Are the Iowas Battlecruisers?

[Mostlyharmless]

It seems to me that there were three different types of ship that some people have called battlecruisers.

The first built were the Dreadnaught Armoured Cruisers of the Invincible and Indefatigable Classes. These were designed as cruiser killers and worked well as such at the Falkland Islands. The French Dunkerque and Strassbourg were similarly designed to hunt down the pocket battleships and perhaps the Italian Zara Class and the Alaska Class were the last of this type built.

The second class of ships started with the German designs from Von der Tann to Hindenburg and perhaps Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. These were designed to fight other battlecruisers and, for the Germans if not for the British, also to act as a fast wing of the battle fleet. The British answer to those ships was initially the Lion Class, which were the first ships called battlecruisers, and included Tiger, Renown and Repulse.

Jutland convinced the RN that previous battlecruisers were a flawed concept and Hood was designed to have battleship level protection with extra length and almost twice the power to give cruiser speed. In 1920, Hood was probably the best armoured ship in the RN. Unfortunately, extra protection was added in the 1930s to, for example Royal Oak which had 4 inches added to the deck over the magazines and 2.5 inches over the machinery, whilst Hood was left unchanged.

Iowa follows the same idea as Hood in that she is longer and has nearly twice the SHP of South Dakota but has an almost identical armour scheme, slightly weaker over the deck with 4.75 inches on 1.25 inches in place of 5 inches on 1 inch and slightly stronger in the belt as the outer shell is now 60 lb with both changes arising from the extra stresses on the longer hull.

[HMSVF]

Jutland convinced the RN that previous battlecruisers were a flawed concept and Hood was designed to have battleship level protection with extra length and almost twice the power to give cruiser speed. In 1920, Hood was probably the best armoured ship in the RN. Unfortunately, extra protection was added in the 1930s to, for example Royal Oak which had 4 inches added to the deck over the magazines and 2.5 inches over the machinery, whilst Hood was left unchanged.

She had a "big repair" in 1931? Realistically though she was still in a better place than the Q.E's and R's and 11 years old by the time she had that refit. The RN was short of cash,the UK had economic woe,treaties were coming and going, changing the rules on who could have what and when (thinking London). By the mid thirties (when she was probably in her prime) you had the Abyssinia crisis,a little later you have Anschluss and Munich.

Not the greatest time to take out the largest ship you have. I have a degree of sympathy for the RN and the admiralty

[paul.mercer]

Sorry, I had to giggle a bit. I've been assigned to New Jersey and Missouri.

Hi Opana,
When you say 'assigned', do you mean that you are now part of the team that are looking after the two ships? What a wonderful job.
I was watching a documentary series called 'Combat Ships' which covered everything from Viking longships to the modern day. one of the series was about ships that served in the Gulf war and there was quite a lot about Missouri and Wisconsin both who had what must have been a major refit to take in modern weaponry and fire control as it looked if they had also been dry docked for a while in order for it to take place.
Although the program featured modern weapons like missiles the film of these two ships bombarding with their 16" was very, very impressive indeed, whoever was on the receiving end of 9 tons of shells every few minutes from each ship must have wondered what the hell was happening!
The old girls still had it in them!

[OpanaPointer]

Assigned as "assigned to ship's company". I did nearly a year on New Jersey then volunteered to cross-deck to Missouri to replicate my experience with certain items. (Both ships were being fitted out for service after being pulled from mothballs one more time.)

[SteveSmith]

We are getting into the problem of tabular comparison of armor protection. If you look at the actual structure of a battleship's protective scheme, things can get pretty complicated. The are a lot of structural issues in addition to the armor as well as the issue of armor placement. On WIKIPEDIA, these get reduced to a simple table.

I vigorously disagree that HMS Hood was as well protected as contemporary battleships. Hood may have had some belt plating that was as thick as on Warspite but there was not nearly as much of it. In fact, Hood's armor arrangement was so poor that it could well have assisted projectiles to penetrate. Furthermore in structure, Hood looks like Renown and Repulse and not like Warspite.

On the flip side, the Iowas are eerily similar to the SODAKs in structure. While the armor at second deck was slightly thinner on Iowa than on SODAK, the Iowas secreted additional armor all over.

[Mostlyharmless]

You are partially correct in comparing the belt armour of HMS Hood and HMS Queen Elizabeth as Hood was weaker below the waterline. Hood’s protection above the waterline seems equal or superior, especially at long range where the angle becomes more important. The deck armour of Hood is also much more extensive, if still inadequate.

According to Raven and Roberts, the main belt of Hood was 562 ft long and 9 ft 6 in deep. It was a uniform 12 in (actually 480lb or roughly 299 mm thickness) on 2 in (80 lb) of construction steel and was angled at 12 degrees. The lower edge was 4 ft. below the load waterline and there was a strip of 3 in armour below to 7 ft. below the load waterline. Above the main belt, there was a 7 ft deep belt of 7 in thickness and a 9 ft. deep belt of 5 in thickness up to the forecastle deck.

The vertical main belt of Queen Elizabeth was 13 ft deep but only the central 6 ft was 13 in (520 lb) thick. The upper 4 ft tapered to 6 in and the lower 3 ft. tapered to 8 in thickness. The lower edge was 6 ft. 8 in below the waterline. Above the main belt, there was a uniform 6 in belt up to the forecastle deck. I haven’t yet found the thickness of the backing for Queen Elizabeth but it won’t change the protection much.

[BuckBradley]

Assigned as "assigned to ship's company". I did nearly a year on New Jersey then volunteered to cross-deck to Missouri to replicate my experience with certain items. (Both ships were being fitted out for service after being pulled from mothballs one more time.)

Ah OK got it--thanks.

[chuckfan3@gmail.com]

the original battlecruiser concept pioneered by Fisher appeared to have been intended to be for roaming supply line protection and distant sea control designed to operate away from the main Mahanian battle fleet.

this seems to have been the role envisioned for the iowas, to hunt down the Kongos that were expected to operate against US supply lines to hawaii and phillipine.

So IMHO they were envisioned as classical battlecruisers.

[OpanaPointer]

Served on Missouri and New Jersey. Chortle at the concept.