|
Post by aeson on Mar 19, 2019 11:46:33 GMT -6
There was also the specter of Jutland hanging over the name battle cruiser. The specter of Jutland hung over the name 'battlecruiser' so heavily that at the time of the Washington Naval Conference the United States, Great Britain, and Japan had merely 14 battlecruisers on order or already under construction, with an aggregate tonnage just slightly less than the tonnage of all 26 dreadnought battlecruisers that ever actually entered service with the British Royal, Imperial German, and Imperial Japanese Navies put together. Had they been available at the time, Alaska and Guam would almost certainly have gone anywhere that the carriers and fast battleships did earlier in the war.
Also, if you're going to be running major warships into and out of range of land-based aircraft, faster ships are plausibly better than slower ships even if the slower ships are better armored because the faster ships do not need to spend as much time within striking range of terrestrial airbases while moving to and from their objectives. By the time aircraft are as good as they were in the Second World War, the probability of sustaining crippling or fatal damage is probably more significantly reduced by having the speed to spend less time within striking range of terrestrial airbases than it is by having heavier armor.
|
|
|
Post by srndacful on Mar 19, 2019 12:17:07 GMT -6
Without treaties prohibiting or significantly curtailing the construction of traditional capital ships, do you use one of your limited number of large slipways/dockyards to build a battleship or battlecruiser, with their tested and proven value, or do you use it to build an as yet untested and unproven large aircraft carrier when you could instead use one of your more numerous smaller slipways to build a carrier the size of, say, Hermes or Hosho and still get a carrier with enough aircraft capacity to adequately fulfill the fleet scout role - the only thing a lot of the naval tacticians of the late 1910s and early 1920s think carriers and naval aviation are really good for anyways - while keeping the larger, more valuable slipways and dockyards available for construction and servicing of traditional capital ships?
Also, without the reasonably good large carriers like Lexington, Akagi, and Courageous resulting from Treaty-mandated conversions with which to compare and contrast the initial relatively small purpose-built carriers, how long does it take before the first carriers the size of Yorktown or Ark Royal are laid down? The first British, Japanese, and American purpose-built carriers were all relatively small - Hosho was less than 7,500 tons (standard) and is only 552 feet long by 59 feet wide, Hermes is a little heavier at about 10,900 tons (standard) and a bit larger at 600 feet long by 70 feet wide, and even a decade or more later Ranger's only slightly heavier at about 14,600 tons (standard) and a bit larger at about 769 feet long by 80 feet wide while Soryu's a bit heavier than Ranger at about 16,000 tons (standard) but not quite as large at around 746 feet long by 70 feet wide. This assumption you seem to have made - that the relatively large fleet carrier is just going to pop up immediately in the 1920s - seems ill-founded to me; the large carrier's value is as yet theoretical, a relatively small carrier like Hermes or Hosho is probably adequate for scouting duties, and if you want to build a big fleet carrier you're going to have to convince someone to let you use a slipway or a dockyard that could instead be used for a battleship or battlecruiser. Incremental growth in carrier size as larger and heavier aircraft are developed seems more likely in the absence of treaties forcing the creation of the first generation of large fleet carriers, especially with the gun school's dominance in naval circles into the '40s.
First of all: I fully agree that it took until late 1940's for fleet carrier to replace the Battleship as the backbone of the fleets - and I don't propose players stop building BB's in 1920's: they are still useful at that time. What I'm questioning is the need for BC's (which are entirely different kettle of fish) after first dedicated CV's (or even CVL's) appeared in 1920's. After all, as oldpop2000 said, Jutland was just years ago - and it's lessons were painful. So, even if the first CV's were small, their main contribution to fleets (reconnaisance) would quickly prove much more valuable than battlecruiser's. Of course, they cannot sink anything - that's what battleships are for - but can prove invaluable at finding (and shadowing) an enemy for the battleships to sink. Note that they (CV's) are not required (nor advised) to actually fight themselves (being such eggshells and all) - but only to find the enemy, lead the 'sluggers' (i.e.BB's) towards the enemy, and let them sort it (or, rather - him) out. And when it comes to 'slugging matches' on the high seas - there's noone better at it (in 1920's anyway) than BB's - BC's are at an inherent disadvantage, and likely to lose if they attempt it themselves. Trade protection assignment was quickly being taken over by sloops and destroyers, as submarines took the main stage as raiders - and the few AMC's that remained were easily(?) dealt with by CL's. The best a BC could do is to serve as a CV's escort - giving it at least some protection in bad weather. Other than that - I really cannot see it's usefulness - other than perhaps being paired with an CV, and using it's observer planes for over-the-horizon shooting. So, even if you build 3 15 ktonne or 4 11.25 ktonne CVL's instead of a single 45 ktonne BC, you are still getting your money's worth (and probably more) as your BB's still get info (and the drop - due to over-the-horizon shooting observer planes enable) on the enemy - even if the killing power is somewhat smaller for the lack of BC's. Oh, and, thank you, oldpop2000, for those links to Naval War College's wargames in 1930's - they were very useful.
|
|
|
Post by director on Mar 19, 2019 13:54:09 GMT -6
srndacful - that 'quantum leap' in aircraft scouting didn't come until fairly late. Given the imprecise (wild) results of scouting in the first years of WW2, if I was an admiral I'd take aircraft scouting results with a liberal dose of salt and want 'eyes on the spot' if I could get them. aeson - I agree, and would elaborate a bit on your points. I think you are spot-on as to how battlecruisers were actually used in WW1, but I do believe they were intended to 'open the way' in pre-war discussions (or 'close the way' for the Germans). Theory and practice are the same in theory, but not in practice. Navies are conservative organizations with long planning and construction times, and warship designers are notoriously 'belt and suspenders' people. HMS Hood was completed in 1920, begun in 1916 and likely designed a year or so before that. Assuming that's reasonably typical, we can assume it takes at least 5 years to design and produce a new capital ship. Looking at the enormous gains in aircraft performance, weight and size from, say, 1935 to 1940 or from 1937 to 1943, I can understand why the carriers of the inter-war period were struggling to operate new first-line aircraft (Enterprise had to move to night-fighters only and even the Essex-class were in need of catapults and reducing their air groups). I'm not looking for a discussion on that, I'm just saying this: as near-impossible as it was for a 1930's capital ship design to satisfy WW2 requirements, it was more nearly impossible for a 1930's carrier design to meet WW2 aircraft requirements. But - except for a few people - admirals and designers would have been unable to see where aircraft-development was headed, what the true potential of the air-arm was, and would therefore have been MOST INCLINED to opt for the tried and true capital-ship platform supplemented by heavy scouting elements (8" and 6" gun cruisers). That's a convoluted way to back into it and I apologize: as Pascal said, I haven't time to make it shorter. oldpop2000 - I agree that our hindsight can lead us to min/max the problem: we know the carrier emerged as the capital ship of choice in the Pacific and so we assume that must be the best choice. I expect players to rush aircraft and go all-carrier in the 1920s, something no navy did or would do - but they can play their games as they wish. I keep in mind that carriers and cruisers were the ships of choice in WW2 because they were available, reasonably cheap and quick to build, and offered ancillary advantages (like air cover for amphibious operations). The IJN used carriers at Pearl Harbor because nothing else could reach the fleet at anchor; the USN used carriers in the SW Pacific because they had no capital ships, and both sides used light forces because they could not provide fuel for the heavies. Those subtleties are going to get lost... I just hope aircraft development is as expensive, time-consuming and filled with wrong turns as it was in real life.
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 19, 2019 14:17:52 GMT -6
There was also the specter of Jutland hanging over the name battle cruiser. The specter of Jutland hung over the name 'battlecruiser' so heavily that at the time of the Washington Naval Conference the United States, Great Britain, and Japan had merely 14 battlecruisers on order or already under construction, with an aggregate tonnage just slightly less than the tonnage of all 26 dreadnought battlecruisers that ever actually entered service with the British Royal, Imperial German, and Imperial Japanese Navies put together. Had they been available at the time, Alaska and Guam would almost certainly have gone anywhere that the carriers and fast battleships did earlier in the war.
Also, if you're going to be running major warships into and out of range of land-based aircraft, faster ships are plausibly better than slower ships even if the slower ships are better armored because the faster ships do not need to spend as much time within striking range of terrestrial airbases while moving to and from their objectives. By the time aircraft are as good as they were in the Second World War, the probability of sustaining crippling or fatal damage is probably more significantly reduced by having the speed to spend less time within striking range of terrestrial airbases than it is by having heavier armor.
The Alaska's were really designed for carrier protection and amphibious support. They could be liken to the Deutschland class pocket battleships. They could have been valuable as cruiser-killers which was the original purpose of the battle cruiser. I would not have risk them in the Mediterranean where land-based air support was the vital component of air supremacy over the whole sea. A 21 knot battle cruiser is not going to out run a group of twin engine torpedo bombing aircraft nor a dive bombers with a 1000 lbs. AP bombs. At Pearl Harbor, one 1900 lbs. bomb dropped from 9280 feet could pierce 5.5 inches of hardened deck armor. The Alaska's deck armor was between 3.8 to 4 inches. Unless supported by land based or carrier based air, they would have just been target for aircraft and submarines. The same goes for the Slot in the Solomon's, the Malacca Straits or the San Bernardino Straits in the Philippines.
|
|
|
Post by dorn on Mar 19, 2019 14:31:49 GMT -6
I would point one thing. Increased development in carrier warfare was sped up by WNT. It froze construction of capital ships and practically force conversion of several hulls to carriers. As director pointed correctly out navies are long term planners and quite conservative and ships like Akagi, Courageous, Glourious, Lexington and Saratoga was possible because of WNT. And these carriers were the main testing platform for navies. Without them it would be much more difficult to go further with carrier aviation.
And on other point battlecruiser were viewed as standard part of fleet needs. At time of WTF as aeson pointed out there was a lot of battlecruisers design waiting to be ordrered and laid down. And as navies planned (mainly RN, USN, IJN) the battlecruisers were basic of these strategies. If we look at USN their standard battleline was 21 knots hence it was quite logical to build really fast battlecruisers even with very limited armour. Japan planned battleships and battlecruisers were very closed each other and both were more something in the middle. RN planned G3 and R3 and logically after WW1 their protection was much enhanced, on G3 design it can be easily seen as "battlecruiser" has armour equivalent to battleships laid down almost 20 years later. So if we look at the development of battleships and battlecruisers being faster and more powerful they would have much longer upper hand over aircrafts than in real history. If you look on aicraftd that navies used just before 1939 they performance and power projection lacks a lot to what was used in 1941.
|
|
|
Post by aeson on Mar 19, 2019 15:45:18 GMT -6
The Alaska's were really designed for carrier protection and amphibious support. Everything that I have ever seen on the Alaska-class large cruisers has suggested that their designed role was that of a cruiser hunter-killer, intended to seek out and destroy commerce-raiding Treaty cruisers and the German Deutchlands while also serving as a near-equal counter to the Scharnhorst-class battleships. Carrier escort and shore bombardment are the missions for which they were used in the war, but they are not to my understanding the missions for which they were primarily designed.
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Mar 19, 2019 15:52:32 GMT -6
The Alaska's were really designed for carrier protection and amphibious support. Everything that I have ever seen on the Alaska-class large cruisers has suggested that their designed role was that of a cruiser hunter-killer, intended to seek out and destroy commerce-raiding Treaty cruisers and the German Deutchlands while also serving as a near-equal counter to the Scharnhorst-class battleships. Carrier escort and shore bombardment are the missions for which they were used in the war, but they are not to my understanding the missions for which they were primarily designed. Most weapons system are used in areas where they were never designed, and this includes the Alaska's. If the opponent has run out of cruisers (after the Guadalcanal operation, the Japanese were short) then you use the weapons system for what ever its design is capable of handling and the operations call for. After 1942, with the change from defensive to offensive, island hopping, carrier escort and shore bombardment were the missions that were the most necessary, not cruiser hunting.
|
|
|
Post by director on Mar 19, 2019 20:30:01 GMT -6
I think the Alaskas were built 'because why not': the US had an urgent need for warships of any and all kinds, the design was available and the money, materials and dockyard space could be spared. Given the 'hit the copy button again' mentality of the Essex, Baltimore and Cleveland classes, we should be surprised they didn't build a dozen LOL.
Their design fell between two stools: more expensive to run than a cruiser with the same AA value, not as potent a main armament as a battleship. (You could argue they lacked the sheer 'put steel in the air' ability of the Des Moines-class CA with autoloading 8" guns.) Had they been built earlier and used in the Guadalcanal campaign, perhaps they'd have proven their value. But as 'just another cruiser' they were really superfluous.
|
|