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Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 14, 2015 10:21:37 GMT -6
According to the Naval Mission to Japan document, the Large cruiser submarines of the IJN had a range of 16,000 miles @ 16 knots, the small cruiser submarines had a range of 14,000 miles @ 16 knots and the Fleet submarines had a range of 8000 miles @ 16 knots. For the Japanese submarine force, it did play a minor role in the war. There were vacillating policies in building, false economy by withholding submarines for future operations that never occurred and confusion in tactical command, poor communications and poor commanders. Source: Naval Technical Mission to Japan DTD January 1946, Fischer-Tropsch Archives: Ship and Related Targets; Characteristics of Japanese Naval Vessels Article 1 and Submarines and Japanese Submarine Operations.
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Post by ramjb on Sept 16, 2015 23:00:45 GMT -6
Armored Cruisers were in fact the alternative to the battleship. And for a decent margin of time during the turn of the century there was a quite wide following of the AC as the main capital ship.
It's all easier to understand when you remember that at that time guns larger than 10 inches were horribly cumbersome, had a laughable rate of fire and were in general unlikely to hit much. The main damage dealers were the high rate of fire medium sized guns, which would compensate the difficulty of hitting anythign at sea with their ability to fire very fast. Reading about Adm. Fisher's life is pretty revealing. Way before he was pushing for battlecruisers he was making a case on the RN about the AC being the capital ship of the future, based on their faster rate of fire and, of course, higher top speed. Fisher thought that the RN's "second rate" battleships (armed with 10 inch guns, less armored and a couple knots faster than the standard "first rate battleship" was much more useful than the latter, and he wanted to go further into the concept. Some of his early "concept-ships" are nothing but massive ACs with huge medium turreted batteries and no heavy guns. And he wasn't alone in that train of thought. Not even by a little.
What ended the AC challenge to the Battleship spot as the capital ship was the fast advances in weaponry and FC systems. 12 inch guns went from being barely able to fire once each couple minutes to be capable of sustained RoFs of 2 per minute or more. Central rangefinding and fire control systems allowed for longer range engagements. Combined, it meant the death of the medium-sized gun as a main capital ship weaponry:
-Medium sized (9.2-10 inch) guns were thought as better than the 12 caliber ones because of much better rate of fire. The increase of the 12 inch gun rate of fire went a good way to nullify that advantage. Engagement ranges growing a lot just reverted the advantage to the 12 inch guns (at long ranges you need to spot the fall of shot, so firing before spotting was useless, hence high rates of fire were of no use for long range fire).
-Medium sized (9.2-10 inch) guns gave more than enough penetrations to deal with almost any battleship armor at the ranges expected at the start of the XX century. However as ranges increased, the loss of penetration of the lighter shells became steeper and unable to deal with armor. Meanwhile the 12 inch gun was much harder hitting, making it the obvious choice for capital ship artillery as soon as the centralized fire control systems started evolving quickly.
Fact is that the FC revolution mixed with the mechanical improvements to the 12 inch turret to drastically increase the rate of fire dealt a kiling blow to the aspiration of the AC to become the main capital ship. But that aspiration was very real, and had a very strong following prior to that.
The AC concept was well and alive however: a faster ship to provide the fleet with a "fast wing" and able to brush aside enemy scouting forces was obviously needed for naval engagements - the battlecruiser killed it however.
Now I know a lot of people read "battlecruiser" and they think about a paper mache ship with battleship sized guns on it. The whole argument of the battlecruiser being a failure as soon as placed on a battleline is founded upon the epic fail the british battlecruisers roleplayed at Jutland by going off like fireworks all around the place. But that's not the end of the story. Not at all.
And it's not because that's not what a battlecruiser was. Well, yes, the ones which went off at Jutland, that were battlecruisers, but of one kind. While Fisher's push for speed and punch over armor won the day in England, a very different train of thought was in place across the north sea. And the german Battlecruiser was no paper mache at all. The german battlecruiser was perfectly able to fight in a line of ship action (in fact during jutland they came under the concentrated fire of almost the whole Grand Fleet at smashingly short ranges while they were covering the HSF's third battleturn, yet they made it out alive. Mauled, but alive). If you think of the battlecruiser in german terms (battleship scaled armor, fast but not as fast as the british BCs, and sacrificing firepower instead of armor for that speed) suddenly the concept becomes much more viable - so much that the german battlecruiser fleet of WWI was the genesis of the fast battleship concept: a ship with battleship armor and weapons while being fast enough.
The whole idea of the AC "coming back" because the battlecruiser concept "foundered" after WWI is a folly for several reasons. First of all the battleship concept (british style) died because of jutland, but not so the german concept. When one takes a look at how HMS Hood was completed (same weaponry as a QE, same scale of protection as a QE, but capable of 30 knots), he can't help but say "that's not a british battlecruiser". And well, it was not - it was the first -if one of the first, as I think the Derrflinger class actually was it, fast battleship. And most immediately post-war BCs (Exception made of the Lexingtons, one of the worst designs ever in naval history) were designed along those lines. All the british post-war battlecruiser concepts (not only G3) included protection of more than adequate scale to be labelled as battleships, for instance. The Japanese went a very similar way too.
The battlecruiser concept "foundered" not because navies didn't want them ,but because the Washington Treaty forbade building them. Navies suddenly found they couldn't build capital ships so they went with the thing they could build - the CA, or "heavy cruiser". What many take as the spiritual successor to the armored cruiser was the bastard child of an international weapons limitation agreement, not a logic consequence of naval doctrines. Navies built them in masses because they couldn't build anything else to foster their fleets, not because they were inherently sound. In fact the "treaty cruiser" would've been a defenceless chicken in a world where the WT never happened - if anything because noone would've even given a second thought of restrinting them to 10.000 tons standard.
The "treaty cruiser" was a patch, a solution, to a problem (we can't build battleships, still we need to give our navies ability to control the seas, so we'll build something the treaty allows) but it was not the successor of the armored cruiser. In a world without a WT eventually the Armored Cruiser would've come back after a while ,but not immediately -there were no plans for anything like them in the early 20s for instance-, and it would've happened as soon as everyone came to terms with the fact that the battlecruiser and the battleship weren't anylonger different classes, but that both had merged into one. As technology evolved it was feasible to provide enough power for high speeds without giving up either protection or firepower and remaining within reasonable displacements. The Armored Cruiser, which had "died" because the "battlecruiser killed it" would've been resurrected as the battlecruiser and battleship merged into the Fast Battleship. The reasons why the armored cruisers were important on it's day (fast wing of the battlefleet, able to brush aside enemy lighter scouting forces) still needed to be covered - and as battlecruisers were no more the "fast wing" of the battlefleet but rather had merged into it, the AC would've come back to take that role again.
But all that would've stemmed from a fact: The battlecruiser (which many take as a failed idea, and one that navies gave up) didn't fail. The british battlecruiser concept DID fail indeed, yet not so much the german battlecruiser concept which was a resounding success - and those were also battlecruisers. That battlecruiser concept succeeded. And it succeeded bigtime, so much that in the immediate aftermath of WWI there'd been a merger between the fast battlecruiser and the slow battleship into a single class: the fast battleship. Something that actually happened with a 15 year delay, in fact, due to the Treaty preventing it from happening before if we don't take in account HMS Hood, which qualified more than enough for that, but being an one-off ship in the world at the time she kept on being called "Battlecruiser" when she was not.
So, battlecruiser a failure?. Nope. A big success. The german kind, at least. The british one...yeah, that one did fail bigtime.
That is, in a world without aircraft carriers, of course. But that's a totally different topic and probably out of the scope of this mammoth writting I just wrote XD. Hope noone died while reading it XD
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Post by namuras on Sept 17, 2015 0:26:47 GMT -6
[...] Hope noone died while reading it XD Not at all! And as usual a very well written post and i agree with you wholeheartedly.
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krawa
Junior Member
Posts: 96
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Post by krawa on Sept 17, 2015 2:50:57 GMT -6
Very good post ramjb, that sums it up really good, especially the part on the AC at the turn of the century and how it is related to the post treaty CA.
You're a bit off on the german battlecruisers as they were actually weaker armoured than contemporay german battleships. The german battlecruiser can IMO be summed up as a battleship with increased Speed while armament and armour are reduced in a balanced way. It's obvious that the Germans realised this ship type was serving them far better then the classic "slow" battleship as they ordered seven Mackensen class BCs during the war while the sucessor to the Bayern-class BB never left the drawing board.
I guess the German BC line can be seen as the start of the Evolution of the fast battleship by making battlecruisers more durable, while QE started the the evoultion from the other end by making battleships faster.
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Post by sabratha on Sept 17, 2015 5:10:30 GMT -6
Armored Cruisers were in fact the alternative to the battleship. And for a decent margin of time during the turn of the century there was a quite wide following of the AC as the main capital ship. It's all easier to understand when you remember that at that time guns larger than 10 inches were horribly cumbersome, had a laughable rate of fire and were in general unlikely to hit much. The main damage dealers were the high rate of fire medium sized guns, which would compensate the difficulty of hitting anythign at sea with their ability to fire very fast. This is a good post. In fact the 1894 battle of the Yalu river seems to have corroborated these views. To the eyes of the naval European observers the Krupp guns of the Dìngyǔan proved rather ineffective (which in Britain sparked an entirely unjustified belief in the superiority of their own technology ove rthe germans). The huge main guns of the Matsushima proved even less usefull, with an abysmal rate of fire (supposedly only 13 rounds fired throuought the whole battle). It was only the events of the Russo-Japanese war (in particular the long ranges at which the forces successfully engaged one another) that finally established the domination of the "big-gun doctrine". I guess the German BC line can be seen as the start of the Evolution of the fast battleship by making battlecruisers more durable, while QE started the the evoultion from the other end by making battleships faster. Certainly possible to look at it this way.
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Post by RNRobert on Sept 17, 2015 5:31:04 GMT -6
Armored Cruisers were in fact the alternative to the battleship. And for a decent margin of time during the turn of the century there was a quite wide following of the AC as the main capital ship. It's all easier to understand when you remember that at that time guns larger than 10 inches were horribly cumbersome, had a laughable rate of fire and were in general unlikely to hit much. The main damage dealers were the high rate of fire medium sized guns, which would compensate the difficulty of hitting anythign at sea with their ability to fire very fast. I read somewhere that at the battle of Santiago in 1898 during the Spanish-American War, all of the hits on the Spanish ships were from secondary batteries, not the main guns.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 17, 2015 10:29:34 GMT -6
I want to point out that while the Washington Naval Treaty did forbid the building of battleships and large armored cruisers, it did not forbid modernization of the battleship. It was the development of the aircraft, aircraft carrier and further development of the tube radio that signaled the demise of the AC and its hybrid, the large armored cruiser. The tube had been invented by Lee DeForest in 1906 but it was fragile and very large. In 1912, he developed the regenerative circuit and with feedback, the oscillator which became the basis for improved radio communications. By the end of WW1, tube sets were beginning to be used in aircraft which improved distance and clarity of the sound. With the increased range for scouting provided by the aircraft and better radios, scouting could now be conducted at far longer distances and provide the battlefleet more time to prepare for the coming engagement.
After WW1, the battleship despite the 1922 treaty still remained the final arbiter of naval power, the treaty system actually relied on the capital ship dominance for success. However, during the interwar period, many officers in all navies began to change their attitude and hedge their bets in tactical naval combat. We see this evolution in the Fleet Problems starting in 1922 for the USN. Battleships , shared the center stage with the aviation, aircraft carriers, submarines, destroyers etc. By the late 1930's, even amphibious warfare had evolved into an operational doctrine. The large armored cruisers concept had no mission after WW1 for the following reasons: These are not in any particular order
1. Analysis of WW1 Naval Operations which led to organizational innovations and doctrinal changes 2. Technical innovations like the improved radio communications, metallurgy, construction and testing. 3. 1922 Washington Naval Treaty
Generally, in history, it isn't just one reason for a weapon or doctrine to change. It is usually a combination of reasons. Research the history of the rifle from the Arquebus to the modern autoloaders to see this evolution in weapons design, tactics and organizational changes.
For those of you interested here are two books in my collection that you might find interesting:
Warships After Washington: The Development of the Five Major Fleets 1922-1930 authored by John Jordan
To Train the Fleet for War: The US Navy Fleet Problems, 1923-1940 authored by Albert A. Nofi
For Your Reference - www.ibiblio.org/pha/pre-war/1922/nav_lim.html - Text of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922
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Post by dickturpin on Sept 17, 2015 14:55:00 GMT -6
Armored Cruisers were in fact the alternative to the battleship. And for a decent margin of time during the turn of the century there was a quite wide following of the AC as the main capital ship. This is a well written analysis. I would make a few observations however. The notion that the Battlecruiser replaced the Armored Cruiser is in my opinion true only to an extent. In most important aspects of design and intended role, they are essentially the same. The Battlecruiser incorporated the latest technological developments and was adapted to fight at much longer range but is this different to say the Cressy/Good Hope type and the succeeding Warrior/Minotaur type in the context of the prevailing technology at the time of their design? To an extent, the Dreadnought whilst still a Battleship, exhibited many characteristics more usually associated with cruisers such as speed, hull weight ratio, gun deployment e.t.c. and was capable of acting in the cruiser role; it was thus rather more removed from a traditional Battleship than Invincible was from a traditional Armored Cruiser. The Grosse Kreuzer is a rather different animal to anything built by the British. German doctrine was adapted to fighting in the North Sea, which is frequently affected by limited visibility and aggressive tactical concepts. The Germans designed their ships accordingly with guns designed to fight at short range (retention of secondary battery, quick fire main armament, smaller caliber guns with high muzzle energy e.t.c.) and thick armor. That they adapted pretty well to fighting at greater range in the unexpected conditions of WW1 should not detract from their intended purpose. The British defeat at Jutland is often attributed to the Battlecruiser as per ramjb's account, but whilst this may have been politically expedient, is it a fair reflection of the actual events? I would suggest consideration of the following: - - The ratio of losses in major warships is 6:2 in favor of the Germans. However, 4 of the British cruisers lost were of a much older vintage than any German cruisers present at the battle (largely due to their German contemporaries being sunk or retired by the date of Jutland). 5 of the British cruisers were significantly smaller than the German opponents that accounted for them.
- The German AP shells used at Jutland were of an improved type that had only recently been introduced. These shells were effective when striking armor at oblique angles and had a delayed action fuse to enable detonation behind armor The British were aware of the shortcomings of their shells and Jellicoe had requested the design of a replacement in 1910; this had not been implemented.
- On the outbreak of war in 1914, the British had not implemented the introduction of their fire control system; most ships lacked directors, many also lacked fire control computers and no ships had the improved long base length rangefinders. Progress had been made by the time of Jutland but all 12" gun vessels and Marlborough had inferior Dreyer Mk 1 computers and only the 15" gun ships had long base length rangefinders. The Germans had a rather simpler fire control system but they implemented it use rather well.
- As a result of poor results with long range gunnery, the British increased the supply of ammunition carried in their capital ships in excess of their designed capacity just before the war. This caused congestion within the powder train. As a result of doctrinal changes and battle experience, attempts were made to increase rates of fire. This resulted in a relaxed interpretation of safety procedures, removal of safety features, removal of propellant charges from their flame retardant cases and the stockpiling of charges along the powder train. Such hazardous practices was probably contributory to the propensity of HM ships to explode when German shells penetrated their turrets or barbettes.
- Regardless of issues with British shells and the increased armor on Grosse Kreuzer, they probably experienced more turret ammunition fires than the British but did not blow up (this is possibly a result of the type of metal cartridge cases used with their guns having an additional benefit in retarding the spread of fire).
- The Germans benefited from better lighting conditions in the early stages of Jutland.
- The British Battlecruisers crews had a very poor reputation for shooting for a variety of reasons.
- The performance of some British commanders; notably Beatty and Arbuthnot fell well short of what could be described as competent.
In conclusion, it was probably not the design of the Battlecruisers that caused the problem but neglecting to equip them properly, neglecting to manage and train their crews properly and then advancing them in a precipitous manner into a dangerous and disadvantageous position without proper consideration of their fire control solutions and without their allocated support.
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Post by ramjb on Sept 17, 2015 21:14:49 GMT -6
The notion that the Battlecruiser replaced the Armored Cruiser is in my opinion true only to an extent. In most important aspects of design and intended role, they are essentially the same.
From a doctrine approach, this is true. From a practical approach, it's not. A "conventional" armored cruiser had a large main battery of quick firing guns ranging from 6 to 10 inches, but had armor scale in proportion to give it at least moderate protection against the very same guns they had. Of course there were a lot of ACs around and not all had very heavy armor but the "top dog" AC (a Minotaur, for instance) was well equipped to go against other top dog ACs and slug it out with them. A Battlecruiser (British approach) could not do it. It had battleship weapons with armored cruiser armor standards. And while 6 inches of belt might be good enough to deal with opposite ACs with 8 inch main guns, it's woefully inadequate to deal with large battleship guns. So, again, from a doctrinary standpoint the BC might have had a similar mission to that of the AC (fast wing of the battlefleet, scout destroyer, etc), but while the AC could do it with a reasonable degree of protection against enemy ACs, the british BCs couldn't do it, as that protection was only good against ACs, not other BCs. The british BC was designed to wipe the floor with enemy armored cruisers - but it was ill fitted to do the same with enemy ships similar to itself. It's usefulness lasted as long as the potential enemies had no BCs of their own. Once the opposition started using decently protected BCs of their own, it was over. The british idea of the heavily armed yet lightly armored battlecruiser was made obsolete the second Von der Tann was commissioned. The Battlecruiser incorporated the latest technological developments and was adapted to fight at much longer range but is this different to say the Cressy/Good Hope type and the succeeding Warrior/Minotaur type in the context of the prevailing technology at the time of their design? To an extent, the Dreadnought whilst still a Battleship, exhibited many characteristics more usually associated with cruisers such as speed, hull weight ratio, gun deployment e.t.c. and was capable of acting in the cruiser role; it was thus rather more removed from a traditional Battleship than Invincible was from a traditional Armored Cruiser.
I agree, but herein lays the essential fault within the BC concept. It had the same role as the AC but with big guns. But if you get the big guns yet not the armor to defeat them, you suddenly become handicapped at the game, for the oposition will likely scale up his own scouting forces with BCs of their own. If in 1905 someone had proposed a big AC with a main battery of powerful 9.2inch guns but armor in the scale of a light cruiser, he'd have been laughed at. Yet the BC was just that, only one scale upwards. A bigh ship with a main battery of powerful battleship guns but armor in the scale of an armored cruiser (and don't get me started on the whole "light battlecruiser" concept as the Furious. Even fisher himself didn't know what those ships were good for). The whole concept is so flawed at it's very roots yet it took an evening of fireworks at the hands of the enemy to wake the british up. Which brings me to Jutland. Yes, all the factors you mentioned mattered a lot, and others. German much better night fighting training. Truly horrible comunications in the british fleet. Very poor operational practices (such as the high rate of fire reload drills in the british ships) and a long etcetera. But that battle is not remembered by the 6:2 loss rate in warships. When one speaks of Jutland the first thing that comes to mind is not Warrior being shot to kingdom come, Hessen ramming a destroyer, Pommern sinking in minutes due to a single torpedo hit, or german predreadnoughts actually taking part in the battleline. You say "jutland", people thinks of british battlecruisers blowing up. Simply stated, those ships were ill fitted to deal with opposite numbers of their same kind - much less against the german version of the same concept, which not only could fight in a battleline, but did so and very effectively. Yes, all the problems within the british fleet, from poor AP shells to poor accuracy were true - but still they outnumbered the german fleet by such a wide margin those factors should haven't mattered that much had they had warships able to take damage in the same scale as they potentially could deal it. The problem is that they brought battleship wannabe tinclads to a brawl, and unexpectedly so (at least with hindsight) the tincans blew up in a pretty spectacular fashion. And they even got lucky at it, could've been much worse (Lion was a half hair away from joining the other three in the same fate, but was saved in extremis). And this happened vs a much numerically inferior foe. Had Jutland happened against a similar sized german fleet and had the british not had the spectacular numerical superiority they had, the BCs would've been probably had a much worse evening (and it's hard to think of a worse evening than THAT) So while your conclussion is that maybe the problem was not the battlecruiser on itself, but rather the other problems the Royal Navy had and which raised their ugly head during Jutland (all very real, all very important), my conclussion is that even without those problems you simply can't bring a 30.000 ton warship with 13.5 inch guns but armor barely able to stop an 8 inch shell when the opposition is lobbing 12 inch gunfire at you. Because you're asking to be kicked in the teeth...and when you ask for it sooner or later you're going to get what you're asking for.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 18, 2015 10:16:31 GMT -6
In my books, it refers to an armor scheme change made after a committee in England reviewed WW1 losses and damage on the capital ships. Apparently, the battlecruisers used the pre-dreadnought armor scheme which did not perform well. They discuss the USN use of the All or nothing and that scheme was adopted which allowed for heavier armor and saved weight for speed. As I said, I am going to research in my D.K. Brown books and try to determine precisely what they are referencing.
We've discussed at length as to whether the large armored cruiser was a good or bad design and whether it was really needed. I believe we should now get into details. We know they were all big gun ships, turbine driven, oil fired. We also know of the ammunition problems like the powder volatility and the poor handling. We also know that they were a high cost per unit weapons system, which did present some problems for the Liberal government in the early 1900's.
Anyway, maybe this might be a good direction. We could also delve into wireless communications, fire control procedures etc. Just some random ideas if you are interested for RTW.
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Post by dickturpin on Sept 18, 2015 15:36:35 GMT -6
Initially the decision was to increase deck armor by adding patches on existing ships and similarly to increase the deck armor in Hood that was under construction (see The Grand Fleet). This was instigated by Jellicoe and appears to be something of a smokescreen, implying that the reason for the loss of the Battlecruisers was thin deck armour. It was pointed out by d'Enycourt that: - " On our own ships there is only one reported case of splinters of shell penetrating as far as the magazine. This happened in "Barham", where splinters opened the crown of the 6" magazine. In this case the penetration was phenomanal compared with other hits and from the fact that no other surviving ships, so far as is known, reported that splinters of shell penetrated into the magazines or similar parts of the ship, similarly situated, and similarly protected, it would not appear that there is much to be gained by lowering the magazine, having regard to the increased danger from mines, except that recent reductions in draught in new designs somewhat alter the conditions." The primary source information can be found at www.dreadnoughtproject.org/tfs/index.php/A_Direct_Train_of_Cordite detailing the reports into the loss of the Battlecruisers. The other sources to consider are NJM Campbell's Jutland Analysis of the Fighting and Battlecruisers. These give detailed hit by hit analysis of shell damage. Reference will for instance reveal that there are very few examples of German shells penetrating >2/3 cal. KC plate at Jutland. Reference to British shells would indicate little ability to work reliably against >1/2 cal KC plate at Jutland. It is fairly common for them to hole armor thicker than 1/2 cal. With respect to the RJW, Russian AP shells similarly at Tsushima were reasonably reliable against 1/2 cal plate. Japanese shells were not terribly effective against armour. When comparing ship designs, the German WW1 type shells were introduced in 1914. Older APC shells began to appear around 1904. The older AP shells are rather more comparable to Japanese RJW shells. This should of course make reference to the prevailing ranges at which the battles concerned were fought.
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Post by dickturpin on Sept 18, 2015 16:40:25 GMT -6
From a doctrine approach, this is true. From a practical approach, it's not. A "conventional" armored cruiser had a large main battery of quick firing guns ranging from 6 to 10 inches, but had armor scale in proportion to give it at least moderate protection against the very same guns they had. Of course there were a lot of ACs around and not all had very heavy armor but the "top dog" AC (a Minotaur, for instance) was well equipped to go against other top dog ACs and slug it out with them.
Early examples such as Cressy/Good Hope were protected to Battleship standards. For the reasons in your original post and due to the enhanced accuracy of gunnery due to continuous aim techniques, the strong medium gun batteries were probably effective up to approximately 4,000 yards around the turn of the century. Slow firing heavy guns were unlikely to achieve hits at much over 1,600 yards. Thus these AC would be considered superior to older style cruisers and could probably defeat a Battleship at longer range. Improvements in big gun rates of fire and salvo fire rapidly changed the environment and gunnery at ranges of 8,000 yards were possible by about 1904. Battleships generally became better protected whilst maintaining similar levels of armament. AC generally increase their armament but protection remained approximately the same. Due to the need to spot shells, rapid fire became less significant at longer range whilst the ballistic properties of the heavy guns gave them an advantage. At closer range, Battleships still retained strong medium batteries and their protection was superior to the cruiser. I thus agree that the Monitor and similar are ideally suited to fighting cruisers but not so well suited to fighting Battleships. A Battlecruiser (British approach) could not do it. It had battleship weapons with armored cruiser armor standards. And while 6 inches of belt might be good enough to deal with opposite ACs with 8 inch main guns, it's woefully inadequate to deal with large battleship guns. So, again, from a doctrinary standpoint the BC might have had a similar mission to that of the AC (fast wing of the battlefleet, scout destroyer, etc), but while the AC could do it with a reasonable degree of protection against enemy ACs, the british BCs couldn't do it, as that protection was only good against ACs, not other BCs.
Typical Battleship armor of say 9" around 1908 is designed to enable these vessels to fight at medium/close range. 6" armor is probably adequate against 1908 vintage Battleship guns and shells at long range. At such ranges, the Invincible is rather better than a contemporary Battleship as it has more guns and they are (in 1908 terms) particularly powerful. Invincible dispensed with the secondary battery which is something of a distraction to spotting the fall of shell at long range. The Invincible is not really suitable to take on a cruiser or Battleship at close range. For fighting cruisers, you are probably better off with Minotaur (which is similar to the original design of the 1905-06 AC). The british BC was designed to wipe the floor with enemy armored cruisers - but it was ill fitted to do the same with enemy ships similar to itself. It's usefulness lasted as long as the potential enemies had no BCs of their own. Once the opposition started using decently protected BCs of their own, it was over. The british idea of the heavily armed yet lightly armored battlecruiser was made obsolete the second Von der Tann was commissioned.
All nations tended to incrementally improve both Battleships and AC so it should not really be a surprise if a more modern, larger and more expensive successor has certain advantages. In 1910 however, the Invincible may still be expected to do well against Von der Tann providing it maintained long range. Both the quality of shells and possibly lack of dangerous ammunition handling practices make the equation different to that in 1916. Agreed though that at medium to close range it is good night Invincible (although this appears the most likely outcome with Blucher as well). By 1916, period German shells and dangerous British magazine practices are admittedly making the 7" turret armor appear worryingly vulnerable.
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Post by ramjb on Sept 18, 2015 18:47:20 GMT -6
Typical Battleship armor of say 9" around 1908...
Hmmmm how's that typical?. 1908 would chronologically mean Bellerophon and Nassau classes. Bellerophon had a 10 inch belt, 10 inch barbette and 11 inch CT and turret face protection. Nassaus sported up to 12 inches belt armor and 11 inch turret face armor. By comparison Indefatigable had 6 inch belt (and it in a very narrow part of the hull as it was tapering down to 3'' on the fore and aft turrets) and 7 inch barbette and turret face armor. Moreover they were never intended to fight a battleline action (or at least Fisher never intended them to) Von der Tann had a 9.8 inch main belt (and staying that thick for a much longer part of the protective lenght as compared with Indefatigable), and 9 inch barbette and turret armor as part as the german approach to their battlecruiser being able to actively form up with the battleline if needed. Even the smallest german battlecruiser had more than 9'' armor, so I can't see how those 9 inches are "typical battleship armor"... In 1910 however, the Invincible may still be expected to do well against Von der Tann providing it maintained long range.I strongly disagree. Von der Tann might be armed only with 11 inch weapons, but the scale of her protection is tremendous compared with the british ship. It's not just a matter of thicknesses (where the advantage already is in the german side) ,is also a matter of those thicknesses being spread over much wider areas than in the (thinner) Indefatigable belt. Seriously the armor layouts of indefatigable (I have them in front of me as I speak) are a recipe for disaster against anything larger than armored cruiser weaponry. Even Jellicoe in a post-jutland minute to the admiralty aknowledged it: "The German battle cruisers are battleships in protection whereas ours are armoured cruisers. That is the whole story and the public ought to know it for the sake of the reputations of your officers and men." And that's the whole story in what regards to british battlecruisers: Armored cruisers with battleship weapons. Given that the BC was created to obliterate armored cruisers to begin with ,that says a lot (if you have a weapon to obliterate an enemy whose scale of protection is similar to your owns, then you're as horribly vulnerable to that kind of weapon as your prey is) Both the quality of shells and possibly lack of dangerous ammunition handling practices make the equation different to that in 1916
I read this a lot as an excuse and possible scapegoat explanation for the BC debacle at Jutland. And while it's obvious that british cordite was much more prone to flashing up than german propellants, and that the firing drills of the battleship squadron were dangerously relaxed leaving the flashtight doors open during gunnery action, and while it explains at least 2 of the 3 BCs losses at Jutland, I still think it's an excuse and scapegoat. Let's put things in perspective here and admit that warships did sink during an engagement due to more reasons that magazines being blown off because a flash scenario. In a protracted engagement other factors kick in, specially (And obviously) flooding, loss of power (that killed Blucher after all), etc. The loss reports of Queen Mary point at an obvious magazine explosion due to a flash incident - but she had been heavily and repeatedly hit several times over in the preceding minutes and battle reports mention her having serious trouble (stern laying low on the water, some reports point out at a serious loss of power, etc) which might have meant she was doomed anyway. Also let's look at this in perspective. During the part of the battle where two (almost three, Lion also was close to going off) british BCs blew up, the germans were fighting at a numeric disadvantage. Doctrines aside,trainings aside, superior german shells aside, and Royal Navy accuracy woes aside (that's a lot to put aside, but still, the point remains), put those ships against a similar number of their counterparts in a running battle and they're going to be badly mauled while their foes will survive in relatively good condition. In such a running battle you have two sides where one can seriously hurt the other, while the other simply can't. And yes, during the BC engagement on the opening stages of jutland obviously better german accuracy, training, shells and favorable visibility helped a lot. But still we're talking about a 5vs6 scenario, not to count about the long range support from the 5th BS 15 inch gun artillery, and it's that numerical inferiority which kind of voids the advantages mentioned. Circunstancial factors can help a lot but in the end numbers help more, and it was the british the ones who enjoyed the numbers ,not the germans. Put those ships in a 6vs6 scenario with neutral outside conditions (proper shells on both sides, neutral tactical situation), the british ships won't fare any better than what they did. With proper cordite handling and reload practices probably they wouldn't go off in a pyrotecnics show, but over time their lack of protection would show. As Jellicoe said "armored cruisers with battleship guns". And armored cruiser protection didn't cut it in front of 12 inch guns.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 19, 2015 10:00:16 GMT -6
One of the more interesting bits of information about the development of the large armored cruiser is where the idea for the 12 inch guns actually originated. It wasn't from Fisher, it was from the unauthorized think tank that fisher had established in 1904 prior to becoming the First Sea Lord. two of its six members were J.R. Jellicoe and a Captain R. H. Bacon. The committee offered three options for the armament of the large armored cruiser:
Mixed 12in and 9.2 in All 10 in or all 9.2 in All 12in
Bacon was the prime mover for the all 12in armament. It seems that the clear cut decision for the larger guns was no issue with the HMS Dreadnought since battleship weight was never a real concern. But for a ship like the large armored cruiser whose primary characteristic was its speed, weight was all important. Armor is heavy and so are large 12in guns. Comparison of the HMS Warrior of 1903 and Invincible shows that they both had the same 6 in belt armor but that the weight of armament went from 1585 tons to 2500 tons. Along with that increased armament weight, hull weight went from 5190 tons to 6120 tons with armor weight increasing from 2845 tons to 3370 tons. Machinery weight went from 2270 tons to 3140 tons.
All of the weight factors increased on the Invincible primarily due to the increased size of the guns. Larger and heavier guns required larger and heavier turrets, with correspondingly larger powder bags and shells. So handling rooms and ammunition storage had to be larger and this increased the size of the ship, primarily length because of the 90 foot limitation for Thames shipyards, to increases in the length. Increased length means heavier hulls and this requires more power to maintain the designed speed. The larger hulls and turrets increased the area needed for armor, thereby increasing the weight of the armor. BTW, the cost went from 1.2 million pounds to 1.75. All This change inside of two years, since the Warrior class of armored cruisers were completed from Dec. 1906 to 5 Mar 1907. Whether the large armored cruiser was a complete success, is up for debate and has been since the end of WW1, the story of how it evolved is interesting and illustrative of naval ship design issues, IMHO.
Note: From the Navweaps web site, the two guns turrets with 12in guns from the HMS Invincible weighed about 450-500 tons. The 9.2in twin turrets weighed in at about 250 tons. So you could have saved over 1000 tons for armor. I have not found a weight for the 10in weapons including turrets but it has to be probably close to the 9.2". The 10in gun, depending on the model, weighed about 39 tons, but I don't know if that was with the breech or not. Another model weighed in at about 30 tons.
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Post by dickturpin on Sept 19, 2015 14:03:07 GMT -6
Hmmmm how's that typical?. 1908 would chronologically mean Bellerophon and Nassau classes. Bellerophon had a 10 inch belt, 10 inch barbette and 11 inch CT and turret face protection. Nassaus sported up to 12 inches belt armor and 11 inch turret face armor. Without wishing to nit pick, none of these examples were in commission in 1908; they are the succeeding generation of ships and would incorporate perceived lessons from the Invincible. I strongly disagree. Von der Tann might be armed only with 11 inch weapons, but the scale of her protection is tremendous compared with the british ship. It's not just a matter of thicknesses (where the advantage already is in the german side) ,is also a matter of those thicknesses being spread over much wider areas than in the (thinner) Indefatigable belt. Seriously the armor layouts of indefatigable (I have them in front of me as I speak) are a recipe for disaster against anything larger than armored cruiser weaponry. Even Jellicoe in a post-jutland minute to the admiralty aknowledged it: "The German battle cruisers are battleships in protection whereas ours are armoured cruisers. That is the whole story and the public ought to know it for the sake of the reputations of your officers and men." I do not dispute this. The Von der Tann needed to incorporate this level of protection if she was to engage at close range. The question is the adequacy of Invincible's armor scheme to resist long range 11" gun fire with pre WW1 shells. Remember that the 6" belt is backed by coal bunkers and the sloping deck. There are very few examples of shells defeating this type of arrangement; the only example from Jutland that I am aware is HMS Warrior. The description of the sinking of Indefatigable that you quote (taken from a German eyewitness account) could also be interpreted this way. If the answer is no, then the battle will largely be fought outside the citadel; HE may be a better solution than AP under such circumstances and German ships tended to be somewhat vulnerable to hits fore of A barbette. You appear to be conflating the Invincible class and Indefatigable; the latter ship was procured 3 years after the Invincibles and was essentially a repeat of the older design. Whilst it was a appealing from a cost perspective (this is important as the naval budget was under severe pressure in 1908-09) the choice is not really justifiable on grounds of effectiveness. I read this a lot as an excuse and possible scapegoat explanation for the BC debacle at Jutland. Not really; the potential circumstances of a battle pre WW1 are relevant to an assessment of the relevance of the design. The older a design becomes, the greater the likelyhood that circumstances affecting combat will be different to those reasonably contemplated during the design of the warship. In practice, blaming designs to cover up the incompetence of the command and governance appears more likely than the converse. Those responsible for the command and governance are the elite of the political establishment who tend not to voluntarily tarnish their own reputations.
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