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Post by zederfflinger on Jun 28, 2022 20:06:07 GMT -6
The Alaska's were designated CBs, or large cruisers, nothing more. Her job was to provide anti-aircraft protection for the carriers during raids on the Japanese home islands and Okinawa. She also provided shore bombardment She and the Guam were experiments. I understand that this is the duty that they ended up performing, but you don't build an Alaska solely for AA defense and shore bombardment. To me, the large cruiser designation was just a half-hearted attempt to hide the fact that the Alaska's are as close to a WW2 battlecruiser as you will find.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jun 29, 2022 6:41:44 GMT -6
The Alaska's were designated CBs, or large cruisers, nothing more. Her job was to provide anti-aircraft protection for the carriers during raids on the Japanese home islands and Okinawa. She also provided shore bombardment She and the Guam were experiments. I understand that this is the duty that they ended up performing, but you don't build an Alaska solely for AA defense and shore bombardment. To me, the large cruiser designation was just a half-hearted attempt to hide the fact that the Alaska's are as close to a WW2 battlecruiser as you will find. To simplify, read this. This article is accurate. They were built for operations that were never to exist, but no one really knew the direction of operational warfare in the Pacific. nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/alaska-class-battlecruiser-war-not-quite-battleship-186163 Actual preliminary drawing for the Alaska's - Search for Spring Styles #3, in the cruiser drawings. At the time of the Alaska class LARGE cruisers. there was a threat to convoys by the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the pocket battleships. These ships were classed alternatively as Battle Cruisers with 11-inch guns. The Alaska's were specifically designed with the highly accurate 12-inch 50cal guns to thwart that threat to convoys. By the time, the Alaska's were built and entered service, the threat had vanished with Scharnhorst sunk in 1943 and Gneisenau was badly damaged and Graf Spee sunk. The Japanese were also contemplating these kinds of ships. Alas, they never became a reality, I don't believe. So, now the US Navy is stuck with two LARGE cruisers, and no threat. They just used them for convoy escorts, carrier escorts and shore bombardment. This is why only two were built.
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Post by gurudennis on Jun 29, 2022 17:28:57 GMT -6
This is vaguely reminiscent of Fisher's Courageous class of "large light cruisers", bless his heart.
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Post by zederfflinger on Jun 29, 2022 17:56:45 GMT -6
This is vaguely reminiscent of Fisher's Courageous class of "large light cruisers", bless his heart. That was a weird one. I think it was due to the government refusing to fund any more capital ships for the remainder of the war, so Fisher called them "large light cruisers". They did have the kind of armor you would expect to see on a light cruiser, but otherwise, they see more like superfast monitors to me. Fairly similar, but the Alaska's can at least fit into a rational ship categorization scheme.
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kvob
New Member
Posts: 3
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Post by kvob on Jun 30, 2022 6:18:12 GMT -6
I'm fairly new to RTW so apologies if this has been suggested before but I thought it might make budgeting more challenging if, instead of simply scrapping ships, major nations had the option to sell older vessels to minor nations. This could be used to bolster finances when building new ships. Perhaps the cash raised could be greater than scrapping but less than a rebuild. It would also open up the possibility of facing up to one of the player's own designs in battle. I'd class USA, UK, Germany, France and Russia as major nations and all others as minors. I'm not sure how the mechanics might work but perhaps a simple 'up for sale' slot on the spreadsheet where maintenance costs are still paid until (and if) the ship is sold. It could appear as a dialogue box within the monthly turn where country X offers a certain amount to purchase. This could be accepted or refused. The player could then hold out for a better price but also gamble on it never being sold and, ultimately, having to be scrapped because of prohibitive maintenance costs.
Selling older ships is something that happens in real life and the latest example I can think of is HMS Ocean being sold to the Brazilian navy. I thought it might make things more interesting both financially and when it comes to fighting an old familiar ship.
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Post by hawkeye on Jun 30, 2022 9:16:11 GMT -6
Yes, this has been brought up before...doesn't mean it is a bad idea to bring it up again, though. There are, after all, a whole lot of suggestions, so some might "fall of the truck", so to speak and be forgotten.
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Post by Adseria on Aug 8, 2022 18:55:40 GMT -6
I'd argue that you're all wrong: the Alaska-class were destroyers, but much larger, more expensive, with a heavier armament and armour layout, and no torpedoes, and in no way related to destroyers.
When people thought to have more big guns on their battleships, the dreadnought was born. When people wanted their dreadnoughts to go faster, they took off some armour and guns and called them battlecruisers. And when the Americans wanted something bigger than a heavy cruiser but cheaper than a battleship, they created the large cruiser. Ships don't always fit in existing classification systems, and, when that happens, you create a new classification and put the new ship in it. Otherwise, we'd be using the new "Queen Elizabeth-class Ship-of-the-Line" and the "Arleigh Burke-class Frigate."
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Post by zederfflinger on Aug 8, 2022 20:57:07 GMT -6
I'd argue that you're all wrong: the Alaska-class were destroyers, but much larger, more expensive, with a heavier armament and armour layout, and no torpedoes, and in no way related to destroyers. When people thought to have more big guns on their battleships, the dreadnought was born. When people wanted their dreadnoughts to go faster, they took off some armour and guns and called them battlecruisers. And when the Americans wanted something bigger than a heavy cruiser but cheaper than a battleship, they created the large cruiser. Ships don't always fit in existing classification systems, and, when that happens, you create a new classification and put the new ship in it. Otherwise, we'd be using the new "Queen Elizabeth-class Ship-of-the-Line" and the "Arleigh Burke-class Frigate." That is true to some extent, but the Alaska's aren't really some new kind of warship. More like a variation of the battlecruiser to me. If you want to call the Alaska's large cruisers, it seems only fair to classify the Iowa's as battlecruisers.
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Post by benjamin1992perry on Aug 8, 2022 22:56:07 GMT -6
I'd argue that you're all wrong: the Alaska-class were destroyers, but much larger, more expensive, with a heavier armament and armour layout, and no torpedoes, and in no way related to destroyers. When people thought to have more big guns on their battleships, the dreadnought was born. When people wanted their dreadnoughts to go faster, they took off some armour and guns and called them battlecruisers. And when the Americans wanted something bigger than a heavy cruiser but cheaper than a battleship, they created the large cruiser. Ships don't always fit in existing classification systems, and, when that happens, you create a new classification and put the new ship in it. Otherwise, we'd be using the new "Queen Elizabeth-class Ship-of-the-Line" and the "Arleigh Burke-class Frigate." That is true to some extent, but the Alaska's aren't really some new kind of warship. More like a variation of the battlecruiser to me. If you want to call the Alaska's large cruisers, it seems only fair to classify the Iowa's as battlecruisers. I think the problem with calling the Iowa class a BC is that the reason I normally hear is that they weren't armored against their own guns, but the problem with that is as originally designed they were. If I recall correctly during construction the guns were changed to take advantage of the new super heavy shells.
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Post by abclark on Aug 9, 2022 8:43:37 GMT -6
That is true to some extent, but the Alaska's aren't really some new kind of warship. More like a variation of the battlecruiser to me. If you want to call the Alaska's large cruisers, it seems only fair to classify the Iowa's as battlecruisers. I think the problem with calling the Iowa class a BC is that the reason I normally hear is that they weren't armored against their own guns, but the problem with that is as originally designed they were. If I recall correctly during construction the guns were changed to take advantage of the new super heavy shells. The story behind the guns being changed is more convoluted and ridiculous than that. The USN design bureaus had a "miscommunication" about the diameter of the barbettes, so instead of being able to use a larger turret and the 16" Mk 2s left over from the cancelled South Dakota and Lexington classes, a new 16" gun with a smaller breech had to be designed so it could fit in a smaller turret. The heavier shells were going to be interchangeable with the lighter ones in either gun.
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Post by benjamin1992perry on Aug 9, 2022 9:45:31 GMT -6
Well that sounds like the Navy right there.
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Post by director on Aug 10, 2022 13:05:38 GMT -6
I can come up with a definition to make any capital, gun-armed ship moving faster than 21 knots and built after WW1 a 'battlecruiser'. The fact that there are so many exceptions to the rule - Renown, Hood, Dunkerque, King George V, North Carolina, South Dakota, Iowa, Richelieu, Scharnhorst, Deutschland, Bismarck, Littorio, Nagato, Giulio Cesare - on and on and on - seems to me to indicate that no battlecruiser, in the classic sense, was built after WW1. Everything is either a large cruiser, a battleship or a fast battleship.
A lot of this confusion stems from the American classification system, which is rooted in the 1890s and though flexible is not really able to encompass the nuance of ship design in the post-WW1 era. Instead it induces us to pigeon-hole everything into an already-existing category, sometimes with hilarious results - such as calling the virtually unarmored early-treaty 8"-gunned cruisers 'armored cruisers' even though armor is the one thing they conspicuously lack. The American rating system is useful - in times of modest changes in ship function - but it should be used with a whole shaker of salt.
Here's one example. Is the Iowa a battlecruiser? In that she carries capital-ship guns, perhaps. Is as large or larger than contemporary battleships, both yes and no. Has relatively weak armor for her tonnage, yes. Has superior speed... over contemporary American battleships she is 5-6 knots faster, but against contemporary enemy battleships she is about 2 knots faster, so yes... and no.
So the Iowa is a battlecruiser when steaming with American battleships but a battleship when steaming with or fighting against enemy battleships, unless they are the Yamato, old British R-class or Japanese Fuso or Ise classes? That's simply ridiculous, and it exposes (proves by testing) the flaw in the logic.
The Iowa does not fit into the traditional, WW1-based definition of a battlecruiser. She is a fast battleship, pure and simple - a new type that arose after WW1, combining heavy gunpower, decent protection and relatively high speed on a much larger hull. Every big-gun capital ship built or rebuilt from WW1 on is a fast battleship if it can make 23-24 knots and a battleship if it cannot.
You can go through the same exercise with just about any ship built (or rebuilt) after WW1, and you will find that there are some few ships - like Alaska and Deutschland - which are not true capital ships. Everything else can be 'forced' into a battleship or battlecruiser definition depending on what you measure it against, which renders the definitions meaningless. Therefore all big-gun capital warships capable of more than 23 knots - with the exception of Alaska and Deutschland, which are not capital ships - are fast battleships.
The battlecruiser, my friends, is a unicorn - seen briefly in WW1, never to be seen again.
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Post by wlbjork on Aug 10, 2022 21:55:16 GMT -6
I can come up with a definition to make any capital, gun-armed ship moving faster than 21 knots and built after WW1 a 'battlecruiser'. The fact that there are so many exceptions to the rule - Renown, Hood, Dunkerque, King George V, North Carolina, South Dakota, Iowa, Richelieu, Scharnhorst, Deutschland, Bismarck, Littorio, Nagato, Giulio Cesare - on and on and on - seems to me to indicate that no battlecruiser, in the classic sense, was built after WW1. Everything is either a large cruiser, a battleship or a fast battleship. Say what? There are several groups of ships which can be clearly identified as Battle-Cruisers of different generations. What are you blathering about now? The Pensacola class? They were classed as *Light* Cruisers until the LNT defined the Heavy Cruiser as being armed with larger than 6.1" guns. The fact that the US chose to reuse the Armoured Cruiser 'CA' designation to refer to Heavy Cruisers doesn't make a ship a different classification. Point of order, the Iowa class were about 3 knots faster than the SoDak class. Raw speed is not the sole indicator, but the Iowa class certainly fall into the 'can outgun anything that can outrun it, can out run anything that can outgun it' definition. Point of order - the first Fast Battleships were the Queen Elizabeth class constructed during WW1. The Deustchland class warships were classed - by the Germans - as Panzerschiffe. When the Germans last built Panzerschiffe, the UK and US called their equivalents Armoured Cruisers. Although the Deustchland class are more powerful, mounting 11" guns in triple turrets rather than 10" guns in twin turrets it's not that much of a stretch. The Alaska class fit into the original conceived plan for Battlecruisers - that of hunting down and destroying Armoured Cruisers as they were expressly designed for hunting down German Panzerschiffe.
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Post by director on Aug 10, 2022 22:27:31 GMT -6
wlbjork - thank you for your thoughtful and substantive discussion. Please re-read my post as it is based on careful analysis and, however much it may contravene your opinions, is free of 'blather'. No, I disagree - as I just explained above. There is nothing uniquely classifiable as a battlecruiser after Renown and Repulse are built. You could actually pick a ship and try the exercise for yourself. As to my 'blathering' - save your insults for someone who is impressed by them. If you don't realize that your bringing up the Pensacola class (which I did not - I was referencing all early Treaty 8" cruisers) helps prove my point about the pigeon-holing caused by the American classification system, then feel free to ignore me. If you respond, the proper way is, "I don't understand what you mean by X. Would you care to explain?" Use language like 'blather' again and I'll report you. I agree that the Iowa does not fit the definition of a WW1 battlecruiser; my point is that no other WW2 capital ships do, either. A three-knot advantage does not, given the 24k-yard effective range of most capital ship's main battery, let you outrun what is shooting at you. The first battlecruisers had a 7 to 9 knot advantage over pre-dreadnoughts and a 5 to 6 knot advantage over dreadnoughts. The follow-on German and British classes had a 7 to 9 knot speed advantage over contemporary dreadnoughts - not 3. And the Iowa's 9x16" battery, while powerful, is not vastly more powerful than capital ships of other navies. But, as you say, the Iowas are not battlecruisers, though some have classified them as such. My point is that they - and other WW2 capital ships - are not battlecruisers but fast battleships. Yes, as I said - "Therefore all big-gun capital warships capable of more than 23 knots - with the exception of Alaska and Deutschland, which are not capital ships - are fast battleships." The Deutschland and the Alaska classes are properly large cruisers. They are not capital ships in size or protection and the Alaskas are not appreciably faster than contemporary capital ships. They were intended to be cruiser-killers - as were the Brooklyn's, so are we to also classify them as battlecruisers? No - because we lack a clear, meaningful definition of the term 'battlecruiser'.
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Post by seawolf on Aug 11, 2022 1:44:22 GMT -6
wlbjork - thank you for your thoughtful and substantive discussion. Please re-read my post as it is based on careful analysis and, however much it may contravene your opinions, is free of 'blather'. No, I disagree - as I just explained above. There is nothing uniquely classifiable as a battlecruiser after Renown and Repulse are built. You could actually pick a ship and try the exercise for yourself. As to my 'blathering' - save your insults for someone who is impressed by them. If you don't realize that your bringing up the Pensacola class (which I did not - I was referencing all early Treaty 8" cruisers) helps prove my point about the pigeon-holing caused by the American classification system, then feel free to ignore me. If you respond, the proper way is, "I don't understand what you mean by X. Would you care to explain?" Use language like 'blather' again and I'll report you. I agree that the Iowa does not fit the definition of a WW1 battlecruiser; my point is that no other WW2 capital ships do, either. A three-knot advantage does not, given the 24k-yard effective range of most capital ship's main battery, let you outrun what is shooting at you. The first battlecruisers had a 7 to 9 knot advantage over pre-dreadnoughts and a 5 to 6 knot advantage over dreadnoughts. The follow-on German and British classes had a 7 to 9 knot speed advantage over contemporary dreadnoughts - not 3. And the Iowa's 9x16" battery, while powerful, is not vastly more powerful than capital ships of other navies. But, as you say, the Iowas are not battlecruisers, though some have classified them as such. My point is that they - and other WW2 capital ships - are not battlecruisers but fast battleships. Yes, as I said - "Therefore all big-gun capital warships capable of more than 23 knots - with the exception of Alaska and Deutschland, which are not capital ships - are fast battleships." The Deutschland and the Alaska classes are properly large cruisers. They are not capital ships in size or protection and the Alaskas are not appreciably faster than contemporary capital ships. They were intended to be cruiser-killers - as were the Brooklyn's, so are we to also classify them as battlecruisers? No - because we lack a clear, meaningful definition of the term 'battlecruiser'. Uhh Just for clarification the battlecruisers took a good long while to get to that level of speed advantage Invincible had a 4-4.5 knot advantage over Dreadnought The Lion class had 6.5 knot advantage over the Orions. Tiger had 6 knots over the Iron Dukes Renown had 8 knots over the QE's G3 would have had 9 knots over the N3 Similarly Von der Tann had ~5 knots over Nassau Moltke had 5 knots over Helgoland Seydlitz had 5.5 knots over Kaiser Derfflinger had 5.5 knots on Konig And for other navies Kongo had 4.5 knots on Fuso. Amagi had 3.5 knots on Tosa Borodino had 2.5-3.5 knots on Gangut, her contemporary in the Black Sea Fleet Only with G3/Lexington do you really get to the actually massive speed advantages, and those are post WWI ships Also, Hood is a battlecruiser because that is literally her classification. And there's technically no such thing as a German "Battlecruiser". They're all large cruisers by German Navy classification. Panzershiffe are the only related thing not classified as a large cruiser lmao.
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