[FT] Battlecruisers vs. battleships

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan Gill" <rmgill@mindspring.com>
To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 6:57 AM
Subject: Re: FB designs & fighters (& strawmen)

> Eric said:
> >I've been aware of two different instances where British
battlecruisers
> >basically had to stop dancing around and engage in serious action
with
true
> >battleships -- the Battle of Jutland in the First World War and the
> >Hood/Bismarck action in the Second.	Both instances were quite
catastrophic
> >for the battlecruisers in question.

> In my eyes, if the ships had been used as designed then they'd not
> have met such a dreadful end. They weren't supposed to engage big
> heavy ships. They were supposed to run from them. They were meant to
> act as anti-cruiser vessels.

Well, ultimately, this begs the question:  why invest the material in
constructing ships that can't stand up to anything their own size?

Hood was, at the time of her destruction, the second largest warship in
the
world (the Bismarck herself being the largest at that time).  Indeed,
throughout World War II, there would still be less than a dozen vessels
constructed in the entire world that were heavier -- the German
Bismarcks,
the Japanese Yamatos, and the American Iowas.  Yet Hood had no serious
prayer of standing in battle against any of them.  Aside from the
Yamatos,
she couldn't even cleanly outrun them.	Nor could she even hope to stay
in
battle with any of the many vessels that were slightly smaller than
herself
but could still throw shells of similar caliber back at her, because
(just
as with what happened against Bismarck, and also happened to each of the
battlecruisers that were destroyed at Jutland) any shell of that caliber
that hit her quite thin deck armor in the wrong place could hit the
magazines and light up the whole ship.

> >Now, it _is_ true that I have been accused (probably deservedly) of
being
a
> >bit biased against high speed vessels.  And although I _do_ favor
high
speed
> >for certain specialized ships that are supposed to perform specific
> >functions, it is also true that I don't generally think that speed
much
> >higher than 3 or 4 is going to be that productive on a ship of the
wall --
> >my experience with such vessels in FT mirrors that of the real-life
British
> >ships.

> I think the task is warranted. Especially in the vastness of space.
> Having something big that can run down something smaller can be a
> good thing can it not?

I would only do this at such cost if I had a massive resource advantage
that
would permit me to throw away the materials on such vessels.  If the
resources were tight enough that I'd rather have them put into ships
that
could stand in there with things their own size, I would never even
consider
it.  My cruiser-hunters would, until that point, follow the model of the
German "pocket battleships" more closely than the British
battlecruisers.

E