Were Battlecruisers a doctrinal mistake?
It seems like they become obsolete the moment an opponent also has battlecruisers, since BC's aren't protected against their own guns. And they are too expensive to build and operate have enough for cruiser things, which relegates them into the very narrow role of fleet scout.
Maybe there's something I'm missing for the High Seas Fleet and Royal Navy were so enamored with the concept
Other urls found in this thread:
youtube.com
en.wikipedia.org
twitter.com
The same can be said for carriers today.
An entire fleet is to be made to protect a single carrier yet a single fucking missile is all it takes for you to sink it.
>An entire fleet is to be made to protect a single carrier yet a single fucking missile is all it takes for you to sink it.
That is a gross oversimplification, you nitwit.
>what is CIWS you fucking nerd.
you do know that whatever launches that missile will be absolutely ass blasted once the carrier releases its air units and the support ships go on apeshit mode.
There definitely was some role for a cruiser killer and heavy scouting unit. They saw the (essentially) immediate end to the armored cruisers that had been a mainstay of every worthwhile navy.
>It seems like they become obsolete the moment an opponent also has battlecruisers
Thats a good reason to build a BC, so that your enemy's BC become obsolete.
British battlecruisers were unable to protect against their own guns, but the German ships took the opposite approach of lesser armament while maintaining the armor. Both have the disadvantage that since engines are expensive battlecruisers cost more than the battleships.
I suppose it can be questioned which one was correct - the British might have been ok if they hadn't had their battlecruisers under the command of a guy of less than stellar competence who let gunnery standards disintegrate and with them proper anti-flash protection measures that meant their battlecruisers blew up. If the British had kept their previous methods their battlecruisers would have received heavy damage, but not exploded.
There are some advantages to the battlecruisers beyond just fleet scout too;
They can hunt down and sink enemy cruisers, mostly with impunity since enemy cruiser guns will be ineffective against even the British battlecruiser armor, while their guns are capable of destroying any cruiser easily. This includes both commerce protection and in fleet scout roles, although of course with commerce protection they do have the limited number problem.
They can hunt down and destroy enemy battle-fleets after they've been hurt by one's own fleet (probably assisting torpedo boat and destroyer attacks)
They can operate on the wings of a fleet as a fast squadron to flank the enemy fleet. By being faster than the enemy fleet they would be able to operate independently and threaten to be able to move around enough to cross the enemy T, either forcing the enemy to turn away or get hit by fire from two directions.
In general, if one has the resources to afford it as a big navy, it seems logical to go to it, since it gives you more tactical options and threaten to put the enemy at a greater disadvantage.
As a smaller navy it seems logical if one intends to run a full guerre de course campaign or to counter enemy battlecruisers/give some capacity to destroy enemy cruisers.
Aren't battlelcruisers operationally just very fast battleshippo running at incredible hihg speed to rape enemy merchant shipping & raid ports while still serious enough to fight most other classes short of a legit battleship?
>since BC's aren't protected against their own guns
just have your BC fire first then
>They can hunt down and sink enemy cruisers, mostly with impunity since enemy cruiser guns will be ineffective against even the British battlecruiser armor, while their guns are capable of destroying any cruiser easily.
Certainly. That's why I wasn't arguing that they didn't obsolete the pre-BC armored cruisers. It just seems like there wouldn't be enough to go round to serve as both fleet scouts and going on long patrols to kill cruisers
youtube.com
>yet a single fucking missile is all it takes for you to sink it.
try a few hundred. Also the carrier group will see the other fleet first.
bump
The battlecruiser's role in the RN was to fastly T the enemy until the fast battleships appeared during the great war
In the Jap navy was to breakthrough the flank of the enemy so destroyers could torpedo the enemy fleet
The role of the german one was to raid convoys and getting btfo
Not sure in Italy, France and the US
in conclusion, the BC role varied from navy to navy, since each country has it needs and strategies they could use a BC in different and sometimes effective ways
have you heard of the HF3?
en.wikipedia.org
a CIWS would have mere seconds to kill it
carriers do not conduct war operations in areas that are not also being extensively prepared by other assets including but not limited to: special forces, strategic bombers, sub-launched cruise missiles, and six shitzillion sorties by fighter-bombers from whatever land bases are in range
and then the battle group itself has numerous layers of defense
USA planned to use Lexingtons as super-heavy scout cruisers and Alaskas were heavy carrier escorts/super-heavy cruisers.
France didn't have BCs during WW1. In the interwar period, they built two fast battleships with 330mm guns that can be classified as BCs, though. They were named Dunkerque and Strasbourg. Their role was to counter the Panzerschiffs and to threaten Italy's old dreadnought battleships. That made the Germans and the Italians anxious, so they built the Scharnhorst class and Littorio class respectively to counter the Dunkerque class.
...
>British battlecruisers were unable to protect against their own guns, but the German ships took the opposite approach of lesser armament while maintaining the armor.
British battlecruisers were not originally used to engage capital ships in a battle line but they were used in a battleline in Jutland as such and combined with poor ammunition handling, with disastrous effects. German battlecruisers were designed to fight in the battleline from the get go and made sacrifices in firepower to do so.
Naval gunfire had very low accuracy even at the end of WWII. Naval gunnery involved in firing salvos, seeing where the shots dispersed and guiding the dispersion toward the enemy ship until your gunfire dispersion enveloped the enemy ship. Just because your BC fires first doesn't mean they'll hit first.
Now there's the most beautiful concept: 2x4 forward guns. I love those French ships.
Supposedly their gunnery was shit, though. Shame.
>Supposedly their gunnery was shit, though. Shame.
The shells from one gun travelling through the air affects the shells around it. Nelsons had the same problem with their triple guns until they made the middle gun fire with a slight delay to address the problem. The French never got around to outfitting their ships with them.
Interesting. Is this interference completely unpredictable? Was there no other solution than the delay? How did later turret designs resolve the issue? Any sources?
didn't the US had fast battleships for the carrier escort role? or they called their battlecruisers fast battleships?
>Naval gunfire had very low accuracy even at the end of WWII.
If you were the Japs
The slight delay from the delaying coil on the Nelson was the easiest way to solve the problem and the delay was only in milliseconds.
Naval Firepower by Friedman talks about delaying coils used to solve the problem in American battleships, the Nelsons and British cruisers.
Battlecruisers are not fast battleships. Battlecruisers are upsized cruisers rather than battleships with lighter armor as lighter armor only decreases the draft and makes the ship sit higher in the water. When you want to increase speed, you either increase the turbine power or have better hydrodynamics such as a higher length to beam ratio.
The main difference is that a battlecruiser came from protected cruisers, having a higher length to beam ratio while a fast battleship was typically a battleship that had more powerful turbines installed.
t. burger
The Alaskas were designed to counter Japanese super heavy cruisers that never existed. So they ended up with a carrier escort twice the size of a heavy cruiser but not that much more AA firepower.
Carriers have the ability to project force far beyond the normal ship-to-ship range (though an arsenal ship with proper cruise missiles could probably do the job as well). The problem with battlecruisers was that they had the same firepower AND weapons range as battleships, but didn't have armor to withstand the firepower of their own type of guns - meaning, any target worthy of their firepower would be able to sink them faster than it could sink them.
>what is ECM
What is the Carrier's defense against a stealth aerial/submarine drone?
>aerial
The planes it carries
>submarine
The fleet around it.
>stealth
also
>drone
so these shiets can be so small they are practically just noise on the radar and can carry small nukes for big boom
So what you're talking about is called a missile or a torpedo.
And you seem to have a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of how stealth works. Radar stealth does not make something invisible - it just reduces the range that a radar can see it. So a stealth missile wouldn't be undetectable - just that the carrier group's early warning network would pick up the incoming missile later and have less time to react. Once it's detected, the response is the same as you'd have for a normal missile - fighter CAP goes after it if it's far enough out, missiles aboard the escorts attempt to intercept once it gets closer, and as a last line of defense just about every ship in the fleet is fitted with individual point-defense systems.
Torpedoes, on the other hand, have to worry more about sonar - they need to be quiet, rather than stealthy to radar. At that point they're pretty much just following the same principles of a submarine, but running into similar issues as a missile - the closer they get, the more likely that it'll be detected. Worse, faster objects in the water tend to create more noise, meaning that the torpedo is going to have a hard time staying undetected.
>be jap battleship
>fire 100 shells in anger
>only one hit
You're retarded.
yeah I know what a battle cruiser is
I asked about the fast battleships and the carrier capital ships escorts prior to the Iowa class
if I recall the US did use fast battleships like the Iowa (fast meaning that they could keep up with the aircraft carriers)
American accuracy isn't too much better. Until you get around 15km, when guns all have a relatively high hit rate. Until then, you are just trying to guide your salvos to the enemy.
Thanks user. You are credit to thread.
>the carrier capital ships escorts prior to the Iowa class
South Dakotas&North Carolinas, not the most optimal solution given that they were about 5 knots slower than American fleet carriers but even a slow AA-escort is better than no AA-escort at all.