Battlecruiser - Battlecruisers in The Dreadnought Arms Race

Battlecruisers in The Dreadnought Arms Race

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, although it was never wholeheartedly adopted as the key weapon in British imperial defence, as Fisher had presumably desired. The biggest factor for this lack of acceptance was the marked change in Britain's strategic circumstances between their conception and the commissioning of the first ships. The prospective enemy for Britain had shifted from a Franco-Russian alliance with many armoured cruisers to a resurgent and increasingly belligerent Germany. Diplomatically, Britain had entered the Entente cordiale in 1904 and the Anglo-Russian Entente. Neither France nor Russia posed a particular naval threat; the Russian navy had largely been sunk or captured in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5, while the French were in no hurry to adopt the new dreadnought battleship technology. Britain also boasted very cordial relations with two of the significant new naval powers, Japan (bolstered by the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, signed in 1902 and renewed in 1905), and the USA. These changed strategic circumstances, and the great success of the Dreadnought, ensured that she rather than the Invincible became the new model capital ship. Nevertheless, battlecruiser construction played a major part in the renewed naval arms-race sparked by the Dreadnought.

For their first few years of service, the Invincibles' entirely fulfilled Fisher's vision of being able to sink any ship fast enough to catch them, and run from any ship capable of sinking them. An Invincible would also in many circumstances, be able to take on an enemy pre-dreadnought battleship. Naval circles concurred that the armoured cruiser in its current form had come to the logical end of its development and the Invincibles were so far ahead of any enemy armoured cruiser in firepower, speed and technology that it proved difficult to justify building more or bigger cruisers. 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. This was particularly true for cruisers, because the details of the Invincible class were kept secret for longer; this meant that the last German armoured cruiser, Blücher was armed with only 8.2-inch guns, and was no match for the new battlecruisers.

The Royal Navy's early superiority in capital ships led to the rejection of a 1905–6 design that would, essentially, have fused the battlecruiser and battleship concepts into what would eventually become the fast battleship. The 'X4' design combined the full armour and armament of Dreadnought with the 25-knot (46 km/h) speed of Invincible. 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. The concept of the X4 would eventually be fulfilled in the Queen Elizabeth class and later by other navies.

The next British battlecruisers were the three Indefatigable class, slightly improved Invincibles built to fundamentally the same specification, partly due to political pressure to limit costs and partly due to the secrecy surrounding German battlecruiser construction, particularly about the heavy armour of Von der Tann. This class came to be widely seen as a mistake. The next generation of British battlecruisers were markedly more powerful. By 1909–10 a sense of national crisis about rivalry with Germany outweighed cost-cutting, and a naval panic resulted in the approval of a total of eight capital ships in 1909–10. Fisher pressed for all eight to be battlecruisers, but was unable to force his way; he had to settle for six battleships and two battlecruisers of the Lion class. The Lions carried eight 13.5-inch guns, the now-standard caliber of the British "super-dreadnought" battleships. Speed increased to 27 knots and armor protection, while not as good as in German designs, was better than in previous British battlecruisers, with 9 inches on the armour belt and barbettes. The two Lions were followed by the very similar Queen Mary.

By 1911 Germany had built battlecruisers of her own, and the superiority of the British ships could no longer be assured. Moreover, the German Navy did not share Fisher's view of the battlecruiser. In contrast to the British focus on increasing speed and firepower, Germany progressively improved the armour and staying power of their ships to better the British battlecruisers. Von der Tann, begun in 1908 and completed in 1910, carried eight 11.1-inch guns but with 11.1-inch (280 mm) armour was far better protected than the Invincibles. The two Moltkes were quite similar but carried ten 11.1-inch guns of an improved design. Seydlitz, designed in 1909 and finished in 1913, was a modified Moltke; speed increased by one knot to 26.5 knots (49.1 km/h), while armour was up to 12 inches (300 mm) thick, equivalent for the Helgoland-class battleships of just one or two years earlier. Seydlitz was Germany's last battlecruiser completed before World War I.

The next step in battlecruiser design came from Japan. The Imperial Japanese Navy had been planning the Kongō class ships from 1909, and was determined that, since the Japanese economy could support relatively few ships, each would be more powerful than its likely competitors. Initially the class was planned with the Invincibles as the benchmark. On learning of the British plans for Lion, and the likelihood that new U.S. Navy battleships would be armed with 14-inch (360 mm) guns, the Japanese decided to radically revise their plans and go one better. A new plan was drawn up, carrying eight 14-inch guns, and capable of 27.5 knots (50.9 km/h), thus marginally having the edge over the British Lions in speed and firepower. The heavy guns were also better-positioned, being superfiring both fore and aft with no turret amidships. The armour scheme was also marginally improved over the Lions with 9 inches (230 mm) of armour on the turrets and 8 inches (200 mm) on the barbettes. The first ship in the class was built in Britain, and a further three constructed in Japan. The Japanese also re-classified their strong armoured cruisers of Tsukuba and Ibuki classes, carrying four 12-inch guns, as battlecruisers; nonetheless, they had weaker armament and were slower.

The next British battlecruiser, Tiger, was intended initially as the fourth ship in the Lion class but was redesigned substantially and greatly influenced by the Kongō. She retained the eight 13.5-inch guns of her predecessors, but positioned like Kongō for better fields of fire. She was faster (making 29 knots (54 km/h) on trials), and carried a heavier secondary armament. Tiger was also more heavily armoured on the whole; while the maximum thickness of armour was the same at 9 inches (230 mm), the height of the main armour belt was increased. Not all the desired improvements for this ship were approved, however. Her designer, Sir Tennyson d'Eyncourt, had wanted small-bore water-tube boilers and geared turbines to give her a speed of 32 knots (59 km/h), but he received no support from the authorities and the engine makers refused his request.

1912 saw work begin on three more German battlecruisers of the Derfflinger class, the first German battlecruisers to mount 12-inch guns. These excellent ships, like the Tiger and the Kongō, had their guns arranged in superfiring turrets for greater efficiency. Their armour and speed was similar to the previous Seydlitz class. In 1913, the Russian Empire also began the construction of the four-ship Borodino class, which were designed for service in the Baltic Sea. These ships were designed to carry twelve 14-inch (360 mm) guns, with armour up to 12 inches (300 mm) thick, and a speed of 26.6 knots (49.3 km/h). The heavy armour and relatively slow speed of these ships makes them more similar to German designs than to British ships; construction of the Borodinos was halted by the First World War and all were scrapped during the Russian Revolution.