What you say about salvo firing is essentially correct, with six main guns being generally considered a minimum number for accurate firing at a sea-going target. However, there is a problem with a battlecruiser or heavy cruiser firing at maximum ranges as a way of avoiding counter-fire from a battleship. While it is true by WW2 gunnery at sea had some pretty awesome potential maximum ranges (even for 8" guns), a big problem was visibility, which rarely allowed for maximum, or even close to it, to be utilized (with the exception of shore bombardment). As a result, if a battlecruiser or heavy cruiser could see a battleship to fire at, chances are they would be well within range for that battleship to fire back, and could spend an eternity trying to dodge the shell splashes while trying to get away…
The big change happened once the US figured out how to use Radar effectively as a fire-control aid. Not only did this mean the US could now actually utilize the enormous range of guns of all calibers, but the enormous night-fighting advantage of the Japanese Navy was essentially eliminated. This did not happen overnight, and prior to this, it was quite common to have night battles fought at almost point-blank range, where any armor advantage held by either battlecruisers, or even battleships, let alone cruisers, was almost irrelevant. As an example, the Japanese battlecruiser/fast battleship ‘Hiei’ was completely overwhelmed by not only 8" gunfire from American heavy cruisers, but more importantly by rapid 6" and 5" shellfire from US light cruisers and destroyers, and even heavy machine gun incendiary fire! Ranges were so close that launched torpedoes did not have enough room to arm themselves, and in very short order ‘Hiei’ was ablaze from stem to stern, blind, helpless, and staggering slowly back to the North where she finally sank the next morning… A similar encounter involving the battleship USS South Dakota and USS Washington against the Japanese battlecruiser/fast battleship ‘Kirishima,’ plus heavy cruisers ‘Takao’ and ‘Atago’ ended up with the South Dakota so badly damaged that she had to return to the States for repairs lasting almost a year (and ‘Kirishima’ was sunk), and much of that damage was caused by 8" and 5" gunfire from the cruisers, not the 14" shells of ‘Kirishima.’
In light of these experiences, it actually made a lot of sense to keep larger ships out of the night-fighting business, instead depending on lighter (and cheaper!) ships like light cruisers and destroyers for that sort of ‘close-in’ battle (think of it as a knife-fight in a phone booth!), and never again were battleships or battlecruisers employed by either side in night-fighting for this reason.
True. But the Japanese ‘plan’ did not include a night action against battleships, or anything bigger than perhaps a cruiser or two. The idea was to lure the whole American battlefleet North to chase after Japanese carriers, while the IJN battleships went in after the American landing fleet of transports. If all had gone according to plan, the Japanese ships would have attacked the ‘unprotected’ landing fleet in daylight. But of course, the Northern force (with Yamato, Nagato, Kongo and a bunch of heavy cruisers) was stymied and forced to retreat by the US escort carriers, the Southern force (with Yamashiro, Fuso and a heavy cruiser or two) were surprised, and the whole plan collapsed like a wet paper bag (which is to be expected if a plan is very complicated and absolutely depends on closely coordinated timing without consideration of what the enemy may or may not do!). In retrospect, it is hard to consider this ‘plan’ as being much more than an entirely futile and suicidal exercise (and the Japanese knew it too!)…
I see what you’re saying, but, the US forces did plan a night battleship action even if the Japanese forces didn’t. A bit one sided perhaps, but the PT action prior to the main event should have given the IJN ships a little heads-up. They just plodded on into the trap.
That’s true too, as the Americans had plenty of ‘heads up’ warning from aerial and submarine recon that the Japanese were coming, when and where. This was also one of the flaws of the Japanese ‘plan,’ in that they hadn’t figured out yet that the ‘old’ American battleships couldn’t keep up with the fast carriers and ‘new’ battleships, and were therefore unlikely to join in any chase to the North, or anywhere else. What they did do under Oldendorf was form a very traditional ‘line ahead’ formation with all broadsides bearing on the approaching enemy, with lighter forces forward (PT boats, destroyers, etc) to disrupt any attack formation the approaching Japanese chose to take up (defense in depth). This is almost exactly what happened at Jutland (and Tsushima, and many others as well), and was in the finest traditions of the ‘big gun’ Navy. And it worked just as well on this, the last occasion as it did on the first (Second Anglo-Dutch war, 2 June, 1653). And it also shows up the futility of sending battleships singly, or as a pair on any mission where they might expect to run into serious opposition (do remember the movie ‘Blazing Saddles?’ Remember how the one wagon tried to form a ‘wagon circle’ all by itself? You get the idea!).
Really, Surigao Strait was a classic example of the continuing utility of the heavily armored and heavily armed battleship, even ‘old’ ones! If you are well-enough armored, and well-enough armed, and you have enough similarly equipped friends, and the enemy has to come to you, then high speed is nice, but really not that much of a consideration! And of course, if you are a squadron or fleet of that size and power, then the enemy must come to you eventually (can’t allow a 900-pound gorilla to stay in the livingroom for long!), which means you really don’t have to do too much work to ‘find’ the enemy, as they will be working very hard to find you! There is also an argument that says if you scatter your forces all over the ocean (and the ocean is a big place!), then each individual unit/squadron is necessarily weak, and the chances of at least some of these units being discovered is very high (and because they are weak, are likely to be quickly destroyed). But if your forces are concentrated, then not only is that force far more powerful and much better able to defend itself, but is also much harder to find as well (one needle in a haystack vs a hundred needles)… Note, this scenario really only works well in the attack, as in the defence, you may have any number of things you need to protect, which of course means you have to scatter at least some forces to defend them, so the the big job and responsibility of the ‘powers that be’ is to figure out just what ‘balance’ of forces will be utilized, and where. Here endeth the lesson…
I must say, this thread has taken on a life of its own since my original posting. For those of you interested, Admiralty Modelworks, the people that brought you the Courageous will be bringing out even more goodies for the fans of the unusual. I expect we will know more after the IPMS Nationals in August but a check with their web site will give some clues as to the future. It is a great time to be a ship modeler. WS
Funny thing, Dread - I’ve been away from these forums for quite a while, and I came back tonight to try and catch up. I found this topic and was searching the net for some pics of the pre-conversion Courageous, and on the first page of Yahoo search hits I found … this thread.
Still no pics of the pre-conversion Courageous, except for a very-long-range view, and all that I can tell from that is that the afterdeck was extremely stepped-down. I’d love to see any closer-range views, if anyone has access to any.
Thanks, Ed - I was thinking more of the actual ship, but that is a nice looking kit. It looks more like the Glorious, though - at least from the angle provided - the Courageous apparently had a flatter prow, and the Glorious had a pointed, more clipper-like one. (according to pics found on MaritimeQuest.com)
I like that they provided the ship’s crest, too - it’s a rather curious one.
The HMS Courageous kit is a beautiful kit of a beautiful ship! I just received mine as a gift and I love the detail and the subject.
I was reading the earlier entries in this thread about the inadequacies of British Battlecruisers and their tendency to explode when hit by their contemporaries. I couldn’t help but think of several articles that I have read on the subject recently. It seems that the current thought is that their thin armor was not the cause but rather poor cordite handling procedures. The British tended to stack the charges in piles during an engagement, meaning that the ships were an explosion waiting to happen. When the ship was hit in an appropriate spot, the resulting ball of fire from the initial shell explosion ignited these piles of cordite, blowing up the ship, instead of being contained behind sealed watertight doors. Remember, the British ships fared well in the early stages of the war, especially at Dogger Bank and the Falklands. British ships also mauled their German counterparts on several occasions. Even in WWII, HMS Renown, armed with one more twin turret that Courageous, outfought both Scharnhorst and Gneisenau off of Norway.
That is not to say that Courageous would have survived in any engagement with her own kind. Even the British admitted that she was more of a “large light cruiser” than a Battlecruiser.
However, the Courageous make for an interesting and welcome addition to my British Battlecruiser collection!
Well, there were several reasons why British battlecruisers fared badly. Armor is one reason, with German battlecruisers having significantly more armor, and better sub-compartmentisation of the ship too. Second, the propellant charges for the German shells were in brass or tin cartridges, while the British cordite charges were lying around in flammable silk bags all along the ammunition train from the magazine to the guns, and third, the British battlecruisers had no passage flaps between the shell ready rooms at the base of the barbette and the ammunition stores, which meant any flash from a shell bursting in the turret overhead would travel right down the barbette and straight into the ammunition magazine… But these issues were not really noticed by the British until Jutland (when of course, it was too late). At the Falklands, the two British battlecruisers (armed with 8 x 12" guns each) were facing two German armored cruisers (only equipped with 8" guns), and thus were able to stay well out of range of most of the the German guns while pounding the crap out of the Germans with impunity in precisely the kind of action battlecruisers were actually designed to do.
At Dogger Bank, the German armored cruiser ‘Blucher’ went down, for the same reason as the ‘Sharnhorst’ and her sister at the Falklands; they were just not up to the task of taking on a battlecruiser, nor were they designed to. As well, the British screwed up pretty badly in this exercise, by directing most of the gunfire of their battlecruisers against the hapless ‘Blucher,’ while allowing the outnumbered German battlecruisers to escape. Several of these ships had been hit by heavy British rounds, and one was almost lost by the kind of explosion that devastated the British battlecruisers at Jutland. The Germans learned from this almost-catastrophe, and altered their ammunition handling methods accordingly, while the British did not.
In WW2, the incident of the Renown and the ‘Salmon & Gluckstein’ was one of the worst efforts by the Kriegsmarine, in that they wasted almost 20 minutes trying to figure out whether the very large warship rapidly approaching them was friend or foe (just how many large friendly warships they might reasonably expect to see in the North Sea at that time is a question no-one has ever been able to answer for me!). In any case, rather than forming a line of battle and turning broadside to paste the approaching Renown by ‘crossing the T,’ they turned and ran as soon as Renown opened up with her 15" guns. What should have been a battle of 18 x 11" guns against 4 x 15" guns turned into a ridiculous Monty Python ‘run away’ scenario, and the only reason Renown didn’t catch up to the Germans and really do them some damage is the Renown was shipping so much water over her bows that the forward turrets became almost useless and the ship was sure to suffer structural damage (not just ‘oilcanning!’) if the pursuit continued at the speed the Germans were fleeing (at over 28 knots straight into the teeth of a strong gale). An extremely poor show by the Germans, and Hitler was none too pleased when he heard the details!
All are excellent points! It is simply important to realize that British Battlecruisers were not necessarily badly designed ships or that the basic idea behind their conception was flawed; there were several important reasons behind their tendency to blow up. Searat12 very poignantly note that one of the better armored German battlecruisers almost suffered a similar explosion as Queen Mary, Invincible, and, later, Hood.
True, but the real point I was trying to make was that the Germans learned from the situation, made a few alterations, and thenceforth had no more problems with their battlecruisers. I think the flaw of the British is that they took the theory to extremes (thus, HMS Courageous), rather than trying to figure out how to make the original concept truly work. On one hand, this tendency is understandable, as they were in an arms race, and innovation is almost everything in such cases, but the Germans responded with very sober reflections of what the British presented as ‘fact,’ made their own calculations and came to the same ‘result,’ but without any of the teething problems that are inherent in extremely experimental and innovative designs. Really, its hard to find any flaws in the German battlecruisers either from a design viewpoint, or from an operational viewpoint. Probably the only ‘flaw’ inherent in the German ships is that they were not designed for long-range blue-water operations, while the British ships were mostly designed with world-wide deployment in mind. However, the German navy was not really interested in contesting the seas with Britain all over the world, but just in a very focussed area (The North Sea), and this allowed them to build their ships a fair bit stronger and not worry too much about accommodations, etc. I think if you look closely at the Japanese ‘Kongo’ class, you will be looking at some of the very finest battlecruisers ever built in just about every respect (and they didn’t explode, even when dueling with new US battleships armed with 16" guns at close range!).
I fully concur! The Germans designed and built exceptionally strong capital ships through thorough study and a willingness to learn from practise. And, the Kongo class, being British designed and the nameship British built, demonstrated what the British could do when given their heads. HMS Tiger is an excellent example.
But, we are presuming that the Courageous and Glorious, and the Furious offshoot were designed as battlecruisers. They weren’t. They were designed and classified as “large light cruisers” primarily for one operation - Fisher’s Baltic Plan. Under this plan, British forces were to penetrate the Baltic Sea, carry out landings on the Pomeranian coast, as well as conducting simultaneous operations against the Dardanelles and against Flanders and the Friesian Islands. To accomplish this plan, the British ordered 162 light warships of many types, but especially these three ships. They were designed to force their way through the Baltic Narrows, then to provide fire support for light forces. They were never intended to fight or serve as capital ships in any way. They were simply extreme light cruisers designed to serve as high speed escorts for light forces.
In other words, they could not fight against the capital ships of High Seas Fleet. they would never have survived, whereas, had the British learned the same lessons as the Germans did about cordite storage and handling procedures, and applied appropriate solutions to those procedures, then the battlecruisers would have probably had a better combat record.
Yup, you are absolutely right! That said, the whole Baltic plan concept was completely bonkers, as in order to get to the Pomeranian beaches or Flanders, you would have to get through the Kaisers’ fleet (as they would travel back and forth from the Baltic to the North Sea via the Kiel canal quite frequently), not too mention the disaster at Gallipoli in the Dardanelles. Another suspect issue is if the ‘Courageous’ and ‘Furious’ were actually ‘just’ intended for escort work and some shore bombardment, why were they armed with such huge guns if they did not expect to run into something that might have large guns too? ‘Repulse’ and ‘Renown’ were also ‘neither fish, nor fowl’ products of Jackie Fisher, and they were completed just after Jutland. But when the Royal Navy discovered just how lightly armored they were (not to mention being equipped with just six 15" guns), they were sent right back in horror to the builders for significant armor upgrades! All in all, ‘Furious’ and ‘Courageous’ proved excellent subjects for conversions to aircraft carriers, while Jackie Fisher really caused as much harm as good to the whole battlecruiser concept (which was not a bad concept, when looked at objectively)…
