The Battle Cruiser in the Interwar Period
The scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow in 1919 temporarily eliminated one contestant from the naval race, but it did not abate in the least the persistence of the other three. The United States in the Naval Act of 1916 authorized the construction of 10 dreadnoughts and six battle cruisers within 3 years, and, although forced to postpone this program temporarily to counter the German submarine menace, it resumed this construction after the war ended.” The Japanese in 1917 launched their “8-8” program, which envisaged the construction of eight battle cruisers and eight battleships, the last four of which were to displace 47,000 tons and mount eight 18-inch guns.” The British, whose war debts limited their capabilities in this area, nevertheless laid the keels for four new battle cruisers and completed the plans for a new class of battleship.”
The domestic pressure for cuts in military expenditures was great enough, however, to motivate an agreement on arms limitation. At the Washington Conference in December of 1921, the major naval powers agreed to freeze capital ship strength for 15 years and define the tonnage and armament of battleships, cruisers, and the new aircraft carriers. There was also a mutual scrapping of older ships, including all of the first generation dreadnoughts armed with 12-inch and 13.5-inch guns. This freeze resulted in the British having only 12 old battleships and three battle cruisers (the Renown, Repulse, and the Hood) at the commencement of World War II, while the United States was left with 14 battleships and no battle cruisers (the battle cruisers of the 1916 program whose keels had already been laid were converted into the carriers Lexington and Saratoga), and the Japanese with six battleships plus the four Kongo class battle cruisers.
France and Italy, exhausted by the war, were not required to scrap any obsolete vessels, for their entire capital fleet consisted of such vessels. No significant new development in capital ship construction occurred for the next 7 years. In 1928 the naval designers of the Weimar Republic modified the battle cruiser idea in order to create a lighter ship which was designed for commerce raiding. This ship, the Deutschland, displaced 12,100 tons and had a speed of 26 knots, greater than any battleship but not greater than the three British battle cruisers. By reducing its armor protection and using diesel engines for propulsion, the designers extended the range to 10,000 miles. Six 11-inch guns, capable of high-angle fire, were mounted in two turrets, and weight and water resistance were reduced by electric welding.” This ship was capable of outrunning any battleship then in existence, while it could outfight any cruiser with its 11-inch guns.
Thus only a battle cruiser or a squadron of 8-inch cruisers could hope to successfully engage her. This ship was closely followed by two sister ships, the Graf Spee and the Admiral Scheer. While these ships were known as “pocket battleships,” they might better have been labeled “pocket battle cruisers.” They brought to light the fact that the battle cruiser idea could be employed by corsairs themselves as well as by ships seeking to destroy corsairs. In 1934 the Hitler government laid the keels of the first full-sized battle cruiser Germany had designed since 1918. These ships were the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, armed with nine 11-inch guns and boasting a speed of 32 knots, sufficient to outrun the Hood. These two ships displaced 31,000 tons, yet their speed and armament made them dangerous to British convoys throughout the Second World War.
In 1935 the German Government adopted the Z-plan of naval construction, which provided for the construction by 1945 of a fleet of battleships and battle cruisers which would play a major role in destroying British commerce. The first two ships constructed under this program were the battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz, which equaled the Hood in gunpower, had much greater protection, and were only one knot slower. These were followed in 1940 by six other battleships which were never named. These ships were to displace 56,000 tons, mount eight 16-inch guns, and utilize diesel engines to gain a speed of 29 knots and an extremely long range. They were abandoned in 1940 because of the great demand for steel in other weapons.
The final big ships planned by the Germans were three unnamed battle cruisers, armed with six 15-inch guns and displacing 32,000 tons. They were powered by cruising diesels up to a speed of 25 knots, after which an auxiliary turbine raised the top speed to 33% knots. Construction on these never began.” Throughout the interwar period the French displayed a marked reluctance to rely on British seapower to contain Germany at sea, and on several occasions their parliamentarians firmly insisted that France must be able to control her vital shipping lanes without aid from the British. As a result they participated in capital ship construction also, spending resources which might better have been invested in aircraft or land armored vehicles.
Following the completion of the German pocket battleship, the French laid the keel for their first battle cruiser, designed specifically to catch the Deutschland and her sister ships. This ship was the Dunkerque, which was followed closely by the Strasbourg. These ships were begun in December of 1932 and completed in 1938. They displaced 26,500 tons and had a top speed of 29% knots. They mounted eight 13-inch guns, which only slightly outranged the 11-inch guns of the Deutschland. The Dunkerque and the Strasbourg were designed to accomplish the battle cruiser's true mission, the destruction of commerce raiders, but they fought their only major naval action at Oran against British battleships and carrier aircraft. Thus, when the Second World War began, Britain had the same three battle cruisers allotted to her by the Washington Conference, the Germans had two battle cruisers plus their three pocket battleships, and the French had two battle cruisers designed to counter the German pocket battleships. The United States still had none.
By the time the Second World War began, the battle cruiser was already obsolete as a ship type. It had been made so by two technical developments—the fast battleship and the aircraft carrier. In June of 1940 the United States laid the keel for the first ship of the Iowa class, which had a displacement of 45,000 tons and was armed with nine 16-inch guns. Even more important, the Iowa managed to combine in one ship, due to her great size, the speed of the battle cruiser and the armor of the dreadnought. Her top speed was 33 knots, two knots faster than the Hood. Yet the armor protection on her belt totaled 19 inches, compared to the Hood's 12 and the Invincible's 6. This one ship, therefore, could perform the missions of both battleship and battle cruiser. It could catch a raiding cruiser as well as stand in the line of battle. The battle cruiser was no longer necessary.
