Re: [GZG] Battlecruisers

--- VinsFullThrust@aol.com wrote:

>  
> In a message dated 12/23/2006 11:41:17 AM Eastern Standard Time,  
> rlbell.nsuid@gmail.com writes:
> 
>> It got  me thinking about how battlecruisers are handled in games.
>> They are usually  ships between a heavy cruiser and a battleship. 
Only
>> one navy (the  USN) ever built ships like that, and they were called
>> "Large Cruisers" (the  Alaska class).  All ships that were actually
>> called battlecruisers  were as large as, if not larger, than
>> battleships.  The HMS Hood, a  battlecruiser, was the largest warship
>> in the world, until the Bismark was	completed.  Battlecruisers were
>> basically dreadnoughts that exchanged  weight of armor for weight of
>> machinery to get an extra turn of  speed.  The only game that ever
got
>> this right was Starfire, as a BC  was faster than a BB and if it
>> accepted less protection, it could mount the  same armament.
> 
> 
> 
> OK, maybe I am lost here.  Hood was smaller the bismark, yet Hood was 
a 
> "cruiser" and Bismark was "battleship."  If this is accurate and Hood
and 
> Bismark were the worlds largest "warships" What exactly does that make
> Yamato and Musashi that were nearly 2 times larger then Bismark?
>  

Mostly answering Vince's questions:

The term "battlecruiser" is a contraction from "battleship cruiser".  It
is not
in the category that most people think of as including light
("protected") and
heavy ("armored") cruisers.  Rather it was the brainchild of Admiral Sir
John
"Jackie" Fischer, First Sea Lord 1904-1911.

Historical "battlecruisers" were similar in displacement tonnage and had
similar main armament (in terms of both size and number) to contemporary
battlehips of the same nation, but increased speed achieved by trading
armor
protection for more propulsion.  Armor protection was on the scale of
contemporary "armored cruisers" (later termed "heavy" or "1st class"
cruisers).

By contrast, "fast battleships" such as the US Iowa class traded
gunpower for
the increased machinery or were significantly bigger than contemporay
"heavy"
BBs.  The Japanese Kongo class BCs were reconstructed in the 1930's and
transformed from BCs to BBFs by an increase in armor weight from 6502t
to
10,313t.

e.g.
Bellerophon BB (1906) - ~22,000t dl, 20.5 kts, 10x12" guns, 10"-5" belt
armor
St Vincent BB  (1907) - ~23,000t dl, 21 kts,   10x12" guns, 10"-7" belt
Invincible BC  (1906) - ~20,000t dl, 25.5 kts,	8x12" guns,  6"-4" belt

Orion BB       (1910) - ~25,800t dl, 21 kts, 10x13.5" guns, 12"-8" belt
Lion BC        (1910) - ~29,600t dl, 27 kts,  8x13.5" guns,  9"-4" belt

Queen Elizabeth BB (1912) - ~31,500t dl, 23 kts, 8x15" guns, 13"-6" belt
Renown BC	   (1915) - ~30,800t dl, 30 kts, 6x15" guns, 6"-1.5"
belt
Courageous BCL	   (1915) - ~22,700t dl, 32 kts, 4x15" guns, 3"-2" belt
Hood BC/BBF	   (1916) - ~45,000t dl, 31 kts, 8x15" guns, 12"-5" belt

The US Alaska class (1941, ~34,000t dl), were designated CB (Cruiser,
Large)
#'s 1-6, as opposed to the Lexington class (1920, ~44,600-51,000t dl,
never
completed) which were designated BC (Battlecruiser) #'s 1-6.  The
Alaskas (12"
guns) were designed to beat "Treaty" heavy cruisers that were nominally
10,000t
and armed with 8" guns, while contemporary US BBs were armed with 16"
guns.

Hood (~45,000t dl) was the largest warship until Bismark was built
(competed
Sept. 1940).
Bismark and her sistership Tirpitz (~52,000t dl) were the largest until
Yamato
(~70,000t dl) was built (completed Dec. 1941).	Yamato was not, as you
said,
"nearly 2 times larger then Bismark".
US Montana class BB would have been slightly larger (by 500-1000t) but
were
broken up on the stocks.

For good information on this subject see
"Warrior to Dreadnought: Warship Development 1860-1905" by D.K. Brown,
DCNA-RCNC
"Battlecruisers" by John Roberts
"Battleships" by Anthony Preston
Conway's History of the Ship series:
"Steam, Steel, & Shellfire: The Steam Ship 1815-1905", Ed. Robert
Gardiner
"The Eclipse of the Big Gun: The Warship 1906-1945", Ed. Robert
Gardiner, D.K.
Brown 
I got all of these inexpensively ($10-$20 each) at Half Price Books

also
"Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921"
"Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1922-1946"
(really great but expensive and hard to find, check your local library)

J
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