Re: [GZG] Battlecruisers

[Jerry Han <jhan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ryan Gill wrote:
> At 9:56 AM +0100 12/24/06, K.H.Ranitzsch wrote:
> > Once the commerce raiders had been dealt with, the Royal Navy used 
> > them as fast battleships, with altogether poor results - see the 
> > battle of Jutland.
>
> And tucking them into the line and keeping them close to the big boys 
> was a mistake I think. they should have been turned loose to run around 
> the edges of the High Seas Fleet.

The mistake was having them come within range of guns that could blow
holes through their armour.  (8-)

The Battlecruisers were used to deal with commerce raiders (RE: Battle of
Coronel, Battle of the Falklands), but, RN doctrine was to use 'standard' 
cruisers for that work.  Other than the Battle of the Falklands, occasioned
by an irate Churchill demanding revenge for Coronel, the battlecruisers
stayed at home and patrolled the North Sea or engaged in shore bombardment
in the Mediterranean.  (Specifically bombarding the forts guarding the
Dardanelles.)

Spee's East Asia squadron destroyed at the Falklands was an exception to
the rule, as it was a regular Kriegsmarine squadron, cut off from base and 
support when the war began, attempting to fight their way back home,
engaging in commerce raiding as a secondary objective and to replenish
their supplies.  Note that no battlecruiser was sent to search for or
engage  ships such as Emden, Konigsberg, or Karlsruhe, for example, nor
German Armed Merchant raiders.

The battlecruiser's ability to engage armoured cruisers decisively and
travel at high speed was meant to win the intelligence battle in the North 
Sea, and act as a "fire brigade" to move firepower rapidly to protect
British interests in advance of a substantial battleline deployment --
not to chase down commerce raiders across the oceans.

JGH
--
Jerry Han - jhan@xxxxxxxxxxxx - http://www.warpfish.com/jhan - TBFTGOGGI
"Wake me, let me see the daylight, save me from this half-life;
                            Let's you and I escape, escape from time..."
                                            -- Duncan Sheik, "Half-life"
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