1906 armoured cruisers built for the Royal Navy

[Yasutomi]

I really like this ship, Krakatoa!

But I don't see any point building less than full powered BCs (Ideally I think hindsight says you should build fast BBs)

Isn't that the problem with hindsight, though?

Krakatoa's design is an evolution of the AC concept had the BC revolution not happened...it is essentially a British Bluecher. To my mind, arguing about whether this ship is a suitable substitute for a BC misses the really interesting point: was the BC revolution ultimately beneficial for the RN, or would they have been better served evolving ACs in this direction?

The Invincibles may have been more powerful, but they represented the first step on a path that saw the cruiser concept perverted until it was producing vessels as large and expensive as first-rate battleships, yet without the capacity of facing such capital ships in battle. It could be argued that had the RN chosen to keep cruiser design within more modest limits, a lot of expense (and tactical confusion) might have been avoided- it's pretty clear that ship like this shouldn't be tangling with a super-dreadnought, for example.

[JSB]

The problem is that others might build them in such a case your ships would become nearly worthless...

The Ibuki class AC already have 12inch guns so I think its inevitable that you will see 12' AC (and you may as well incorporate the all big gun design after dreadnought).

JSB

[Hood]

An interesting design whatever the debate about the main armament.

[smurf]

Yasutomi said "The Invincibles may have been more powerful, but they represented the first step on a path that saw the cruiser concept perverted until it was producing vessels as large and expensive as first-rate battleships, yet without the capacity of facing such capital ships in battle."
In fact that step was taken in the 1890s, when the RN built armoured cruisers of 14,000tons (then about the same as battleships but with lighter armament, lighter armour but greater speed. Their chief intended use was commerce protection, using them to hunt down large enemy commerce-raiding cruisers. But their 9.2in guns were effective armour-piercing weapons, and it was soon proposed that they could counter enemy scouting cruisers in a fleet action, and take their place in the battle-line to deal with damaged enemy ships. The chief designer, White, argued strongly that if they were to face battleships, they needed to be protected adequately, but he was overruled. Such ships suffered as badly as battlecruisers at Jutland, especially as by then they had no speed advantage over dreadnought battleships. By then battlecruisers were 30,000tons and Churchill argued that there was no sense in building such costly ships and not spending the extra to protect them properly - hence the QEs and the modifications to Hood's protection after Jutland.

JSB said: "The problem is that others might build them. In such a case your ships would become nearly worthless... "
That argument applies to any cruiser construction. Cruisers should be designed to perform particular functions, not specifically to outmatch foreign vessels. Outbuilding potential enemies may mean building more ships rather than bigger and better ones. When the latter was done, the result was large expensive ships unwieldy for general tasks required eg Powerful and Terrible, and later the whole saga from Invincible to Hood to counter specific German construction. In the event, in WWI, the best fleet scouts were the 5000ton Towns class.

[Novice]

Totally agree with smurf, here, and to accentuate this point, we can look at the battle of River Plate when three inferior cruisers tackled a superior cruiser and brought it to ground. The fact is that numbers go a long way to offset superiority of individual units. Another case in point is the Sherman tanks vs. German Tigers in WW2.

[Thiel]

And more to the point perhaps is that a cruisers job is to go and see. You can do a lot more with two or three times the hulls.

[JSB]

Sadly much as I would like a RN made up of Towns and QEs (+maybe Hoods) in 1914 I think some people might complain that it wasn't realistic

Its harder to design ships that are sufficiently less than perfect that they fit in with rapidly evolving situation in 1906, my less than ideal idea was that even if it is a mistake at least its only one of the many bad choices available to the RN in 1906 since the 9.2s are already paid for and its use them for PD or AC (or scrap/CD...).

JSB

[apdsmith]

Hi all,

Sorry for the somewhat late comment, but to add to Novice's point, the destruction of the Bismarck also demonstrates this - KGV or Rodney by themselves may have given Bismarck a fair fight (possibly more than fair in KGV's case - Bismarck was wounded but she could certainly still shoot!) - but by ganging up (with the cruisers) on Bismarck the battle was won.

Although now that I've typed all of those italics I'm left wondering if there was a serious possibility anyone here didn't know how that battle went...

Regards,
Ad