretically harm a battleship, so you're likely to find yourself asked to 'harass' or 'flank' a real battleship - with predictably disastrous results. I think 12"+ main gun and uparmored supercrusiers would be out of the question for Japan. They would have a cost nearly approaching a fast battleship and given the Japanese Mahanian doctrine, the'd rather build the latter. I think a 20 000-something 11inch gunned crusier would be the top of what the'd consider cost-effective. Of course that's speculation and it could change if the US would decide to build several Dunkuerque-look-alikes... |
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Post by thecarthaginian on Sept 11, 2015 17:22:26 GMT -6
I think 12"+ main gun and uparmored supercrusiers would be out of the question for Japan. They would have a cost nearly approaching a fast battleship and given the Japanese Mahanian doctrine, the'd rather build the latter. I think a 20 000-something 11inch gunned crusier would be the top of what the'd consider cost-effective. Of course that's speculation and it could change if the US would decide to build several Dunkuerque-look-alikes... Let me start by saying that I crossed up my prewar Japanese ship studies, mea maxima culpa. When I said A-120 I should have said B-65. That ship was the reason I said that Japan would have went on to the 12" cruiser. The B-65 would have fielded an entirely new 310mm/L50 main gun. The design study was completed in 1940, but due to the war no prototypes of the gun were constructed and the ships were probably never even approved for construction. It does, however, show us where Japan was thinking about going if it had been at liberty to replace all its older battlecruisers with more modern vessels. Also, bear in mind that the study was completed before the USN fully considered the Alaska class... so the Japanese were developing the concept independently of the influence of the USN. Indeed, the USN developed the concept of the 12" cruiser in a reaction to Japanese development of such a ship, rather than vice versa. |
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