Cruiser

:For the type of motorcycle, see motorcycle.

Battlecruisers

Main article: Battlecruiser

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One rule of thumb for warship design was that they should be armored against their own armament: a warship should be able to withstand hits from its own guns. Just prior to World War I, a significant deviation from this rule was tried. The intention was to create a ship which was both faster than a cruiser and with much more powerful guns, so that it could hunt down and destroy enemy cruisers.

Related Topics:
Rule of thumb - World War I

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This battlecruiser role was achieved by building a vessel which had the size and firepower of a battleship but only the armor protection of a cruiser; the weight saving used to provide it with more powerful propulsion. The result was a ship with superior tactical initiative: it could engage and outgun any surface ship up to cruiser size, yet outrun anything that potentially outgunned it.

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The concept was successful where battlecruisers were employed in their designed role, as at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in 1914. However the ships proved disastrously vulnerable when they engaged enemy battlecruisers or battleships in a fleet action, as at Jutland in 1916 where three British battlecruisers exploded as a result of German heavy gunfire. The Royal Navy quickly scrapped most of theirs after the war, and upgraded the armor on the rest to the limited extent that was possible.

Related Topics:
Battle of the Falkland Islands - 1914 - Jutland - 1916 - Royal Navy

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The weakness of the battle cruiser concept was further demonstrated in the Second World War, during the hunt for the German battleship Bismarck by the British fleet in 1940. The battlecruiser HMS Hood was the pride of the British fleet, known as "The Mighty Hood". Armed with eight 15-inch guns, she presented equal firepower to that of Bismarck. However, her weak deck armour meant that when she engaged Bismarck at long range, the Bismarck's plunging fire penetrated Hoods deck armour and she blew up with only 3 men surviving from its crew of 1,419.

Related Topics:
''Bismarck'' - 1940 - HMS ''Hood''

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