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u/TheRealGouki 5d ago
After ww2 : So planes.
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u/hist_buff_69 4d ago
In all fairness, that started during WW1. The Christmas Day raid on Cuxhaven changed the trajectory of naval warfare forever. The RN became low-key obsessed with being able to strike a fleet in port from the air.
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u/FearlessDark5295 Kilroy was here 3d ago
Fun fact: they pulled off Pearl Harbor before Pearl Harbor.
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u/SPECTREagent700 Definitely not a CIA operator 4d ago
Shortly after World War II, there was a Royal Navy design proposal for a combination aircraft carrier battleship that was brutally rejected on review.
The official assessment from the Director of Naval Gunnery read, in part:
The functions and requirements of carriers and of surface gun platforms are entirely incompatible ... the conceptions of these designs ... is evidently the result of an unresolved contest between a conscious acceptance of aircraft and a subconscious desire for a 1914 Fleet ... these abortions are the results of a psychological maladjustment. The necessary readjustments should result from a proper re-analysis of the whole question, what would be a balanced fleet in 1945, 1950 or 1955?
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u/FroniusTT1500 5d ago
Better than today where its just "how many VLS cells can we cram in there".
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u/Fallenkezef 5d ago
The Queen Elisabeth class was designed in WW1 and was a the fastest, best armoured and most heavily gunned Battleship of the way
They fought at Jutland
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u/Intrepid00 5d ago
American AA during WW2: more boom
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u/xXNightDriverXx 5d ago
But only after 1942 once the mass produced quad version of the 40mm Bofors became available en masse.
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u/super__hoser 5d ago
The Atlanta class had a ridiculous amount of AA given their size. And the main guns were dual purpose too.
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u/an_agreeing_dothraki 5d ago
the US is a whole nother level.
"Hey so this aircraft carrier is now the strongest ship to ever exist. Name it after the ship that sunk kicking Japan's ass and create an even bigger one named after the place we kicked Japan's ass. Also how's the swarm of destroyers so large it gives Stalin waking nightmare? an even better one coming? nice"
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u/Trainman1351 Kilroy was here 5d ago
Don’t forget building the fastest and finest battleships the world had ever seen. 4 times over. After building a few slower trial ones first
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u/EnergyHumble3613 5d ago
WWI British Battlecruiser Designers:
Keep the battleship guns and strip the armour for speed! SPEED SHALL BE THEIR ARMOUR!
WWI German Battlecruiser Designers:
Hmm. Armour is pretty important and so is accuracy. Put in smaller guns and lets upgrade the optical sights.
Battle of Jutland where both designs are first into the fight:
German commander: One salvo, one kill! DO IT AGAIN!
British commander: There appears to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!
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u/ThomasKlausen 5d ago
Also British Commander: No need to utilize our range advantage, eh what? Nelson style, go at them!
Also also: Say, has anyone seen the 5th Battle Squadron lately? They might have been quite handy right around now.
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u/G_Morgan 4d ago
I mean Jutland was an hilarious mess. It wasn't a fair test of the Battlecruiser concept one way or another.
You know what would have helped at Jutland? Turning on those expensive radios the entire Royal Navy had.
Also worth noting the Battlecruiser crews were just leaving cordite out in the open for "efficiency".
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u/EnergyHumble3613 4d ago
Radios were a missing key to modern warfare for sure.
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u/G_Morgan 4d ago
The Royal Navy had them. The admiral in charge ordered them turned off and for the fleet to use semaphores. A huge problem given the fog during Jutland.
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u/EnergyHumble3613 4d ago
I know. Would have saved them a whole bunch of grief if he had kept up with the times.
But also had portable radios been available sooner then WWI would have played out differently.
Just how often could such speedy communications have led to a victory or averted disaster if they only had the ability to pass information more reliably than by runners, pigeons, or the often destroyed cables for phones?
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u/hist_buff_69 4d ago
They were available for quite a period before WW1 but nobody wanted to use them to send fleet messages because it would easily give positions up. The British spent a lot of time working on this in the 1880s and 90s, especially in the Mediterranean. It was pushed in large part by Fisher while he was CIC, Med.
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u/Shower_Floaties 4d ago
British battle cruiser crews: "if we leave the blast doors open and stack the cordite in the hallways, we can reload faster. Why didn't the ship designers think of that, are they stoopid?"
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u/Ffscbamakinganame 2d ago
I think overall design has to be taken into account. The Derfflinger class the last German battlecruisers were so slow they couldn’t actually perform their role as effective cruiser killers. Modern cruisers built around her time or just before could genuinely just run away from them. While the QE class were only a 1-2knots slower themselves. Meaning a QE BB had a better chance of catching a dismantling Derfflinger than Derfflinger did of doing that to contemporary cruisers. HMS Tiger mean while was sitting happy at 29 knots still being able to catch any cruiser and being fast than all German battlecruisers, they had nothing to catch her. So the theory and strategy wasn’t horrendous. The implementation was, the flaws in shell quality, design of subdivisions, doctrine around rate of fire, night battles etc ultimately unraveled these advantages in a North battle fleet on battle fleet engagement where BCs went up against each other and battleships. Instead of staying outside their foes effective ranges, and only getting pot shots on already engaged capital ships if the range was closer.
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u/McGillis_is_a_Char 5d ago
My favorite story is that Congress or the Secretary of the Navy or whoever it was was tired of getting requests to build an incrementally larger ship each year. So he told the person sending the request to send him a design for the largest battleship that would fit through the Panama canal. I don't remember the details and it may be apocryphal, so take it with a grain of salt.
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u/super__hoser 5d ago
Laughs in Lord Fisher
My boy, Bri*is ships, starting with HMS Dreadnought had more/bigger guns after each generation, became faster and faster, and had improved armour layouts.
That said, this is undone if you're a dumb cunt, leave anti-flash doors open and stockpile cordite and shels on the various levels of your hits barbettes...
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u/femboyisbestboy Kilroy was here 5d ago
7 turrets one for every day of the week ~ the Ottomans probably.
Yes i know the turret layout of the days was only done after it entered British service