That sounds correct, speed never seemed to be a priority (hold over of the Coastal defense days?)
Hmmm...at that point, it was probably more an emphasis on endurance (and thus, the need for more space for fuel), since the US now had so many overseas possessions, and an obviously growing Japanese threat to same.
Drachinfel's video on the class makes the relevant point that the last time the Navy had been given a bit more displacement to play with (the Wyomings), they opted to slap more guns on the new class. So, I feel a little more validated!
Driftless
Donor
Interesting that the US discounted speed (more-or-less) for battleships following both Manila Bay and Santiago.
The cruisers did the work at Manila Bay, but reinforcements and resupply were weeks away, having to come from the US west coast. Even with the various iterations of the war plans, the fact remained that the Pacific is immense. Earlier faster battleships would have been useful IMO
With Santiago, US confusion almost allowed a part of the Spanish squadron to get away, because the US warships got tangled up in a stern chase.
The cruisers did the work at Manila Bay, but reinforcements and resupply were weeks away, having to come from the US west coast. Even with the various iterations of the war plans, the fact remained that the Pacific is immense. Earlier faster battleships would have been useful IMO
With Santiago, US confusion almost allowed a part of the Spanish squadron to get away, because the US warships got tangled up in a stern chase.
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Texas is now in her drydock. Got there like a champ, no difficulties.
Not bad for a 110 year old lady.
Not bad for a 110 year old lady.
Us German style battlecruisers I think would be an interestinf idea as cruiser flagship that sacrifice raw firepower for speed and armor (12 inch guns Renown layout?)
At the very moment Texas was under construction, there *was* a push for the US Navy to do just that - especially after word got out about the IJN's Kongo class.
An interesting bit of the timeline at the Naval History and Heritage Command website:
1911
28 January. In their committee report on the Naval Appropriation Bill, the House Naval Affairs Committee calls battlecruisers “practically in the battleship class,” echoing the understanding reached by the General Board.47
7 March. Sidney Ballou, the president of the Honolulu Naval League suggests in a speech at a Navy League convention in Los Angeles, later reprinted in The Navy, that the United States build a squadron of battlecruisers for Pacific service while keeping the battle fleet in the Atlantic. The battlecruisers would, he argues, be able to keep the Japanese Navy off balance long enough for the Atlantic Fleet to make its way to the war zone, and serve as a counter to Kongo and her three sister ships.48
25 May. The General Board asks Secretary Meyer to consider the possibility of adding “one or moral large armored vessels of high speed” in next year’s naval estimates, assuming that it can be added without sacrificing a battleship.49
Summer. Participants at the 1911 Summer Conference at the Naval War College conclude that battlecruisers, “the cavalry of the fleet” are a “necessity” for modern warfare.50
29 August. The General Board, in attendance at the Summer Conference, asks the Bureau of Construction and Repair to develop designs for a battlecruiser.51
20 September. The Naval War College commissions another committee to investigate Schofield’s torpedo battleship, with an eye towards its inclusion in the 1912 building program. Again, they determine that its utility is not commensurate with its cost.52
2 November. In a letter to Admiral Henry B. Jackson, RN, Sims relates the conclusions he reached from his study at the Naval War College, suggesting that “battleship cruisers of the Lion type” are essential for modern warfare and expresses hope that the U.S. will build them in the near future.53
10 November-6 December 1911. Admiral Fisher and Winston Churchill, the new First Lord of the Admiralty, send a series of letters to each other concerning Fisher’s suggestion for a 30-knot battlecruiser with eight 15” guns and minimal armor. Although the plans never go beyond these letters, Churchill’s Admiralty produces the Queen Elizabeth-class of 25-knot “fast battleships” armed with eight 15” guns and the concepts detailed in these letters bear a striking resemblance to the Fisher-inspired battlecruisers built after his return to the Admiralty in 1914.54
1 December. Secretary Meyer’s annual report proposes adding a single battlecruiser to the 1912 building program, with an eventual goal of 8. However, Meyer did not include the battlecruiser in the Department’s formal budget submission. Instead, he simply noted that a battlecruiser would be “most desirable.”55
12 December. Captain W.L. Rodgers, President of the Naval War College, tells General Board and Secretary that war games at the college conducted by Captain Sims, and the Atlantic Fleet’s most recent exercises suggest “the desirability of the LION type of ship” for the USN.56
1912
25 September. The General Board proposes a 5 year program for the years 1913-17, including 21 new battleships and 8 battlecruisers, the latter of which “we must have . . . to hope for successful conflict.” For the 1913 fiscal year, the plan recommends construction of four battleships and two battlecruisers. Although battlecruisers were not added to the 1913 navy bill, this marked the first time the General Board specifically requested battlecruiser construction.62
26 December. In response to the General Board’s proposals, Commander William V. Pratt, an instructor at the Naval War College, writes to the President of the War College that battlecruisers were unnecessary. Not only, he argued, had the British committed to dropping the type in future plans, but in the two possible war situations faced by the U.S. Navy (Germany or Japan), the extra speed of battlecruisers would make no appreciable difference to an American fleet operating on interior lines. Pratt’s memorandum is later forwarded to the General Board.63
1913
January. The Admiralty releases their plans for the 1913-14 Navy Estimates. The plan argues that that battlecruisers have grown too expensive, and that as “the mostly costly vessel should also be the most powerful,” future battlecruiser construction would be discontinued in favor of new “fast battleships,” eventually to become the Queen Elizabeth-class.64
2 January. Captain W.L. Rodgers submits memorandum to the General Board arguing that battlecruisers are “naval luxuries . . . for secondary strategic objectives,” and concludes that the Navy is not yet at a point to afford luxuries.65
In the end, however, the battlecruiser advocates did not win the argument. Indeed, they really never got close to winning it. Notice here how even Rodgers changes his mind to oppose them. It would be interesting to reflect on just what it would take for that to change; but I would need to really research it far more closely to even venture any speculation on that front. Perhaps, an even more aggressive (and well funded) Japanese effort to standardize on battlecruisers for their capital ship fleet?
It is strange, battleships not being popular in the US is understandable due to it's imperialist roots but a Super cruiser style vessel is not taken up
Faster battleships would not have enabled a faster crossing of the Pacific, as steaming that far at top speed was not possible. You'd need to improve cruising speed and that's just not happening on coal-fired boilers and direct-drive turbines.
After the New York's it would've been possible for those engines and oil firing to be done for a battlecruiser
Right. The top speed would be useful only for tactical maneuvering. If the Japanese had gone more aggresively into battlecruisers, that would have been a consideration, at least. USN capital ships wouldn't get across the Pacific any faster, but they could find the additional speed more urgent in actually fighting IJN ships when they got there.
Whereas Jackie Fisher's original conception of a "cruiser-killer" doesn't seem to have had much purchase in USN discussions, from what I can make out. That wouldn't change until the Alaskas came into active planning.
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I wonder if a greater emphasis on cruisers in the fleet (instead of depending on those old Armored deathtraps) would've helped there and given emphasis on a "Cruiser Leader"
Keep in mind that the US Navy did want cruisers, and cruiser killers and battlecruisers, but given the funding environment it was cruisers or battleships and the Navy sensibly chose battleships.
A "cruiser leader" doesn't make any sense; destroyer leaders were a thing because destroyers were for a very long time too small to carry the staff for a flotilla and a larger leader was needed to carry it. And once you did that, there was no reason not to make it bigger and better armed. Cruisers don't need that; they don't operate in flotillas and they have the space for the staff anyway.
The Turbinia shortly before her conversion into a torpedo boat
The HMS Turbinia
... After Turbinia's bold stunt at the Diamond Jubilee Naval Review, the Royal Navy promptly bought the vessel, added a pair of torpedo tubes to her foredeck, and announced that a follow on class of turbine launches would follow shortly. The Turbinia was rather too long for true launch status, and anyways had not been designed for military service, but was briefly used as the torpedo launch assigned to the flagship of the Channel Fleet anyway. By the 1890s, however, the heyday of the torpedo launch was ending, and the Turbinia would instead serve out the rest of her brief career as a stand-alone warship, the first (though not the last) to be named the HMS Turbinia. Outclassed in all but speed by the destroyers which had already begun to appear around the world, the Turbinia was nonetheless a key forerunner of future naval vessels in terms of propulsion, making her service with the Royal Navy an extremely odd melding of old tactical concept with new technology...
The Battle of Pacocha
In OTL, the battle of Pacocha is credited with helping encourage the Royal Navy to increase their speed of adoption of armoured ships. The Peruvian ironclad Huascar (under control of a Peruvian rebel faction) was confronted by two RN wooden frigates, and although the Huascar's crew, undermanned and -supplied thanks to their rebel status, were unable to inflict any meaningful damage on the British, the British were likewise unable to inflict any serious damage on the Huascar.
The British prior to the battle had been aware of the risk that they would be unable to damage the ironclad, and one response they had brought along were steam launches, carried aboard the HMS Shaw, armed with Whitehead torpedoes. As events transpired, none of the slow and inaccurate torpedoes hit the Huascar. What TTL asks is: what if they had?
The British in the 1870s were extremely desirous of a weapon that could make their large preexisting wooden fleet useful, especially for colonial stations where the RN not only didn't want to assign new ships but also hoped to avoid having to invest in a truly comprehensive network of coaling stations, meaning that sail-powered ships were extremely attractive. This was also the time period when a single unusual action- the Battle of Lissa- led to a global fad for ramming as a tactical concept. I suggest that had the torpedo launches appeared successful the Royal Navy would have immediately invested in building and deploying large numbers of improved versions. Furthermore, I suggest that institutional inertia would mean that these small torpedo boats would last longer than probably useful, and that new vessels would be designed with at least some capacity to carry and deploy them. In turn, even as late as WW1, I believe that the Royal Navy's torpedo boat and destroyer forces would be larger and shaped by the doctrines of a generation before, with potentially interesting consequences for the naval war...
What do you think? Plausible? What effects would this PoD really have?
Driftless
Donor
Even if you can't proceed at top speed across the width of the Pacific, I still think some level of increased speed over OTL would have short range tactical advantages, even in those early days and increasingly so as technology improved. Eventually... that's the route the US did go, just 30 +years later.
Random question if a heavy cruiser with high velocity 24 cm main guns somehow got the drop on a G3 type battlecruiser at 5'000 yards or so, would the G3 armor be able to stand up to the AP rounds of the heavy cruiser?
I would argue that a cruiser is more imperialist than a battleship.
A battleship can be a coastal defense measure.
A cruiser is for long range cruising, implying colonies.
Certainly. But the 21-knot speed of American dreadnoughts was already a major advantage over prior ships and something the Japanese didn’t start to surpass until Fuso in 1915. And with propulsion tech of the time going faster leads to severe weight growth, as we see in the Navy’s battlecruiser studies of the era.
With the right gun and shell design, probably not! The German 8” mounted on the Hoppers could go through 16 inches of armor at that range, even with the sloping a 9.4” gun could conceivably punch through entirely.
Speed is pretty relative, you need a fast enough battle line to get where you want, do battle and be fast and agile enough (as a battle line or later divisions) so the enemy doesn't get away. Want to get into a battleships speed arms race? Hit 33 ish knots and spend astronomical amounts of extra tonnage squeezing extra knots into your thousand footers you cant hope to armour properly. If your enemy is doing something you have to respond one way or another. British and Germans had a battlecruiser race and both squadrons almost got completely obliterated at Jutland because they ran into the main fleet, I'm not really sure they are the fleet screen you want.