Jutland campaign AAR

[Neil]

Wrong. There were at least three other sinkings, USS Washington sunk Kirishima, Bismarck sunk Hood, and British BBs sunk Bismarck. Granted, you could say Hood was a BC, but then you can hardly consider Scharnhost, armed with 280mm/11" guns, a true BB.

Hood was a BC, The Rodney sank the Bismark (with the KGV supporting), The Kirishima started life as a BC and was upgraded and the Scharnhorst was very much a BC, or even a very heavy CA.

Hard to say, really.  Hood might be considered a battlecruiser, but only because of her speed.  The Hood was actually armoured roughly as well as the Queen Elizabeths, and when she was built she would have been the most ridiculously powerful ship in the world, combining heavy armour with good firepower and great speed.  Unfortunately, crappy British weaponry (whether it be UP projectors or the ridiculous 4" AA gun) doomed her.

The Kongos were considered battleships during WWII, although even moreso than the Hood their protection was outdated.  Then again, all the Japanese battleships except Yamato and Musashi suffered from age.  It's interesting that the popular idea of the Japanese admiralty was that they were full of old-school 'battleship' types, and yet the Japanese battleship fleet was inferior to every other major power when the war started, with the possible exception of France.

I'd have to consider Scharnhorst to be a battleship.  Really, because of its high muzzle velocity, you can't really knock the Scharnhorst's armament.  At typical engagement ranges, it wasn't really all that inferior to the British 14" gun on the KGVs, although at long ranges the lighter shell was at a disadvantage.  Still, given the scale of protection, it seems reasonable to consider them amongst the pantheon of 30s battleships.

[Neil]

You are correct, though, that no real battlecruisers were built after Renown class, because the development of the small-tube boiler meant that you could have a powerplant powerful enough to drive a battleship at hull speed without sacrificing armor. Scharnhorst was an intermediate battleship design, to allow the German shipbuilding industry to work out their bugs (from long unemployment) without risking anything design-wise.

In that regard, they're quite similar to Dunkerque and Strasbourg, who paved the way for the Richelieus.

The Alaska class was the classic example of building a design that was specifically proposed to oppose an enemy class that never appeared.  They were large cruisers, being built on a cruiser hull (and almost unturnable because that hull form didn't translate well on the larger scale - the Alaska had a larger turning radius than any carrier or battleship, and almost as large as an oiler).

Weren't they designed to counter the Myoko- and Takao-class cruisers, whose power was somewhat overreported in the US?

[Agelastus]

And HMS Vanguard, possibly the best armoured battleship of all time, was officially the oxymoronic "fully armoured battlecruiser".

Love the idea, but kinda doubt it's veracity given the time of design (maybe the Hood was called this at one point).  Got a cite?

I thought everyone knew this.

http://battleshiphmsvanguard.homestead.com/Specifications.html

etc., etc., etc.

Try googling the phrase "fully armoured battlecruiser" in that specific word combination only. Even I was shocked by the number of sites. Moreover, a number of them state that Hood was known by the same designation, which I did not know and do not recall seeing anywhere before.

[grumbler]

And HMS Vanguard, possibly the best armoured battleship of all time, was officially the oxymoronic "fully armoured battlecruiser".

Love the idea, but kinda doubt it's veracity given the time of design (maybe the Hood was called this at one point).  Got a cite?

http://books.google.com/books?id=-EfYyhrtOq8C&pg=PA154&lpg=PA154&dq=%22fully+armoured+battlecruiser%22&source=bl&ots=9IOn7K6saS&sig=lUttvyMwV57BhmGRWKM-3IPxlB4&hl=en&ei=jpSSSr6rMo-OMYLOqZIK&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9#v=onepage&q=%22fully%20armoured%20battlecruiser%22&f=false
http://www.military-genealogy.org.uk/3823/HMS_Vanguard

What this is saying is that there was a design considered (a "fully armored battlecruiser") to use the guns, not that Vanguard herself ever was considered a "fully armored battlecruiser."  Nice source, though.  Thanks for pointing it out!

[grumbler]

Weren't they designed to counter the Myoko- and Takao-class cruisers, whose power was somewhat overreported in the US?

They were designed to counter the follow-on designs (reputedly of opver 20,000 tons standard) to the Myokos then in service.  I suppose that the Takao design was what was actually produced to that rumored design, but Friedman isn't clear on that.

[Cecil]

You two never deny yourselves.

Makes one almost wish we could invent something to make carriers obsolete so we could go back to battleship days.

[Berkut]

Lets talk about the relative merits of carrier design.

[Agelastus]

Don't.

You'll have me crying into my pillow thinking of the Maltas and CVA01.

[grumbler]

I thought everyone knew this.

http://battleshiphmsvanguard.homestead.com/Specifications.html

etc., etc., etc.

Try googling the phrase "fully armoured battlecruiser" in that specific word combination only. Even I was shocked by the number of sites. Moreover, a number of them state that Hood was known by the same designation, which I did not know and do not recall seeing anywhere before.

There are six google site hits, all but one of them homeboy sites or forums, and the fifth is the book ulmont referred us to, which doesn't make the claim made in the fora that the British themselves rated Vanguard a "fully armored battlecruiser."  None of my British warship design books make that notation, either.

I rather suspect that someone is misreading ulmont's book, and passing on the news in several fora.  The Royal Navy's web site says Vanguard was a battleship.

[grumbler]

Lets talk about the relative merits of carrier design.

Interesting factoid:  the British considered their armored-deck carriers to be failures in WW2 because the deck armor contained the explosions of bombs that penetrated the deck, and actually caused more damage to the ship than would have been suffered had the armored deck been one deck lower, as was American practice.

[Berkut]

Seems like you would need a lot of armor (ie weight) to armor an entire carrier deck sufficiently to stop a bomb from penetrating.

[ulmont]

There are six google site hits

Make sure to use the "u" in "armoured."

Results 1 - 6 of 6 for "fully armored battlecruiser".

Results 1 - 10 of about 2,290 for "fully armoured battlecruiser".

[Warspite]

Lets talk about the relative merits of carrier design.

Interesting factoid:  the British considered their armored-deck carriers to be failures in WW2 because the deck armor contained the explosions of bombs that penetrated the deck, and actually caused more damage to the ship than would have been suffered had the armored deck been one deck lower, as was American practice.

Not quibbling with your statement, but how does deck armour contain the explosion? I thought it would deflect it upwards. I don't know much about deck armour. 

[dps]

British BBs: Queen Elizabeth, Barham, Warspite, Orion, Conqueror, Monarch, Thunderer, and the BCs Queen Mary, Lion, Princess Royal, Tiger.

It would certainly have interesting results on WWII, given that 3 of the 5 best battleships in the RN at the start of the war aren't there anymore.  Then again, maybe they'd build 3 more mediocre Rodneys.

To the best of my knowledge the Rodney was the only BB to sink another BB during WWII.

Wrong. There were at least three other sinkings, USS Washington sunk Kirishima, Bismarck sunk Hood, and British BBs sunk Bismarck. Granted, you could say Hood was a BC, but then you can hardly consider Scharnhost, armed with 280mm/11" guns, a true BB.

Plus, a bunch of old U.S. battleships combined to sink some Japanese BBs at Surigao Strait.

[Agelastus]

Not quibbling with your statement, but how does deck armour contain the explosion? I thought it would deflect it upwards. I don't know much about deck armour. 

As I, a non engineer, understand it.

When the bomb penetrates the deck armour prior to detonation (as the heavier bombs do) the deck armour tends to contain the force of the blast in the hangar, increasing the damage. Additionally, as a closed hangar design the blast cannot escape laterally, so detonations in the hangar actually lead to warping of the hull.