Battlecruiser

Battlecruisers typically had thinner armour (to a varying degree) and a somewhat lighter main gun battery than contemporary battleships, installed on a longer hull with much higher engine power in order to attain greater speeds.

British battlecruisers in particular suffered heavy losses at Jutland, where poor fire safety and ammunition handling practices left them vulnerable to catastrophic magazine explosions following hits to their main turrets from large-calibre shells.

There was also renewed interest in large "cruiser-killer" type warships whose design was scaled-up from a heavy cruiser rather than a lighter/faster battleship derivative, but few were ever begun and only two members of the Alaska-class were commissioned in time to see war service.

Thus he assembled a "Committee on Designs", consisting of a mixture of civilian and naval experts, to determine the approach to both battleship and armoured cruiser construction in the future.

However, in late 1904 it became clear that the 1905–1906 programme would have to be considerably smaller, because of lower than expected tax revenue and the need to buy out two Chilean battleships under construction in British yards, lest they be purchased by the Russians for use against the Japanese, Britain's ally.

If they were primarily to act as scouts for the battle fleet and hunter-killers of enemy cruisers and commerce raiders, then the seven inches of belt armour with which they had been equipped would be adequate.

[30] Between the launching of the Invincibles to just after the outbreak of the First World War, the battlecruiser played a junior role in the developing dreadnought arms race, as it was never wholeheartedly adopted as the key weapon in British imperial defence, as Fisher had presumably desired.

Neither France nor Russia posed a particular naval threat; the Russian navy had largely been sunk or captured in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, while the French were in no hurry to adopt the new dreadnought-type design.

[32] This lead was extended by the surprise both Dreadnought and Invincible produced by having been built in secret; this prompted most other navies to delay their building programmes and radically revise their designs.

The additional cost could not be justified given the existing British lead and the new Liberal government's need for economy; the slower and cheaper Bellerophon, a relatively close copy of Dreadnought, was adopted instead.

Her designer, Sir Eustace Tennyson d'Eyncourt, had wanted small-bore water-tube boilers and geared turbines to give her a speed of 32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph), but he received no support from the authorities and the engine makers refused his request.

[52] At the same time, Fisher resorted to subterfuge to obtain another three fast, lightly armoured ships that could use several spare 15-inch (381 mm) gun turrets left over from battleship construction.

The experience of battlecruisers at the Battle of Jutland meant that the design was radically revised and transformed again into a fast battleship with armour up to 12 inches thick, but still capable of 31.5 knots (58.3 km/h; 36.2 mph).

This near-disaster was due to the way that ammunition handling was arranged and was common to both German and British battleships and battlecruisers, but the lighter protection on the latter made them more vulnerable to the turret or barbette being penetrated.

A British signalling error allowed the German battlecruisers to withdraw, as most of Beatty's squadron mistakenly concentrated on the crippled armoured cruiser Blücher, sinking her with great loss of life.

The British blamed their failure to win a decisive victory on their poor gunnery and attempted to increase their rate of fire by stockpiling unprotected cordite charges in their ammunition hoists and barbettes.

[64] The exact reason why the ships' magazines detonated is not known, but the abundance of exposed cordite charges stored in their turrets, ammunition hoists and working chambers in the quest to increase their rate of fire undoubtedly contributed to their loss.

They were, for all intents and purposes, fast battleships—the only differences between them and the Tosa-class battleships which were to precede them were 1 inch (25 mm) less side armour and a .25 knots (0.46 km/h; 0.29 mph) increase in speed.

Amagi was damaged beyond repair by the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake and was broken up for scrap; the hull of one of the proposed Tosa-class battleships, Kaga, was converted in her stead.

While conversions of this kind generally added weight to the vessel, Renown's tonnage actually decreased due to a substantially lighter power plant.

During the first of these, elevation of their main guns was increased to +40 degrees, anti-torpedo bulges and 3,800 long tons (3,900 t) of horizontal armour added, and a "pagoda" mast with additional command positions built up.

The Turkish Navy made only minor improvements to the ship in the interwar period, which primarily focused on repairing wartime damage and the installation of new fire control systems and anti-aircraft batteries.

One of Renown's 15-inch shells passed through Gneisenau's director-control tower without exploding, severing electrical and communication cables as it went and destroyed the rangefinders for the forward 150 mm (5.9 in) turrets.

[92] The first battlecruiser to see action in the Pacific War was Repulse when she was sunk by Japanese torpedo bombers north of Singapore on 10 December 1941 whilst in company with Prince of Wales.

[95] On the night of 14/15 November during the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, Kirishima returned to Ironbottom Sound, but encountered the American battleships South Dakota and Washington.

Washington opened fire a few minutes later at short range and badly damaged Kirishima, knocking out her aft turrets, jamming her rudder, and hitting the ship below the waterline.

However, unlike World War I-era battlecruisers, the Alaskas were considered a balanced design according to cruiser standards as their protection could withstand fire from their own caliber of gun, albeit only in a very narrow range band.

[102] In spite of the fact that most navies abandoned the battleship and battlecruiser concepts after World War II, Joseph Stalin's fondness for big-gun-armed warships caused the Soviet Union to plan a large cruiser class in the late 1940s.

[103] The fruits of this program were the Project 82 (Stalingrad) cruisers, of 36,500 tonnes (35,900 long tons) standard load, nine 305 mm (12 in) guns and a speed of 35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph).

Four members of the class were completed during the 1980s and 1990s, but due to budget constraints only the Pyotr Velikiy is operational with the Russian Navy, though plans were announced in 2010 to return the other three ships to service.