Re plan Orange..Good read regarding the Battlecruiser HMAS Australia (Full Version)

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stubby331 -> Re plan Orange..Good read regarding the Battlecruiser HMAS Australia (12/2/2004 9:59:08 AM)

Found this to be a good read.... What if the Royal Australian Navy had not de-commisioned His Majesty's Australian Ship Australia?

http://www.navy.gov.au/spc/semaphore/html/issue5_2004.htm



Tankerace -> RE: Re plan Orange..Good read regarding the Battlecruiser HMAS Australia (12/2/2004 10:07:55 AM)

I hadn't read that, thanks for the heads up!

I did on the same site read about the day they scuttled her, and it actually makes you said in a way, even me as an American. So, think of War Plan Orange as the Australia's chance to do what she was built to do.

At least she wasn't scrapped. IIRC, tis better to be scuttled or lost at sea than to be turned into razor blades. But, imagine if she had been preserved. The world's only battlecruiser to be a national monument. That would have been something to see.

Based on that read you provided, and how smaller nations used their dreadnoughts, I dare say that there is a decent possibility that had the Australia not been scuttled in 1924, she might have been around during WW2. And while she wouldn't be of much use in the Pacific, she would make the perfect vessel to hunt down and sink German Commerce Raiders.



stubby331 -> RE: Re plan Orange..Good read regarding the Battlecruiser HMAS Australia (12/2/2004 10:15:10 AM)

Wouldve been a different story if it had been Australia go up against the Kormoran huh.

I think that with the right sort of work done on her she wouldve been very useful for shore bombardment, amphib landing cover from surface attack etc.... all in all a very useful fleet unit to have.



Tiornu -> RE: Re plan Orange..Good read regarding the Battlecruiser HMAS Australia (12/2/2004 10:32:42 AM)

Did the German AMCs carry AP ammo? If so, Australia could have found herself in serious trouble against Kormoran. The thin portions of the belt, like the 5in sections abreast the magazines, look vulnerable. Then there are the prospects when a modern torpedo hits an elderly ship with no real TDS.
I'm not a fan of these early BCs. They can beat an old Ibuki, but that's about their limit.



Ron Saueracker -> RE: Re plan Orange..Good read regarding the Battlecruiser HMAS Australia (12/2/2004 11:37:19 AM)

Scuttling it may well have saved over a thousand Aussie sailors. Those Indefatigables were real junk...eggshells armed with hammers.



mlees -> speculating on the BC (12/2/2004 5:59:06 PM)

I have speculated on the BC and it's perceived role in history.. lemme try some here ...

1905, Admiral Fisher is in charge of the British Admiralty. The Admiralty (with the active duty folks) must present their spending plans (for the upcoming fiscal year) to Parliament, and included in those are plans for new construction. Funding debates in Parliament were highly spirited, to say the least, and the RN had to justify every last Pound.

Fisher, an aggressive and flamboyant individual, believes that the emphasis in a good ship is (1) firepower first above all, to sink the enemy as fast as possible; (2) Speed, to force or deny fleet engagement as needed, and (3) armor (last). He, as Head Admiralissimo, had great influence if the RN Board of Construction. Thus, the BC is a great example of the type of ship Admiral Fisher thought was a successfull design. If you look at the armor disposition of the latest Armored Cruiser, and the armor scheme of the Invincible class BC, they are nearly identical. (Only difference is the turret/barbette armor. The main belt along the waterline was only 3 inches thick, designed to keep out cruiser fire.) Fisher actually intended the Invicible to be a super-Armored Cruiser, and that is how he actually presented it to Parliament.

When the ships were finished in 1907/8, the naval arms race was foremost in peoples minds. These new Armored Cruisers were lean, mean looking machines. In the press of the day, the civilian armchair experts (and I must fall into this category [:'(]) focused on the hitting power, their sheer size (which was actually physically larger than the HMS Dreadnought, herself), and high speed of these ships as they dash down the English Channel. Only natural, that's what is most easily noticible. The armor scheme is not something anyone is gonna get a grasp of without looking through the (then classified) blueprints. This media focus led to the term "Battle Cruiser", which was a newspaper created label, at first. The ships began to quickly assume an aura that can be likened to todays aura around stealth aircraft, or the Abrahms MBT.

Admiral Fisher, still in charge, latches onto this hype to gain influence in the upcoming fiscal debates. He loudly touts the capabilities of this new class of ships, so much so that he comes to believe the hype (and naturally takes all the credit for his forward thinking).
This nationwide love affair with the type is further reenforced by the larger than life personality of Admiral Beatty, CO of Britains Battle Cruiser Squadron (and later, BC Fleet) from 1912 on. These Admirals also focused on the hitting power of these ships mounting the latest battleship guns. They forgot that these ships were still cruisers, and should have been treated as such. Ala Jutland, where three British BC's blow up in their faces, lost with almost all hands in each case.

"There seems to be something wrong with our boody ships, today." Attibutted to Admiral Beatty, on learning of the loss of the HMS Queen Mary.

The HMS Hood, when you examine her stats, appears to have vertical armor on proportional scale of a battleship, is considered the first "Fast Battleship". Her loss is attributed to thin deck armor, which all ships built prior to 1935 suffered from.

Have I bored you guys enough yet?[8|]



Tankerace -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/2/2004 10:13:02 PM)

I think the battlecruiser is a good concept, but it breaks apart in practice (no pun intended). If used for Commerce raiding and hunting down armoured cruisers, it is an awsome weapon. However, when employed in the battleline.... not so awsome.

The Fisher design that should never have left the drawing board was the Outrageous class. Courageous and Glorius were bad enough, but Furious was a joke. 2 18" guns... she would never have hit anything. When I think of the Furious, I also think of teh old adage: "Just because you can do a thing, does not mean we should do that thing."

Courageous and Glorious would be *somewhat* useful in bombarding the Baltic, but were really too expensive for such a singular use. And Furious.... And then when they converted her to a seaplane carrier, a Flying off deck and a single 18" gun. Sometimes you just gotta stand back and go what the ****? [:)]



Tiornu -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/2/2004 10:19:26 PM)

I believe the term "battle cruiser" first earned print in a 1903 Proceedings article, though I don't know if it appeared as one word or two. It was officially appled to Invincible etc in 1911.
Battlecruisers generally tended to be larger than battleships, but then, some armored cruisers were larger than battleships as well.
The battlecruiser is, in a very real sense, an armored cruiser with all-big-gun weaponry. The turbines were the icing on the cake. The aniticipated roles for the battlecruiser were the same as for armored cruisers.
As completed, Invincible has a 6in belt for the full length of her citadel, which is more than some later ships had (and I'm not counting Curious, Spurious, and Outrageous).
The Jutland losses took place while the battlecruisers were engaged in thoroughly cruiser-ish pursuits. The lack of protection (relative to BB standards) did not figure in at least two of the losses.
I'll note that Nelson entered service before 1935, and her deck armor varied from okay to really good.



Tiornu -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/2/2004 10:23:22 PM)

It has been fairly well established that the Glorious class was meant to crush light cruisers and that Baltic operation was simply a cover story concocted by Fisher. Mariner's Mirror had something on this back c2000.
Point of discussion: why was employment of battlecruisers as a fast wing of the battle line any worse than the employment of armored cruisers in that role?



Tankerace -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/2/2004 10:29:49 PM)

My guess is simply loss of life and monetary resources. If an armoured cruiser goes down, about 500 people die, and the Brits waste about £800,000. (Cost of completion Cressy armoured cruisers, as cited in Jane's). If a battlecruiser goes down 1100 people die, and the brits are out £2,147,000 (cost of completion of Lion/Queen Mary class plus £60,000 spent on modernizing).

Plus, I believe that Admirals would be a little more "risky" with battlecruisers, because they somehow equated them as being fast battleships, in the since that they *should* (would[&:]) hold up better than an armoured cruiser. It is cheaper to lose an Armoured cruiser than a battlecruiser, both in £ and in manpower.



mlees -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/2/2004 10:58:13 PM)

Your right on the belt thickness, that's what I get for going from memory.

But still, 6 inches is intended to keep out cruiser fire, not battleship class weaponry.

Chasing an enemy ship that is armed with battleship sized guns is NOT a cruiser-ish use. The aggressive attitude of the RN left it's officers no choice, but BC's are not designed, at all, to resist battleships sized projectiles.

As Tankerace says, the BC was designed to kill cruisers and under. (With the protection the Germans built into their units, they were better able to resist heavier hits. They were designed to counter the BC's. Look at the damage the Seydlitz survived:)

They were designed to use their longer ranged guns to kill smaller ships while outside the range of the guns on those ships, not engage units with capital ship weaponry.

The BC community fell for it's own PR hype, that's why they were used in the battleline.

[image]local://upfiles/10157/Eb869596845.jpg[/image]



Tankerace -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/2/2004 11:26:23 PM)

I personally still think its a miracle that the Seydlitz survived Jutland after the pounding she took. If she had been British designed, she would have went under for sure.



Tiornu -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/3/2004 12:34:43 AM)

"If she had been British designed, she would have went under for sure."
And if she'd been hit by German-designed shells she would probably have gone down too.

"The BC community fell for it's own PR hype, that's why they were used in the battleline."
I've probably mentioned this before, but battlecruisers were, from the start, intended to fight enemy battleships. There's no end of hindsight based on misinterpretation of Jutland, but the fact is that battlecruisers inherited a battle-line function from armored cruisers. Remember Tsushima? That wasn't an anomaly. The armored cruiser was a battle-line participant. The very first armored cruisers were designed to chase down raiders AND to duel station ironclads. There was no clean break between battleships and armored cruisers. Instead there was a spectrum from armored cruisers to second-class battleships to first-class battleships. Not as catchy as ROYGBIV, perhaps, but it's there nonetheless. Check out the relevant passages in Parkes, Beeler, and Roberts's Battlecruisers.

In the end, the number of battlecruisers sunk by battleships is the same as the number of battleships sunk by battlecruisers. (Hee! I'm naughty.)



Skyros -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/3/2004 1:10:45 AM)

It might have been nice if the Australia had survived to fight in WWII, but I have this sad feeling that she would have been sacrificed at Singapore with POW and Repulse.



mlees -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/3/2004 1:13:14 AM)

I must respectfully disagree...
quote:

ORIGINAL: Tiornu

"If she had been British designed, she would have went under for sure."
And if she'd been hit by German-designed shells she would probably have gone down too.

It's another myth that German shells performed signifigantly better than the british ones. I base this (humble) opinion based on the work of Jutland: an analysis of the fighting by John Cambell. He runs the numbers and finds that both sides' shooting was relatvely poor, and both side's shells did not perform up to expectations.

"The BC community fell for it's own PR hype, that's why they were used in the battleline."
I've probably mentioned this before, but battlecruisers were, from the start, intended to fight enemy battleships.
Nope. Otherwise they would have more armor, not a 6inch belt. The Dreadnought, designed at the same time as the Invincible, had a 10inch belt. It was common SOP for the design boards (of all of the sea power nations) to protect (through subdivision) or armor their ships enough face the opposition that the ship is designed to defeat. The Admiralty board had to "sell" these expensive beasts to Parliament to get them funded. They couldn't very well tell Parliament that this (BC) ship, even though it costs as much as a BB, is designed to fight only cruisers and below, could they?

There's no end of hindsight based on misinterpretation of Jutland, but the fact is that battlecruisers inherited a battle-line function from armored cruisers. Remember Tsushima? That wasn't an anomaly. The armored cruiser was a battle-line participant.
The very first armored cruisers were designed to chase down raiders AND to duel station ironclads.
But only on stations where they were not expected to face larger ships. The Armored Cruiser was, as you correctly state, designed to hunt enemy raiders. That is why they had 22 to 25 knot top speed, to catch those converted liner/auxiliary cruisers. This was at a time when the Battle Fleet had speeds of 18 to 21 Knots. The AC's had to devote wieght into engines for those extra few knots that could have gone into armor or guns. The fact that Jellicoe brought them with him to Jutland does NOT mean that's what they were built for. He didn't want to snub a fellow Admiral by leaving him behind. Otherwise, why didn't he bring predreadnoughts, like the Germans? (Admiral Scheer brought them because a buddy of HIS was in command of that predreadnought squadron!!)
There was no clean break between battleships and armored cruisers. Instead there was a spectrum from armored cruisers to second-class battleships to first-class battleships. Not as catchy as ROYGBIV, perhaps, but it's there nonetheless. Check out the relevant passages in Parkes, Beeler, and Roberts's Battlecruisers.
A firstclass battleship, over the course of its service life will eventually be downgraded to secondline status, and assigned to backwater areas. This is what happened to The predreadnoughts before WWI started, and happened to the HMS Dreadnought herself near the end of the war. The Canopus class and Royal Sovereign class (predreadnought) battleships were very successfull designs for their time, and intended to be part of the main battle line, but 20 years later, they are clearly 2nd class ships, and classified as such. This is a normal evolution of the warships life, AND an indication of the evolution on naval engineering and gunnery technology as a whole, NOT an indication of how they were intended, AS DESIGNED, of how they were to be used. I'm afraid I don't have that particular refrence book, so I can't comment on it...

In the end, the number of battlecruisers sunk by battleships is the same as the number of battleships sunk by battlecruisers. (Hee! I'm naughty.)
Ummm, I'm a little groggy. Please give me a list of which BB's were sunk by BC's...



Tankerace -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/3/2004 1:18:51 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Skyros

It might have been nice if the Australia had survived to fight in WWII, but I have this sad feeling that she would have been sacrificed at Singapore with POW and Repulse.


That is quite probable too. It would have been a waste, but on the upshot, if Australia was available, Repulse might have been spared (why send 1 BC to Singapore when there is one nearby already?). One can only speculate.



Tiornu -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/3/2004 2:01:38 AM)

"I base this (humble) opinion based on the work of Jutland: an analysis of the fighting by John Cambell."
Campbell himself points out that British shells performed poorly. The design of German shells differed markedly from that of British shells in matters of the cap, the fuze, and the explosive, all of which favor the German choices. There is a focused analysis of this topic in the most recent Warship volumes.

"Nope. Otherwise they would have more armor, not a 6inch belt. The Dreadnought, designed at the same time as the Invincible, had a 10inch belt. It was common SOP for the design boards (of all of the sea power nations) to protect (through subdivision) or armor their ships enough face the opposition that the ship is designed to defeat. The Admiralty board had to 'sell' these expensive beasts to Parliament to get them funded. They couldn't very well tell Parliament that this (BC) ship, even though it costs as much as a BB, is designed to fight only cruisers and below, could they?"
You are making an argument rather than citing evidence. I have directed you to documentation that you can consult for yourself. Parliament had nothing to do with the formulation of battle plans, and I refer again to the Russo-Japanese War, where the number of confirmed penetrations of 6in armor is somewhere under 10...under 5?

"But only on stations where they were not expected to face larger ships."
That is the role they were designed for. You didn't need an armored cruiser EXCEPT for places with this dual role. That's why the first armored cruisers were such flubs--designers tried to cram in some mutually exclusive properties, and the technology of the time was not accommodating.

"The fact that Jellicoe brought them with him to Jutland does NOT mean that's what they were built for."
No one has said it does. Armored cruisers were arguably more obsolescent than pre-dreads; the leap to dreadnought involved a single quantum leap (single-caliber main battery) while the leap to battlecruiser involved two (single-caliber, BB-caliber main battery). The difference between the British and German situation is that the speed of armored cruisers gave the appearance of homogeneity--at least they wouldn't slow down the fleet. This was not the case with the German pre-dreads. I'll have to take your word on the motivations of the commanders.



stubby331 -> RE: Re plan Orange..Good read regarding the Battlecruiser HMAS Australia (12/3/2004 3:22:05 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Tiornu

Did the German AMCs carry AP ammo? If so, Australia could have found herself in serious trouble against Kormoran. The thin portions of the belt, like the 5in sections abreast the magazines, look vulnerable. Then there are the prospects when a modern torpedo hits an elderly ship with no real TDS.
I'm not a fan of these early BCs. They can beat an old Ibuki, but that's about their limit.


IIRC the Kormoran did carry AP ammo, but the Australia still had better armour than the Sydney. IF Sydney had ignored Admiralty standing orders (to try and capture enemy ships rather than sink) and not closed to within 1500m then Kormoran wouldve been outranged by Sydneys guns anyway. The closure to 1500m was the whole reason for Sydneys loss. IF the Australia had been the one who closed, would she have done any better (ie survived)? (FYI, the main guns and the submerged torpedo tubes the Kormoran carried were also WW1 vintage with the main guns prone to overheating).

I would not even consider Australia going up against any of the Japanese WW2 battleships, but, as the article suggests, the Australia would've been able to hold her own against any Japanese cruiser.



mlees -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/3/2004 5:46:13 AM)

Sir.. I hope that you DO realise, just in case you do not, that when I say my opinion is humble, I really and truly mean just that: It's only opinion, and I am fully aware of my limitations. I was not using a sarcastic "tone".
I have had a lifelong interest in this subject matter, and I wish to thank you for making me check my facts, 'cause I don't like the taste of my foot in my mouth.

I got home and rechecked the book you and I mentioned, and your right; Campbell says, on pg 385, that he judges the German shells to have performed "adequately". I don't know where I seem to remember reading it, but SOME author I have read SOMEWHEN said different.[8|] For our purposes here though, I concede the point: the German shells performed better. However, (Opinion time) the Germans built tough ships. The Seydlitz may still have survived German shells. This is speculation, because getting the same number of hits in the same exact way is impossible. (Shrugs.)

Now, as far as the DESIGNED purpose of Battlecruisers (as opposed to how they were ultimately used), I do have a couple of reference books that I trust are accurate, but I don't own "Parkes, Beeler, and Roberts's Battlecruisers". (Is that one, single, book?) Allow me to quote from some of them (please be patient, but I believe you asked for something other than my own musings...)[;)]:

"Battlecruiser" by John Roberts: pg 18
"The functions for the big-gun armored cruisers were essentially the same as those of existing armored cruisers, the additional speed and gun power being seen as enhancing their effectiveness in these roles. In summary: A) To provide a heavy scouting force. B) Close support for the battlefleet in action (defined as defending the battleships against enemy cruisers and hitting the enemy line as opportunity allows, when the enemy battleships were otherwise occupied in fighting their opposite numbers. (emphasis mine) C) In pursuit of fleeing enemy D) Trade protection

"British Battleships" by Oscar Parkes: first pg 489
"The fast armored cruiser (meaning BC in this context) was to render all other cruisers useless. With 25 knots, and 12 inch guns, she should be able to overtake and annihilate everything afloat, except the proposed battleship (refering to the HMS Dreadnought)."
Further down, same page:
"Fisher saw in speed the best form of protection. His new ships were to be able to command range and sink the enemy armored cruisers without entering the target zone. Should they have to close the range on account of visibilty, then the standard of armor protection" (I take it to mean cruiser fire, in this context) "would suffice." (emphasis mine) Note no mention of BB fire...
From pg 492: a quote in itself from "Brassey" (a navy league type publication?), when details of the then building Invincible class were made public:
"Vessels of this enormous size and cost are unsuitable for many of the duties of cruisers; but an even stronger objection to the repetition of the type is that an Admiral having Invicibles in his fleet will be certain to put them in the line of battle, where their comparatively light protection would be a disadvantage and their high speed of no value."
(This tells me that, even while building, folks realized that these ships were NO Match for BB's, and, by implication, should not be used in line of battle.)

"The Grand Fleet: Warship design and Development 1906-1922" by D K Brown, pg 55:
"The battlecruiser was very much the brainchild of Admiral Fisher, and, as with many of his dreams, the concept, both of the role and of the technical solution, changed radically as time progressed." Further down: "Fishers first thoughts in 1902 were not very different from traditional ideas. He envisaged a ship with 9.2 inch guns... " "Shortly afterwards (Oct 1904), he was persuaded that the arguments which led to all big gun armament (He's refering to the advantages of long range salvo spotting and control of gunfire, which require more than the traditonal four main guns on battleships of the time..) in the Dreadnought also applied to the armored cruiser, and the design of the Invincible was changed to eight 12inch guns. Admiral Bacon (who was on the design commitee as Naval Assistant to the First Sea Lord (Fisher) in 1904 while still a Captain) wrote: ...that ships of the size and tonnage necessary... should have an additional use in being able to form a fast light squadron to supplement the battleships in action, and to worry (harass) the (enemy) ships in van or rear of the enemy's line. They were never intended to engage battleships single handed; but they were designed to assist in a general action by engaging some of the enemy's ships which were already fighting our battleships..." (This is from a man who was present at the initial conception design and of the BC and it's role.)

"Jane's Battleships of the 20th Century" by Bernard Ireland, pg 104:
"Their bold concept rendered armored cruisers obsolete. They were, like armored cruisers, supposed to decline action when circumstances were unfavorable. That theur Captains did not was, ultimately, to prove their downfall. Used within their design limitations they have to be judged successful."
(I assume "unfavorable circumstances" would include coming into range of battleship guns, since a BC does not have the armor to keep out capital ship guns.)

In "The Grand Fleet..." as above, also on pg 55, I found this reference to Tsushima:
"Like contemporary battleships, the big armored cruisers of the turn of the century had a mixed armament, which included 9.2inch, 7.5inch, and 6inch guns. Such ships were thought capable of playing a supporting role in the line of battle, and, after losing one third of their battleships to mines, the Japanese did use their cruisers in this way during their war with Russia."
**Warning: opinion ahead:**
I take this to mean that the armored cruiser were a supplement to the battle line due to a wartime need, not because that's what they were designed to do from the get-go.
**End Opinion.**
To be fair, I own no other reference material covering Tsushima in any greater detail, so my opinion above should be taken with that in mind...

These source books leave me to conclude that the initial purpose of the BC (like the AC's they were to supplant) did NOT include engaging ships with capital ship guns in a standup fight.
When I say that they fell for their own PR, I mean to say something along the lines of the Brassey quote, above.
I mention the dialog between the Admiralty and Parliament, because that is where some of the misunderstanding of the purpose of the BC (as DESIGNED) gets its roots. The Admiralty formulated the war plans, yes, but Parliament held the purse strings. The Admiralty was misleading Parliament about their (the BC's) designed role to justify the huge expense of the BC's (which was equal to a BB), in order to get them funded and built. (This was not unique to Britain by any means!) The popular press fell in love with the ships (they had a dashing flair to them), and the aggressive British Admirals began to think that their big gunned armored cruisers REALLY COULD stand up to battleships.

For the motivations of the commanders, they can be found in:
"The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command" by Andrew Gordon
"Jutland: The German Perspective" by V. E. Tarrant
Thanks for your patience.[:)]



Tiornu -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/3/2004 7:41:28 AM)

No, I certainly didn't regard your "humble" comment as ironic. Sorry if I gave a wrong impression.

"'Parkes, Beeler, and Roberts's Battlecruisers'. (Is that one, single, book?)"
Hee! No, as you've gathered, I was referring to British Battleships by Oscar Parkes, Birth of the Battleship by John Beeler, and Battlecruisers by John Roberts.
I believe we've arrived at a point of agreement. Battlecruisers were not intended for a "standup fight" against battleships, and their design does not offer enticing prospects in such an engagement. However, they were intended to play "a supporting role in the line of battle." Perhaps it's that preposition "in" muddying the waters. So, avoiding that for the moment, I'll say that battlecruisers were never foreseen as going toe-to-toe with the enemy battle line. Rather they were intended (among other things) to strike at vulnerable portions of the enemy battle line--defeated stragglers, ships undergoing heavy attack from other quarters, isolated heads or tails of columns, and so on. This would limit the volume of incoming fire and thus the vulnerability of the battlecruiser.

"Thanks for your patience."
Sadly, I have no patience, but I enjoy a pleasant chat!



Tiornu -> RE: Re plan Orange..Good read regarding the Battlecruiser HMAS Australia (12/3/2004 7:45:22 AM)

At a range inside 2000 yards, I doubt there was any armor on Australia that was proof against 15cm AP shells--maybe the 7in faceplates, due to their angle, but probably not the barbettes. But like Sydney, Australia would become vulnerable only with the incaution of its personnel.



stubby331 -> RE: Re plan Orange..Good read regarding the Battlecruiser HMAS Australia (12/3/2004 9:28:09 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Tiornu

At a range inside 2000 yards, I doubt there was any armor on Australia that was proof against 15cm AP shells--maybe the 7in faceplates, due to their angle, but probably not the barbettes. But like Sydney, Australia would become vulnerable only with the incaution of its personnel.


Yup, totally agree with regards the AP shells punching holes in Australia. The major difference close in (obviously besides the size of the main guns), was that the 16 x 4"/50 Mk VII guns that the Australia carried were in single casemates. Their crews were protected.

In the Kormoran Action every time the Sydney crew tried to main the 4' inch guns or Torpedo mountings they were literally cut to pieces by the 2cm AA guns that the Kormoran was using to good effect.

After Sydneys first salvo the main guns went to local control with only the aft guns having any good effect. IF the 4' inch guns could've also been brought to bear the Sydney might have been able to punch more holes into Kormoran's unarmoured hull and possibly hit something critical (like the 200 odd mines she was carrying).

Its only conjecture I know.... if if if

The only good thing to come out of the Sydney-Kormoran action is that the Admiralty finally abandoned its ship seizure policy.



mlees -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/3/2004 5:13:40 PM)

I agree with your last post entirely..

Just in case you were wondering how I got onto this discussion, you said:

"I've probably mentioned this before, but battlecruisers were, from the start, intended to fight enemy battleships. There's no end of hindsight based on misinterpretation of Jutland, but the fact is that battlecruisers inherited a battle-line function from armored cruisers. Remember Tsushima? That wasn't an anomaly. The armored cruiser was a battle-line participant."

I got hung up on the term "battle-line participant". I don't consider screening forces, and the cruisers used to fend them off, as battle-line participants. Maybe THAT's were you and I diverge. Maybe I was reading too much emphasis into that. Sorry.

Admittedly, the job of "harassing" the BB line, and "picking off stragglers" begins to blur the function of the BC as a potential member of the battle-line. I have always thought of BC's as "Just cruisers with BIG guns", but that's only my opinion.



Tiornu -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/3/2004 6:14:59 PM)

quote:

I have always thought of BC's as "Just cruisers with BIG guns", but that's only my opinion.

Historically, that's pretty valid. I'd add only the qualifier that they were cruisers with ALL-big guns. The Japanese had their four armored cruisers with 12in guns--one of them even had turbines--but they insisted on heavy secondaries. Personally, I think the Japanese really dropped the ball on this; they should have been first to complete a genuine battlecruiser, based on their experience against Russia. The usual story is that finances prevented them from buying enough 12in guns to equip a dreadnought.



dereck -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/3/2004 6:22:27 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Tiornu

"If she had been British designed, she would have went under for sure."
And if she'd been hit by German-designed shells she would probably have gone down too.



I believe the reason that the British suffered such losses during the Battle of Jutland was due to poor practices such as leaving hatches open between the guns, powder room, etc and when the German shells hit and caused fires the damage spread instead of was contained. Any ship regardless of nationality would have suffered under those circumstances.



mlees -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/3/2004 6:24:01 PM)

From reading "Janes Battleships of the 20th Century", it tries to explain the Japanese thusly:
They (the Japanese) were concerned that their level of shipbuilding expertise and capacity were not quite up to snuff yet, so opted for the lesser of the designs, which they WERE positive they could handle...
I'm guessing they might have been worrying a little too much, but I wasn't there.



Tiornu -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/4/2004 12:19:35 AM)

quote:

I believe the reason that the British suffered such losses during the Battle of Jutland was due to poor practices....

Yes, it's generally accepted that at least two of the three BCs should have survived the fatal hits. Bill Jurens recently participated in a British TV feature which underscored this factor.
The Germans had already had a near-disaster at Dogger Bank, so they were more aware of the hazard.

quote:

From reading "Janes Battleships of the 20th Century", it tries to explain the Japanese thusly

Any footnotes to support that?



mlees -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/4/2004 4:03:05 AM)

OOPS, you right again:
"Janes Battleships of the 20th Century", pg 68, under description of the Satsuma:
"However, there were not enough Armstrong 1904 pattern 12-inch guns available, and 10-inch guns had to be substituted..."

That's what I get for going from memory. Curse you, Tiornu! Won't let one slip by, will you?? (Good for you.)



Tiornu -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/4/2004 7:24:52 AM)

The Japanese may have been the ones most frustrated by the advent of the battlecruiser. They had just dumped a load of money into the Tsukubas and Kuramas, and in one stroke, they went from being among the most powerful warships in the world to being among the obsolescent. The switch to 12in guns was eminently sensible, but if the 8in gun was shown to be of less value, then why would you make room for an 8in secondary? Replace the 8in twins with single 12-inchers, or put a single 12in wing turret on each side, and poof, the IJN trumps the RN and everybody else. And stranger yet, the next armor cruiser class was planned with a replacement for the 8in battery: 10-inchers! Doh!
When the British rerated the Invincibles as battlecruisers, the Japanese rerated the Tsukubas and Kuramas as battlecruisers as well, but do you think anyone was fooled?



Desertmole -> RE: speculating on the BC (12/5/2004 6:34:51 PM)

Here is a link about a supposed alternate history for the HMNZS New Zealand, to include her alternate post-war history and a drawing. I wrote that back around November last year. Alas, my new computer won't allow me to compress the drawing without losing a lot of detail. You will need to read down the thread a little way to see the drawing. I theorise that the HMAS Australia would have been similarly converted. [8D]




http://warshipprojects.board.dk3.com/2/viewtopic.php?t=503



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