Battle cruiser
_British_Battleship.jpg)
_-_March_17,_1924.jpg)
Battlecruisers were capital ships that were roughly equivalent in size and armament to battleships since the introduction of the HMS Dreadnought (the so-called dreadnought jump ), but could achieve a much higher speed because they were less armored and therefore had a lower weight. Battle cruisers were developed from 1905, but turned out to be an unsatisfactory compromise. The concept was abandoned soon after the First World War , when more powerful machinery enabled full-fledged battleships to travel at higher speeds. Some ships of this type remained in service until the end of the Second World War.
Deviating from this definition, the units of the Russian Kirov class are classified as battlecruisers within NATO.
draft
The development of the battle cruiser in the Royal Navy ran parallel to that of the HMS Dreadnought or the modern battleship . The battle cruiser was based on a request from the then First Sea Lord, John Fisher , whose credo was: " Speed is the best protection ". The first ship of the type was the HMS Invincible , which was completed in 1908.
The idea was to build a warship that could use its artillery to fight all fast, smaller enemy ships before they even come within range of their weapons. It should be able to elude combat with battleships thanks to the speed advantage of 26 knots compared to 21 knots. The concept was primarily directed against armored cruisers .
Development history
These requirements were already placed on the predecessors of the battle cruisers, the armored cruisers . These were supposed to either wage a trade war ( Jeune École in France 1890, Dupuy de Lôme ) or to investigate and pursue in battle and serve as support for their own torpedo boats. At the end of this development there was the battle cruiser , whereby the Japanese have already built a heavily armed type with 30.5 cm cannons in the form of the Tsukuba and Ibuki classes, but only the slightly increased speed of about 21 knots reached the same standard ships of the line with an average of 18 knots.
Great Britain
The Royal Navy built the first battle cruiser. The battle cruiser has two characteristics: a speed that is at least similar to the torpedo boats (and therefore superior to the ships of the line), and a combat power that is at least promising when intervening in combat (the ships of the line). The British battle cruisers were primarily designed to destroy enemy armored cruisers and cruisers; the armor was dimensioned accordingly to be able to withstand the weapons of these ships.
Germany
The idea was taken up by the other sea powers. With the Von der Tann, Germany built its first battle cruiser, which, in accordance with German custom in warship building, was less armed (eight 28 cm instead of eight 30.5 cm guns for the British), but was armored similar to a battleship. In Germany, this type of ship was known at the time as a large cruiser due to the budgetary conditions of the fleet laws . Unlike the British, they were not designed to combine the armament of a battleship with the speed of a cruiser, at the expense of weak armor. Rather, they were - in accordance with Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz's maxim that the main task of ships was to keep floating - designed so that they were able to withstand enemy battlecruisers in combat. Therefore, a little speed was sacrificed in favor of full-fledged armor that could withstand heavy shells. As with the battleships, it was believed on the German side that they could accept weaker armament:
- The German 28 cm grenades were qualitatively better than the British ones (the grenades of the German capital ships had better explosive properties and greater penetration capacity)
- The fuses of the German 28 cm projectiles were more reliable
- The higher muzzle velocity v 0 resulted in a greater speed range and greater accuracy due to better ballistic properties
- The German 28 cm cannons had a higher rate of fire , which more than made up for the lack of broadside weight.
- The German ships had full medium artillery to defend themselves against destroyers.
Later models such as the Derfflinger class received 30.5 cm guns and were somewhat faster. Basically, however, little changed in the differences between German and British ships: the British relied on high speed and strong armament at the expense of good armor, while the Germans sacrificed speed and strength of arms in favor of better protection. With a strict interpretation of the type definition, these ships were therefore actually not battle cruisers.
The different approach can also be explained by the tasks of the ships: the British battlecruisers were intended for long patrols on the world's oceans and therefore had to provide more space for more comfortable accommodation of the crew over long distances, while the Germans were mainly for tactical missions in domestic waters planned and therefore could use the corresponding space for stronger machines and armor. The operational doctrine itself was also different: the British Admiralty had, among other things, a. Also had the use against enemy lines and battleships in mind and therefore selected a larger gun caliber, while the use against enemy counterparts was in the foreground with the German battlecruisers, for which smaller shells were sufficient.
Other sea powers
Before the First World War, only Japan took up the concept of the battle cruiser and ordered the type ship Kongō in Great Britain, from whose conception later the British HMS Tiger emerged . Some other countries such as B. France commissioned battlecruiser studies, but these were no longer carried out because of the beginning of the war. From the US Lexington class that had begun, only two ships were allowed to be completed as aircraft carriers due to the Washington Fleet Agreement . This also applied to their Japanese counterparts in the Amagi class and the French Bearn . The Imperial Russian Navy and later the Soviet Navy planned three classes of battlecruisers between 1913 and 1953 , with the Borodino class , the Kronschtadt class (Project 69) and the Stalingrad class (Project 82) , of which several ships were on keel laid and built, but none was completed.
Battle cruiser in World War I
Naval battle in the Falkland Islands
During the naval battle in the Falkland Islands , the British battlecruisers were able to convince in their intended role and were type-specifically used against the conceptually outdated German armored cruisers. They succeeded in catching up with the fleeing German ships and destroying them from a great distance, with themselves and their escort ships suffering only minimal loss of personnel and damage. The superiority of the battle cruiser was derived from this victory and it was decided not to build the last three ships of the Revenge class and to use the capacity that had become available for the construction of the Renown class . However, the destroyed German ships were not equivalent opponents, but now outdated armored cruisers . The accuracy of the two battlecruisers was also poor due to the cross- sectional rangefinder and inadequate shot-in procedures.
Skirmish on the Dogger Bank
The first meeting of the opposing battlecruiser units in the battle on the Dogger Bank revealed the weakness of the British concept. Although they were clearly outnumbered, the British ships suffered serious damage in battle. The flagship HMS Lion was shot incapable of maneuvering, whereupon the association gave up the pursuit of the German ships. The British only sank the damaged armored cruiser Blücher, which fell behind the end of the German formation . The Seydlitz received a dangerous hit in a gun turret, and burning propellants threatened to detonate the ammunition chamber, which could only be prevented by flooding the ammunition chamber. For political reasons, a detailed investigation of the events was not carried out in Great Britain, so that the British ships remained essentially unchanged, while the safety facilities of the German battlecruisers were further improved. The installation of fireproof ammunition chamber bulkheads in particular should pay off.
Battle of the Skagerrak
In the Battle of the Skagerrak it turned out again that the armor of the British battlecruisers was designed too weak for confrontations with heavily armed opponents; the armor-piercing shells of the German battlecruisers penetrated them without any problems. The higher speed compared to battleships had also become largely useless with the introduction of more modern aiming methods. The three British battle cruisers Invincible , Queen Mary and Indefatigable exploded after being hit in their turrets. The ready- to-use ammunition on the combat stations created fires that penetrated into the ammunition chambers and triggered explosions that destroyed the ships in seconds. On the Lion , this could only be prevented by the rapid flooding of the ammunition chambers. Almost 3,300 men went down with the three sunk battlecruisers, more than half of the total British casualties of seamen killed.
The German battle cruisers also suffered severe damage in the Skagerrak battle, but this was mainly due to the fact that they were the focus of the fighting for most of the time and were exposed to the concentrated fire of the British Grand Fleet after the battle cruiser battle . Franz von Hipper's flagship SMS Lützow had to be pulled out of the battle and detached after heavy hits, Hipper switched to the Moltke . On the march back, the Lützow finally had to be abandoned due to uncontrollable water ingress in the forecastle, the crew was taken over by torpedo boats . Some of the other four ships were seriously damaged. Still, they worked well. They had withstood a greatly superior enemy and sunk three enemy battlecruisers.
Further development of the concept
Germany and Great Britain
After the experiences from the Skagerrakschlacht, the concept of the weakly armored battle cruiser was abandoned again. It was replaced by the British concept of fast battleships , which were both fast and well armored. This concept had been pursued with the Queen Elizabeth class even before the World War . This was then given up for the time being in favor of the battlecruisers of the Admiral and Renown classes under the influence of Fisher (who had again been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty).
The concept of the late German battle cruiser that not finished Mackensen - and replacement Yorck class , aimed from the outset to the traditionally strong armor supplemented by heavy armament from. The ever more favorable ratio between the power and weight of the machinery made it possible to armor the ships more strongly without having to accept a lower speed.
The last British battle cruiser , the HMS Hood , completed in 1920 , had significantly better vertical protection than its predecessor, but the armor was still imperfect. It exploded in 1941 after the Bismarck hit the deck . The horizontal armor was too weak to withstand the modern 38 cm guns - a shell landed as a direct hit in an ammunition chamber, and the subsequent explosions tore the ship apart.
The German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau from the time of the Second World War, which were occasionally classified as battle cruisers, were less armed with their nine 28 cm guns than contemporary battleships. However, they had significantly stronger armor protection than classic battle cruisers. Their ammunition chambers also had effective explosion protection , which prevented the penetration of flashes from the gun turret into the chamber. Their inferiority compared to other battleships, due to their main caliber, which was weak in international comparison (which on the one hand came from the origin of these ships from the program for the construction of the Germany class , and on the other hand avoided a delay in the construction work, which meant that new gun turrets with higher caliber would have brought with it) led to the frequent but incorrect classification as a battle cruiser, especially in English literature.
As part of the Z-Plan of the German Navy , the battle cruiser idea was revived with the O -class , but never got beyond the project stage.
United States
Lexington- class
The United States had already started designing its own battlecruisers during the war, as this type of ship was considered to be tactically sensible. The first Lexington- class drafts followed British guidelines and would have been extremely fast (up to 35 knots) and well armed. The ships were still under construction when their completion as capital ships became obsolete after the Washington Agreement ; the ships that had already started were completed as aircraft carriers .
Alaska class
As a reaction to the BB-65 cruisers planned by Japan during World War II, the US Navy built the Alaska- class “Big Cruisers” (CB) similar to battlecruisers . These were somewhat smaller, faster and lighter armored than the contemporary battleships and had 30.5 cm guns as their main armament. In essence, they represented rather enlarged heavy cruisers . As a reaction to this, Japan began planning even larger cruisers with 36 cm guns instead of the originally planned 31 cm guns, but this was no longer completed due to the war.
Japan
After the First World War, Japan wanted to follow the same path as the Americans with the Amagi- class battlecruisers already under construction and the Tosa- class battleships . Japan was urged to join the Washington Naval Agreement. As a result of the treaty arms restrictions, Japan had to give up its shipbuilding program. Some of the half-finished fuselages were scrapped, others were converted into aircraft carriers.
Of the four existing Japanese Kongo- class battlecruisers , the Hiei and Kirishima were lost to artillery fire from heavy American naval forces during the 1942 naval battle of Guadalcanal . However, this was more due to the number of hits and the short combat range than to insufficient armor protection, because the ships had already been converted into fast battleships and therefore no longer battlecruisers.
Netherlands
Until the German invasion in 1940, the Netherlands planned three light battleships, which were intended for use in the Dutch East Indies . They were to receive nine 28 cm guns in three triple turrets as their main armament . These towers had been ordered in Germany and technically corresponded to those on the armored ships of the Deutschland class. The delivery was deliberately delayed on the German side until the occupation of the Netherlands rendered it obsolete.
Battle cruiser today
At present, only the former Soviet, now Russian are nuclear-powered cruiser the Kirov class classified as battle cruisers. However, they are rather very large guided missile cruisers . In addition, they serve completely different application requirements, so that this term is no longer appropriate.
literature
- Axel Grießmer: Large cruisers of the Imperial Navy 1906–1918: Constructions and designs under the sign of the Tirpitz Plan. Bernard and Graefe, Bonn 1996, ISBN 3-7637-5946-8 .
- Michele Cosentino and Ruggero Stanglini: British & German battlecruisers: their development and operations. Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley 2016, ISBN 978-1-84832-184-7 .
- Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970 . Pawlak, 1970, ISBN 978-3-88199-474-3 .
- Gary Staff: German Battlecruisers of World War One: Their Design, Construction . Seaforth Publishing, 2014, ISBN 978-1-84832-213-4 .
- John Roberts: Battlecruisers . Chatham, 1979, ISBN 978-1-86176-006-7 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Jürgen Gebauer, Egon Krenz: Marine Encyclopedia - From A to Z , keyword: battle cruiser ; Tosa Verlag, Vienna 2003; unabridged licensed edition of RM Buch u. Medien Vertriebs GmbH u. the connected Book clubs; Book No. 003765
- ^ Ingo Bauernfeind: Battleships of the Royal Navy: Capital ships 1906–1945 , 1st edition, Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 3-613-31046-5 .