Battlecruiser

Battlecruisers were large warships of the first half of the 20th century. They evolved from armored cruisers and in terms of ship classification they occupy a grey area between cruisers and battleships. Different nations built to widely different designs. Some battlecruisers were smaller than heavy cruisers while others were larger than contemporaneous battleships. The chief similarity was the role specification. They were supposed to hunt down and outgun smaller warships (or merchant ships in the case of the pocket battleships), and outrun larger warships that they could not outgun. Originally, to achieve this, they deviated from the standard practice of providing a ship with sufficient armour to protect against its own guns. The weight saving from the reduced armour allowed more powerful engines to be fitted. This idea was mainly conceived by British Admiral Jackie Fisher who believed "speed is the best protection". However, as technology developed design philosophy changed and led to the creation of more heavily armoured ships with less powerful guns. They were given different labels, but essentially performed the same task.

First Battlecruisers

The first battlecruisers were the Royal Navy's Inflexible, Invincible and Indomitable, all completed in 1908. They had armour 6 or 7 inches (150 to 180 mm) thick along the side of the hull and over the gunhouses, whereas a comparable battleship of the period had armour 11 or 12 inches (280 to 300 mm) thick. Originally thought of as simply a new type of armored cruiser (their armour was the same as that of the older armored cruisers'), they were then designated "dreadnought cruisers," and finally battle cruisers. These early ships had a top speed of 26 knots (48 km/h) compared to 20 to 21 knots (37 to 39 km/h) for contemporary battleships. They were armed with 11 in (German) or 12 in (British) (281 or 305 mm) guns, just like battleships. Soon after the British, the Germans started building their own battlecruisers, the first was Von der Tann of 1911. Von der Tann and most later German battlecruisers had only 11 in (280 mm) guns, but they were better armoured than British battlecruisers of the time.

Related Topics:
Royal Navy - ''Inflexible'' - ''Invincible'' - ''Indomitable'' - 1908 - Armored cruiser - ''Von der Tann'' - 1911

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