HMS Incomparable: Jackie Fishers 6 20 inch gun battlecruiser

[Hood]

Nice post Voyager.

It's also perhaps worth noting that a these 20in guns would strike at long range at high trajectories, something no capital ship in that period was well armoured enough to cope with. 2-3in seems to have been the max deck armour at the time. As Voyager says, had the fire-control equipment existed to make use of that range no German battlecruiser would have stood a chance, though rate of fire would still probably be a serious problem.
It still wasn't a practical design, but you can see Fisher's logic.

[Krakatoa]

I can't speak for Ace who started this thread, but I have no problem with a discussion on "Fishers' Blunders" in a thread dedicated to his most monumental design of battlecruiser.

For my mind Jutland proved the death knell of any more of the armour for speed designs. The Queen Elizabeth class on one side and the Derfflinger class on the German side proved without doubt that the idea of a 'fast battleship' design was the way to go. The Admiral class were to be the ultimate design utilising 15" guns. We are all aware of Hoods failings and its ultimate demise. The Admirals design pre-dated Jutland and so much extra work was incorporated into the design that the ship was overloaded from day one. It was the G3 design that was supposed to be the true beginning of the 'fast battleship' era. The Washington Treaty stopped all of the work on fast battleships for another 15-20 years.

The G3's were a well balanced design with armour, armament and speed all balanced to provide a first class 'fast battleship'. The weight of the G3 was the same as Incomparable at 48,000 tons, but the sheer staying power of the G3's makes far better use of the large number of tons per ship. Compared to the Amagi's and Lexington's the G3's were in another class.

[acelanceloet]

IIRC, the British ships failing at Jutland where the Germans didn't was also because the German ships had failed before. in earlier skirmishes the Germans had had hits on the turrets and had learned from the damage done there. because of that the German ships were resistant to those kind of hits at Jutland, where the British lost 3 battlecruisers because of that 'defect' in ammunition and magazine handling.

[apdsmith]

Hi all,

Not meaning to prolong this discussion, but Ace is right - the HSF had a Lion moment of their own at the battle of Dogger Bank, where Seydlitz took a shell into an aft turret that almost resulted in the loss of the ship. Review of the damage after the action prompted the changes that led to much better performance at Jutland.

Regards,
Adam