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THE BATTLE CRUISER, A, Study of its Importance as a Warship By COMMANDER H. E. ROSSELL* warship the importance of which seems to have been overlooked in the haste of the naval powers to build up their light cruisers strengths to permissible limits. In 1935 the pro- hibition on the construction of battle cruisers will come up again for dis- cussion, and it is to be hoped that the naval powers will give considera- tion at that time to the great merits of the type. The battle cruiser was really an out- growth of the armored cruiser, the his- tory of which dates back to about 1870. From that time to 1890 a considerable number of armored cruisers were built by England, Russia, and France. It appears that the designers of the armored cruisers of the 90’s and of the early years of the present century had in mind that the chief functions of these vessels would be protection and destruction of commerce. There seems to have been the thought also, particu- larly in France, that the large cruisers would serve in the battle line in op- position to battleships. This idea gained great support as a result of the expe- riences of the Russo-Japanese war. At Round Island and again at Tsushima the Japanese armored cruisers, with their 6-inch and 8-inch guns, not only kept station in the battle line, but they caused heavy damage to the Te: battle cruiser is a type of *Abstract of paper entitled, The Battle Cruiser, by Commander H. E. Rossell (CC) U. S. N., presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Naval Archi- tects and Marine Engineers, at New York, Nov. 16, 1984. Commander Ros- sell is professor of Naval Construction at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology, Cambridge, Mass. The four photographs used to illus- trate Commander Rossell’s paper, two of which are reproduced, were published through the courtesy of Jane’s Fighting Ships. MARINE REVIEW—January, Russian battleships armed with 12- inch guns. At once the prestige of the armored eruiser rose to an all time high. Few imagined then that within the next twelve years the type would prove well nigh useless in a great naval war, or that three out of four fine armored cruisers could be destroyed by artillery attack within about two minutes. Yet the latter experience befell Arbuthnot’s squadron when it ventured to within some 8000 yards of the head of the German battle line at Jutland. What had taken place in the mean- time to account for the reversal of form? First of all there had been major improvements in the effective- ness of artillery, with no correspond- ing inereases in the resistance of armor. The penetrative power of shell of a given caliber had been in- creased materially through higher muzzle velocities and more efficient design of projectiles. Also greater accuracy and rapidity of gun fire had been made possible, by more efficient methods of control. Eclipse of Armored Cruiser Even before the apearance of the DREADNOUGHT thoughtful persons might have foreseen the eclipse of the ar- mored cruiser (some did so). As early as 1904 the characteristics of the Ital- jan battleships of the Virror1io EMAN- UELE III class indicated that more speed and gun-power and better de- fensive qualities would be necessary in large cruisers of the future. These Ital- jan vessels, though rated as_ battle- ships, might properly have _ been classed as the first battle cruisers, for they combined the offensive and defen- Sive qualities of the battleship with the speed of the cruiser. They were 1935 vessels which could be relied upon to take punishment as well as to give it. In 1905 in an excellent paper, en- titled The Cruiser, Prof. William Hoy- gaard of Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded that for strictly military service the armored cruiser should be abandoned, and that a more powerful type should be built in its stead, The latter, which he styled the battleship cruiser, was to be a ship with a battery and protection of a bat- tleship, but with 15 to 20 per cent more speed. The military duties of the proposed new type were to be, first, rapid concentrations and enveloping movements during fleet action, and pursuit of a retreating enemy; second, support and assistance of smaller cruisers; third, reconnaissance in force, involving perhaps’. breaking through a screen of lighter vessels; and, fourth, independent expeditions. During the years from 1907 to 1918 battle cruisers were built in consider- able numbers, principally by England and Germany. In the former country armor was kept to less thickness than on contemporary battleships, while gun power and speed were empha- sized, Thus in the Lion class (1910) the designed speed was 27 knots (27 to 2814 knots on trials) and eight 13%4- inch guns were carried, while the side armor had a maximum thickness of but 9 inches over a narrow belt on the waterline, and gun turrets and decks were not heavily armored. The contemporary battleship, Or1on, had a belt of 12-inch thickness and carried ten 13%4-inch guns. Orrton’s displace- ment of 22,500 tons was about 4000 tons less than that of Lion. In Germany, on the other hand, more emphasis was placed on protection of battle cruisers and less on gun power and speed. For example, the SEyD- British battle cruiser Hood, largest cand most powerful ship of this type ever built. Displ., loaded, reported to be 46,200 EONS. Speed, 31 knots. Main battery, eight 15-inch guns