Prior to the introduction of steam for the propulsive element and of iron or steel for the construction of the hulls of fighting ships, the frigates, fast, comparatively lightly armed sailing vessels, performed all of the multitudinous duties which tactical and strategical considerations of the present day allot to the cruiser. This class of vessel carried on the scouting or despatch service; acted as protectors or destroyers of commerce; took their place in line of battle in concerted fleet action; performed all the duties connected with detached service; and their value as part of any naval establishment which, in time of war, aimed at the control of the sea, was fully recognized and universally understood. However, the true worth of the cruiser was forgotten in the tumultuous wave of enthusiasm which swept over England and France, the leading maritime nations of the period, when wrought iron was introduced in warships for the protection of the ships and of the gun-crews against shell fire. The introduction of armor led to a controversy among the world’s leading naval architects upon the relative merits of the casemate ship, where all the guns were grouped in an armored casemate amidships, and the turret ship, where all the guns were isolated in separate armored turrets, but where nearly all of the units comprising a ship’s main battery could be brought to bear upon any point of the horizon. These and many other momentous questions connected with the heavily armored first-line or ironclad ships occupied the attention of the naval architects of England and France during this period and the frigate or cruiser’s natural course of development, parallel to that of the heavier ships, was cast into the shadow. In spite of this halt in the development of the cruiser, all of the considerations which had served to bring this type of fighting ship into existence remained as integral parts of the plan of any great naval campaign of that time, of the present or of the future.
It remained for the Confederate cruiser Alabama, during the Civil War in this country, to once again bring the question of the value and power of the cruiser to the attention of naval officers and of other officials upon whose shoulders rested the burden of the proper naval development for their respective nations. This vessel was of but moderate size, carried a not very powerful armament and was not fast, but in spite of these limitations in tactical and fighting qualities, the Alabama succeeded in inflicting great damage upon the commerce of the northern states and roamed the sea almost at will until she was finally cornered, and beaten, by the Kearsarge in that memorable sea fight off the coast of France.
The success of the Alabama gave a great impulse to the construction of this class of vessel among the leading nations of the world, and accordingly many ships of the cruiser type were laid down. In the United States the Wompanoag class, about 4000 tons displacement, was projected, but due to the reaction that followed the turbulent scenes of the Civil War and the wane of interest in all naval matters, the Wompanoag was the only one of the class completed, and this vessel was in a sense a failure. The problem was too difficult for solution with the limited technical resources at that time available in this country. The hull, constructed of wood, was found to be too weak to resist the great stresses brought to bear upon it, the machinery was heavy and cumbersome and occupied so much space that it was found impossible to properly house the crew necessary for the efficient working of the guns, and finally the vessel was so overloaded that she never made her designed speed.
In England and France ships with both sail and steam power of the cruiser or light high-speed type were laid down. Sail power was considered essential for a cruiser because of the necessity for a great radius of action. Great endurance could only be obtained at that time by the employment of sail power as auxiliary to the steam, but a very limited supply of fuel could be carried. This adherence to the use of sails in cruisers made this class of vessel in a great measure self-supporting and independent of any base for fuel supply. The very limited amount of coal could be harbored by cruising under sails, making use of the engines only when a greater speed was required.
The first cruisers, although built of iron, and in some cases of iron sheathed with wood and copper, had no protection against gun-fire and relied solely on their speed, which was sensibly higher than that of the armored ships of the same date, to escape an action which could only result in disaster. Against vessels of the same or parallel classes the outcome of any engagement depended more upon the personnel than upon the materiel.
The development of the rapid- or quick-firing guns, and their introduction into the navies of the world, led to the adoption of some protection for the light cruisers and the first of the so-called protective cruisers made its appearance. This type of vessel had a light, semi-armored deck, which in the first ships was flat and only partial in extent, covering only the machinery spaces. The next step in the development was the complete armored deck, with sloping sides, combined with a cellular structure extending above the armored deck in the region of the water-line, and longitudinal coal bunkers along the sides of the ship abreast the machinery spaces. These protected cruisers are well illustrated by the horde of cruisers of all descriptions built by Great Britain, starting with the Inconstant and culminating in size in the Terrible class of 14,000 tons displacement. These ships, as they advanced in size by successive steps, early abandoned the use of sails when the fuel-carrying capacity and the economy of the engines were increased. This type, although presenting an enormous unprotected target and manifestly unable to engage in action against armored ships, found many admirers in England, chief among whom was Lord Armstrong, who advocated their use to the abolishment of the armor-clad.
During the decade from 1880 to 1890, and even earlier, sporadic attempts1 were made to protect cruisers with side armor; but these first ships were not armored cruisers in the strictest sense of the word, in that they did not possess the relative high speed which was, and still is, the prime requisite for a ship to be classed as a pure cruiser type. They were in reality nothing more than reduced copies of the armor-clads of the same period, and as such were not efficient either as armor-clads or as cruisers.
During the first years of the development of modern armored fighting ships, France looked upon England as her most probable enemy and accordingly endeavored to keep her navy on an equal footing with that of the British Empire. However, England’s policy of meeting each class of vessel constructed by any foreign power with more powerful vessels of the same type, caused the design and construction of armored ships to be so actively carried on that France, due to lack of resources, found herself unable to keep the pace. The gradual retrogression of the French Navy, as compared with that of Great Britain, forced the French naval architects and strategists to seek some other field of warship construction where supremacy could be attained. Profiting by the experience of the Napoleonic wars and knowing full well that England depended mainly on her imports for her maintenance, commerce destroying presented itself as the logical solution of the difficulty and a naval program, based to some extent upon this phase or feature of naval warfare, was established. The French seem to have realized almost at once how utterly unfitted a large ship with no side protection was for use in action against armor-clads and they accordingly approached the problem of fitting side armor to the cruiser. The development of rapid firers and the advent of the high explosive shell had rendered the vulnerable protected cruiser in a great sense obsolete for participation in any action whatsoever. Experiments with high explosives conducted by the French against an old vessel, La Belliqueuse, showed the necessity of providing a much more extensive protection to the sides of cruisers than had even been thought of. On the other hand, it was found that such side armor need only be of moderate thickness to keep out high explosive shell.
In 1888 the French naval authorities commenced the construction of the Dupuy-de-Lome, of 6500 tons displacement and 20 knots speed. The sides of this vessel were completely covered with 4-inch armor from the main deck to 3 feet 9 inches below the water line. A 2-inch vaulted deck was fitted with a splinter deck beneath in way of the engine and boiler rooms and the space between these two decks was filled with coal. Behind the belt was a 3-foot cofferdam filled with cellulose.
The armament of this type ship consisted of two 7.6-inch and six 6.4-inch guns, all placed in single turrets on the main deck except one 6.4-inch, which was placed in a single turret on the forecastle. This arrangement of the battery was peculiar, in that the heavier guns were placed amidships, one on each side and the smaller guns in groups of three forward and three aft. All the guns had longitudinal fire so that the French were able to retain their principle of having the same number of guns bear on every point of the horizon.
This remarkable ship marked the beginning of. a new epoch in cruiser construction and the date of her launching, 1890, marks the birth, if it may be called that, of the armored cruiser. In the decade which followed, 1890 to 1900, the construction of armored cruisers was actively pursued by almost all nations, and by the latter date it may be said that the protected cruiser had become obsolete for anything other than the performance of minor duties in time of war and for police service in time of peace.
The cruisers following the Dupuy-de-Lome, constructed by other countries and even those built in France, did not carry the same proportionate area of side protection as did the original type ship, but their side armor protection gradually came to follow the arrangement found most suited for the battleships. Here we see the beginning of the modern battle-cruiser. The type ship was far different from the armor-clads of the same date, having a different system of protection and a much higher speed, but gradually the armor and the installation of the main battery approached the arrangement in vogue for battleships, while the speed remained relatively greater. Thus, in the highest developed armored cruisers, greater speed and inferior armament are the chief differences between the cruiser and the battleship types. The tendency at all times seemed to be toward a merging of the two types. Then came the dreadnought type of battleship and in the twinkling of an eyelash the entire principles of large warship design were revolutionized. This change in battleship design naturally led to a similar change in cruiser design and the first of the battle-cruisers made its appearance. That the introduction of this type was inevitable can be seen by bearing in mind the similarity of the pre-dreadnought battleships and the now obsolete armored cruisers.
In the United States the Tennessee class marks the highest development of the armored cruiser, and these ships are in fact the last class of large cruiser constructed in this country. These four ships are the only cruisers of the United States Navy which can even in a small measure be considered first-line ships. While this nation has stood still in the construction of the cruiser, other leading nations of the world have pushed forward and now find themselves with at least one division of battle-cruisers as an integral part of their first-line fleet.
The fighting capacity of the battle-cruiser is such that its employment in future fleet engagements is a certainty and even in an action in which the United States fleet might be one of the participants, the cruisers of the Tennessee class would more than probably be used as auxiliaries to the main fleet. These ships would be used at least as long as the main fleet consisted of a heterogeneous collection of dreadnoughts and pre-dreadnoughts as it does at present and as long as these cruisers are the only vessels available for the performance of the duties allotted to the large cruiser. The speed of a fleet is only equal to the speed of its slowest unit and until the fleet is composed of one type of ship with the present- day battleship speed, the Tennessee class will have the 25 per cent advantage in speed over the battleships which is considered the minimum superiority necessary for the cruiser. On the other hand, the present-day battleship has a speed of about 21 knots on the average, so that the 22 knots of the Tennessee would not be any appreciable advantage over battleships of an opposing power.
The foregoing statements may be considered as somewhat introductory and also as a more or less brief historical review of the development of the cruiser. There now remains the consideration of the question of the burden which may be placed upon the large cruiser in time of war and what duties this class may be called upon to perform or what, in other words, may be called the requirements of the service.
The tactical and strategical duties, on which the successful issue of a naval campaign depends, seem to have received but little thought in the development of the cruiser in the United States Navy. This development has apparently been undertaken with commerce destroying as its ultimate object, as is evidenced by the fact that only the Tennessee class has been armed with what may be considered the minimum caliber for armor piercing, namely, the 10-inch gun. Commerce destroying is relatively unimportant for this country and therefore the design and construction of cruisers should not be undertaken by the United States with only this phase of warfare in view. The consideration of true military duties should be paramount and should take precedence over duties relating to the protection or destruction of commerce. This last may be a part of a nation’s strategical plan, but control of the sea will be the truly vital issue at stake in any naval campaign. This control of the sea can only be attained by defeating or effectively bottling up the main fleet of the enemy, and it will only be after such control of the sea is attained that side issues, such as commerce destruction, will play anything but very minor parts. This principle must be paramount and upon it and it alone should the design of the most suitable types of all classes of warships be undertaken. Careful and exhaustive study should be made of each type before final adoption, because once a type is constructed, tacticians, the workmen to whom the tools of naval warfare are entrusted, will be forced to accept that type’s limitations as well as its virtues.
Fashions in warships like fashions in dress change with the passage of years, but unlike changes in dress some precedent can usually be discovered for the radical changes which have occurred in the design of different types of warships. The fundamental conception of a cruiser is that of a warship of above 1500 tons whose relative speed is at least 25 per cent greater than the speed of the large first-line ships. Speed is a virtue of both large and small cruisers alike, but where large ships can be adapted to perform the duties of small ships, the converse is obviously untrue, and small ships, even in a measure, cannot perform the duties that fall upon the largest class of cruiser. It is due to this fundamental truism and also to the fact that during the development of the cruiser, the necessary similarity which must be kept between the battleship and the cruiser was subconsciously realized, that this type of warship has steadily followed the path of increased displacements. The United States kept abreast of the progress in the development of the cruiser up until the Tennessee class was constructed, but in the past ten years the construction of the large cruiser has been entirely abandoned by this country and such abandonment would suggest that the need for the type had passed entirely out of the realm of naval strategy. Such, however, is not the case, as can be seen by an examination of the military duties which can and should be assigned to cruisers of the largest type.
The importance and the use to which superiority of speed in fleet action can be put was admirably shown by Admiral Togo at the Battle of Tsushima. The armored cruisers, in which lay the Japanese superiority in speed, were of the old type of cruiser, that is, of the type to which the Tennessee belongs, but this able tactician fully demonstrated the usefulness of speed with the tools at his disposal. However, even the success he attained only served to accentuate the fact that, to derive the full benefit of any superiority in speed, the ships possessing it should be armed and protected in such a manner as to engage the battleships of the enemy’s main fleet upon an equal footing. Such a condition would be manifestly unattainable at the present day by ships constructed on the design in vogue for armored cruisers of a decade back. This has been precluded by the development of the battleships into the dreadnought type and the gradual increase of speed that paralleled this radical departure in design. This unimpeachable fact has been realized and acted upon by all leading nations except the United States, with the result that, at the present date, these nations have a squadron of battle-cruisers which can be called upon to play their part in enveloping movements in fleet action and which have the necessary superiority in speed for the pursuit of any ship of the enemy which may endeavor to escape during or after an engagement.
Most of the knowledge of the conditions of modern warfare upon the sea must be gleaned from the study of the Russo-Japanese War because of the lack of authentic data upon the few naval actions which have taken place to date in the current European War, although some absolutely self-evident points are shown which will be touched upon at some length in the latter part of this paper. From the Battle of Tsushima we learn that the tacticians in command of both the Japanese and the Russian fleets found it necessary or advisable to reconnoiter in force when an action was imminent. Such a reconnoitering squadron, to best accomplish its purpose, will always have to break through the enemy’s screen and such breaking through will necessitate considerable fighting power and superior speed, not necessarily to the light ships which form the screen but to the main body of the enemy’s battleships.
For scouting purposes and for the blockade of military ports small vessels will be required, and obviously these smaller ships must be supported and assisted by more powerful ships. These supporting ships will need high speed in order to avoid being cut off by a superior number of the enemy’s battleships. If these supporting ships are of the battle-cruiser type they will have sought to fear from a numerically equal body of the enemy, even though the detachment be a part of the enemy’s main fleet, as their superior speed will enable them to escape any action which might result in disaster.
For independent service on distant stations where large fighting power is required, either for military demonstrations or for operations of secondary magnitude, high speed and great endurance are the prime requisites, although efficient gun power and protection should not be left entirely out of consideration.
The military duties which fall upon the cruiser have been briefly stated in the above paragraphs and may be summed up as follows: (1) Tactical or fleet duties; (2) Reconnaissance in force; (3) Support of scouts or of other light vessels on blockade duty or which form the screen for the main fleet; (4) Independent expeditions.
Of these four duties it will probably be admitted that the first and second are by far of the greatest importance and should therefore be given the greatest weight in selecting the type of large cruiser to best fulfill all the requirements of the service. Any nation which aspires to keep in the front rank of the great naval powers of the world must possess cruisers which are capable of performing these two fundamental duties.
For tactical considerations in fleet action large cruisers should be nothing more than higher speed battleships, and in fact this is exactly what the name battle-cruiser implies. They should be ships of higher speed than the battleships and should carry as powerful guns and be as efficiently protected. The three most important elements in warship design are armament, protection and speed. To obtain an increased speed greater weight must be allotted to the machinery and its appurtenances, and if the armament and protection are to remain the same the only method left by which increased speed can be obtained is by increased displacement. Hence, of necessity, battle-cruisers to be most efficient must always be larger than contemporary battleships. This increase of displacement can best be taken care of by increasing the length over that of contemporary battleships, while the beam and draft are kept the same. This will give a finer ship and should give relatively easier driving.
Any ship of the type just briefly described will naturally cost a great deal more than the corresponding battleship and this fact is made their greatest argument by the opponents of the type. Naval expenditures have increased enormously during the past 10 years and a state has been reached where any proposed increase in the cost of the naval establishment of a nation should be approached in a very cautious manner. The construction of battle-cruisers, however, would be an economy rather than an added expenditure. A proper proportion of battle-cruisers is about one to four, that is, for every four battleships there should be one battlecruiser. Thus in a fleet such as the United States Atlantic fleet, consisting of 21 battleships, there should be a cruiser division consisting of five battle-cruisers. Superior speed is much more advantageous before than it is during an action, and a fleet which includes a division of these fast battle-cruisers will possess all the superiority in speed over an enemy’s main body that most naval authorities consider necessary. Thus by the construction of one battle-cruiser for every four battleships laid down the necessary superiority in speed will be obtained and at the same time the battleships can be kept within a reasonable displacement and speed and the increased cost of each new type of increasing size battleships can be summarily stopped, or, if not entirely stopped, greatly diminished. Following this line of argument, although the cost of battle-cruisers will far exceed that of battleships, the gain from the halt in increased battleships speed and displacement will far outweigh the increased cost attendant to the construction of battlecruisers.
What in a sense may be termed a reconnaissance in force is exemplified during the current war by the engagement between the British and German battle-cruiser squadrons in the North Sea. Apparently the German object was riot so much a reconnaissance in force as it was a repetition of the attack made some weeks before upon the coast of England. The British object on the other hand could have been nothing else as there is no evidence of any intention of attack upon Helgoland or of any of the mine infested German North Sea coast. The principal characteristics of the ships engaged in this action as taken from Jane’s “Fighting Ships,” 1914, are tabulated below for comparison and study.
* BRITISH
Designed
Ship Date Displacement Main Battery Speed
Lion ........... . |
| 26,350 | 8 13.5" | 28, |
Tiger .............. |
| 27,000 | 8 13-5" | 27 |
Princess Royal .. |
| 26,350 | 8 13.5" | 28 |
New Zealand ... | ........... 1911 | 18,750 | 8 12" | 25 |
Indomitable . | ....... 1907 | 17,250 | 8 12" | 25 |
| GERMAN |
|
|
|
Derfflinger .... | ....... 1913 | 28,000 | 8 12" | . , |
Seydlitz ......... |
| 25,000 | 10 ii" | 26.5 |
Moltke ........... |
| 23,000 | 10 11" | 27 |
Bluecher ....... |
| 15,500 | 12 8.2" | 24-5 |
1907
A glance at the above table will serve to clearly indicate the great superiority of the British squadron both in armament and speed. The speeds set down are the designed speeds but reports state that all of the ships engaged had exceeded their designed speed by from one to five knots.
In the accounts of the battle, the great superiority of the British was quickly realized by the German commander, who made every effort to escape the engagement. This move on the part of the German commander was probably called for by the orders under which he was operating, but it must be admitted that no naval commander would willingly have undertaken an action against such great odds. The battle which ensued was a running fight and the British superiority in speed enabled them to rapidly overhaul the Germans. The ill-fated Blttecher was the last ship in the German column besides being the slowest of the nine capital ships engaged in the action and it was only natural that the bulk of the British fire should fall upon this ship. The Bluecher was the prey of the heavy guns of the British fleet and it was no wonder that a ship of this type should succumb under the volume of fire poured upon her, although it required a torpedo to send her to her final resting place upon the bottom of the sea.
The Bluecher was Germany’s reply to the first British dreadnought, and as a reply verged on the brink of the ridiculous. The utter unadaptability of this type to successfully cope with the types being constructed by Great Britain was quickly realized by Germany and true battle-cruisers were projected in an effort to keep pace with the British plan of battle-cruiser construction.
The Bluecher is listed in Jane under the caption of armored cruiser and not under the German battle-cruisers. In reality this ship was a transition stage in the change from the armored cruiser of a decade back to the battle-cruiser of the present day. This ship was more than an armored cruiser, in that she carried a greater number of main battery guns, but she was not quite a battle-cruiser because the caliber of the guns was too small to be effective against either present-day battleships or present-day battle-cruisers.
One or two points stand out quite prominently in the accounts of this action. The first and foremost is the unimpeachable proof that the armored cruiser of 10 years ago is utterly incapable of engaging the battle-cruiser of to-day with even the remotest chance of ultimate success. The second point is the great advantage which high speed gives this type of ship in either forcing or escaping an action.
The British speed as a squadron was superior to that of the Germans and this fact alone enabled them to overhaul and sink the Bluecher. If the British speed had been less the German squadron would have returned intact to its base and there would have been no action. As it happened, the German speed enabled three of the four ships to reach the safety zone, whereas if their speed had been less they would have been overhauled and it is hard to imagine how they could have escaped a fate similar to that of the Bluecher before such an overwhelmingly superior force.
Thus it is seen that in this action speed was of advantage to both victor and vanquished and the results would have been far different if either of the squadrons had had less speed. If the German speed had been less, nothing but a greater German disaster could have resulted, whereas if the British speed had been less, the German squadron would have escaped intact.
To theorize a little while on the subject of speed, suppose that either squadron in this engagement instead of consisting of battlecruisers had consisted of type battleships. The superior speed of the battle-cruisers would have enabled that squadron to ascertain the strength of the enemy without venturing to within effective battle range. Then, having obtained such information, an action could have been either forced or avoided at the discretion of the commander of the battle-cruiser squadron.
In biblical history David slew Goliath with one lucky blow and it is only by means of such a lucky blow that an armored cruiser could hope to defeat a battle-cruiser of the present day. The fate of the Bluecher in the Battle of the North Sea proved this conclusively, so that, knowing the fate of this ship, an armored cruiser of the German Navy, it may be of interest to compare the Tennessee class to her. Such a comparison may serve to show how the best class of United States cruiser would have acted under similar conditions.
The sketches and principal characteristics show that in point of displacement the Tennessee is the smaller vessel. In spite of this fact, however, the Tennessee is of greater length and freeboard and both broadside and end-on would present a much greater target. This target would be unnecessarily increased by the great number of unprotected parts such as smoke-pipes and cowls, which are found above the main deck of the Tennessee. These unprotected parts are a great menace to the safety of the ship and the morale of the crew in action, in that they serve to detonate high explosive shell on contact, thus sweeping the decks with splinters.
Comparing designed speeds we find that the Bluecher had an advantage of 2.5 knots when in an intact condition, but this higher speed would probably have been of no advantage over that of the Tennessee because the Bluecher’s speed was very much reduced by shell fire almost immediately after the action began.
The main battery of the Tennessee is four 10-inch and sixteen 6-inch against twelve 8.2-inch and eight 6-inch for the Bluecher. In heavy guns the Tennessee appears to have the advantage because the 10-inch weapon is the smallest caliber that can be considered armor piercing in character. However, the greater number of 8.2-inch of the Bluecher, with greater arcs of elevation and train, would in a measure offset any superiority in caliber, as at great ranges the decks of an opposing ship would be subjected to the plunging effect of a greater volume of fire. The 8.2-inch gun as installed in German turrets can outrange the 10-inch gun as installed in the turrets of the Tennessee.
Disregarding any difference in speed let us consider what might have been the conditions if the Tennessee had been the last ship of the German column. As has been stated above, the North Sea engagement was a running fight. The British battle-cruiser squadron came up from nearly astern and opened fire with their 13.5-inch at 17,000 yards. At this range the Tennessee’s 10-inch would have been of but little value and she would have presented a large horizontal target, parallel to the line of fire, to the plunging impact of the heavy British shell. This target would have been better protected in the Tennessee than in the Bluecher as in the former the armored deck was three inches in thickness while in the latter it was only splinter in character. When the range did decrease to within the effective range of the 10-inch, the Tennessee would have been only able to bring two guns of the main battery to bear, at least until the British squadron bore three points abaft the beam. The arc of train of the Tennessee’s forward turret is limited by the towering superstructure amidships to 270°. In the same position the Bluecher brought six 8.2-inch to bear upon the British. In percentage of heavy guns the two ships would have brought the same part of the main battery to bear, but in the case of the Bluecher the volume of fire would have been greater. The 6-inch battery has been disregarded in this comparison because the Bluecher’s was practically put out of action before these guns could be used effectively.
In point of side armor there is little to choose between the two ships. The armor is practically of the same strength and its distribution follows along the same general lines, so that where the Bluecher’s armor failed we may assume that the Tennessee’s would also fail.
A comparison of these two ships is in a measure not a good one, because where they are both listed as armored cruisers, the Bluecher is more than an armored cruiser. It is really a comparison of the highest and most powerful armored cruiser to the intervening step between that type and the battle-cruiser. This transition type is the more powerful one and where the Bluecher, representing this type of go-between, failed to successfully combat modern battle-cruisers it is certainly safe to assume that the Tennessee would have met a similar fate if placed in a like position. Moreover the Tennessee, presenting such a large target and being of such slow speed, would have been overhauled and destroyed in much less time than it took for the British to successfully defeat the Bluecher.
Turning now to a more detailed consideration of ships for the support of scouts and smaller vessels engaged in blockade duty and for independent service where considerable fighting power is required, we find that such ships, to be most efficient under the requirements of the service, should be large ones. For most nations such vessels of necessity cannot be battleships. Unless a nation is situated like Great Britain, with a very large fleet of first-line ships at its disposal, it would be bad policy to weaken the strength of the battleship fleet by despatching some of its units on separate service. For this reason and also for the fact that speed greater than battleship speed is required for the proper performance of the duties, battleships should not be made use of. Having eliminated the battleship from the question, the next type in point of power which may be employed is the large cruiser. Large cruisers for these duties need not necessarily be of the battle-cruiser type. The now obsolete type of armored cruiser, if provided with higher speed, is fully capable of performing all the duties incident to this service. A question, and a perfectly proper one, may be asked at this point. Why design and build two different classes or types of large cruiser? Is there any logical reason, if the battle-cruiser is the most efficient type of cruiser for the proper performance of the important military duties relating to fleet tactics, why this type of ship cannot be adapted to perform the duties which should be subordinate to the main duties of the type? The answer to both these questions is the simple statement that the battle-cruiser needs no adaptation for any duty and is the most efficient type for the proper performance of all duties which in time of war fall to the lot of the large cruiser. For independent service, a squadron of battlecruisers, with its high unit speed and endurance, can perform any duty assigned to it and on the open sea need fear nothing except a superior number of the enemy’s battle-cruisers.
The current war also furnishes us with an example of the use of the battle-cruiser for independent service. Vice Admiral Sturdee’s squadron, despatched from England for the express purpose of forcing an action upon the German commerce destroyers in the South Atlantic, included two battle-cruisers, the Invincible and Inflexible, sister ships of the Indomitable, which took part in the Battle of the North Sea.
The action which this squadron was able to force could only have resulted in the way it did. The German squadron was ill prepared for a decisive engagement with an equal force, much less one which was so greatly superior. It was short of coal and, having but shortly before engaged the British ships, Monmouth, Good Hope and Glasgow, off the coast of Chile, was also short of ammunition. The Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst, the largest of Von Spee’s ships, were of the obsolete armored cruiser type and this action only served to furnish further proof of the inability of ships of this type to engage modern battle-cruisers. True the British squadron comprised a battleship, the Canopus, in addition to the two battle-cruisers and several smaller vessels, but a glance at the sketches of the Scharnhorst and Invincible will show that this action would have terminated in the same manner if the British fleet had consisted of the two battle-cruisers alone.
These sketches show the great superiority of the Invincible class in marked contrast to the comparatively weak German armored cruisers. The Gneisenau and Scharnhorst were excellent examples of the cruiser type of 10 years ago, but they proved themselves no match for the battle-cruisers laid down in England but one year later.
In comparison with the United States cruisers, in point of power these German ships should be placed between the Maryland and the Tennessee classes. The Maryland is armed with four 8-inch, the German ships with eight 8.2-inch and the Tennessee with four 10-inch. The designed speed of the German cruisers was half a knot higher than that of the United States ships, although the Scharnhorst had never made her designed speed since 1909, when she suffered a severe grounding. However, any two of the United States cruisers would have proved as easy prey if pitted against any two ships of the Invincible class, and it must be borne in mind that this class of battle-cruiser is far from being the highest development of the type. Pitted against ships of the Tiger class, Invincibles would prove as weak as did the ill-fated Bluecher in the North Sea engagement.
The battle-cruiser, conceived by Great Britain’s strategists and naval architects, has amply fulfilled every duty that it has been called upon to perform in the present European War and has fully justified the expenditures necessary for its development. The confidence of the British Admiralty in the type is well shown by the fact that at the present writing the flagship of the British forces attacking the land defences of the Dardanelles is the battle-cruiser Indexible, one of the units of the British force in the battle off the Falkland Islands. This ship, its duty well performed in one hemisphere, was despatched over a quarter of the distance around the globe to lead the attack in the most arduous task ever attempted by warships, past or present.
Up to the present time the current war has served to prove two fundamental facts in regard to warfare on the sea: First, that commerce destruction is of but small value as a major item of any nation’s naval campaign; second, that the battle-cruiser type is of paramount value as part of the nation’s naval establishment.
The German cruisers which at the beginning of hostilities operated on distant stations, with no bases for fuel supply and with commerce destruction as their primary objective, have all been destroyed or interned in neutral countries with their gigantic task hardly begun, and even the submarine warfare being waged upon British shipping has not served to break the backbone of Great Britain’s control of the sea. The main German fleet still remains safely bottled up in the Kiel Canal, not daring to venture forth for fear of meeting disaster in the shape of the British Channel fleet and the British flag still flies supreme on every sea. Where American yellow journals, in flaring type, report one British merchant ship a prey to the undersea raiders, there would hardly be room on their front pages to report the number that reach their destinations in safety.
The second proved fact is by far the most important and should be borne in mind by the United States in regulating the future construction of warship types. If a state of war existed between the United States with its present naval resources and any first- line naval nation the value and need of a division of large, fast cruisers would be apparent with the opening engagement. The United States Navy needs cruisers and needs them badly. If Great Britain, whose naval resources are almost double those of any other nation and who could best do without such a type, knows and acts upon the battle-cruiser’s value as part of her naval establishment, what right has the United States, a poor third in point of naval strength, to balk at the added expenditure, in reality an economy, that this type would call for The United States with its vast wealth of natural resources is of necessity a world power and as such must keep its place among the world’s leading maritime nations. To retain this position an adequate and first-line navy must be maintained and kept up to the point of maximum efficiency, and by adequate and efficient navy is meant one which includes only the best types of warships for the proper performance of the duties incident to the successful termination of any great naval campaign.
During the Civil War in this country the monitor type was in vogue as the best type of armored ship. This type was manifestly unable to operate upon the open sea and, as the naval establishment of the United States developed, the monitor was soon abandoned, although from time to time sporadic attempts have been made to revive it for coast and harbor defence. This abandonment of the monitor did not mean that the need for armored ships was a thing of the past, but only that the development of warships had reached a point where larger ships, capable of keeping the open sea, were required.
And so it is with the cruiser. The fact that the armored cruiser of 10 years ago has become obsolete and has been abandoned, does not mean that the need for large ships with high speed has passed out of existence. They are needed now as they always will be and the battle-cruiser appears as the best and only type of large, high speed ship that should be constructed to fill such need.
Although the United States gave the world the first modern four turret center line installation in the Michigan class, it was British strategists and men of science who gave the world the dreadnought type upon which to install it. Great Britain, far from being a military nation, has always maintained the lead in warship construction and the United States, together with the other world powers, has been forced to follow this worthy leader. In battle-cruiser construction, however, the United States has seen fit to stand still where all other nations have advanced. It is not too late for this country to begin the construction of this type which, combining high speed and great fighting capacity, is badly needed and which has now proved its worth in actual battle. We can begin at the point arrived at by Great Britain after almost 10 years of battle-cruiser construction because this type has now proved itself more than an experiment by contributing more than its share in maintaining British control and prestige upon the open sea. Britannia rules the waves as much at the present time, when a state of war exists, as ever before and she always will as long as her naval expenditures are made in such a manner that only such types of warships are projected as are most suited for the fulfillment of the duties that they will be called upon to perform in time of war.