For the next ten years or so, due to the Treaty Limiting Naval Armaments, the attention of both seagoing officer and designer, in considering types of ships, is to be concentrated very greatly upon light cruisers and the qualities they should possess, within the limitations placed by the treaty.
Capital ships must never be lost sight of, in order that opinion as to desired characteristics may be crystallized when the time comes to replace our present ships, but at present the discussion of such characteristics cannot but be considered somewhat academic.
With regard to light cruisers, such is not the case. In years past, the call for battleships was always insistent, and battleships were gladly accepted from Congress; and comparatively few of any other type of ship built, because we could not have both.
Due to these conditions, it has long been a plaint of all line officers that our fleet was in a most serious condition because of lack of light cruisers. We have been forced in the past to-use destroyers, old cruisers or battleships as substitutes for scouts and light cruisers. For this work destroyers are totally unsuited, as brought out most clearly by Captain (then Commander) Ralph Earle in the Proceedings of July-August 1915; old cruisers are too slow and too weak, while battleships are so palpably unfitted for scouting that no argument against their employment is needed.
A real start in light cruisers was made with the ten vessels of the Detroit class, appropriated for in the 1916 building program, now in service. Again, a year ago Congress authorized the construction of eight 10,000-ton cruisers and appropriated funds to begin the construction of two.
With the expectation of making up our deficiencies in light cruisers in the Navy, it is most timely to consider well what we want when we say “light cruisers.” The naval treaty places general boundaries to our consideration of this question since it limits the displacement of these vessels to 10,000 tons (without fuel and feed water) and the guns to a caliber of eight inches. The effect of setting any such limits is almost inevitably to ensure that they will be reached, no matter what the other qualities of the vessel may be. It is conceivable that some nation may decide that its requirements for cruisers will be met by a vessel smaller than 10,000 tons in displacement and with principal guns less than eight inches in caliber, but not at all likely. The much more probable result is that each nation with a first rank navy will accept 10,000 tons and 8-inch guns as axiomatic and then strain every nerve to see how much else can be crowded into the ship.
However, with these two characteristics accepted, we still have left a rather complete selection of ships to choose from. If what we want is very high speed, we can probably get 35 or even 36 knots, keep a battery of say eight-inch guns, but to do that protection disappears entirely. If protection is considered important, it can be given by the sacrifice of speed. We can run down from a type with a speed around 32 knots and protection sufficient to keep out the attack of the guns of a destroyer, to a type with a speed of 26 or 27 knots, and armor sufficient to meet the attacks of similar ships, that is, a small fast battleship. Up and down this scale the battery will not vary greatly, so long as four center line gun positions are held. The qualities which are really balanced one against the other are speed and protection.
From the selection thus offered, I firmly believe that we should choose, for all purposes, a light cruiser which is an all-around fighting ship, and by this I mean a ship which can take blows as well as give them. To carry guns without protection does not seem consistent; if a ship is not expected to be hit she can fight a battleship no matter how small she may be. It can only be assumed that a ship built to fight will be hit, and while she delivers blows she must be prepared to receive them as well.
To give weight to this opinion, it will be necessary to consider in some detail just what a light cruiser may be called upon to do. This study is approached with considerable diffidence for it is based primarily on strategy and tactics, and in these fields a designer has no pretentions to a feeling of ease. On the other hand, I firmly believe that he can only design a ship properly if he have at least a working knowledge as to how the ship is to be used. Moreover, unless he is interested in the use, his design will surely not be of the best. These facts have led to a very strong desire to find out just what a light cruiser may be expected to do, and to present these conclusions so that the result may be converted into characteristics.
The role of light cruisers (and it must be remembered that light cruisers in general are referred to, not simply one type of vessel, since we may be led to more than one type) may be divided, it is believed, into two general parts: operations with or in connection with the fleet, and independent operations.
Operations with a fleet comprise generally scouting, driving off enemy scouts, guarding the main body against destroyer attacks, fighting enemy light cruisers and other similar light forces, protecting our own destroyers as they go in to an attack and covering them as they return from attack.
Independent operations comprise hunting down and destroying enemy commerce destroyers and raiders, commerce destroying, and general peace time gunboat duty.
Operations with the fleet appear to admit of treatment quite separate from the requirements for independent operation. Under this heading, the first demand is for scouting ability, which means going out to seek information as to enemy forces, obtaining this information and sending it back to the commander-in-chief. It is accepted as axiomatic that this demand is absolutely vital.
The requirement for scouting ability used to mean a small vessel capable of starting off at high speed from the main body to seek the enemy, obtain information and back again to the admiral. Nowadays all ships carry radio and a modern scout will not only have high powered radio (including radio compasses) but will carry airplanes as well. With radio, touch is retained with the main body at all times while the airplane carries the lookout from his old position in the top with his eye out for the enemy’s smoke, up many thousands of feet and many miles ahead in a few minutes.
A scout in her search for information may and probably will meet the outlying light forces of the enemy and, if driven back before obtaining the desired information, might as well not have come at all. Moreover, the enemy light forces may be so far in advance of the enemy main body that to obtain proper information, the scout must force her way through them. To meet these conditions, the scout must have fighting ability and this means that she must be prepared both to give and to receive hard knocks. By the time this fighting scout has obtained her information, word has probably reached the enemy main fleet and the enemy battle cruisers are after her. This is more than she bargained for and she must go, and go faster than the battle cruisers.
The other duties of light cruisers with the fleet are fighting duties pure and simple. .They were given as, preventing destroyer attacks by the enemy against the main body, attacking or repelling the attacks of enemy light cruisers, and covering attacks made by our own destroyers on enemy forces. All these duties require a very distinct fighting ability for it must not be conceivable that a light cruiser suddenly in contact with a division of destroyers can be put out of action by them. She must force destroyers to run and be able to fight all other light cruisers on an equal footing, if possible at an advantage.
The natural conclusion from this discussion of the duties of a light cruiser operating with the fleet, is that such a vessel must fall in type between the battle cruiser and the destroyer. She must have such gun power and protection that she can fight and overcome any ship less than a battleship or battle cruiser, and in addition, more speed than any battleship or battle cruiser.
This brings us to the light cruiser for independent duty, the hunter of commerce raiders, the commerce destroyers and the peacetime gunboat and police duty vessel. The last requirement may be met in almost any comparatively small type. It entails only good habitability, a good appearance, as such duties usually involve creating prestige for the United States and this is not created by an ill-looking vessel, and as small draft as possible. All these points should be kept in mind in the cruiser but they are of course not as vital as the actual war duty characteristics.
The most important function in operations away from the fleet is undoubtedly that of hunter and destroyer of commerce raiders. Incidentally it is believed that many officers in the Navy hold the opinion that it is in this sphere that our shortage of light cruisers would be the most serious in the event of war. For this reason, it is proposed in this paper to examine past history most completely in its ability to throw light on what is demanded of a light cruiser performing such duties.
Any country with which we are at war, and particularly one with an inferior navy, which consequently cannot hope to have freedom of action, will surely try to disrupt our commerce by sending out swift commerce raiders to prey upon merchant shipping. Such has always been the case where one of the countries at war was blockaded by a superior fleet. As examples, we have the Confederate states during the Civil War, with the famous raiders headed by the Alabama; and Germany during the last war. In this last case, Germany was hemmed in; England depended absolutely upon overseas supplies and moreover possessed the greatest merchant fleet in the world. Germany had everything to gain and nothing to lose by making every effort to break down the seaborne trade of the British Islands.
Under similar circumstances in any future war, it will be absolutely necessary that our merchant fleets b$ protected. The convoy system can probably be used in some cases, but oceans are too vast and trade routes too numerous for any country to have enough cruisers to convoy merchant ships everywhere that their cargoes may take them. In addition the proper solution would seem to be not passive protection, though this will probably necessarily be employed to a certain extent, but the active protection of hunting down and destroying the raiders.
This discussion, it may be well to note, has to do with commerce destroying by surface vessels and not by submarines. The latter create a problem of their own which requires special means to combat and submarine attacks are not included in this analysis.
For designing a ship to do this work of hunting down surface raiders it may appear at first that above all else speed is needed and speed greater than any possible raider so that the raider can be run down, and sunk by gun fire.
Speed is undoubtedly of great value. We must remember however, that we have only so much displacement to work with and consequently we cannot have everything. If we take great speed and gun power, we get little or no protection. Claims are sometimes made that such a ship would not need protection, at least not nearly as much as she would need speed.
Concerning the general question of commerce destroying, the late Captain Lyman A. Cotten in the Proceedings for September 1919, reviews commerce destroying as exemplified in the wars from the time of Queen Elizabeth of England to 1916. The general conclusions which he draws are that in no case which can be cited did commerce destroying affect the result of the war in any way, the victory resting with the country which defeated the fighting forces of its enemy.
Particular interest attaches to his remarks upon conditions in our own Civil War, for here, as has been stated, the Confederate states were completely blockaded and had every reason to carry on an active campaign of destruction against the commerce of the northern states. The result of these efforts is summed up as follows:
The Alabama was the most celebrated of these commerce destroyers, and yet she averaged only three captures per month, and the total loss by capture of the commerce of the North during the entire war, according to a Congressional investigation made soon thereafter, was only five per cent of the whole, or one and one quarter per cent per year. This does not impress one as being an exorbitant war tax on any branch of commerce. That these commerce destroyers were able to accomplish even as much as they did was due more to faulty methods of commerce protection on the part of the North, than to any inherent value in this mode of warfare.
While the commerce of the North was very seriously injured by the direct attack upon it, it is generally lost sight of that the commerce of the South was practically prohibited on the high seas by the purely military disposition of the northern fleet. That this military disposition was a most effective factor in defeating the South, no one familiar with the history of the Civil War can doubt. At the same time it is highly improbable that the total result of the southern commerce destroyers prolonged the losing struggle of the Confederacy by so much as one day, nor would the result of the war have been different had there been a hundred Alabamas—so long as they were used purely as commerce destroyers.
It may be claimed unfair to take the exploits of the Alabama and her contemporaries as a measure of what commerce destroyers can accomplish in modern times. However, if anything these vessels, as compared with their prey, had distinct advantages when we consider parallel conditions for corresponding vessels of today. The Alabama and her sisters were steamers and were consequently independent of the amount and direction of the wind, while the principal part of the merchant fleet of the northern states was composed of sailing vessels. These raiders moreover possessed sail power so that they could make long voyages, or certainly lie in wait for merchant vessels, without expending valuable fuel.
Modern raiders and modern merchant vessels are both steam driven and while the disparity in speed on the average may be greater than in the cases of the past, the steam driven merchant vessel is free to choose her own route at will so that winds no longer regulate the lines of traffic which must be followed.
The raider must also bear constantly in mind the need for fuel. It is only reasonable to suppose, and history has shown this to be the case, that the country to send out commerce destroyers will be that one which is hemmed in by a more powerful fleet. The outlying possessions of such country will probably also be blockaded, captured, or carefully watched by the enemy. Consequently a raider will have to make occasional returns to home ports, obtain help from well-disposed quasi-neutrals, or depend entirely upon her own captures for self-support. Under these circumstances, the question of fuel to any commerce raider is bound to be most serious.
As stated in Seaborne Trade by Fayle:—
On a balance of advantages and disadvantages, the change from sail to steam and the development of communications…tended to favor the defense of commerce against the attack of raiding cruisers. Their effect on the ability of a superior naval power to interrupt, by sustained pressure, commercial intercourse with an enemy country, remains to be considered.
Let us take the case of the German commerce raiders during the past war and see to what conclusions a study of their performances may lead. It must be borne in mind that the British Isles, lie directly across the path of any ships leaving or returning to Germany so the commerce destroyers practically speaking could not get in or out as soon as Great Britain had established a blockade.
The Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, an armed converted merchant ship of 22.5 knots speed ran this blockade around the north of England. She was one of a type from which great trouble was expected by the English. The Kaiser Wilhelm worked south in the Atlantic Ocean making a number of captures, and treating the ships so captured, by the way, in accordance with the finest traditions of the sea. In fact it was through this treatment that word reached England that the Kaiser Wilhelm had made port in an obscure harbor on the African Coast. There in a hurry was sent the light cruiser Highflyer and on August 24, 1914, the latter found the converted merchantman at anchor and sank her by gun fire without delay. Speed on one side or the other came nowhere into the question and superior fighting ability determined the result in short order.
All other German commerce raiders were light cruisers or merchant vessels converted to auxiliary cruisers shortly after war broke out, scattered generally about the oceans. Some were in the West Indies and others in the Pacific on the west coast of the Americas or in the Far East.
Those of which we can definitely trace the fortunes are the light cruiser Karlsruhe and the converted merchantmen Kronprinz Wilhelm and Cap Trafalgar in the West Indies and the light cruiser Konigsberg and converted liner Prim Eitel Friedrich in Far Eastern and Pacific waters.
In addition there was von Spee’s squadron of the big armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and light cruisers Leipzig and Dresden (the two latter being picked up at rendezvous on his way across the Pacific), but this was an actual naval force, and not a group of detached raiders in which we are particularly interested.
The first raider to meet an armed enemy ship of which we have account was the Cap Trafalgar. British warships were hunting for her but could not locate her, until on September 14, 1914, quite by accident the British converted liner Carmania ran across the German ship coaling from a tender. The Cap Trafalgar was armed with only two 4.1 inch guns and had a speed of 18 knots, while the Carmania with a speed of only 16 knots had a battery of eight 4.7 inch guns. In spite of great inferiority in armament and some superiority in speed, the German vessel made no attempt to run but stood out to meet the enemy. The only possible result followed and the Cap Trafalgar was sunk by superior gun fire.
The operations of the light cruisers Konigsberg and Emden, the latter of which had probably the best known and most interesting history of all the German raiders, extended around the African coast and through the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal. Both were hunted continuously by British, French, and Japanese cruisers, but not even a sight was had of either although the traces they left were numerous, until from a prize taken by the British it was learned that the Konigsberg had hidden herself up the Rufigi River in Africa and was awaiting an order to coal there. So there the British promptly hurried and on October 30, 1914, blockaded the Konigsberg in her hiding place where she was eventually destroyed by long range fire from monitors.
The incarceration of the Konigsberg left the Emden the only German raider free around the African and Indian waters. She was undoubtedly handled with the greatest audacity and skill and her prizes were numerous. The cruisers Hampshire, Yarmouth, Askold, Empress of Russia, Empress of Asia, Gloucester, Weymouth, and Chatham, and possibly even other ships were on the hunt for her but she was never to be found. Her immunity from capture was certainly not due to speed, for she was rated with a sea speed of only 22 knots and with coal short and most uncertain in its quality and in its coming, her steaming speed must have been much less, particularly when time out for dock is considered.
The end of the Emden’s chapter was finally brought about by an act which was a combination apparently of proper intent to destroy enemy property and high spirited bravado. On November 9, 1914, she bombarded the cable and radio station at Cocos Island and then sent a landing party ashore to complete the destruction. Before this had taken place, however, the operator at the station had sent out a warning and this warning reached the cruisers Melbourne, Sydney, and Ibuki, convoying Australian troops north.
The Sydney immediately set out for Cocos Island which she reached while the Emden still had her landing party ashore. The latter left her men behind and steamed out to meet the oncoming Sydney with apparently no thought but to fight it out. This ended the story of the Emden, for the Sydney hammered her to pieces and she ended a wreck on the beach.
The raiders in the West Indies had been seen but once, although the record of their captures mounted up. The British cruisers Suffolk and Bristol caught sight of the Karlsruhe and Kronprinz Wilhelm, on August 6, 1914, just after war was declared. Both cruisers chased the Karlsruhe but for once superior speed came to the aid of a raider and she escaped.
As once remarked, von Spee’s squadron was a real naval force, and consequently can in no way be treated as a group of commerce raiders. However, some events of the historical voyage of this squadron bear upon our problems and one of the ships at least joined the ranks of the commerce destroyers. The squadron consisted of two heavy cruisers and two light cruisers. In addition the converted liner Prinz Eitel Friedrich joined the force on its passage around South America.
When before Coronel contact was made with Admiral Cradock’s squadron, the latter was on the hunt for von Spee and apparently von Spee himself had no desire to miss Cradock, but the actual meeting came about entirely by accident, each squadron thinking it had found an isolated cruiser of the enemy.
Again, when von Spee, after Coronel, proceeded to the Falkland Islands, his meeting with the British battle cruisers there was almost as much of a surprise to the British as to himself, though the subsequent events were less pleasing.
From these two contacts stand out most emphatically the size of the sea and the smallness of the ships as compared with it. Even with modern means of communication, radio and cable, it is most difficult to determine the whereabouts of ships which wish to keep their presence unknown.
After the battle of the Falklands, the German raiders still at liberty were the Dresden, a light cruiser of von Spee’s which at that battle escaped by superior speed from her pursuers, the converted liners Prinz Eitel Friedrich and Kronprinz Wilhelm, and the light cruiser Karlsruhe which had continued her operations through the West Indies and Atlantic Ocean.
The first of these ships to meet her end was the Karlsruhe which from an unknown cause, blew up at sea on November I, 1914. It was some time before the news of her loss reached England, which lengthened the search for her unnecessarily.
After the battle of the Falklands, the Dresden made for the Straits of Magellan, where she carried out her role of commerce raider.
News of her movements reached the hunting British cruisers from time to time through prizes captured while operating as supply ships to the raider, but during three months of search for the Dresden, she was seen but once. News of a rendezvous with such a supply ship reached the cruiser Kent, which approached the place of meeting in a fog. The fog lifted and disclosed the Dresden twelve miles away. She took flight with the Kent after her, but though the latter had the superior speed, she could not catch up by nightfall and in the darkness the Dresden disappeared.
Again another message was intercepted and this time three British cruisers came to join the rendezvous on March 14, 1915, each approaching from a different point. The Dresden was found at anchor in the harbor of a small island and fire was at once opened upon her. She eventually surrendered but was blown up by her crew.
In the meantime, the Prinz Eitel Friedrich and the Kronprinz Wilhelm had been cruising slowly north after the battle of the Falklands. They captured prizes and were completely undetected but evidently decided that the end of their commerce raiding was near, so on March 9, 1915, the Prinz Eitel Friedrich ran into Newport News and interned. A month later the Kronprinz Wilhelm, evading all the watching cruisers, slipped into Newport News alongside her consort.
Thus on April 11, 1915, nine months after the war began, the operations of the German surface raiders were completely ended. Corbett in Naval Operations sums up these operations as follows:
So ended the first phase of the German attack upon our seaborne trade. Never in the long history of our wars had the seas been so quickly and so effectually cleared of commerce destroyers, and in comparison with what had been anticipated, the whole campaign had been singularly ineffective. During the first eight months of the war the loss, to the British commerce in all seas was estimated at 6,691,000 pounds, and in that period the value of imports and exports to and from the United Kingdom alone amounted to 776,500,000 pounds. If we add to this the value of the tonnage employed we get a total actually risked at sea of not far short of a thousand million, so that the percentage of damage done was no more than two-thirds of one per cent. In so far as it could affect the issue of the war, so small an impression on the vast bulk of our seaborne trade was negligible…
Equally strong are the opinions of Fayle in Seaborne Trade in which he discusses fully the effect of the attacks by German commerce raiders upon the trade of Great Britain and of the Allies.
It would seem then that commerce destruction by surface raiders, though undoubtedly most annoying, has never in any real way affected the main military operations of a war, nor has it operated to change the result in the slightest degree. We should obviously then consider most carefully before building any light cruisers with characteristics which might fit them particularly for the hunting of commerce destroyers or for commerce destroying, if these characteristics can only be obtained at the expense of qualities which will be needed in their role with the fleet.
In the histories of the raiders themselves two facts stand out most clearly. In every case where contact was made with a raider, this contact was made by accident, or by means of news acquired from prizes, or by cable or radio from a station or merchant ship attacked. In no case did superior speed of the hunter apparently decrease the time of finding and running down of the quarry. It does not even appear that had the hunting cruisers all possessed superior speed would the careers of the raiders have ended appreciably earlier. The other and most important fact is that in every case where real contact was made with a raider, the raider came out to fight. It was necessary for the hunter of commerce destroyers to be a fighting vessel primarily and thus destroy the raider when she should be found.
If we ask also what we would like to have for the characteristics of commerce destroyers should we conceivably be placed in a position where we would need such vessels, the answer is the same; a fighting vessel which can overcome the vessels sent against her by the enemy.
The suggestion has been made that possibly two types of light cruisers are needed, one the fighting light cruiser for work with the fleet, the other an unprotected vessel with high gun power and of the highest possible speed to run down and sink the enemy commerce destroyers, or, under other circumstances to harry the enemy’s commerce.
Even if two types were needed, no country that has ever existed is rich enough to build double the number of warships actually needed, simply to have two types to meet two conditions. Even if such were done vessels of the type wanted would undoubtedly be in one place, just when the other type was wanted there.
We have now analyzed the duties and requirements of cruisers both acting with the fleet, and independently, in the hunt for commerce raiders. The studies carried along quite separately for the two types have brought exactly the same conclusion in each case. A light cruiser in whatever role she is placed must be a fighting vessel. In this she differs from a submarine, with its invisibility, or a destroyer with speed and numbers as its protection.
High speed is undoubtedly a great asset, and speed must be great enough to permit operations with destroyers without hampering the movements of the latter too much, and not less than enough to enable the cruiser to avoid more powerful vessels. But if in the work which the cruiser is called upon to do, great speed at the expense of all protection is given to enable her to escape from anything afloat it can hardly be looked upon as the proper characteristics of a naval vessel, while if given to enable her to run down a quarry, the obvious question is “What is she going to do with her when she catches her?” One shot through an unprotected side and the speed for which so high a price has been paid may be gone.
Finally then, whatever the work in hand may be the cruiser must be first and last a fighting ship, possessed of the best all-around fighting qualities possible to obtain on the displacement of 10,000 tons.