List of battlecruisers of World War II
This is a list of battlecruisers of World War II. A battlecruiser, or battle cruiser, was a capital ship built in the first half of the 20th century. They were similar in size, cost, and carried similar armament to battleships, but they generally carried less armour to obtain faster speeds. The first battlecruisers were designed in the United Kingdom, in the first decade of the century, as a development of the armoured cruiser, at the same time as the dreadnought succeeded the pre-dreadnought battleship. The original aim of the battlecruiser was to hunt down slower, older armoured cruisers and destroy them with heavy gunfire. However, as more and more battlecruisers were built, they increasingly became used alongside the better-protected battleships.
Battlecruisers served in the navies of Britain, Germany, the Ottoman Empire, Australia and Japan during World War I, most notably at the Battle of the Falkland Islands and in the several raids and skirmishes in the North Sea which culminated in a pitched fleet battle, the Battle of Jutland. British battlecruisers, in particular, suffered heavy losses at Jutland, which modern research has revealed was due to dangerous ammunition handling practises rather than the weak armour usually attributed as the weakness.[1] By the end of the war, capital ship design had developed with battleships becoming faster and battlecruisers becoming more heavily armoured, blurring the distinction between a battlecruiser and a fast battleship. The Washington Naval Treaty, which limited capital ship construction from 1922 onwards, treated battleships and battlecruisers identically, and the new generation of battlecruisers planned was scrapped under the terms of the treaty.
From the 1930s on, only the Royal Navy continued to use 'battlecruiser' as a classification for the World War I-era capital ships that remained in the fleet; while Japan's battlecruisers remained in service, they had been significantly reconstructed and were re-rated as full-fledged battleships.
Battlecruisers were put into action again during World War II, and only one survived to the end. There was also renewed interest in large "cruiser-killer" type warships, but few were ever begun, as construction of battleships and battlecruisers were curtailed in favor of more-needed convoy escorts, aircraft carriers, and cargo ships.[2][3][4][5][6][7]
The List of ships of World War II contains major military vessels of the war, arranged alphabetically and by type. The list includes armed vessels that served during the war and in the immediate aftermath, inclusive of localized ongoing combat operations, garrison surrenders, post-surrender occupation, colony re-occupation, troop and prisoner repatriation, to the end of 1945. For smaller vessels, see also List of World War II ships of less than 1000 tons. Some uncompleted Axis ships are included, out of historic interest. Ships are designated to the country under which they operated for the longest period of the Second World War, regardless of where they were built or previous service history.
| Ship | Country | Class | Displacement | Commissioned | Fate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hood |  Royal Navy
|
Admiral | 42,100 long tons (42,800 t) | 5 March 1920 | Sunk during the Battle of Denmark Strait, 24 May 1941 |
| Renown | Renown | 32,000 long tons (33,000 t) | 20 September 1916 | Scrapped, 1948 | |
| Repulse | 18 August 1916 | Sunk during the Naval Battle of Malaya, 10 December 1941 | |||
| Yavuz |  Turkish Navy
|
Moltke | 23,100 long tons (23,500 t) | 2 July 1912 | Scrapped, July 1973[8] |
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Lambert (1998), pp. 54–55.
- ^ Sondhaus (2001).
- ^ Roberts (1997).
- ^ "Hulls Listed by Name". Naval Vessel Register. Archived from the original on 30 June 2007.
- ^ "US Navy Inactive Classification Symbols". Naval Vessel Register. NAVSEA Shipbuilding Support Office. Archived from the original on 18 January 2012. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
- ^ "Index". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.
- ^ "Royal Navy operations in the Second World War". The National Archives. Retrieved 29 March 2016.
- ^ Langenspiel & Güleryüz, p. 142
Bibliography
[edit]- Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8.
- Langensiepen, Bernd & Güleryüz, Ahmet (1995). The Ottoman Steam Navy 1828–1923. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 978-0-85177-610-1.
- Lambert, Nicholas A. (January 1998). "'Our Bloody Ships' or 'Our Bloody System'? Jutland and the Loss of the Battle Cruisers, 1916". Journal of Military History. 62 (1). Society for Military History: 29–55. doi:10.2307/120394. ISSN 0899-3718. JSTOR 120394.
- Roberts, John (1997). Battlecruisers. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-068-1.
- Sondhaus, Lawrence (2001). Naval Warfare, 1815–1914. London, UK: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-21478-0.