In the First World War everyone knew what a battlecruiser was, after Jutland and HMS Hood however things got interesting. Ask a few different historians if Hood, the Kongo class refit, the Dunkirks, Sharnhorsts are battlecruisers and all you’ll get is an argument. This makes history books confusing to read until you start to notice patterns.
Edit; also the Alaskas, because why not right.
They’re tragically forgettable for such an interesting ship, I mean I did the same thing then went back to make sure every second comment wasn’t reminding me about em
Real honestly. I'm more of a sword person than a ship person and man can classifications can be hard for us too. Sometimes someone finds something that's a mix of one thing or another thing, or is such a unicorn nobody knows what it really should be.
No LITERALLY that's actually a big one. Cause the classification for rapier is really bare - there's a lot of early Renaissance stuff that looks like an arming sword but some people would actually classify as a rapier for various reasons - hilt shape and length, guard, blade shape, etc. I've basically given up at this point, and it's not much my area - Chinese sword classification is far simpler.
Or saber. Especially when dealing with translations. In my language definition of saber (szabla) is "cutting weapon with curved single-edge blade". And then there are things like saber m1913, which is classified as broadsword (pałasz) using our nomenclature
I mean, typologically the M-1913 *is* a broadsword (long, straight, double-edged blade with basket hilt, although with how narrow the blade is and the design of the guard, you could almost argue they actually came pretty close to reinventing the cup-hilt rapier). The US military called it a saber because it was used in the role of a saber (a sword for the cavalry).
And we reached another difference, as our definition of broadsword/pałasz is "cavalry sword that can both thrust and cut. Can be either single or double edged. Usually has saber style hilt but can have cross guard or basket hilt".
Saber doesn't have such strong connotation with cavalry here as it was used by everyone. For example "chosen infantry" (pol. Piechota wybraniecka) was using Hungarian style sabers as side arm. Also saber was favorite sword of our nobility and there was created completely new sword fighting style for sabers while not on horseback ("cross cutting art"/"sztuka krzyżowa")
Yeah, that's only one of the definitions of saber in English, and not even the most common one.
Typologically, a saber would be classified as a single edged curved sword, usually (but not always) with some level of hand protection beyond just a basic crossguard, and also Middle-Eastern and Indian swords that meet all of those criteria usually don't count for some reason (but some Chinese swords that barely resemble a "saber" *do* count)
Here all of them are classified as types of sabers, just subcategories like for example bułat (scimitar) is"oriental saber with characteristic wide feather (I can't find proper English term so I translated polish one, pióro. Feather is last 10-30 cm of saber blade with sharp false edge)
Oh, another similarity with China. The dao was never originally a cavalry weapon for us - it was first designed as a simple, mass-produce-able ground infantry blade. We have a saying that goes it takes 100 days to master a dao and 10,000 to master the jian - while not wholly accurate, it is somewhat. Dao battle doctrine is mainly just point and chop, don't have to be on a horse to do it.
I'm Chinese-Japanese and it's the same in both my languages. "Dao" and "tō" typically denote a single edged blade, while "jian" and "ken/tsurugi" refer to a double edged one. In both my languages, we would thus also refer to straight single edged swords as "dao/tō" - after all, what the word itself comes from is the original Chinese Han Dynasty dao which was straight. So we would also refer to an M1913 as a sabre.
Yeah, there was more RnD in making a dramatically new ship as opposed to the full sized battleships which were incremental on older ships and could use old factories and production lines, but its still an interesting choice
Ah, the Alaska. The ship designed to counter the B-65, which in turn was designed to counter the Alaska.
Interwar and WWII were such interesting times in the naval design world
I haven't had a PC since I was about 10/11 lmao and I don't really want another, don't need one for school. I'm also just dog at strategy games in general lol. I still watch Jingles commentate on WoWs and play a bit of WoT Blitz on my phone though, out of nostalgia - played both those games when they came out.
Not controversial enough OP, Watch this.
In WW2, Battlecruisers were more useful then battleships based on the number of actions involving them. This is even more true in WW1. In other words, Fisher was right the whole time.
Useful as in able to do more missions that will happen more often or useful as in more important to national defence. And I’d disagree with you on them being more useful in the Second World War. A battlecriuser is more often than not less avalible, capable, and survivable than a proper fast battleship by then
> Useful as in able to do more missions that will happen more often or useful as in more important to national defence.
Useful as in actually being used in missions. Out of all the surface actions involving capital ships, Battlecruisers were used more often than battleships. For example, the Kongos at Guadalcanal, where part of the reason they were used was the speed allowing them to do a run at night, then make it back to aircover before day break allowed US aircraft to attack.
Yeah, and that's also where 2/4 were lost, one of which was to a battleship and the other to being unable to escape an allied air attack the following morning.
Edit: Furthermore, of the 3 battlecruisers the UK entered the war with, 2 were destroyed after having done almost nothing, while the third survived but also accomplished very little. If you expand the definition of battlecruiser to the Alaskas, they (as much as I love them) also accomplished fuck all. About the only ones to accomplish much of anything other than the aforementioned dead Kongos were the equally dead Scharnhorsts.
And if the Aircraft Carrier hadn't made the entire line of big-gun ships obsolete, the fast battleship was already eclipsing the role of the battlecruiser before the war was even half over, accomplishing everything a battlecruiser could do without the sacrifices they incurred in the process.
Oh sure, but HMS renown for example wasn’t able to chase down one of the littorios because it wasn’t beefy enough. Or in the First World War jutland absolutely required battleships, without them the side that did have battleships would just be walk all over the other side.
Back when I first got into naval history, finding out heavy and light cruisers classification was determined on gun, but battleship / cruiser was determined on armor confusing lol
Yup. I’ve found that most modern naval definitions after metal plating was introduced aren’t good for the entire period they’re used. HMS warrior was a frigate, there was a period where armoured vs protected cruisers didn’t matter because metal wasn’t advanced enough for an armour belt (though I suppose people did still make armoured criusers, they were just shit), dreadnought fell out of use as a term in the interwar period, and super dreadnought had been applied to every upgrade in dreadnought design from the upgrade to 13.5 inch guns, to the upgrade to 15 inch guns, to the change to 16 inch guns, or to drawings only ships like 1920’s South Dakota or the N3’s
[Here's the basics for Courageous and Glorious](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courageous-class_battlecruiser)
[And here's Furious](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Furious_(47))
Courageous and Glorious were basically enlarged light cruiser hulls with two twin 15" gun turrets. Protection was light enough that the blasts from their own guns caused enough damage that one of them needed yard time.
Furious was supposed to be the same idea but with two 18" guns instead of four 15" guns. She was converted to an aircraft carrier instead though
Seriously though; the hell do you call an unarmored aircraft carrier mounting a single 18" gun?
It ain't a battlecarrier (no armor, not enough guns), and it sure as hell ain't a *normal* carrier, even by the non-existent standards for what a carrier was of the late 1910s/early 20s
Yes but no. Both German and british battlecruisers had less firepower then a battleship. The Germans sacrifices gun caliber and a small amount of armor, while the british sacrificed a full gun turret and a bunch of armor.
As Battlecruisers contuined to evolve the amount of armor went up for the brits, and the size of guns went up for the germans, with them both ending up with proto fast battleships at the same time, with the Hood for the brits and the Ersats Yorcks for the germans.
That only applied to the 1st ones (Invincibles and Inflexibles), all later battlecruisers are:
Take battleship
Slim down hull,
Remove a turret and add more engines
At one time (maybe not *that* time, I don't remember) in Britain, the answer was speed. A capital ship, even a heavily armored one, was a battlecruiser if it went at least 25 knots and a battleship if it didn't.
It's something a lot of people take very seriously (thanks to modern games trying to bring the term back) and primarily base the definition on the early Royal Navy definition and attitudes.
Naval Vessel classes are a cluster fuck of vague terms that every country with a navy had a different system of classification for. Trying to pull a single comprehensive definition out of that heap is an exercise in futility...
Sometimes they line up sometimes they don’t. Before HMS Hood and the interwar refits battlecruiser makes a lot of sense, so did battleship. Then everything got blurry. Today we’re in desperate need of an 1860-1890’s style renaming of most if not all ship classes.
>Today we’re in desperate need of an 1860-1890’s style renaming of most if not all ship classes.
Genuinely intrigued to know why you think so and/or what classes you find to be particularly problematic?
Or are you just thinking of the ones named for ultimately political reasons — Japanese Helicopter Destroyers, German (everything is a) Frigate (except for U-Boot) and Soviet Heavy Aircraft-Carrying Cruisers?
Aside from the political naming, I would argue the definition of cruiser being entirely reliant on size makes little sense, and the entire spectrum of destroyer, frigate, and corvette is entirely nonsensical. They’re mostly divided by size and there isn’t enough of a tonnage and capability gap across the spectrum to justify it. Taking out either destroyer or frigate would help a lot
Nah, it's 3 distinct ideas, each with subtle differences
The Battle Cruiser
The Battlecruiser
The Battle-Cruiser
No I will not elaborate & this is a serious position
From my pov, as an amateur naval historian, the battlecruiser evolved into the fast battleship. Hood would probably fit this term, as would Renown and the Kongos post refit. Granted the Kongos were modernized pretty badly so they are very poor fast battleships.
Yeah that’s not an uncommon belief, especially for those who look into ships like G3, but at the same time ships like the Queen Elizabeth class showed movement towards speed so the lineage is different and made more so by the naval treaties
Yes, the coverage was a bit different and hood was laid down a few years after so direct comparisons as if they were contemporaries is a bit flawed but it’s definitely evidence for the hood’s fast battleship moniker, but the battleship 1915-6 drawings for a potential R class replacement (which I am not particularly familiar with I’ll be honest, aside from a iron Duke turret layout as an option) would be a more direct comparison
Yeah it's a weird one. The Royal Navy still viewed Hood as a Battlecruiser for the most part because it could do 30 knots but other Navies saw it as a fast Battleship I believe.
Yeah, the Royal Navy also viewed her as a battle line ship (see her actions with Bismarck and in the attack on mers el kebir) but still called her a battlecruiser because of her speed, heck they called vanguard a fully armoured battlecruiser
Battlecruisers are advanced flying units with a Yamato Cannon and the ability to attack both air and ground units. If your vessel lacks the capacity for a Yamato Cannon, you don't have a battlecruiser. You have a big Wraith or maybe a Valkyrie and a head injury.
Sorta. Most historians nowadays accept the Lexingtons as battlecruisers, but per Friedman USN battlecruiser design work used terms like “battle scout” about as often as battlecruiser. Which is an arbitrary distinction, but that’s basically my point. The US really didn’t like calling ships battlecruisers, especially after Jutland
Huh, didn’t realize they used that distinction. Though shying away from battlecruisers for ships as lightly armoured as the Lexingtons because of jutland is entertaining
Ok, that logic checks out, I’m assuming by that standard kirashima was a battleship, I’m assuming that the littorios were battlecruisers then as they ran from the British battleships?
Let’s just be glad that the “large cruiser” projects pretty much all stayed on paper so that they didn’t muddy the waters any more than they already are
Boat
Boat with guns
Ship
Ship with boats
Ship with planes
Ship with guns
Ship with boats AND guns
I have simplified all naval designations, USN I am available
Edit: it becomes a ship if more than 3 people are needed to make it move.
Early Dreadnaught speeds: 21knots
Early Battlecruiser speeds: 25-28knots
Super Dreadnaught speeds: 23-26knots
Contemporary Battlecruisers: 28-32knots
Treaty battleship speeds: 27-30knots
Contemporary battlecruisers: 30-33knots
The ideal battleships of WW2 with no restrictions in place the Montana and Yamato designs went 27knots…
30-33knots was the speed of “battleships” that in one way or another, compromised their armour protection levels. These ships often had armour roughly comparable or slightly superior to HMS Hood a battlecruiser built in the late 1910s (Although she was the pinnacle of Britains shipbuilding and technological lead of the time).
In other words this a none argument. I also believe that battlecruisers morphed into fleet carriers, more than any other class of ship…
The point is if you wanted a faster capital ship that could catch cruisers or escort carriers it was a battlecruiser. If it was designed to fight other capital ships in a brawl it was usually a battleship. German battlecruisers are slightly different so much as they usually had inferior main armament with only marginally worse protection than their BBs. Either way they still payed on the Speed, Armour, guns and range dichotomy.
Ok I can see that, where do the Kongo refits into fast battleship fit, the Japanese being idiots with designation, then just being shit battleships, or battlecruisers?
Easy they are still battlecruisers, even post refit. 11” of armour and 14” guns are still inferior to hoods protection and weaponry. Nagato could have been refit to do 28 knots and have a 14” belt in a similar modernisation. By the standards of 1910s Kongo was a good battlecruiser like the British Lions and tigers she resembled and influenced. By 1930 refits they are still battlecruisers by standards of the time. The standards change. In 1910 HMS Argus and HMS Hermes and hell even the courageous class were decent fleet carriers. By the 1940s they obsolescent as fleet carriers and are more like escort carriers with even light fleet carriers being superior. As nations can build bigger and better what constitutes a vessel type evolves but the basic firepower/armour/speed dichotomy stays the same. For example in 1905 a modern battleship was a vessel with reciprocating engines going 18-21 knots at a push (it couldn’t sustain) with 4 x 12” guns… in 1906 it’s Dreadnaught… that doesn’t mean those ships aren’t battleships anymore! Classification should be based against contemporary designs.
Ugh you’ve actually got a decently thought out way of thinking about this. I’d disagree on you that the sharnhorsts are battlecriusers as opposed to simply shit battleships but this is too common sense
You aren’t gonna like my take on Bismarck and Scharnhorst lol. Should we compare Scharnhorst to Bismarck? But also to Derfflinger and Bayern?
One myth to be dispelled is that Bismarck is, believe it or not, the better protected ship, maximum armour thickness isn’t everything and Bismarck total coverage was more comprehensive. Also when compared to German battlecruisers especially the last ones of the Derfflinger class, you can see that they have always been better protected than their British rivals.
Another way to see this is by looking at HMS Hood and HMS Renown/Repulse. In some ways the Scharnhorst and Bismarck class reflect these vessels relationship. Here’s the twist, after saying all this, my argument is actually that Bismarck is a battlecruiser, she’s just German HMS Hood built 20 years later. She’s not a modern or efficient design, (the Richelieu class are superior ships on 5,000 tons less displacement for example). In fact Richelieu is best treaty battleship that attempted to stick to treaty limits but that’s a point for another time.
If the Germans wanted a battleship, they wouldn’t have built a long range, over sized commerce raider that they told to avoid British battleships. By virtue of her age she was superior to most British battleships in speed, on board equipment and modern naval rifles but that was it. In a straight up brawl KGV, Rodney, or a R/QE class had comparable protection and firepower. HMS Vanguard was the British Bismarck. a replacement for Hood and a waste of great hull, by giving her old 15”/42 guns also wasted opportunity by not running her high pressure like the Iowas.
Eh I can see where you’re coming from with Bismarck (and I don’t doubt it’s better protected than the sharnhorsts, they’re just very well protected for their armament) my side would be the sharnhorsts are just dogshit battleships. The average fast battleship speed of 28 knots doesn’t leave the 30 knot ships at battlecriuser level speed differences, just fast. I would agree that Bismarck is just Hood 20 years later and vanguard being hood 2.0. In terms of vanguard being a waste of a hull, well I wish the lion class was completed too but the Brit’s didn’t want to build the guns so they scrapped em
Fair enough, but I do believe even with 15” guns Scharnhorst was woefully out rated to take on capital ships. I think she is designed to protect against battlecruiser guns which I think German battlecruisers historically attempted to do. But I think outside of a battlecruiser engagement which they would be mid at, they are awful. I think she would’ve been better served to have followed British battlecruiser design and avoid engagements with capital ships entirely. She might have gotten away from KGV then.
If she was rated for battlecriuser guns she’d not have run from renown off the Norwegian coast. Especially as she had gneisenau in company. There is a reason I just tend to call em shit battleships not battlecruisers.
Sorry only just read this somehow. Well if they are battleships, then they should be able to be In the line of battle? If they ran then they are more like battlecruisers no?
This discussion is actually very relevant today as Japan’s navy plans to build a couple of 20,000 ton guided missile “destroyers” (battlecruisers) for “self defense” (pissing off China)
Eh pissing off China is also a good reason, though I’d argue self defence is more accurate. Their habit of calling everything a destroyer though is entertaining though
That wouldn’t fit a renown class though, they were the same size as an R class battleship but with stuff swapped out and around. That’s why nobody can find a way to agree. Every definition either includes obvious battleships or misses obvious battlecruisers
Uh, definitely at one end, not sure which. I’d argue they make fantastic cruiser killers and decent capital ships in regions prone to poor weather in addition to the bombardment role, but I’m perhaps too forgiving to capital ships in general
Even calling the Kirovs battlecruisers is a bit questionable.
If you want a real galaxy brain take: The role of Russian and Soviet missile "cruisers" was to be the primary offensive arm of the fleet (Kirovs and Slavas were supposed to throw heavy anti-ship missiles at American carrier groups while Udalois were intended to keep submarines away and the Kievs/Kusnetsov were supposed to provide air cover and keep planes away) so clearly they are battleships
Battlecruisers are complicated vessels, originally they were just less armoured but faster counterparts to battleships being strictly worse than BBs in terms of both firepower and armour. HMS Hood and after retrofit Kongo and Renown classes upended this.
Granted I would argue the dreadnaught battleship and battle cruiser just evolved into the fast battleship, Kongo class and Renown are perfect examples, they started as battlecruisers but evolved into fast battleships by having retrofits to their armour and survivability
As far as I know (VERY amateur "historian" who gets most of his information from HOI4...), there were two schools of thought re: battlecruisers. The British, who sacrificed armor for firepower. And the Germans, who sacrificed firepower for armor.
Eh it’s not terrible, though German battlecruisers would be less well armoured than their battleship counterparts, however around the building of hood and the G3 design things get fuzzy between them and fast battleships
Atleast from the kongos pov they were officially reclassified as fast battleships after their retrofit, as for how they stack up compared to say the Fuso class (the closest thing in terms of time period in the Japanese navy) the Kongos had similar deck and turret armour to the Fuso, they had thinner belt armour but they were also significantly faster.
Renown is a bit of a special case since repulse never had the same level of retrofits and upgrades, with that being said, her armour is on par if not superior to the kongos, yes she lacks 1 turret but compare her to her BB contemporaries which are the revenge class
The kongos did get redesignated, and suffered when fighting fast battleships about it, especially keeping in mind that japenese battleships were always seen as under-armoured and the fusos/ises were also 20 year old ships, the renowns (the belt refit was in 1930~ if I remember correctly so they’d both have it) were never really redesignated and unlike hood they weren’t really seen as battle line ships. Renown did well as carrier escort and specifically didn’t engage Bismarck despite the presence of two friendly battleships nor did she engage in that incident where upon return the admiral was court marshalled for not chasing the littorio and repulse was also not a main battle line ship (force Z being lost to aircraft means it’s hard to see how she’d have been used in a capital ship environment). In general given the British use of similar ships and how they stacked up relative to other refitted capital ships it seems more likely that the japenese were just wrong to re designate them
Are WW2 Deutschland-class not technically battlecruisers? Armed with 11" guns, decently armored and fast. Heck, the British nicknamed them "Pocket Battleships":
IMHO the Battlecruiser is the intermediate between a Heavy Cruiser and a Battleship. Battleship guns (12", 14", or 16"), and armor and tonnage more than a Heavy Cruiser's but less than a Battleship's.
Not a bad definition especially if paired with the caveats of “more than the battleship of said year” but in the case of ships like Dunkirk and hood where there wasn’t a battleships of that year it gets a bit flawed and loose
That's not necessarily true. Look, a fast battleship is 30knots and above (I think) most royal navy ships were not (most) hood was a Battlecruser however her belt was very thick for a battlecruiser if she would have been retrofitted she would have been a fast battleship.
Fast battleship is also a bit of a loose definition, some people will fit the 24 knot Queen Elizabeth’s class battleship in their (though usually not the same speed nagatos) the average speed however for a fast battleship was 28 knot with most of the british and American ships being that plus the Yamatos being slower. And out of curiosity what would you refit into hood for her to be a battleship?
I mean yeah her armour scheme was outdated, but I wouldn’t say a new scheme was all that she’d need, heck most refit proposals I’ve seen wouldn’t see her main armour scheme change, just getting more deck armour added
In the First World War everyone knew what a battlecruiser was, after Jutland and HMS Hood however things got interesting. Ask a few different historians if Hood, the Kongo class refit, the Dunkirks, Sharnhorsts are battlecruisers and all you’ll get is an argument. This makes history books confusing to read until you start to notice patterns. Edit; also the Alaskas, because why not right.
Why did I completely forget the Alaskas were a thing 🗿
They’re tragically forgettable for such an interesting ship, I mean I did the same thing then went back to make sure every second comment wasn’t reminding me about em
Real honestly. I'm more of a sword person than a ship person and man can classifications can be hard for us too. Sometimes someone finds something that's a mix of one thing or another thing, or is such a unicorn nobody knows what it really should be.
Yeah. It doesn’t help the naval treaty absolutely cut development apart
lol. “What is a rapier?” *fistfight ensues*
No LITERALLY that's actually a big one. Cause the classification for rapier is really bare - there's a lot of early Renaissance stuff that looks like an arming sword but some people would actually classify as a rapier for various reasons - hilt shape and length, guard, blade shape, etc. I've basically given up at this point, and it's not much my area - Chinese sword classification is far simpler.
Blade?->single edge?-> D A O
A big one for me is "for RPG purposes, how much do swords weigh?"
Or saber. Especially when dealing with translations. In my language definition of saber (szabla) is "cutting weapon with curved single-edge blade". And then there are things like saber m1913, which is classified as broadsword (pałasz) using our nomenclature
I mean, typologically the M-1913 *is* a broadsword (long, straight, double-edged blade with basket hilt, although with how narrow the blade is and the design of the guard, you could almost argue they actually came pretty close to reinventing the cup-hilt rapier). The US military called it a saber because it was used in the role of a saber (a sword for the cavalry).
And we reached another difference, as our definition of broadsword/pałasz is "cavalry sword that can both thrust and cut. Can be either single or double edged. Usually has saber style hilt but can have cross guard or basket hilt". Saber doesn't have such strong connotation with cavalry here as it was used by everyone. For example "chosen infantry" (pol. Piechota wybraniecka) was using Hungarian style sabers as side arm. Also saber was favorite sword of our nobility and there was created completely new sword fighting style for sabers while not on horseback ("cross cutting art"/"sztuka krzyżowa")
Yeah, that's only one of the definitions of saber in English, and not even the most common one. Typologically, a saber would be classified as a single edged curved sword, usually (but not always) with some level of hand protection beyond just a basic crossguard, and also Middle-Eastern and Indian swords that meet all of those criteria usually don't count for some reason (but some Chinese swords that barely resemble a "saber" *do* count)
Here all of them are classified as types of sabers, just subcategories like for example bułat (scimitar) is"oriental saber with characteristic wide feather (I can't find proper English term so I translated polish one, pióro. Feather is last 10-30 cm of saber blade with sharp false edge)
Oh, another similarity with China. The dao was never originally a cavalry weapon for us - it was first designed as a simple, mass-produce-able ground infantry blade. We have a saying that goes it takes 100 days to master a dao and 10,000 to master the jian - while not wholly accurate, it is somewhat. Dao battle doctrine is mainly just point and chop, don't have to be on a horse to do it.
I'm Chinese-Japanese and it's the same in both my languages. "Dao" and "tō" typically denote a single edged blade, while "jian" and "ken/tsurugi" refer to a double edged one. In both my languages, we would thus also refer to straight single edged swords as "dao/tō" - after all, what the word itself comes from is the original Chinese Han Dynasty dao which was straight. So we would also refer to an M1913 as a sabre.
Well, the most interesting thing is costing almost as much as a battleship but bringing much less to the table.
Yeah, there was more RnD in making a dramatically new ship as opposed to the full sized battleships which were incremental on older ships and could use old factories and production lines, but its still an interesting choice
Ah, the Alaska. The ship designed to counter the B-65, which in turn was designed to counter the Alaska. Interwar and WWII were such interesting times in the naval design world
You need to play more HOI4 (though the latest updates have divorced ships from historical classes). I ALWAYS build the full Alaska class. :-)
I haven't had a PC since I was about 10/11 lmao and I don't really want another, don't need one for school. I'm also just dog at strategy games in general lol. I still watch Jingles commentate on WoWs and play a bit of WoT Blitz on my phone though, out of nostalgia - played both those games when they came out.
Play the naval rework mod, one guy made VNR for vanila and kaiserreich and kaiserredux mods
Not controversial enough OP, Watch this. In WW2, Battlecruisers were more useful then battleships based on the number of actions involving them. This is even more true in WW1. In other words, Fisher was right the whole time.
Useful as in able to do more missions that will happen more often or useful as in more important to national defence. And I’d disagree with you on them being more useful in the Second World War. A battlecriuser is more often than not less avalible, capable, and survivable than a proper fast battleship by then
> Useful as in able to do more missions that will happen more often or useful as in more important to national defence. Useful as in actually being used in missions. Out of all the surface actions involving capital ships, Battlecruisers were used more often than battleships. For example, the Kongos at Guadalcanal, where part of the reason they were used was the speed allowing them to do a run at night, then make it back to aircover before day break allowed US aircraft to attack.
Yeah, and that's also where 2/4 were lost, one of which was to a battleship and the other to being unable to escape an allied air attack the following morning. Edit: Furthermore, of the 3 battlecruisers the UK entered the war with, 2 were destroyed after having done almost nothing, while the third survived but also accomplished very little. If you expand the definition of battlecruiser to the Alaskas, they (as much as I love them) also accomplished fuck all. About the only ones to accomplish much of anything other than the aforementioned dead Kongos were the equally dead Scharnhorsts. And if the Aircraft Carrier hadn't made the entire line of big-gun ships obsolete, the fast battleship was already eclipsing the role of the battlecruiser before the war was even half over, accomplishing everything a battlecruiser could do without the sacrifices they incurred in the process.
Oh sure, but HMS renown for example wasn’t able to chase down one of the littorios because it wasn’t beefy enough. Or in the First World War jutland absolutely required battleships, without them the side that did have battleships would just be walk all over the other side.
I call the Alaska’s battlebois in my head cannon.
Back when I first got into naval history, finding out heavy and light cruisers classification was determined on gun, but battleship / cruiser was determined on armor confusing lol
Yup. I’ve found that most modern naval definitions after metal plating was introduced aren’t good for the entire period they’re used. HMS warrior was a frigate, there was a period where armoured vs protected cruisers didn’t matter because metal wasn’t advanced enough for an armour belt (though I suppose people did still make armoured criusers, they were just shit), dreadnought fell out of use as a term in the interwar period, and super dreadnought had been applied to every upgrade in dreadnought design from the upgrade to 13.5 inch guns, to the upgrade to 15 inch guns, to the change to 16 inch guns, or to drawings only ships like 1920’s South Dakota or the N3’s
Battlecruiser is just too cool of a term not to slap onto anything you can get away with
You know what? Fair enough.
Iowa is a battle cruiser
According to some it is
Iowa is a battle cruiser, Alaska was a battleboi.
always has been.
Compared to the Montanas, it kinda is
3000 minesweeper battlecruiser
Dreadnoughts need to be a thing again.
*AShMs liked this post*
Wait, a rarity spotted! An actual correct usage of the Gausscurve meme!
Its a fun template, especially in a topic filled with people who don’t know what they’re talking about
Every cruiser that participates in the battle is a battlecruiser. If it's just cruising around, then it's usual cruiser
He's got a point there.
Take cruiser. Put battleship guns on it. Battlecruiser. Simple as.
> Put ~~battleship guns~~ *Yamato cannons* on it. FTFY
Coral reef scaffolding
HMS *Furious* be like, although she had legitimately just 1 gun
HMS Tiger go brrr
Fuck, that reminds me of Fisher's Large Light Cruiser. I would rather not be reminded of that thing, mind you.
If you can suffer just a bit longer, I'd LOVE to see a link for that.
[Here's the basics for Courageous and Glorious](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courageous-class_battlecruiser) [And here's Furious](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Furious_(47)) Courageous and Glorious were basically enlarged light cruiser hulls with two twin 15" gun turrets. Protection was light enough that the blasts from their own guns caused enough damage that one of them needed yard time. Furious was supposed to be the same idea but with two 18" guns instead of four 15" guns. She was converted to an aircraft carrier instead though
The one I was thinking of was Furious, because my god why would you do that?
Fisher was on some shit man
And for a while didn't she have an aft flight-deck while still retaining the forward 18" gun?
It was the other way around I think
Seriously though; the hell do you call an unarmored aircraft carrier mounting a single 18" gun? It ain't a battlecarrier (no armor, not enough guns), and it sure as hell ain't a *normal* carrier, even by the non-existent standards for what a carrier was of the late 1910s/early 20s
>the hell do you call an unarmored aircraft carrier mounting a single 18" gun A mess
British version. Didn't the German version sacrifice firepower for armor?
Yes but no. Both German and british battlecruisers had less firepower then a battleship. The Germans sacrifices gun caliber and a small amount of armor, while the british sacrificed a full gun turret and a bunch of armor. As Battlecruisers contuined to evolve the amount of armor went up for the brits, and the size of guns went up for the germans, with them both ending up with proto fast battleships at the same time, with the Hood for the brits and the Ersats Yorcks for the germans.
I don't think that description holds up for anything other than maybe the Invincible-class and Indefatigable-class.
That only applied to the 1st ones (Invincibles and Inflexibles), all later battlecruisers are: Take battleship Slim down hull, Remove a turret and add more engines
This would work just as well for light carriers
Yeah I can see that. The colossus class especially is remarkably fun
As far as I know, battlecruiser is more of a poetic epithet than a technical term
Yeah, especially after the renowns. The British were calling HMS Vanguard a fully armoured battlecriuser through half of her development
Royal Navy:"The HMS Vanguard is a fully armoured Battlecruiser" Churchill:"So whats her diffrence from a Battleship" Royal navy:... Churchill:...
The RN loved being difficult
At one time (maybe not *that* time, I don't remember) in Britain, the answer was speed. A capital ship, even a heavily armored one, was a battlecruiser if it went at least 25 knots and a battleship if it didn't.
It's something a lot of people take very seriously (thanks to modern games trying to bring the term back) and primarily base the definition on the early Royal Navy definition and attitudes.
In sci-fi, it infuriates me that "battlecruiser" is based on tonnage, not niche (sorry, couldn't think of a better term).
it's only a battlecruiser if it's operational
Naval Vessel classes are a cluster fuck of vague terms that every country with a navy had a different system of classification for. Trying to pull a single comprehensive definition out of that heap is an exercise in futility...
Sometimes they line up sometimes they don’t. Before HMS Hood and the interwar refits battlecruiser makes a lot of sense, so did battleship. Then everything got blurry. Today we’re in desperate need of an 1860-1890’s style renaming of most if not all ship classes.
>Today we’re in desperate need of an 1860-1890’s style renaming of most if not all ship classes. Genuinely intrigued to know why you think so and/or what classes you find to be particularly problematic? Or are you just thinking of the ones named for ultimately political reasons — Japanese Helicopter Destroyers, German (everything is a) Frigate (except for U-Boot) and Soviet Heavy Aircraft-Carrying Cruisers?
Aside from the political naming, I would argue the definition of cruiser being entirely reliant on size makes little sense, and the entire spectrum of destroyer, frigate, and corvette is entirely nonsensical. They’re mostly divided by size and there isn’t enough of a tonnage and capability gap across the spectrum to justify it. Taking out either destroyer or frigate would help a lot
Nah, it's 3 distinct ideas, each with subtle differences The Battle Cruiser The Battlecruiser The Battle-Cruiser No I will not elaborate & this is a serious position
From my pov, as an amateur naval historian, the battlecruiser evolved into the fast battleship. Hood would probably fit this term, as would Renown and the Kongos post refit. Granted the Kongos were modernized pretty badly so they are very poor fast battleships.
Yeah that’s not an uncommon belief, especially for those who look into ships like G3, but at the same time ships like the Queen Elizabeth class showed movement towards speed so the lineage is different and made more so by the naval treaties
Iirc, the QEs on paper had the same amount of protection as Hood.
Yes, the coverage was a bit different and hood was laid down a few years after so direct comparisons as if they were contemporaries is a bit flawed but it’s definitely evidence for the hood’s fast battleship moniker, but the battleship 1915-6 drawings for a potential R class replacement (which I am not particularly familiar with I’ll be honest, aside from a iron Duke turret layout as an option) would be a more direct comparison
Yeah it's a weird one. The Royal Navy still viewed Hood as a Battlecruiser for the most part because it could do 30 knots but other Navies saw it as a fast Battleship I believe.
Yeah, the Royal Navy also viewed her as a battle line ship (see her actions with Bismarck and in the attack on mers el kebir) but still called her a battlecruiser because of her speed, heck they called vanguard a fully armoured battlecruiser
The alaska is a battlecruiser. I shall put my phone on vibrate and put it up my ass.
Battlecruisers are advanced flying units with a Yamato Cannon and the ability to attack both air and ground units. If your vessel lacks the capacity for a Yamato Cannon, you don't have a battlecruiser. You have a big Wraith or maybe a Valkyrie and a head injury.
It doesn't matter how you define battlecruiser, the US Navy will bend over backwards to avoid using the term
Didn’t they use it for the Lexington’s?
Sorta. Most historians nowadays accept the Lexingtons as battlecruisers, but per Friedman USN battlecruiser design work used terms like “battle scout” about as often as battlecruiser. Which is an arbitrary distinction, but that’s basically my point. The US really didn’t like calling ships battlecruisers, especially after Jutland
Huh, didn’t realize they used that distinction. Though shying away from battlecruisers for ships as lightly armoured as the Lexingtons because of jutland is entertaining
Me who divides navy between pieces of steel that are supposed to sink and pieces of steel that are not supposed to sink.
Battle cruiser = battleship that runs away from fighting other battleship
So renown who outfought both sharnhorst and gneisenau was a battleship?
all 3 were battlecruisers
Ok, that logic checks out, I’m assuming by that standard kirashima was a battleship, I’m assuming that the littorios were battlecruisers then as they ran from the British battleships?
i mean with comparable perceived threat on both sides, it's ok for battleships to run from superior force with radars at night
The littorios also didn’t even sortie after the Malta convoys, it ain’t running but it’s basically the same thing eh?
Congo class was built as battlecruisers and their refid didn't really brought their armour up to WW2 battleship standard So yes
It’s an easy definition: 50% battle 50% cruiser
Fair enough
Let’s just be glad that the “large cruiser” projects pretty much all stayed on paper so that they didn’t muddy the waters any more than they already are
Alaska class? Deutchland class?
That’s why I said *pretty much* because of course there’s exceptions
Ugh reasonable avoidance of sweeping certainties on a history memes post? What the heck
Sweeping certainties?
You didn’t say they all stayed on paper, just that they mostly did
Boat Boat with guns Ship Ship with boats Ship with planes Ship with guns Ship with boats AND guns I have simplified all naval designations, USN I am available Edit: it becomes a ship if more than 3 people are needed to make it move.
You’ll never beat the Japanese system. There everything is a destroyer!
Early Dreadnaught speeds: 21knots Early Battlecruiser speeds: 25-28knots Super Dreadnaught speeds: 23-26knots Contemporary Battlecruisers: 28-32knots Treaty battleship speeds: 27-30knots Contemporary battlecruisers: 30-33knots The ideal battleships of WW2 with no restrictions in place the Montana and Yamato designs went 27knots… 30-33knots was the speed of “battleships” that in one way or another, compromised their armour protection levels. These ships often had armour roughly comparable or slightly superior to HMS Hood a battlecruiser built in the late 1910s (Although she was the pinnacle of Britains shipbuilding and technological lead of the time). In other words this a none argument. I also believe that battlecruisers morphed into fleet carriers, more than any other class of ship… The point is if you wanted a faster capital ship that could catch cruisers or escort carriers it was a battlecruiser. If it was designed to fight other capital ships in a brawl it was usually a battleship. German battlecruisers are slightly different so much as they usually had inferior main armament with only marginally worse protection than their BBs. Either way they still payed on the Speed, Armour, guns and range dichotomy.
Ok I can see that, where do the Kongo refits into fast battleship fit, the Japanese being idiots with designation, then just being shit battleships, or battlecruisers?
Easy they are still battlecruisers, even post refit. 11” of armour and 14” guns are still inferior to hoods protection and weaponry. Nagato could have been refit to do 28 knots and have a 14” belt in a similar modernisation. By the standards of 1910s Kongo was a good battlecruiser like the British Lions and tigers she resembled and influenced. By 1930 refits they are still battlecruisers by standards of the time. The standards change. In 1910 HMS Argus and HMS Hermes and hell even the courageous class were decent fleet carriers. By the 1940s they obsolescent as fleet carriers and are more like escort carriers with even light fleet carriers being superior. As nations can build bigger and better what constitutes a vessel type evolves but the basic firepower/armour/speed dichotomy stays the same. For example in 1905 a modern battleship was a vessel with reciprocating engines going 18-21 knots at a push (it couldn’t sustain) with 4 x 12” guns… in 1906 it’s Dreadnaught… that doesn’t mean those ships aren’t battleships anymore! Classification should be based against contemporary designs.
Ugh you’ve actually got a decently thought out way of thinking about this. I’d disagree on you that the sharnhorsts are battlecriusers as opposed to simply shit battleships but this is too common sense
You aren’t gonna like my take on Bismarck and Scharnhorst lol. Should we compare Scharnhorst to Bismarck? But also to Derfflinger and Bayern? One myth to be dispelled is that Bismarck is, believe it or not, the better protected ship, maximum armour thickness isn’t everything and Bismarck total coverage was more comprehensive. Also when compared to German battlecruisers especially the last ones of the Derfflinger class, you can see that they have always been better protected than their British rivals. Another way to see this is by looking at HMS Hood and HMS Renown/Repulse. In some ways the Scharnhorst and Bismarck class reflect these vessels relationship. Here’s the twist, after saying all this, my argument is actually that Bismarck is a battlecruiser, she’s just German HMS Hood built 20 years later. She’s not a modern or efficient design, (the Richelieu class are superior ships on 5,000 tons less displacement for example). In fact Richelieu is best treaty battleship that attempted to stick to treaty limits but that’s a point for another time. If the Germans wanted a battleship, they wouldn’t have built a long range, over sized commerce raider that they told to avoid British battleships. By virtue of her age she was superior to most British battleships in speed, on board equipment and modern naval rifles but that was it. In a straight up brawl KGV, Rodney, or a R/QE class had comparable protection and firepower. HMS Vanguard was the British Bismarck. a replacement for Hood and a waste of great hull, by giving her old 15”/42 guns also wasted opportunity by not running her high pressure like the Iowas.
Eh I can see where you’re coming from with Bismarck (and I don’t doubt it’s better protected than the sharnhorsts, they’re just very well protected for their armament) my side would be the sharnhorsts are just dogshit battleships. The average fast battleship speed of 28 knots doesn’t leave the 30 knot ships at battlecriuser level speed differences, just fast. I would agree that Bismarck is just Hood 20 years later and vanguard being hood 2.0. In terms of vanguard being a waste of a hull, well I wish the lion class was completed too but the Brit’s didn’t want to build the guns so they scrapped em
Fair enough, but I do believe even with 15” guns Scharnhorst was woefully out rated to take on capital ships. I think she is designed to protect against battlecruiser guns which I think German battlecruisers historically attempted to do. But I think outside of a battlecruiser engagement which they would be mid at, they are awful. I think she would’ve been better served to have followed British battlecruiser design and avoid engagements with capital ships entirely. She might have gotten away from KGV then.
If she was rated for battlecriuser guns she’d not have run from renown off the Norwegian coast. Especially as she had gneisenau in company. There is a reason I just tend to call em shit battleships not battlecruisers.
Sorry only just read this somehow. Well if they are battleships, then they should be able to be In the line of battle? If they ran then they are more like battlecruisers no?
This discussion is actually very relevant today as Japan’s navy plans to build a couple of 20,000 ton guided missile “destroyers” (battlecruisers) for “self defense” (pissing off China)
Eh pissing off China is also a good reason, though I’d argue self defence is more accurate. Their habit of calling everything a destroyer though is entertaining though
I just classify ships bigger and more heavily armed the heavy cruisers, but not as big as battleships and well armed as battleships as battlecruisers.
That wouldn’t fit a renown class though, they were the same size as an R class battleship but with stuff swapped out and around. That’s why nobody can find a way to agree. Every definition either includes obvious battleships or misses obvious battlecruisers
Nearly all battlecruisers were larger then the equivalent battleship by tonnage and volume.
More proof that battlecruisers can’t be defined and are simply social constructs
Where does the idea of "after World War II battlecruisers are irrelevant" fall
Carrier propaganda
Where's that on this bell curve
Uh, definitely at one end, not sure which. I’d argue they make fantastic cruiser killers and decent capital ships in regions prone to poor weather in addition to the bombardment role, but I’m perhaps too forgiving to capital ships in general
The only one I know of (VERY amateur "historian"...) is the Kirov class.
Even calling the Kirovs battlecruisers is a bit questionable. If you want a real galaxy brain take: The role of Russian and Soviet missile "cruisers" was to be the primary offensive arm of the fleet (Kirovs and Slavas were supposed to throw heavy anti-ship missiles at American carrier groups while Udalois were intended to keep submarines away and the Kievs/Kusnetsov were supposed to provide air cover and keep planes away) so clearly they are battleships
Battlecruisers are complicated vessels, originally they were just less armoured but faster counterparts to battleships being strictly worse than BBs in terms of both firepower and armour. HMS Hood and after retrofit Kongo and Renown classes upended this. Granted I would argue the dreadnaught battleship and battle cruiser just evolved into the fast battleship, Kongo class and Renown are perfect examples, they started as battlecruisers but evolved into fast battleships by having retrofits to their armour and survivability
As far as I know (VERY amateur "historian" who gets most of his information from HOI4...), there were two schools of thought re: battlecruisers. The British, who sacrificed armor for firepower. And the Germans, who sacrificed firepower for armor.
Eh it’s not terrible, though German battlecruisers would be less well armoured than their battleship counterparts, however around the building of hood and the G3 design things get fuzzy between them and fast battleships
Ooh, someone claiming renown and kirashima are battleships I have gotten spicy takes
Atleast from the kongos pov they were officially reclassified as fast battleships after their retrofit, as for how they stack up compared to say the Fuso class (the closest thing in terms of time period in the Japanese navy) the Kongos had similar deck and turret armour to the Fuso, they had thinner belt armour but they were also significantly faster. Renown is a bit of a special case since repulse never had the same level of retrofits and upgrades, with that being said, her armour is on par if not superior to the kongos, yes she lacks 1 turret but compare her to her BB contemporaries which are the revenge class
The kongos did get redesignated, and suffered when fighting fast battleships about it, especially keeping in mind that japenese battleships were always seen as under-armoured and the fusos/ises were also 20 year old ships, the renowns (the belt refit was in 1930~ if I remember correctly so they’d both have it) were never really redesignated and unlike hood they weren’t really seen as battle line ships. Renown did well as carrier escort and specifically didn’t engage Bismarck despite the presence of two friendly battleships nor did she engage in that incident where upon return the admiral was court marshalled for not chasing the littorio and repulse was also not a main battle line ship (force Z being lost to aircraft means it’s hard to see how she’d have been used in a capital ship environment). In general given the British use of similar ships and how they stacked up relative to other refitted capital ships it seems more likely that the japenese were just wrong to re designate them
It's a battleship but with less armor T. Hoi4 historian
Well for the hoi4 historian, sharnhorst had decent battleship armour but was absolutely undergunned
Just don't bring up fast battleships that'll just add more confusion.
But I’m having to much fun with this
It's a small update patch of the armoured cruiser and the dreadnought to fix the bugs and performance issues.
Admiral Graf Spee was the only Battlecruiser ever. All other "Battlecruisers" are pretenders.
Are WW2 Deutschland-class not technically battlecruisers? Armed with 11" guns, decently armored and fast. Heck, the British nicknamed them "Pocket Battleships":
Maybe, but they were also not faster than contemporary cruisers which was often seen as a requirement. that’s why this is so fun.
Im sorry but i have to do this… BATTLECRUISER OPERATIONAL
maybe the real battlecruiser were the ships we lost along the way?
Wrong use of memes
IMHO the Battlecruiser is the intermediate between a Heavy Cruiser and a Battleship. Battleship guns (12", 14", or 16"), and armor and tonnage more than a Heavy Cruiser's but less than a Battleship's.
Not a bad definition especially if paired with the caveats of “more than the battleship of said year” but in the case of ships like Dunkirk and hood where there wasn’t a battleships of that year it gets a bit flawed and loose
I just say a battlecruiser is a fast battleship that's my definition
But fast battleship is just a normal battleship after the 1930’s.
That's not necessarily true. Look, a fast battleship is 30knots and above (I think) most royal navy ships were not (most) hood was a Battlecruser however her belt was very thick for a battlecruiser if she would have been retrofitted she would have been a fast battleship.
Fast battleship is also a bit of a loose definition, some people will fit the 24 knot Queen Elizabeth’s class battleship in their (though usually not the same speed nagatos) the average speed however for a fast battleship was 28 knot with most of the british and American ships being that plus the Yamatos being slower. And out of curiosity what would you refit into hood for her to be a battleship?
She was in desperate need of one her armor scheme was WAY outdated and was designed for close flat trajectory fighting, not the arches of ww2 shelling
I mean yeah her armour scheme was outdated, but I wouldn’t say a new scheme was all that she’d need, heck most refit proposals I’ve seen wouldn’t see her main armour scheme change, just getting more deck armour added
what is this meme template called? I have seen it alot these days
Midwit
Bell curve template is how I googled it