In this article, we'll take a look at the latest battlecruiser designs from the USA, Japan, and England.
USA
The history of the creation of the battle cruisers of the United States began well and … oddly enough, ended well, although it should be noted that there is no merit of American admirals and designers in this.
As a matter of fact, the idea of a battle cruiser was formulated in the United States back in 1903, when the Naval College in Newport put forward the idea of an armored cruiser that had weapons and armor comparable to that of a squadron battleship, but surpassed the latter in speed. It was assumed that such ships should catch up and tie up enemy battleships in battle before the approach of their main forces, so the cruiser should be armed with 305-mm artillery and provide protection against it. In such views, the experience of the Spanish-American war was very clearly visible, when the US battleships did not keep up with the main forces of Admiral Cervera. At the same time, the success of the armored cruiser "Brooklyn", which overtook and shot enemy ships, was largely due not to the quality of its design, but to the inability of the Spanish gunners to hit the target. If the Spaniards had training comparable to their American "colleagues", then … no, in the battle of Santiago de Cuba, they would hardly have won a victory in this case, but they could have severely damaged or even sunk "Brooklyn" and saved both at least half of their armored squadron from destruction. Well, the American sailors should be commended - the remarkable success at sea did not blind them, and did not overshadow the shortcomings of the materiel of the US armored cruisers.
The conclusions of the Naval College specialists could only be welcomed - the Americans initially saw the battle cruiser as a ship for participation in the battle of the main forces, their views turned out to be very close to the German ones, and it was the Germans who managed to create the most successful battle cruisers in the world in the period before the First World War … At the same time, the first US projects were, perhaps, even more advanced than their German counterparts.
While the German shipbuilders and admirals achieved the high speed of their battle cruisers by weakening the protection and reducing the main caliber in comparison with the battleships being built at the same time, and for some time they could not decide on the equality of the displacement of battleships and battle cruisers, in the USA there is nothing of the kind. It was. Their first battle cruiser project was an analogue of the Wyoming dreadnought (26,000 tons, 12 * 305-mm guns in six twin-turrets, 280-mm armor and a speed of 20.5 knots)
But with a narrower and longer, for high speed hull, while the length of the battle cruiser had to reach 200 m, which is 28, 7 m higher than that of "Wyoming". The armament was weakened, but quite enough for a battle with battleships - 8 * 305-mm guns in four towers, and the speed should have reached 25, 5 knots. At the same time, the booking was not only maintained at the level of "Wyoming", but, perhaps, one could even say that it surpassed it. Although the thickness of the armor belt, decks, barbets, etc. remained at the level of the battleship, but the length and height of the main armor belt had to exceed those of "Wyoming". At the same time, the displacement of the battle cruiser was supposed to be 26,000 tons, that is, equal to the corresponding battleship.
Conceptually, the project turned out to be extremely successful for its time (the exact date of development is unknown to the author, but it is probably 1909-1910), but in those years the USA gave priority to the construction of dreadnoughts, so the "American Dreflinger" was never laid down. However, this project quickly became outdated, but not through the fault of its creators - the era of superdreadnoughts was just replacing the "305-mm" battleships …
The next project of the US battle cruiser, if it were embodied in metal, would definitely claim the title of the world's best battle cruiser - it was supposed to make it an analogue of the battleship "Nevada", retaining the armor of the latter, but reducing the armament to 8 * 356-mm cannons and ensuring the ship's speed at 29 knots. Taking into account the fact that the TK for such a ship was presented back in 1911, and it was supposed to lay it in 1912, such a battle cruiser would definitely leave far behind all British, German and Japanese battle cruisers.
Of course, such performance characteristics had to be paid for: the price was an increase in displacement over 30,000 tons (for those years it was extremely high), and also not the greatest, by American standards, cruising range - "only" 5,000 miles in economic speed. And if the Americans were ready to agree with the first (increase in displacement), the second turned out to be completely unacceptable for them. On the one hand, of course, you can blame the US admirals for this - for their European colleagues, the 5,000-mile range looked more or less normal, but the Americans, even then looking at Japan as a future enemy at sea, wanted to get ships with a truly ocean range and less than 8,000 miles disagreed.
As a result of the above reasons, several variants of the battle cruiser project were presented for consideration, in which, other things being equal, the thickness of the armor was consistently reduced from 356 mm to 280 and 203 mm, and only in the latter case the range of 8,000 miles was achieved. As a result, the American sailors preferred the latter option and … again put the matter on the back burner, considering the construction of dreadnoughts a higher priority. However, it was here, having made a choice in favor of the cruising range due to the critical weakening of the reservation, the Americans forever left the projects of the best ships of this class for their time, to the amazing "something" called the Lexington-class battle cruiser.
The thing is that in 1915, when the American fleet again returned to the idea of building battle cruisers, the admirals completely changed their views on the role and place of this class of ships in the structure of the fleet. Interest in battle cruisers was fueled by the battle at Dogger Bank, which demonstrated the potential of ships of this class, but it is surprising that now the Americans have adopted a new battle cruiser concept, completely different from either the British or the German. According to the plans of the US admirals, battlecruisers were to become the backbone of "35-knot" formations, which also included light cruisers and destroyers capable of developing the above speed.
Without a doubt, the technological level of that time made it possible to bring the speed of large ships closer to 35 knots, but, of course, only at the cost of huge sacrifices in other combat qualities. But for what? This is completely unclear, because a somewhat sane concept of using "35-node" connections was never born. In general, the following happened - striving to get a super speed of 35 knots, the Americans were not ready to sacrifice firepower and cruising range: therefore, the armor and survivability of the battle cruiser had to be reduced to almost zero. The ship received 8 * 406-mm cannons, but at the same time its hull was very long and narrow, which excluded any serious PTZ, and the booking did not exceed 203 mm!
But something else is surprising. Already knowing that the British laid the Hood and presenting its combat capabilities (the design documentation of the last battle cruiser of Great Britain was handed over for review in the United States), and having received from the British an analysis of the damage to their ships received during the Battle of Jutland, the Americans stubbornly continued to cling to the British battle cruiser concept - maximum speed and firepower with minimum protection. In fact, the designers of the United States backed down only in one thing - realizing the insignificance of underwater protection, they increased the width of the hull to 31, 7 m, providing for a more or less decent PTZ for those years. At the same time, the speed had to be reduced to 33, 5 knots, but the ship remained utterly awkward - with a displacement of over 44,000 tons (more than "Hood" by about 3,000 tons!) And weapons of 8 * 406 mm, its sides were defended only in 178mm armor! The forehead of the towers reached 279 mm, the barbets - 229 mm, the wheelhouse - 305 mm. This level of booking was somewhat superior to the Repals and Rhynown before their upgrades, but, of course, it was completely insufficient for action against any heavy ship in the world, and there is no doubt that the Lexingtons (this is how the series of American battle cruisers was named) categorically inferior to "Hood" both in terms of protection and overall balance of the project. In general, the construction of six Lexington-class battle cruisers was completely unjustified by any tactical considerations, contradicted world experience gained during the First World War, and would be a huge mistake for American shipbuilding … if these ships were completed according to their original purpose.
Only this did not happen. In essence, the following happened - having learned the tactical and technical characteristics of the post-war British and Japanese ships, the Americans realized that their newest battleships and battle cruisers, in general, are no longer at the peak of progress. Even more advanced and large ships were required, but it was expensive, and besides, they would no longer be able to pass the Panama Canal and all this created huge problems even for the first economy in the world, which was the United States after the First World War. Therefore, the US President W. Harding, who came to power in 1920, initiated a conference on the reduction of naval arms, which became the famous Washington Naval Agreement, during which the United States, among other obligations, also refused to complete the construction of six Lexingtons. At that time, the average technical readiness of the first and last American battle cruisers averaged about 30%.
In itself, the refusal to build huge and extremely expensive, but completely inadequate to the requirements of modern naval warfare, battlecruisers of the United States can already be considered a success, but that's not why we called the end of the Lexington story successful. As you know, two ships of this type were nevertheless entered into the composition of the American Navy, but already by ships of a completely different class - aircraft carriers. And, I must say, "Lady Lex" and "Lady Sarah", as the American sailors called the aircraft carriers "Lexington" and "Saratoga", became, perhaps, the most successful aircraft carriers in the world, rebuilt from other large ships.
This was facilitated by some design solutions that looked somewhat strange on battle cruisers, but quite appropriate on aircraft carriers, which allowed some historians to even put forward a version that the Americans, even at the design stage, included the possibility of such a restructuring in the project. In the opinion of the author of this article, such a version looks very dubious, because at the design stage of Lexington it was hardly possible to assume the success of the Washington agreement, but this version cannot be completely denied. In general, this story is still waiting for its researchers, but we can only state that despite the completely absurd performance characteristics of battlecruisers of the Lexington class, the history of designing battlecruisers of the United States led to the emergence of two remarkable, by pre-war standards, aircraft carriers.
With which we congratulate the US Navy.
Japan
After the United Fleet was supplemented by four Congo-class battlecruisers, three of which were built at Japanese shipyards, the Japanese focused their efforts on building battleships. However, after the Americans announced their new shipbuilding program in 1916, consisting of 10 battleships and 6 battle cruisers, the Mikado subjects opposed it with their own, in which, for the first time in recent years, battle cruisers were present. We will not now focus on the peculiarities of Japan's shipbuilding programs, we will only note that in 1918 the so-called "8 + 8" program was finally adopted, according to which the sons of Yamato were to build 8 battleships and 8 battle cruisers ("Nagato" and "Mutsu" were included in it, but the previously built 356-mm battleships and battle cruisers were not). The first were to lay two Kaga-class battleships and two Amagi-class battlecruisers.
What about these ships? The battleships "Toza" and "Kaga" became an improved version of the "Nagato", in which "everything was improved a little bit" - the firepower was increased by adding a fifth main battery turret, so that the total number of 410-mm guns was increased to 10. Reservations also received some reinforcement - although the armor belt "Kaga" was thinner than that of the "Nagato" (280 mm versus 305 mm), but it was located at an angle, which completely equalized its reduced armor resistance, but the horizontal protection became somewhat better.
However, the totality of its combat qualities "Kaga" was a rather strange sight for a post-war battleship. Its armor protection in some way corresponded, and in some way inferior to that of the battle cruiser Hood. However, as we wrote earlier, "Hood" was built in the era of 380-381-mm dreadnoughts and, although its booking was very perfect for its time, it only to a limited extent protected the ship from the shells of these guns.
At the same time, by the time the battleships Kaga and Toza were being designed, naval progress had taken the next step, switching to even more powerful 16-inch guns. The magnificent British 381-mm artillery system accelerated an 871 kg projectile to an initial speed of 752 m / s, but the American 406-mm cannon mounted on Maryland-class battleships fired 1,016 kg with a projectile with an initial speed of 768 m / s, and the Japanese The 410-mm gun fired a projectile weighing exactly one ton with an initial speed of 790 m / s, that is, the superiority in power of 406-mm guns was 21-26%. But with an increase in the distance, the British fifteen-inch gun lost more and more perceptibly to the Japanese and American guns in armor penetration - the fact is that the heavier projectile loses speed more slowly, and this speed was initially higher for sixteen-inch guns …
In other words, the Hood's armor protected to a limited extent against 380-381-mm shells, and (at best!) Very limitedly - from 406-410 mm. It can be safely argued that although under certain circumstances the Hood could withstand hits from 406-mm shells, but still its protection was not intended and was too weak for this. And taking into account the fact that the Kaga was armored worse than the Hood, we can state a certain parity of the offensive and defensive qualities of these ships. The Hood is less armed, but somewhat better protected, although it is not capable of withstanding prolonged shelling by 410 mm shells. At the same time, the armor of his opponent (280 mm armor belt tilted, 102-160 mm armor deck with 76-102 mm bevels) is quite vulnerable to British 381 mm "greenboys". That is, the protection of both ships from the shells of their "opponents" looks equally weak, but the Japanese battleship nevertheless, due to the larger number of main barrels and heavier shells, had a better chance of delivering critical hits for the Hood faster. But the British ship was much faster (31 knots versus 26.5 knots), which gave it certain tactical advantages.
In general, it can be stated that the Japanese battleships of the "Kaga" class combined very powerful weapons and armor, unable to resist these weapons. The British themselves recognized the protection of Hood as completely inadequate for the increased level of threats, and saw the need to strengthen it in every possible way (which was done in the post-war projects, which we will get to). And we must not forget that the Hood was, after all, a military-built ship. But what were the Japanese hoping for, laying down a battleship with weaker protection after the war? The author of this article has no answer to this question.
By and large, battleships of the "Kaga" type were a kind of a battle cruiser, with very powerful weapons, completely insufficient armor and a very moderate speed for their time, due to which they managed to avoid "gigantism" - the ship was able to lay in less than 40 thousand. tons of displacement (although it is unclear whether we are talking about standard or normal displacement, the author, however, is inclined towards the latter option). Of course, the "Kaga" turned out to be better armed and much faster than the American "Maryland", but the lack of adequate protection against 406-mm shells greatly spoiled the matter. In addition, after all, the analogue of the Kaga should not be considered the Maryland, but the battleships of the South Dakota type (1920, of course, not pre-war) with their dozen 406-mm cannons, 23 speed knots and 343 mm side armor.
So, why is this such a long preface about battleships, if the article is about battle cruisers? Everything is very simple - when creating battle cruisers of the "Amagi" type, the Japanese diligently copied the British concept - having a slightly larger displacement in comparison with the battleships "Kaga" (according to various sources 41,217 - 42,300 tons versus 39,330 tons), the Japanese battlecruisers possessed the same powerful armament (all the same 10 * 410-mm guns), higher speed (30 knots versus 26.5 knots) and significantly weakened armor. The main armor belt received a "lowering" from 280 to 254 mm. Bevels - 50-80 mm versus 76 mm (according to other sources, "Kaga" had bevels of 50-102 mm). The thickness of the armored deck was 102-140 mm versus 102-160 mm. The maximum thickness of the barbets of the turrets of the main caliber "slid" from 356 to 280 mm.
The Amagi-class battlecruisers would have looked great in the Battle of Jutland, and there is no doubt that if Admiral Beatty had such ships, Hipper's 1st Reconnaissance would have had a hard time. In battles with battlecruisers hochseeflotte, "Amagi" would have had overwhelming firepower, while their protection was, in general, quite sufficient against 305-mm shells, although in principle, "Derflinger" with "Luttsov" had some chance to snap at last … Still, the booking of Japanese battle cruisers did not guarantee absolute protection against 305-mm armor-piercing shells and in some situations could be penetrated by them (albeit with great difficulty, but there were still chances of this).
However, the protection capabilities of the "Amagi" against full-fledged 343-356-mm armor-piercing shells are highly questionable, against 380-381-mm - negligible, against 406-mm - completely absent. So, oddly enough, comparing the armor of Japanese battlecruisers with American Lexingtons, we can talk about a certain parity - yes, formally Japanese armor is slightly thicker, but in fact neither one nor the other from 406-410-mm shells of "opponents" did not protect at all. Exceptionally thin eggshell armed with jackhammers …
Without a doubt, the construction of such ships was not justified for Japan, which, as you know, was pretty constrained in means and opportunities in comparison with its main competitor - the United States. Therefore, the Japanese should view the Washington Naval Agreement as a gift to Amaterasu, which protected the Yamato sons from creating completely worthless warships.
"Akagi" and "Amagi" were supposed to be converted into aircraft carriers, but "Amagi" was badly damaged in the earthquake, while still unfinished and was scrapped (the unfinished battleship "Kaga" was converted instead). Both of these ships gained fame in the battles of the initial stage of the Pacific War, but still it should be admitted that technically these ships were inferior to the Lexington and Saratoga - however, this is a completely different story …
Germany
I must say that all the projects of the "gloomy Teutonic genius" after "Erzats York" are nothing more than pre-sketch sketches, carried out without much enthusiasm. In February-March 1918, absolutely everyone in Germany understood that there would no longer be any laying down of heavy ships before the end of the war, and no one could predict what would happen after its end, but the situation on the fronts was getting worse and worse. Therefore, there was no longer any "struggle of opinions" of admirals and designers, projects were largely created "automatically": perhaps that is why the last sketches of the German battle cruisers had much in common.
So, for example, all of them were armed with super-powerful 420-mm cannons of the main caliber, but the number of guns differed - 4; 6 and 8 guns in twin turrets. Probably the most balanced was the project for 6 such guns - it is interesting that two turrets were located in the stern, and only one in the bow. Despite the seeming extravagance, this arrangement of the towers had its advantages - in the stern two towers separated the engine rooms, and they could not be disabled by a single projectile hit, besides, such an arrangement of the towers gave the best firing angles in comparison with the "two in the bow" - one in the stern."
Vertical booking was traditionally powerful - in the projects "Mackensen" and "Erzatz York" the Germans, by and large Hamburg account, copied the defense of the "Dreflinger", limited to its slight improvement (and in some ways - and deterioration), and only now, finally, took a long-awaited step and increased the thickness of the armor belt to 350 mm, thinning to the lower edge to 170 mm. Above 350 mm of the section, 250 mm was located, and a second armor belt of 170 mm was provided. The barbets of the turrets of the main caliber had an armor thickness of 350 mm above the upper deck, 250 mm behind 170 mm in the second belt and 150 mm behind the 250 mm section of the main armor belt. Interestingly, the 350 mm armored belt represented the only side protection in the sense that it continued to the bow and stern much further than the barbets of the turret installations of the main caliber, but where it ended, the side had no protection. The normal displacement of this battle cruiser was close to 45,000 tons and it was assumed that she would be able to develop 31 knots.
It seems that we can say that the Germans "loomed" a very well balanced ship, but, unfortunately, the project had an "Achilles heel", its name is the horizontal protection of the ship. The fact is that (as far as the author knows) its basis was still an armored deck with a thickness of 30 mm without bevels, only in the area of the cellars reaching 60 mm. Of course, taking into account other decks, the horizontal protection was somewhat better (for Erzats York it was 80-110, possibly 125 mm, although the latter is doubtful), but, remaining at the level of previous battle cruisers, it, of course, was completely insufficient.
In general, we can say that the development of the battle cruisers, which were to follow the Erzats York, froze at a stage that does not allow properly assessing the direction of the naval thought of Germany. One can see the desire to strengthen vertical protection, speed and power of the main battery, but if Germany had not lost the First World War and resumed the construction of battle cruisers after it, then most likely the final project would be very different from the pre-sketch options we have developed at the beginning of 1918.
United Kingdom
Alas, the volume of the article did not leave us room for the analysis of the battlecruisers of the "G-3" project. However, perhaps it is for the better, because the latest project of a British ship of this class is quite worthy of a separate material.
