Back in 1912 I made a long journey nearly every other Saturday from my home in Overbrook, on the outskirts of Philadelphia, via two trolley lines and the “El,” to the League Island Navy Yard, the site of the present Philadelphia Naval Base. It was a long trip for a boy of 13, but I was faithful, for I had a sweetheart there. She was a little on the hefty side—9,215 tons as a matter of fact, because my ladylove was the USS Brooklyn, an armored cruiser.
Even lying idle in storage, she was handsome. Still painted white and buff, she towered above the pier in the back channel with her aggressive ram bow, inward slanting armored sides, three tall stacks and military masts. Her main battery mounted in pillbox turrets gave the final touch, making her the epitome of a fighting ship. Ensuing years have produced other handsome ships,—the Augusta which now graces the Brooklyn's berth, for instance—but none quite captured the heart of this Navy “buff” as did the old Brooklyn. And like many another lovely heart- breaker, she and her type proved a disappointment, although contributing to the development of cruiser types.
Let us take a look at the development of the popular armored cruiser and the part it played in the evolution of the cruiser type.
I
THE ARMORED CRUISER EMERGES
In the days before World War I, the navies of the world were studded with armored cruisers. There are probably several definitions of “armored cruiser,” but to me these ships had armored waterline belts, deck armor and, in some cases, armor-protected turrets and barbettes.
Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans in his autobiography tells of the great interest shown in the Brooklyn by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany during the visit of an American squadron under “Fighting Bob” to Kiel in 1894. Germany had built and was still to build her share of the type, two of which were to win fame at Coronel in 1914 and, shortly after, defeat at the Falklands by British battle cruisers, an extension of the type. World War I was to find many armored cruisers involved
in naval battles, but seldom matched, type against type, in these encounters. The winner always seemed to be a ship of better protection and bigger guns.
As far back as 1870 the armored cruiser engaged the skills and imagination of the then contemporary naval architects. Between that date and 1880 many were laid down abroad, particularly in England. The English began constructing the Shannon, the Nelson, and the Northampton in 1874. These steamships were built of iron, their bottoms were sheathed with wood and zinc sheets, and they had good sail power.
In the seventies and eighties when the navies of the world were in transition from sail to steam, when armor and guns were being constantly improved, the fast armored ship held undeniable appeal. The race for international preeminence in this type continued until about 1908. The U. S. Navy, save for the New York and Brooklyn, was a Johnny-come-lately, and the “Big Ten” (ten armored cruisers, similar in appearance; six of 13,680 tons with 8" main battery and four of 14,500 tons with a main battery of 10" guns) were considered by one authority as obsolete when they were completed in 1905-08.
After the first armored cruisers, the British Admiralty seemed to think the future would lie with fast, deck-protected vessels. However, the Royal Navy returned to the armored cruiser type in 1881 when the Im- perieuse and War spite were laid down. It is interesting to note that these two ships were the last large vessels in the Royal Navy to be fitted with sail. England followed their building with seven of the Orlando-class in 1885, then discontinued, for a time, building the armored cruiser type. For the next thirteen years Britain developed the protected cruiser (usually ships with very thin side armor or none at all, but with a curved steel deck protecting the engine room and other vital parts). Not until 1898 was cruiser side armor reintroduced by the Royal Navy in the Cressy- class. With ships of 12,000 tons, Britain renewed the race for larger, more powerful armored cruisers.
William Hovgaard, Commander in the Royal Danish Navy, naval architect and marine engineer, in a paper read before the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers in 1905, said: “From this period (1890) dates the idea of using cruisers against or as a substitute for ironclads, advocated in England by Lord Armstrong and in France by Admiral Aube.” Hovgaard went on to say that many ironclads of the time presented weak points in their unprotected ends, such as in the Admiral-class, or in their large unprotected superstructures, as in French ships. This line of thought gained acceptance and, except for capital ships, even caused a temporary halt in armorclad construction in most navies. Rapid firers, high explosive shell, and the introduction of secondary batteries in armored ships put an end to that notion.
Early Types
Early armored cruisers were nothing but reduced copies of battleships of the day: the Vauban (1882) resembled the Admiral Duperre, and the Orlando (1886) was much like the Admiral- class.
The type, according to Hovgaard, achieved its real start in 1890 after the completion of the French Dupuy de Lome. This ship had sides completely protected up to the upper deck—was fast and well gunned. France considered herself at that time the possible rival of England on the sea and remembered former wars when her cruisers had inflicted much damage on British shipping. Accordingly, she built a number of fast “protected” cruisers, but realized that the larger types with extensive unprotected sides were vulnerable, particularly in view of the violent effect of rapid firers and high explosive shell.
“The Dupuy de Lome found many admirers,” says Hovgaard. “Not only did it seem well adapted to commerce destroying in distant seas but also caused a revival of the idea of substituting cruisers for battleships.” Hovgaard reports that for this very purpose Admiral Fourmer advocated an enlarged Dupuy de Lome. At the close of the nineties, the French started their first armored cruiser, Jeanne D’Arc, of 11,300 tons which Dr. Oscar Parkes in his new British Battleships (1958) says was unsatisfactory. Even as far back as 1905, Professor Hovgaard expressed serious doubts that this new cruiser-giant, in spite of her great size, was entirely fit for fighting battleships, for which purpose both its armament and protection were insufficient.
The Booster’s Views
Since cruisers, and large ones, too, are still being built, let us pause a moment to see what attraction was provided for the naval architect of the period from 1880 to 1905 by a type of warship that was ultimately to fall short of his hopes and eventually to disappear from the scene by merging into and improving on later cruiser designs.
There was appeal, indeed, in a ship superior in protection to the unarmored types. Such a vessel should be able to break up enemy scouting cruiser operations, commerce raiding, and the nuisances of other cruiser activities. Although the triple problem of tonnage-allotment of armament, armor, and speed undoubtedly plagued the designer of the time, the armored cruiser was usually superior in gunpower, providing her an offensive advantage as well. Usually larger, but not always faster than her unarmored adversary, she seemed ideal for such detached duty as commerce raiding. A raider of this kind at large would force an enemy to detach battle ships to find and destroy her. Usually, any battleship that could be spared from fleet concentrations was slower than an armored cruiser, which made the battleship a poor hunter-killer. This contributed to the theory that the armored cruiser could outfight what she could not outrun, and vice versa.
The armored cruiser enthusiasts also considered it of great potential value where the enemy navy included no battleships, or for missions where the enemy could not bring battleships to oppose her, and as a cheap substitute for battleships. Shore bombardment use was also considered, as well as use for coast or local defense.
There Were Those Who Did Not Agree
These considerations—put forward as highly favorable—were by no means unanimous. Even in the push-button age of 1959 there are few weapons or theories of strategy that find universal acceptance. There were those in the early years of the battleships and the golden age of armored cruisers who considered the latter a compromise ship as, indeed, were any war vessels built to a preconceived tonnage. It was felt that the protection afforded was at the expense of the greatest asset of the cruiser, which was speed.
This same fault, lack of speed, limited the operations of the type, particularly as battleships increased in speed. Cost, too, was pointed out as a disadvantage. The armored cruiser was considered by its critics too expensive for the return it afforded. Added to these “defects” was short range and lack of maneuvering speed of unarmored cruisers and destroyers, where speed above that of battleships was essential. The same complaint as to speed was also evident in working with destroyers on detached duty. And, of course, they were unable to face or run from fast battleships or battle cruisers. (Fast battleships are not a late development. The Queen Elizabeths of Britain’s Navy in World War I, forty years ago, were faster than any armored cruiser except, perhaps, the German Blücher of 1908 which did 26.4 knots on her trials.)
England, in spite of a later change of heart in favor of the small cruiser during the disarmament conferences of the twenties and thirties, at that time backed the armored cruiser and constructed a fleet of nearly forty powerful units ranging in size from 10,000 to 15,000 tons. Their speeds in the pre-dread- naught era were kept 20% to 25% higher than those of battleships but they were too weak to face heavy armor and heavy guns.
The decisions that admiralties were forced to make in allocating the proportion of available funds to genuine capital ships, armored cruisers or fast light cruisers were, of course, dictated by their potential enemy, or enemies, and the probable place where he or they would be fought.
How Good Were the U. S. Armored Cruisers?
A technical article written in 1911 states that “in the United States the armored cruiser established itself at an earlier date than in Europe.” This article referred to the laying down of the New York in 1890, followed by the Brooklyn in 1893. But it was another ten years before the development of the Big Ten, and these were to be the last. It may well be that as a continental power we did not feel the need for cruisers. At any rate, it was a long time between the completion of the Big Ten and the arrival of the Omahas in 1923.
To an American, the comments of Hovgaard on our ten armored cruisers, to which I have referred as the “Big Ten,” are most interesting. Speaking of the Pennsylvania and her exact sisters (1903) he said, “Armour area is restricted and caliber of heavy guns (8") small for a ship of so great displacement.” The Tennessees he classed as a great improvement, with their armor-piercing 10" guns and their “rational system of protection. The approach to the battleship type, as regards arrangement of armor and guns has here—as in the English and French cruisers—been completed, the difference between the large cruisers and the battleship being now in all navies only one of degree.”
After some years of reading about the U. S. Navy, I cannot recall that there was revealed a tendency to include armored cruisers as capital ships to be added to the “line of battle” if required. Does the fact that these ten were named for states indicate anything of early 20th century thinking along these lines; that they were, indeed, capital ships?
Necessity may have been the dictator, or perhaps the naval authorities did have such great faith in the armored cruiser as a “BB, Jr. Grade.” A glance at the Navy Register for 1908 listed eight armored cruisers as the most powerful units assigned to the Pacific Fleet. There were no battleships other than the Maine (II) and Alabama, organized in a Special Service Squadron. The latter ships were not so listed in 1909 and 1910 editions. This, of course, was before the opening of the Panama Canal. Perhaps a war with Japan in 1908 was too absurd to contemplate. At any rate the protection of our Pacific Coast seems to have been entrusted to those belligerent-looking warships which, I have an idea, would have given a good account of themselves until bigger and better ships could have reversed the Oregon's run around Cape Horn. It would seem to me they would have had a better chance of survival than did our 1941 “Asiatic Fleet” which, against every kind of odds, held on for a few heart-breaking months before succumbing one at a time, with only a few escaping. Jane's in the 1907 edition did not think too well of the North Carolina-class, calling attention to the five-inch belts and very moderate speeds. Jane's called them “exaggerations of the original Inflexible error.” This famous annual went on to point out that the North Carolinas were capable of destroying any cruiser in existence but could only do it at the cost of their own existence as cruisers. “They were too costly for cruiser work on such terms.”
At one time the USS Seattle (ex-Washington) had a trial as flagship, United States Fleet. It seems that the idea of a ship with little or no “line” duties had intrigued naval men for some time. The Seattle served from April to June, 1923, and from August, 1923, to September, 1927, with the following flag officers flying their flags in her: Admirals Hilary P. Jones, R. E. Coontz, S. S. Robison, and C. F. Hughes. Apparently the deficiencies of the type weighed against the permanent acceptance of the idea. Nor was it felt worthwhile to develop a prototype until the Northampton was completed recently as a tactical command ship. With no appreciable increase in armor protection, the Northampton can do 33-plus knots and could get out of the way in a gunnery action if the ship-to-ship slugfest ever returns in this aircraft-guided missile era.
A retired captain in our navy tells me that “they—the U. S. armored cruisers—were an interesting type,” which in the U. S. Navy “lasted only a short time. They did a good deal for engineering. I served for some months in the Montana and they were fine large ships; four cylinder, triple expansion, twin screw with 16 water tube boilers. . . . But they were too light to stand up against battleships and did not have enough speed to be as valuable as had been hoped. They had large crews.”
II
SOME BATTLE TESTS
Hovgaard in his article, “The Cruiser,” comments that the Japanese armored cruisers did excellent service at Tsushima, but this battle cannot be considered a reliable test of the type because the superior gun practice of the Japanese outweighed even greater differences in material. Commenting on the fighting capacity of the armored cruiser, this authority says it had reached a point which rendered its part in future fleet actions almost a certainty. He seemed to have been impressed at the “great success” of the Japanese armored cruisers at Tsushima in 1905, where some of them “even went into the line with the battleships.” I have heard it said that the inclusion of armored cruisers in the Japanese battle line at Tsushima did much to popularize this very numerous type. As a matter of record, few new members of the type went into service between 1905 and 1910 and most of these were laid down or projected previous to Togo’s great victory. Wilson, in his Battleships in Action, had this to say about the armored cruisers in the Russo-Japanese War. “Japanese opinion afterwards held that a mistake had been made in not building fast battleships in place of the armored cruisers. Four fast ships of the type laid down during the war in the Tsukuba class (4 12"-12 6"-20j knots) would have been more valuable in the actual conditions of the conflict than six vessels of the Asama type (armored cruisers) and would have cost no more.” It seems that even in this early trial-in-battle the admiration-inspiring armored cruiser showed that the ideal cruiser had not yet arrived.
Santiago
The Spanish-American War provided only one battle that involved armored cruisers— Santiago. The Spanish squadron commanded by Admiral Cervera had been built up by our popular press into an invincible armada. On the contrary, it was not. It faced American battleships, well-designed and powerful for their day, and two large armored cruisers. At the time it broke out of the land-locked harbor the odds were very much against its chances of success. We now know that the Spanish squadron was in poor condition and it is doubtful that its chances would have been much improved had it been maintained to a very high standard. At the time of the breakout, this squadron consisted of but three armored cruisers of 7,000 tons each, and one of 6,840 tons, with a total of eight heavy guns and forty of smaller caliber. Four American battleships pursued the fleeing Spaniards— Oregon of 10,288 tons, Indiana of 10,288, Iowa of 11,340 and Texas of 6,315 tons. The armored cruiser Brooklyn of 9,215 tons was the fifth major vessel arrayed against the Spaniards. (The New York was too far away to figure in the battle.) The American squadron mounted fourteen 12" guns, 24 32-pounder guns, fourteen 6", and many smaller. The sole advantage in favor of the Spaniards was that of speed; probably a paper advantage only. Cervera’s ships were credited with twenty knots while the American battleships, with the exception of the 21-knot armored cruiser Brooklyn, were in the 15-knot class.
Our victory was about as sporting an event as shooting grazing cattle. To the untried crews of untried steel vessels of our “new navy” it was indeed a thrilling, challenging encounter. After a watchful wait of weeks the much-touted Spanish “fleet” (actually a small squadron) was to give battle to the American forces. How were they to know it was to be a brave suicide run with scant chance that even one ship could, by taking advantage of surprise, get a head start which, with luck, might take her to Havana, there to remain under siege conditions until the end of the war?
The battle seemed “no contest” as a test of the ability of the armored cruiser to take punishment. The Spanish ships were hit with seventeen heavy and medium projectiles. Spanish accounts after the war seemed to agree that bad fires were the real cause of the rapid end of these bravely fought ships. And small wonder! If we turn again to Wilson’s Battleships in Action we find that “the two upper decks of these vessels (Viscaya, Teresa & Oquendo) were of wood, laid on steel beams, with no steel plating beneath them as was essential for safety. The wood was dry from the long stay in the tropics and heat from the boilers.”
Our Brooklyn, the one armored cruiser engaged, received two hits on her armor belt, leaving a dent, but which did not perforate. A six-inch shell pierced her side and exploded, but did little damage.
It is doubtful that this battle could have had any outcome other than victory for the American forces. Even if fires had not worked for our side, these comparatively small ships would have been destroyed in a shower of shells and at a time when fire control had not become a science. Wilson concludes that this battle was an example driven home later by the “Great War,” that cruisers cannot engage capital ships in gunnery action with any hope of success.
Coronel
Coronel, in November, 1914, a famous battle in which the leading roles were played by armored cruisers on both sides, should not have happened at all—at least not without reenforcements for the British. The Admiralty, then under the dynamic leadership of Winston Churchill as First Lord, was well aware of the inferiority of the English force as compared with the small but powerful squadron of the German Admiral Von Spee.
The German ships, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, as in the case of most ships on permanent distant foreign assignment, were manned by a full complement of long-service men. They were also crack gunnery ships, amongst the best in the Pacific in 1914. With powerful main batteries of eight 8" guns mounted high in the ships (with six guns available on either beam), their sole weakness seemed only to have been in their length of time out of dry- dock.
The two principal units of the British squadron under Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock, the cruisers Monmouth (completed in 1903) and the Good Hope (which went into service about the same time), were too lightly protected, with nothing heavier than six-inchers (except for two 9.2" guns at either end in the British Good Hope). The crews were made up largely of reservists. Churchill remarks (World Crisis, p. 236), “These two British armored cruisers had little chance in action against the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. No gallantry or devotion could make amends for the disparity in strength, to say nothing of gunnery.” Nor was this hindsight. The Admiralty had issued orders to Cradock to keep his squadron under the protective wings of the old battleship Canopus, armed with 12" rifles and a veritable citadel compared to armored cruisers. Churchill cites a long file of messages to Cradock and on the evidence it was clear what was expected of the British admiral. We’ll never know what caused Sir Christopher to alter his plans and attack without the Canopus. He and the entire crews of both the Monmouth and the Good Hope were lost in a battle which was over in less than one hour. Lest I be accused of the common layman’s error of ignoring the part in any naval battle played by light and weather, let me say that I am fully cognizant of the importance of weather. As Hanson Baldwin so nicely puts it in “The New Navy” (N. Y. Times, October 13, 1957), “The birth pangs of a storm, the temperature of air and water, the clouds in the sky may dictate battles won or lost.”
The Falklands
Although there were other ships, including armored cruisers, in the squadrons of both Sturdee and von Spee at the Falklands battle, the real duel was between the British battle cruisers Invincible and Inflexible and the German armored cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Not too long before the English Falklands’ victory, Sturdee’s battle cruisers had themselves been classed as armored cruisers. From Fred T. Jane’s The British Battle Fleet, (London, 1915) we learn that “the ships as built were designated armored cruisers, and insofar as the Japanese were known to be building armored cruisers carrying battleship guns, that designation was legitimate. . . . Towards the close of the year 1911, the official designation of ‘armored cruiser’ for them and similar ships was abandoned and the term ‘battle cruiser’ was substituted.” With several knots speed advantage, Sturdee could keep out of the effective range of the German cruisers, while pummeling them unmercifully with his 12-inch guns. Von Spee’s fine ships were sunk with ease and very heavy loss of life. In this case the armored cruisers did not stand a chance against the battle cruisers, in spite of those who had advocated the inclusion of armored cruisers in the battle line with real battleships.
Jutland
There were armored cruisers at the Battle of Jutland, that colossal naval battle on a watery stage too small for its huge cast of characters. The armored cruisers were there and, as if there has not been enough Jutland controversy by now, I am one of the many who do not think they should have been. There are, of course, cruiser assignments in any scheme of battle, but it would seem that the ponderous armored cruiser—little if at all faster than a battleship—is not the ideal ship for a place in the cruiser screen. The caption for a fine photograph of that handsome warship, HMS Defence, which is one of the illustrations for Frost’s The Battle of Jutland (U. S. Naval Institute, 1936) would seem to bear out my statement—“The Armored Cruiser Defence was the flagship of Rear Admiral Arbuthnot, commander of the First Cruiser Squadron. When the battle fleet was deploying, the Defence and the other cruisers of that squadron were in advance. The Defence came under the fire of Hipper’s battle cruisers. As a result of two salvos from the Liltzow she blew up under the eyes of the deploying battleships and lost every officer and man aboard.”
This article is not intended to be a series of thumbnail battle sketches. But that master story-teller, Sir Winston Churchill, in his splendid World Crisis gives us a thrilling descriptive paragraph on the plight of several boys on a man’s errand. “Meanwhile Arbuthnot in the Defence followed by the Warrior was pursuing the 2nd Scouting Group. He found the Wiesbaden dragging herself along. Determined to destroy her he rushed down on her at full speed. The Lion heading the British battle cruisers, again in action with Hipper, had also converged. Arbuthnot in impetuous ardor pressed across her bows, forcing her off her course, throwing out the fire of her squadron and blanketing their target with her funnel smoke. He was within 6,000 yards of the Wiesbaden and had turned to starboard to bring his whole broadside to bear when the again advancing Hipper swung his guns upon him, as did some of the German battleships now coming into range. In a moment the Defence, struck by a succession of the heaviest shells, blew up in a terrific explosion and at 6:19 p.m. vanished with nearly 800 men in a pillar of smoke.”
Two more of the eight British armored cruisers at Jutland were sunk—the Warrior with 70 men lost and the Black Prince with 820. The armored cruisers and their cousins, the battle cruisers, didn’t have a very good time at Jutland. The autumn in the life of this numerous warship category found the type, never as good as it looked, not up to the expectations of those who had given it such a large part in the naval defense of many countries. The armored cruisers might well have been assigned in 1914 to less arduous duties.
The Armored Cruiser Meets the Submarine
Such armored cruisers as survived to see the introduction of the submarine were found too slow to be safe in waters infested with deadly undersea boats. In the opening months of World War I, the three English armored cruisers Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy while steaming at ten knots were torpedoed in rapid succession—an entire division of heavy ships wiped out in less than one hour. It is doubtful that the U-boat was seen by any of the English seamen. Otto Weddingen, in the German submarine U-9, scored this triple kill. The German U-boat captain might not have been so lucky had not the second and third ships stopped to pick up survivors. He naturally became a hero in Germany. More important, it brought home forcibly for the first time the potential of the submarine as a weapon of offense. World Wars I and II were to show that no type, or size, was invulnerable to the torpedo, whether launched from surface ships or submarines. The latter had many advantages which were exploited to the fullest degree. Antisubmarine tactics had not come into being at the time of this disaster. These three big ships might have done well for England had not a daring German used initiative and imagination.
When I first read of this Allied catastrophe, I thought of my favorite Brooklyn. It seemed impossible that such an imposing looking vessel as the armored cruiser could be vanquished so quickly and, at that time, with so little risk to the submarine. The submarine, in that war and again in World War II, was to force the employment of very large numbers of ships and men to avoid, if possible, repetitions of this serious loss.
III
THE CRUISER OF THE FUTURE
We are told that the cruiser of the future will still be the important large unit she was in the past. As depicted in the Naval Institute publication, The New Navy, it will be nuclear-powered with armament as yet unannounced. Perhaps it may follow the emerging pattern of the conversions of the Boston and Canberra, but now we do not know if it will be a surface vessel at all . . . it could very well turn out to be a submersible. It is interesting to note that a famous name of former capital ships will be given by the Royal Navy to a submarine, the Dreadnought. Surface or subsurface, she will undoubtedly be furnished with guided missiles, but it would not be surprising, at least in transition, if she still sports a few guns and even torpedo tubes. The line of demarcation between the cruiser and the destroyer may prove only one of size since the future frigate types will very likely assume more and more characteristics of the cruiser. In spite of Russia’s rapid build-up of cruiser strength, I know our navy will be in there with the latest and in suitable numbers. For the officer or enlisted man anxious to see exciting service in war, he will still be likely to find it in a cruiser.
Final Reflections
Was the large share of the naval expenditures of the navies of many powers for armored cruisers a complete waste? I wonder if even the hindsight view from 1959 could prove this was the case. True, the type did not measure up to the sincere hopes of its proponents, but during the years when it was yet to be tested in battle, it provided, as a force in being, a glimpse of apparent power that must have been an aid in diplomacy and a source of comfort to those responsible for a nation’s defense. The “treaty” cruisers of the thirties seemed on paper to be an inferior type but the 10,000-tonners, both lights and heavies, proved their worth in the three-and- a-half year war with Japan, despite eight American losses. Perhaps, when we consider the comparative numbers of each in service in two naval eras, the armored cruisers were as good in their day as the “Treaty” cruisers in World War II. Undoubtedly improved damage control is the difference. Certainly, the number of seriously damaged ten thousand-tonners that survived to fight another day would indicate that design features other than protection, plus the art or science of modern damage control, may be the reason that the Treaty cruisers looked better in war service than their more handsome earlier counterparts.
My last view of an armored cruiser was when I spotted the Seattle moored at a pier on the Delaware River half a mile away from my office. She had been towed in two days before and her peacetime gray was bright in the winter sunshine of 1946.
That noon-hour I buttoned up my coat and trudged against the wind four and a half blocks to get a closer look. Alas, she was a hulk. Her guns and rigging were still in place, but close-up she was rather depressing. I took a long look, conscious that she was the last of her type in North America, if not in the world. But she was still a handsome man-of- war. I looked around to make sure no one was watching me and unobtrusively lifted my hat. It had been about 36 years since I had last seen the beautiful Brooklyn. It made me feel old and not a little sad.