The US Battlecruiser -what was the idea behind?

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delcyros	The US Battlecruiser -what was the idea behind?	Lead	[-]
Posts: 1744 (13-May-2008 19:24:17) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	A group of six large battlecruisers was ordered in 1916 as fast "battle scouts", part of a larger naval program also including fleet scouting ships, many smaller cruisers and destroyers. The ships to be designated as CC LEXINGTON class would have been comparably large and powerful, but poorly protected. In this layout they do follow Fisher´s ideas of the fast and powerful but very poorly armored battlecruiser. While I do begin to understand the novel idea of the Fisherized BC thanks to scholarely works of Sumida, Lambert, Brooks and others, I do have problems relating the US approach to the specific US naval context. The instrumental role of advanced firecontroll for the battlecruiser concept as outlined by the aforementioned authors is very persuasive for the Royal Navy Battlecruisers but what exactly was the point of this very radical departure in the US case? Did the US followed a comparable line of technological firecontroll upgrades as did the RN? Was there any cross relevance or british input in the USN for these concepts? This question do become grave -at least for me- when judging the substantial but with regard to international standarts subaverage armour improvements these designs received once the experience of Jutland became involved. Any ideas? best regards, delc
Tiornu		#1	[-]
Posts: 6999 (13-May-2008 21:54:25) Corn Boss Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	The role of fire control in the development of British battlecruisers has been overstated. Battle ranges were increasing, yes, but Fisher's alleged belief about battlecruisers outgunning enemy battleships was no more valid than the underlying implication that other navies would stand technologically still. Lexington was such a bad design for the simple reason that the Americans didn't know what they were doing. They hadn't built a scout design in ten years. Note that Lexington was a more specialized concept than Invincible, which was intended for scouting, for commerce warfare, and for battle-line engagements. The best source on Lexington is probably Friedman's US Cruiser book.
hoist40		#2	[-]
Posts: 1011 (14-May-2008 00:35:02) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	The 1916 designs weren't Battle Cruisers, they were what they were called Battle Scouts. All the various proposals had one constant, a 35 knot speed, with all sorts of combinations of guns and light armor. They were designed to give what the US thought it needed with its wide oceans on both coasts, ships which could go long distance at high speed to find the enemy. The German and British scout cruisers did not have the range that were needed for the US particularly in the pacific. Long range in both the Atlantic and Pacific was always a major design requirement for the US after the Spanish American war and range requires tonnage. The eight guns were what was needed to have a chance of hitting so combined with the high speed this meant a very large ship. So I don't think that the US thought that their gunnery was that great, since they wanted eight guns, and rejected designs with fewer ones like the British Fisher follies It was only with the 1919 design that a more BC type ship came about and even then its kept the 180,000 hp plant and reduced the number of boilers and increased the amount of armor with the additional weight dropping the speed down to around 33 knots. However if they wanted a well armored BC they would have been better off doing a complete redesign and reducing horse power since they could have cut ¼ of the HP and still made over 30 knots. ¼ less machinery could have allowed at least another 1,000 tons of armor.
dmilford		#3	[-]
Posts: 1974 (14-May-2008 15:47:47) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	hoist40 wrote: The 1916 designs weren't Battle Cruisers, they were what they were called Battle Scouts. So would it be fair to say that the US 1916 designs were in effect Large Light Cruisers rather than 'Big Gun' Armoured cruisers?
hoist40		#4	[-]
Posts: 1012 (14-May-2008 19:33:35) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	So would it be fair to say that the US 1916 designs were in effect Large Light Cruisers rather than 'Big Gun' Armoured cruisers? That is the impression I get from their design and the design of the alternates. They were larger then the British Large Light Cruisers probably in part because the US did not think that the alternates proposed with less then 8 big guns had enough guns to hit much.
delcyros		#5	[-]
Posts: 1745 (15-May-2008 15:27:48) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Lexington was such a bad design for the simple reason that the Americans didn't know what they were doing. They hadn't built a scout design in ten years. Note that Lexington was a more specialized concept than Invincible, which was intended for scouting, for commerce warfare, and for battle-line engagements. I understand what you write, Tiornu. But missing experience as a solely explenation for the decision to build such Battle-Scout-Cruiser- types appears to be unstatisfying for me. Such contributions likely do not grow out from vacuum. The naval program of which the LEXINGTONS were part of shows that there must be some credible process behind. Was the scout cruiser idea judged as that favourable in the time between Falklands and Jutland? The RN placed the somehow comparable RENOWN & REPULSE and the more extreme COURAGIOUS-class in production and even thought of more extreme designs like the INCOMPARABLE-study of 1915. The US had the LEXINGTON case study and the german navy was seriously studying GK32... series, which follows basically the same line of thinking. It was only with the 1919 design that a more BC type ship came about and even then its kept the 180,000 hp plant and reduced the number of boilers and increased the amount of armor with the additional weight dropping the speed down to around 33 knots. However if they wanted a well armored BC they would have been better off doing a complete redesign and reducing horse power since they could have cut ¼ of the HP and still made over 30 knots. ¼ less machinery could have allowed at least another 1,000 tons of armor. Could it be taken that the USN did not wanted a true BC? Even after Jutland, the finalized LEXINGTON-class received only minor improvements with regard to protection. And I am not entierely sure what purpose the massive speed advantage would give those ships. With 35 Kts (1916 state) the LEXINGTONs could engage and disengage about any naval vessel down to destroyers and torpedoeboats if met in the open ocean. With 33 Kts (1919 state), the LEXINGTONs could engage and disengage only capital ships. The armour protection was quite good, considering that the typical 12" and 14" AP-performance of the then in use US APCs would likely not have been able to defeat that kind of armour at moderate obliquities (20-30 deg.) and striking velocities (1500 fps) in an condition fit to burst. Last Edited By: delcyros 15-May-2008 15:30:51. Edited 2 times.
Tiornu		#6	[-]
Posts: 7001 (15-May-2008 22:13:37) Corn Boss Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	You are more optimistic than I about the Lexington's armor scheme, which was a bizarre regression from All-or-Nothing. The performance of this system against 12in shells would not be important; 14in shells might matter, but 16in shells were the most likely threat. The US created three scout designs at the same time after the long hiatus.I don't think it's a coincidence that the three were progressively worse as they moved farther away from relevant design experience. The flushdeck destroyers followed close after previous destroyers and were reasonably good. The Omahas came a decade after the last light cruiser and were badly flawed. The Lexington had no close kin at all and was a miserable flop (as a battlecruiser--great as a carrier).
Cross648	If memory serves	#7	[-]
Posts: 74 (15-May-2008 22:30:43) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	The US didnt build scouts until they built a class of light cruisers called the Chester Class in 1907. Until then all that was built was armoured cruisers and pre-dreads/DN's. Perhaps the USN thought they needed a heavy scout/raider destroyer on par with a battlecruiser so designed their own.
dmilford		#8	[-]
Posts: 1975 (16-May-2008 12:02:24) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Tiornu wrote: You are more optimistic than I about the Lexington's armor scheme, which was a bizarre regression from All-or-Nothing. More like a Nothing-or-Nothing scheme.
hoist40		#9	[-]
Posts: 1013 (18-May-2008 16:51:25) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	The naval program of which the LEXINGTONS were part of shows that there must be some credible process behind. Here are some designs that were earlier then the Lexington's, showing the desire for high speed/ long range at the sacrifice of both gun numbers and armor. This was a time when aircraft were just one step above toys and even radio was not very reliable so the need/want for a fast ship with long range to scout and fast/long range means big, and the more guns and armor you add the bigger it gets. However by the time these ship would have been built, aircraft both shipborn and seaplanes were much more effective, radio communications improved and improvements in engineering meant better fuel economy so smaller ships could go farther. Note the website links below gets slow at times Here is a Scout Cruiser design from 1915 at 16,500 tons, 35 knots and two 14 inch guns S-584-067 http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/s-file/s584067.jpg Here is one at 16,500 tons, 35 knots four 16 inch guns and no armor S-584-069 http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/s-file/s584069.jpg Here is on at 25,000 tons, 35 knot with four 14 inch guns S-584-063 http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/s-file/s584063.jpg Here is one at 20,500 tons, 35 knots and two 14 inch guns S-584-060 http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/s-file/s584060.jpg
Pengolodh		#10	[-]
Posts: 1706 (21-May-2008 01:11:14) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	hoist40 wrote: Note the website links below gets slow at times Actually, those links are much, much more than slow, 100% of of the time - I've been trying for days, withouth getting more than at most 30% of any one picture (and that takes hours to achieve). It looks like the history.navy.mil server needs to consider upgrading from hamster-treadmill power to steam engine. The fact that you needed to know was not known at the time that the now known need to know was known, therefore those that needed to advise and inform the Home Secretary perhaps felt the information he needed as to whether to inform the highest authority of the known information was not yet known and therefore there was no authority for the authority to be informed because the need to know was not, at that time, known or needed.

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The US Battlecruiser -what was the idea behind?

The US Battlecruiser -what was the idea behind?

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