Battlecruiser general

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They'd have wound up as carrier escorts because of their speed.

If they had actually engaged an enemy capital ship it probably would've gone about as well as HMS Hood or like HMS Repulse if operating without air support.

>>32034528
>gotta go fast

well you cant go faster than a shell

>>32035041

You can outrun a torpedo, though. Think about what killed the Bismark. If it had been just a hair faster it might have made it.

>>32035098
Torpedoes did like 50kts though, while the fastest destroyers only did like 40-ish

>>32034528
All BCs were rendered effectively obsolete when they figured out how to start building BBs with 30+ knot speeds in the late 30's.

>>32035356

>You need to be faster than a torpedo to dodge it.

You just need to avoid its path. Being faster helps with that.

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>shields up, weapons online
>not equipped with shields?
>well better buckle up.

>>32035397

What if they Iowa-class was planned as a line of battlecruisers? Keep everything the same but reduce armor by 25 - 50%. Just imagine how fast they'd be then!

>>32035566
>Just imagine how fast they'd be then!
Not that much faster, if all else remains the same. Hullform, more than anything else, determines top speed. Just like Mach angle and drag coefficients for a supersonic aircraft.

In 1948, BuShips estimated that cutting 1,000 tons from an Iowa gives them an extra .25 knots top speed. 20% engine overload, an extra 42,000SHP, only gives an extra 1.75 to 2 knots on top speed. Which means the Iowas, with a light load (only 51,000 tons) and 20% overload with a totally clean bottom was estimated to do 35.4 knots maximum.

If you cut half the armor, light load, even with 20% overload, you're still not cracking 38 knots. Remember, you get diminishing returns as speed increases and drag profile changes once you depart any concievable designed speed for that hullform. With a full war load, you're not getting better than 35 knots. This is still retarded, considering you're still outrunning both your escorts and the ships you're escorting at that point.

There's just no reason to build a BB that fast unless everything else is that fast, including all your CVs, CVLs, CLs, CAs, etc. And there's no possible tactical advantage in those extra 3 or so operational knots which would offset the huge vulnerability losing that armor creates.

Very relevant:
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-003.htm

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-029.htm
A final note from this write up:
>The Iowa's were unquestionably the fastest and quite possibly the most powerful battleships ever to put to sea. To argue whether these fine ships could make 33, 35 or even 37 knots doesn't really make that much of a difference, they could have run down - or run out of fuel - any other capital ship ever built - and quite a few of the fanciful ones, as well. And, having run them down, faced no worse than even odds in a one-on-one battle with them. As battleships go, the Iowa's were fairly close to an ideal.

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-104.htm

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>>32035760

Very informative post.

>>32034528
>ultimately they were converted to aircraft carriers
>How effective would the Lexington-class battlecruisers have been if they had been completed
-90% effectiveness

>>32035760
neat

>>32035397

The Alaska-class were essentially battlecruisers even if they weren't designated as such.

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>>32036292
>if they weren't designated as such.
I daresay they were designed as battlecruisers, being intended to hunt and kill Japanese cruisers.

>>32036292
>The Alaska-class were essentially battlecruisers even if they weren't designated as such.
Battlecruisers, by any traditional definition, were already dead at this point.

With the added utility of having an AA suite almost on par with an Iowa. Alaskas were never completed to be a traditional BC, like what was seen at Jutland. With only 12" guns (the most powerful 12" guns ever put in service, but still) and only limited protection against 12" shells, they were unsuited for any sort of direct combat against a BB. Traditional BCs were to have armaments of equal calibre/power to contemporary battleships.

Even in the role of hunting down very large surface commerce raiders, by the middle-end of WWII, this is not a job Alaskas would have been tasked with - it would have gone to naval aviation, land-based aviation and submarines. Radar and aviation advances (especially in range) heavily changed that whole equation.

Alaskas were designed to function as pure CV/CVL escort with some very capable cruiser-hunting capabilities, by the time they were fully completed. Their original designed mission from the late-30s was functionally obsolete by the time they were being fitted out, hence the massive AA capability upgrades. They were even almost modified and completed as CVLs in 1941.

Finally, there's the point that they were functionally obsolete even as they were commissioned. Alaska and Guam served a combined 5 years in service before decommissioning where many WWII cruisers and battleships designed and built before them served another two decades. They performed mostly CV/CVL escort with a little shore bombardment and limited ECS raiding. Their main utility in WWII revolved around added kamikaze protection for carriers, and possibly freeing up a USN BB to do other things than providing AA cover for carriers.

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what about the dunkerque french battle cruiser?

>>32035041
gave me a chuckle

>>32036725
Officially, it was a battleship, and a poor man's battleship at that.

As for designed mission, capabilities, etc., it was an odd ball in just about every way, and thus hard to discuss as a study on the relevance of BCs in late 1930's naval design.

As far as actual combat record, the less said the better.

As far as obsolescence in design, I think between the combat record, complete lack of serious stern chase armament, laughably inadequate AA and terrible FC it is pretty safe to say that the Dunkerque class in general should not be a model to which any naval architect would want to aspire.

I don't think any French naval procurement officer looking at things retrospectively in 1946 would argue that the pair of Dunkerques were worthwhile as an investment against one more operational Richelieu, four more La Galissonnière, three or four more Suffren or eight more of any of their destroyers. It was not a particularly bright spot in French naval procurement.

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>>32036897
B u t i t h a s s e co n d ari es u p th e as s

>>32036918
No radar-directed FC for AA.
No remote power-control turrets.
Laughable throw weight per minute for AA.
Terrible firing arcs for AA overall.

It's not whether or not it has the guns (even though it really didn't have a ton compared to other BBs commissioned from '37 to '41 - compare to King George or South Dakota). It's far, far more about how they're placed, directed and how effective they are.

Even the Richelieu was laughable as an AA platform until after her New York refit.

>>32037015
>South Dakota
Shit. Meant North Carolina. Getting tired.

>>32037015
But anon it has 4 guns in one turret!!! not 1 not 2 not 3 but 4 guns, IN ONE TURRET!!!!!!!!!!!!

>>32037055

The French Battleships had the same quad-turrets.

>>32037067
4 guns anon, quads, quatro, quatre, vier, IN ONE TURRET

>>32035098


>If it had been just a hair faster it might have made it.

Despite what the History Channel has taught you, Swordfish are not quite that slow.

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the alaska's were beasts.

>>32038793

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csEKJQPK2yc&spfreload=10

I just think battlecruisers are sexy.