USN could've keep them patrolling the Sea of Japan and Hokkaido while doing exercise with ROKN and JMSDF from the 50's to the 60's. Later add them into SLEP and retrofit them with the latest missile and radar technology.
If the USN mothballed the Alaska's a little longer they could have turned them into heavy missile cruisers, or guided missile battle cruisers with vertical launch systems. The American taxpayers didn't get their $350 million dollars out of them
Ever since I first learned about Alaska and Guam, that is precisely what I have thought. They were simply stunning. Truly great looking ships. Not to mention that even if they were not the best design for the way naval warfare was evolving, they were still formidable ships and it is sad that they are almost forgotten. minor correction: two gorgeous ships, not one :P
Grandfather served on the USS Guam in the Gunnery Department. Still have his ship book and a nice 16 x 20 picture from the 40's that i placed in a museum quality glass frame. Like most sailors, he was very proud of his ship.
My father served on the USS Alaska. I too have the ships book and other pictures. He was very proud to have served during the war. He dropped out of high school and finished after the war.
My father served on the Guam in 5th division, gunnery department. He loved that ship. I also have his cruise book from that period. I am retired army and had volunteered on the Missouri with the engineering/shipfitter's section since it arrived here in Hawaii in 98 until @ March 2016. Found this segment very interesting today and wish one of this class had been saved.
I always saw them as a next generation heavy cruiser that ended up being a dead end. It's like heavy cruiser development split as the treaties broke down. One branch went down the Alaska route, where the cruiser escalated through bigger guns, and the other went for a higher rate of fire, which gave us the Des Moines class. It really reminds me of how the light cruiser escalated in the 1920s and early 30s. At first, next-generation light cruisers were ships like the County, York, and Pensacola classes, which tried to improve on older designs by using bigger 8" guns instead of 6" guns. However, as technology improved it made rapid-firing six inch guns practical and they became the preferred option for light cruisers (not helped by the London treaty messing everything up by defining "heavy cruiser" as anything with an 8" gun). Also, a fun note on the naming convention. "Actual" US battlecruisers were named after less material things important to the United States, like the Battle of Lexington, Congress, or the Constitution, in a manner very similar to the original Six Frigates, while, as you mentioned, the Alaska class are named after territories, like an overgrown heavy cruiser or undercooked battleship.
They did have a practical use as part of the escorting screen tied to a fast carrier group. Only the Iowas were fast enough to stay with the fleet and light carriers of all the battleships, the Alaska and Guam were easily powerful enough to deal with any ship fast enough to get to the carrier groups at night. Plus, they carried more AA firepower than even the Atlanta or Baltimore cruisers. If the war had lasted longer, they would have been handy to have. To point out that they were only kept in service for a couple of years, well that applied to many ships of many classes, including the SoDaks, the Washingtons, and even a couple of Essex carriers that had significant damage. Plus, 5 Montanas, 2 Iowas, 4 Alaskas, 12 Essex/Ticonderoga carriers, 26 cruisers and over 200 destroyers were cancelled, and of those built, many had only a few years of war time service when decommissioned. All pre-war ships were shifted to mothballs once the troops were home.
@@studinthemaking Yamato was sunk in Apr '45, Hyuga, Ise and Haruna in July 45, Nagato survived the war to be sunk at Bikini Atoll in 46. The carrier Amagi was sunk in July 45, and Ryuho and June survived the war to be scrapped in 46 and 47 respectively. What Japan lacked more than ships was fuel to sail them. Su until the summer of 45, with enough fuel, Japan still had enough naval power to do some damage, even if not stop an invasion force.
@@studinthemaking You have to consider when the Alaskas were started, and no one really expected Japan to make the mistakes wasting their capital ships as actually happened.
US Navy: “Give us a design for a ship in between a battleship and cruiser using new concepts and designs.” Ship Designers: *throws designs for Baltimore and Iowa into a blender* “Will this work?” US Navy: “It’s fucking brilliant”
Then would that also make the Baltimore-Class, Alaska Class' angry little sister. And while we are at it, we can also argue that the Cleveland Class is Baltimore Class' angry little sister. Gotta love how US ship designs in WW2 share a roughly similar design layout, especially when you compare the Alaska Class to the Baltimore Class, which looks like a supersized Baltimore with 12 inch guns. And yes, the Cleveland Class, Baltimore Class, and Alaska Class do use the same layout for their dual 5 inch guns with 2 turrets on each side and 1 each in the bow and stern.
The UUS Navy 12" Mark 18 MOD 1 AP projectile used in the ALASKA Class weighed 1140 pounds (same weight versus size ratio as used with the 16" Mark 8 and 8" Mark 21 used with the new battleships and new heavy cruisers). All of these shells were very similar in general design, with small changes from manufacturer to manufacturer and from different dates. The main changes these shells had that was altered in later designs was: (1) That the earliest versions (MOD 1 and MOD 2 for most versions - not the 12" Mark 18, though, which started out so late in the war that it had most of the later "tweaks" used with the other shells in their later MODs), to save machining expense of the AP cap and windscreen, had the windscreen made longer and the AP cap made slightly narrower so that the windscreen was screwed on near the lower edge of the AP cap just above the base of the nose where the cap "skirt" (conical side) was soft, unlike the hard metal that made up most of the forward portion of the cap where it protected the shell's nose during face-hardened armor impact. Thus, with these older windscreen/cap designs, unique to the US Navy at the start of WWII, most of the AP cap was completely hidden inside the windscreen. Later, the caps were widened slightly and the windscreens thread to the upper edge of the cap face, with the side skirt of the cap making up much more of the visible lower nose area. These changes did not change the drag of the shell in flight, but merely had some effect on the cost of manufacture and reducing the chance of damage during handling in the later designs due to having more solid nose and less dentable, bendable thin windscreen in the nose region. The 12" Mark 18 MOD 1 had the short-windscreen design from the start. (2) The later AP shells made during WWII for US Naval guns of all sizes from 6" up were significantly improved in their AP capability as the war went on (unlike most foreign AP projectiles during WWII, which mostly only changed in minor ways). Note that in the US Navy since at least 1900, if not earlier, smaller guns, except for some also used by the US Army, such as the 40mm Mark 81 or 81A AP Shot (no AP cap or explosive filler) and the 3" Mark 29 MODs 1 and 2 AP Shot - later turned into a shell by adding a small Explosive "D" filler and a US Army M66 very-short-delay base fuze - both of which were delegated in the US Navy for firing against such things as surfaced submarines and other protected-by-steel-plating small targets, did not have "AP" projectiles as defined by the Navy, but were base-fuzed "Common" shells with reinforced bodies and reduced-size explosive charges compared to HE shells to allow penetration through substantial homogeneous, ductile (STS, Class "B" type) armor, but did not have an AP cap to protect against hitting strong face-hardened Class "A" armor. Since there was only the single MOD 1 version of the 12" Mark 18 AP shell delivered late in WWII, it had most of the later improvements of the other size shells for AP capability, with one major exception: At the end of the year 1942, a new kind of AP cap was developed for the extra-heavy (but kept at 130 pounds to allow manual handling if needed) 6" Mark 35 AP Projectile (used in the MOD 9 and MOD 10 versions) and in the super-heavy 335-pound 8" Mark 21 MOD 5 AP Projectile, which was otherwise an exact duplicate of the earlier MOD 3 (there was no MOD 4 issued, since the MOD 5 was such a major improvement over the MOD 3). The difference was not in the shape of the cap, which did not look any different from the latest prior caps for those 6" and 8" shells in any significant way, but in the cap's composition and hardening. All earlier US Navy WWII-era AP projectile AP caps, including all of the battleships AP shell caps through the end of WWII, were of about 555-580 Brinell Hardness Number (to get some idea of this, soft wrought iron was 105 BHN, mild steel was usually about 140-150 BHN, Hight Tensile Steel was roughly 170-180 BHN, STS/Class "B" armor was roughly (varied with thickness) 225 BHN, and the surface of Class "A" armor was usually about 650 BHN -- the scale only went up to 700 BHN before the tester began to fail) over most of the cap thickness except just above where it touched the actual projectile nose under it and near the lower edge of the skirt, where is softened to only about 220 BHN to supposedly "cushion" the nose from the Class "A" surface armor impact and to allow crimping of the cap edge into shallow pits in a ring around the lower edge of the nose to reinforce the solder holding on the cap (this design was taken from the British method of attaching AP caps around WWI and after). Most foreign AP caps were somewhat harder in the 600-625 BHN range, which turned out to be better at punching through the face layer of Class "A" plate when the US did its own experiments during the first year or so of WWII. Almost all foreign AP caps were otherwise the same in keeping the cap soft next to the nose to "protect" from the initial impact shock on the hard face of the face-hardened armor. I do not know who decided to find out if this "protection" idea was true or not, but either the US Navy or Crucible Steel Company that made the 8" Mark 21 MOD 3 AP shell, which met all the test standards as-is at the start of WWII, decided that since a harder cap seemed somewhat better, why not "go for broke" and make the AP cap as hard as possible with no cushion layer whatsoever, just retaining the cap's soft lower edge to allow the crimping. They came up with the 6" Mark 35 MOD 9 and 8" Mark 21 MOD 5, which was 650-680 BHN (!!!!) ALL THE WAY THROUGH WITHOUT ANY CUSHION LAYER WHATSOEVER. The cap was now as hard as or even harder than the hardest surface layer of most forms of face-hardened armor (some Krupp KC n/A WWII-era plates had up to 700 BHN at the surface, but no very deep into the face). No other change was made to the projectiles from the last prior design (MOD 8 for the 6" and MOD 3 for the 8"), The result? The penetration of Class "A" plate went up by more than 10% at a given striking velocity in the improved US AP shells AND, most of all, the AP projectiles could penetrate the armor barely above the minimum velocity with virtually NO DAMAGE, since the hard cap had pulverized the face layer of the armor so completely before the projectile nose even touched it. To get this hardness, a special "Triple Alloy" using a lot of the element Molybdenum was produced to allow the caps to be that hard without being so brittle that they could not be safely handled aboard ship. It worked perfectly.
Invincible class, the first battlecruisers, were first described as armoured cruisers. I had always read that battlecruisers were first intended as cruiser killers, and were not intended to face battleships.
Some people consider the Iowa-class as the "Battlecruiser" counterpart to the Montana-class battleships since they sacrificed protection and firepower for speed. The Montanas had an additional three gun turret, had heavier armor, but were a bit slower at 28 knots compared to the Iowa's 33 knots.
However the United States Navy never concluded that if the Montana's were to be built than the Iowa's would be redesignated as battle Cruisers there's no documentation that illustrates it and it's folks trying to stretch things to suit some sort of Kaleidoscope narrative
For what it's worth, Jane's Fighting Ships has the Alaska class clearly categorised as battle cruisers (two words, not one). Whatever you call them, they were extremely handsome vessels.
They were not battlecruisers or battle cruisers, they were in essence a Large cruiser primarily because the battlecruiser term for HMS Invincible was derived from the term/classification of Dreadnought-armored cruiser before they were renamed Battlecruisers
@@timber_wulf5775 the designation for the Kongo class as launched was "armored cruiser", as that is how they were described by the bill authorizing them in 1911, as well as by the shipyard Vickers-Armstrong. The newspapers described them as large armored cruisers and battle cruisers interchangeably, which was true of ALL battle cruisers at the time. (With the exception of the furious and glorious which were officiallylarge LIGHT cruisers.) The Kongos got reclassified as battlecruisers, and then as battleships to " save face" when a botched refit cut their speed by 1/3, then as "fast battleships" when a second refit fixed the problem, despite the fact that their protection against gunfire remained unchanged and the pre WW1 layout left the ship vulnerable to progressive flooding from modern 8" gunfire, again because the IJN had to save face. The Alaska's had approximately equivalent armor but in a superior layout compared to the Kongo class, their modern 12" guns were superior to the Kongo's pre-WW1 14" wire wrapped guns, and they were faster but had worse torpedo protection. This is not a coincidence, as they were designed to fight a not actually existing cruiser design which was believed to be intended as modern replacements for the Kongo class. The distinction between battlecruiser and armored cruiser wasn't truly defined until the treaty era which made ships with guns larger than 8" into "capital ships" but, and even then the USA's first 8" treaty cruiser class was initially designated as LIGHT cruisers, until the second naval treaty split non-capital cruisers into light and heavy based on 6" and 8" gun limits. Under the naval treaty system, the Alaska's would have been "capital" armored cruisers, just like battlecruisers, and before the treaty system they would have been "large armored cruisers", again just like battlecruisers. The USN's internal newsletter even called them battlecruisers in print. The insistence on not officially classing them as battlecruisers seems to have been a way of saying "This ship is for hunting down cruisers and for guarding against cruiser raids, CRUISERS OF ANY TYPE DO NOT BELONG IN THE BATTLE LINE YOU IDIOTS" The problem is that capital ship scale Aviation Cruisers (CV) had already surpassed big gun capital cruisers (CC) in every role except for night fighting. So the only real use for a "large armored cruiser" (CB) was as a CV escort against night attack. (B for big, or B for battle :|)
However described, they were big, fast and very lethal. Not quite Iowa level lethal, but still capable of taking out all but a very few surface ships in the world. Keeping in mind that by the time Alaska and Guam joined the fleet, of the 1000s of ships that fought WWII, the US had 24 battleships, UK had 14 and one battlecruiser, France had 1, and Japan had 5, of which Alaska could hold her own with Hyuga, Ise and Haruna. So of the 44 big gun ships left in the world in late 44, only 5 were Axis ships, the remainder allied ships. And of the few IJN carriers left, they had very few planes to fly off them. The remaining ships in the world were no match for the 2 large cruisers. Even the oldest US battleship, Arkansas, was no match for Alaska or Guam.
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A cruiser killer is a battle cruiser. In the same way as battleships developed into fast battleships, battle cruisers became more armoured. Still not a match for a battleship but fitting the role of scouting ahead and being able to defeat the enemies scouting forces.
Except a true battlecruiser would absolutely dumpster an Alaska, because a modern equivalent to, say, the Lion-class battlecruiser would have roughly the same armor as Alaska, but either 14- or 16-inch guns, and likely displace as much if not more than a Treaty battleship. The Alaskas are very much just scaled-up heavy cruisers, especially when you look closer at the design details.
@@griffinfaulkner3514 but if you look at all battlecruisers that were ever built the Alaska holds up just fine. Hood and Scharnhorst were fast BB not BC. Kongo were upgraded to fast BB status. Alaska guns had the punch to match any other battlecruiser built and the speed to outrun all of them. The exception being only the Renown class with their 15" guns and 31 knot speed.
@@mikebronicki8264 You missed the point I was trying to make. Yes, only the Renown-class battlecruisers stand a real chance against an Alaska, but that's more down to the fact that they were arguably the last true battlecruisers to be built than anything else. An Alaska, from a design perspective, is literally a Baltimore that's been scaled up to the point that it can mount 12-inch guns. Between the armor being designed to cruiser standards (only able to resist its own guns if the ship is at a 30-degree angle to incoming fire), the near complete lack of torpedo protection, the secondary battery layout, and the single rudder, the resemblance is too great for it to be called a true battlecruiser. And no, the Kongo-class were not fast battleships. I don't care what the Japanese called them, 8 inches of belt armor and only 10 inches on the turrets is *not* battleship-level protection, even by WWI standards.
@@griffinfaulkner3514 I guess I'm still missing it. BC design is highlighted by a lack of armor and abundance of firepower. No BC was designed to withstand its own guns. Is it the single rudder that disturbs you? To my eyes Alaska is the natural progression of the archetypal battlecruiser design. What is it about Lion or Tiger that qualifies them as a BC that Alaska lacks? I am trying to understand.
@@mikebronicki8264 A battlecruiser trades armor for speed, but retains battleship grade guns in terms of caliber, if not barrel count. The Lions, for example, used the exact same 13.5 inch guns as the Iron Duke-class battleships, but lost a turret to make room for additional machinery, and actually displaced 2,000 tons more at full load despite having 3 inches less belt armor. (Sidenote, the Lions were actually fairly well protected against German 11 and 12 inch guns at long range, and if it weren't for the battlecruiser squadron's horrible ammunition storage and handling practices Queen Mary at least likely would've survived Jutland. The Invincibles and Indefatigable classes, not so much) The part that makes the Alaskas cruisers, above all else, is combination of the guns and armor. While the Mark 8 12"/50 is by far the most powerful gun of its caliber ever designed, it still pales when compared to the sheer brute force of its battleship contemporaries in the 16"/45 and 16"/50 found on the South Dakota, North Carolina, and Iowa-class battleships. Note that I mentioned that the Alaskas were explicitly armored to cruiser standards, which means being able to withstand their own guns, so long as they remained at a 30 degree angle relative to incoming fire. Also worth mentioning is their displacement- a full 2,000 tons less than even a treaty era battleship, when battleships closest to them chronologically are the 48,000 ton Iowas. Long story short, the design of the Alaskas is much closer to a massively scaled-up heavy cruiser than a proper battlecruiser. They lack the battleship-grade firepower that defines that entire classification and are far better protected relative to their own firepower than any battlecruiser ever was.
Not picking on American cars as I've owned 10 of them. But it is kind of like your muscle cars. Fantastic looking fantastic sounding. Fast as heck - in a straight line. Avoid corners lol.
They were designed to be proof against any 8" armor piercing shell pretty much throughout their range. The Alaskas were what happened to CAs when treaty restrictions lifted and you were right again saying they came too late. If things had been different with aircraft and all gun capital ships continued I think you would either see heavy cruisers with a new 12" standard battery or you would see them merge into BBs with light cruisers morphing into more powerful cruisers. Imagine a 38 knot cruiser with 12 12" guns. That was doable. Ryan, you are awesome for doing this and I notice you do practically all of it from memory and you do it accurately. I've been studying WW2 and the Pacific War in particular as my main hobby since I was 10 years old. That was over 50 years ago and I ain't stopping. I think you and I may be brothers in that perspective. I'd love to sit around the man-portable pumps with you and talk about things like Leyte Gulf and whatnot. My father was there and I assume with the Taffys or with the force in Surigao Strait. I only assume that because his DD was one of the first into Leyte Gulf proper while protecting some minesweepers. A side note, when I was Navy I lived next door to a lady who was Filipina. Her father was up a palm tree on Leyte watching the first American ships come in. He literally watched my dad.
Well, the Navy gave these two ladies the CB designation. CL would have been just right for “Cruiser: Large,” but that was already taken. As such, CB looks more like a Cruiser: Battle, as in Battlecruiser. Edit: ok, I’ll say CB = Cruiser Buster, to go along with Ryan’s cruiser killer idea.
According to naming conventions at the time, Battleships were named for States, Heavy Cruisers were named for State Capitols, and Light Cruisers were named for Cities in States. Alaska, Guam, and Hawaii were Territories, not States but more than just Cities.
I personally think the Alaskas and Deutschlands are "supercruisers" while Scharhorst and Strasbourg are "light battleships", but putting them all under "cruiser killer" works. The distinction being how each design was arrived at.
Alaska has battleship size guns and Scharnhorst doesn't. To me if anything Scharnhorst is more of a modern armored cruiser and Alaska is a Battlecruiser.
@@SRR-5657 Scharnhorst had 11" guns, Alaska had 12" guns. Neither were the caliber of contemporary battleships; trying to separate them that way is pointless.
@@TheSchultinator Battleships of that era were almost all still Dreadnought type battleships, Dreadnought defined that type of ship, Dreadnought had 12" guns. We talk a lot about the cool modern fast battleships but in reality they were far from the majority of the worlds battleships. The IJN only had 2, KMS had 2 or 4, RN had 5 or 6, France had 2 or 4, Italy had 3, the US had 10. To me Alaska is clearly a Battlecruiser, and it's hard for me to call Scharnhorst a battleship, I also generally hate making up new terms for only like 2 or 3 examples of some new class. No Alaska is t exactly like Renown and Repulse but it's pretty close. Like, Alaska is larger than all but 1 class of American battleship, has (albeit small for the era) battleship size guns, but is a cruiser, to me that's a battlecruiser. I guess to me, if Alaska isn't a Battlecruiser, then Shcarnhorst definitely isn't a damn battleship. You can't have smaller and fewer guns than Dreadnought and still claim to be a battleship in the 1940s, that's nonsense. Literally Dreadnought is better armed than Scharnhorst, so is Alaska. So if we're saying Alaska isn't a Battlecruiser then fine, but Scharnhorst then isn't a battleship or even a Battlecruiser, Scharnhorst is just a heavy cruiser.
@@SRR-5657 The 12" guns weren't seen as viable battleship weapons even in WWI, let alone WWII. Most everyone was moving into 14" or 15" guns, bar the Germans (who used.. 11" guns). How many of those 12"-gun WWI-era BBs were sent into frontline combat in WWII? Their existence does not make 12" a BB-grade gun in WWII. My justification for how I'm labeling the ships comes from the design intent and process. The Alaskas were always designed and built as extra-large cruisers, whereas the Schornhorsts were always smaller battleships. I would be willing to call Scharnhorst a battlecruiser, but not the Alaska. Keep in mind, the battlecruiser was created by stripping down a battleship design. The "first battlecruisers", the Invincible and Inflexible classes, were bigger armored cruisers with bigger guns and thus were called "dreadnought armored cruisers". If we're going to follow the historical trends, Alaska is a large cruiser and the Scharnhorst a battlecruiser.
@@TheSchultinator Scharnhorst has more armor than gun, literally the opposite of what a a Battlecruiser normally is. Alaska has stupendously large guns for a cruiser and less armor, like a battlecruiser.
Would be interesting to hear about the proposed Yamato-killer, the Montana-class battleships. None were built, but the plans were there and we have good idea what they would have been like.
The Yamato and Musashi killers were the Iowa class. The 16 inch guns on the Iowa were faster firing, more accurate and better penetration than the 18.1 guns on the IJN tubs. Also our ships had far better damage control and overall better sailors. I know the arguments very well about "look at the damage they took before being sunk" . Gun battles are different than aerial to ship battles. One other thing the Iowas were extremely fast and maneuvered very fast.
White Elephants is a good term for these ships. They have similar tonnage, cost, and crew to that of a 35,000 ton treaty Battleship but not the capacity. Hindsight would have called for a revised 35k ton treaty Battleship with a higher speed and the 5”38 arrangement of the Alaskas.
"Ligtht Battlecruiser"? Maybe? First what's a "Light Battleship"? The Alaska class followed the general pattern for a battlecruiser. The guns were battleship-grade, the armor and speed were cruiser-grade. Where it misses the traditional battlecruiser formula is its guns are much smaller than battleships of its day.
The Alaska’s were the ultimate expression of the big gun heavy cruiser concept as developed int the interwar/ early ww2 design era. They were too lightly armored to severe in the fashion of earlier German battle cruisers of the ww1 era, they were the pet project of FDR’s naval thinking as regards to the potential German and Japanese ships that were never built due to obvious difficulties in those nations ship’s construction programs after the war began. The Alaska’s were a failure because there was no need for shops of their capabilities, heavy cruisers had the same AA, and similar armor. Fast BBS had better AA and FAR better survivabilty as regards bombs and most importantly torpedoes. The Alaska’s were ships designed for a specific enemy that never really existed . They were extremely handsome warships tho
@@imjashingyou3461 The Scharnhorsts were proper battleships, with the heavy armor to go with it. Remember, there were long-term plans to replace the triple 11-inch guns with twin 15s, similar to the Bismarck's turrets. The Deutschlands were purpose-built commerce raiders, not battlecruisers, with armor only slightly superior to that of a heavy cruiser, and WWI-era 11-inch guns that were significantly less powerful than those found on the Scharnhorsts. Dunkerque and Strasbourg were originally designed as traditional battlecruisers, though if you look at Strasbourg in specific, she's carrying far more armor than her sister as a direct response to the existence of the Scharnhorsts, as Dunkerque's armor was more than sufficient to deal with a Deutschland's older guns. The Alaskas were designed to engage heavy cruisers in general, and the Deutschlands in specific, but were NOT intended to fight actual battlecruisers. Strasbourg in particular would've given an Alaska all sorts of problems in a straight fight.
The Alaskas had specific targets to go after at the time of their design, but due to arguments over said design and construction delays,by the time they were actually built both the Deutschlands and the entire Japanese cruiser force were very, very dead.
i would look more towards calling them super heavy cruisers myself. Fast enough to catch other cruisers and beat them in gunnery, while able to outrun most anything that could challenge them for gunnery. While a case could be made for using something like the Renown class to catch and outgun them, the armour of a Renown class ship would have difficulty standing up to the 12" guns the Alaska class were armed with. I would say overall the Alaska class were a 'better' blend of speed/armour/firepower than the Renown class. But it does depend on what the original designers were told to design AGAINST more than anything. If the 12" guns were actually better than the older 14" guns of WW1, then look out any navy that tried it on with an Alaska. Someone was going to get a good fright.
The U.S. Navy had a special need for these Hybrid Cruisers. Specially built the unusual way that they were, to be used as Admiral Loews Fast Attack Cruiser Fleet. The Cruisers Tactics were Powerfully deployed several times thorough the war, but only to have the Naval Air Forces, show up on the opposing forces first. The Powerful, Fast Attack Cruiser Force, could only properly be compared to the U.S. Naval Air Forces.
some notes here: 1) Alaska Class is a testament of both USA Industrial capacity AND also the overkill money expended at the expense of the taxes people paid. Arguably a Cleveland could produce about the same level of AA and they costed quite less. In other time this would had been Zumwalt class level of scandal 2) This is (in my opinion) an enlarged cruiser, period. It is the path cruisers would have taken if 50.000tn with 16/18 inch guns would have carried on. 3) Spee, Strassbourg, Duilios/Dorias and Scharnhorst were of a different arms race. A) Deuschland was (weight limitations broken in secret aside) a 10.000tn ship armed with 11' guns. Germany design the best ship they could design under those specific Versailles restrictions. This limitation was imposed so Germany could only build cruisers or coastal monitors, but with welding technology and better engines, Germany managed to sneak a "little battlecruiser" able to defeat any treaty heavy cruiser, while only 3 British battlecruisers and 4 Japanese Battlecruisers were indeed a threat they couldn't run from, too few battleships to really hunt them across the entire Atlantic. B) As a response for this ships, France used their chance of renewing battleships to specifically counter this threat, therefore Strassbourg came into play. France didn't need to prepare against many large industrial adversarys, just the Germans and the Italians, Italy only had 4 12' battleships and Germany had this 11' "thing". So a 13' gun ships with the speed to hunt a Deuschland but still armored to fight against the Italian WW1 era Battleships. C) The Strassbourg design really worried Germany AND Italy. The Italian response was the design of the first fast battleship in the world, the 45000tn Littorio, but since Italian industrial capacity was limited, they think they wouldn't have them built before the outbreak of WW2, and their 4 battleships were in fact hopless against newer French ships. so they extensively rebuilt their existing battleships (something somehow cheaper than a new construction, but since it was such a deep redesign, it wasn't that great move anyway) to a 12.5in shell and well armored against 13' shells, being a little lesser gun they had 2 more barrels per gun. Also they were arguably about as fast as Strassbourg. D) The German Response, in express agreement with the UK, was the Scharnhorst class, a class that despite being design for later 15' gun adition, at launch it had heavier 11' guns that could penetrate strassbourg and was armored as a battleship, not just against the 13' of the French ships but also against the 15' guns from the UK. E) UK looked at this "lower tier capital ship" race with relatively ease since they already had a great 15' or bigger slow Battleship lineup but they also had 3 "battlecruisers" that had battleship level armor at least in the belt. They had from day 1, 3 ships able to hunt and kill Deuschlands, Strassbourg (if they have needed to), Dorias and (arguably) Scharnhorst. Japan also had 2 "kind of" fast battleship (Nagato) and 4 Kongos, so they had the propper response also. F) USA Didn't have anything to counter these ships. USNavy didn't have any ship that would sail faster than 20/21knot and have battleship (11' and above) size guns. The USA line of battle doctrine wasn't that good since it was severely one-sided approach, they didn't have a couple of ships of fast design and armored compromise. This is the reason behind the Alaska. USNavy did need a specific ship to response for Deuschland, they designed fast battleships to chase the Kongos, but they were just too much for the Deuschland. And since USA had extra resources to expend, they wasted money in a good but rather obsolete by concept design
Carl Linnaeus had a similar problem in that he started to run out of Latin names to describe new species. Big battleships, little, fast , pocket, hybrid, treaty, battle cruisers, heavy cruisers, light, fast, cruiser killers. Are there Cliff Notes?
A number of 1950s papers list them as Large Cruisers... and describe them as battle cruisers. (uncapped and with the space. The US made them because FDR wanted them and picked them. As for their combat... they spent a lot of time not just as AAA defense but used their radar to act as Air Traffic Control as their radar was the most advanced around.
Pretty much every "battlecruiser" launched before WW1 were originally classed as Armored Cruisers (or in one example "large Light cruisers" ). The 1911 Kongo class were originally Armored Cruisers. The Media coined the term battlecruiser, as well as the earlier term dreadnought armored cruisers. The Lexington class were officially "cruiser" cruisers (CC) in the same way that the dreadnought battleships were classed as "battle" battleships (BB), then redesigned and reclassed as "aviation cruisers" (Cruiser Volaire, CV) The Pensacola class with their 10x8" guns were originally light cruisers (CL), but the armored cruiser "CA" designation got revived due to treaty limits despite having tin can armor.
The issue was not designing them or even starting to build, it was the failure to adjust them for a role need, in this case as an all out AA Ship which clearly was seen as needed and well known that the recovered Pearl Harbor BBs more than filled that need (or perceived need though arguably failure to deploy them to the Solomon's was a huge mistake). If you can't maneuver what good are you? Ok, as an AA platform and sacrificial if need be yes.
When trying to figure out the names of ships like this, the key for me is to dumb everything down to the simplest denominators then compare like-to-like. Battlecruisers, when initially-designed, were upgunned, fast armored cruisers. They were never intended *originally* to fight in the line of battle, yet by WWI it was increasingly-obvious that through the consequence of their design (they outgunned all the ships they WERE designed to fight, thus an opponent needed bigger ships to counter them), they had inherited a line-of-battle role against each other as well as other fast capital ships. They're capital ships serving a cruiser role but technically able to fight in the line of battle--hence battlecruisers. The simple fact that distinguishes a battlecruiser from anything else (whether its an armored cruiser like the pocket battleships, a treaty heavy cruiser, or a light cruiser) is that if it gets engaged by a battleship, it CAN fight back; sooner or later ships like Renown get thrown at battleships like Scharnhorst because they're capable of fighting it and they're in the right place, and WWI showed very clearly that no one is going to hunt cruiser killers with just other cruisers; either battleships or battlecruisers get sent. Looking at doctrine or WWI-design philosophy makes it get confusing because different nations treated similar designs very differently, but as long as you focus on the capabilities of the ships rather than their role, it helps to clear things up a little more.
Here's why I consider them battlecruisers: their 12" guns actually had better penetration than the 14" guns of the older Standard battleships. The ships could throw like a battleship. Compare this to the Scharnhorst class battleships, which had 11" guns, and the King George V class which had 14" guns. Shell diameter wasn't everything at this stage of the game because, even among newer ships accepted to be battleships, it was all over the place. Furthermore, most people thinking of battlecruisers are only thinking of the British-pattern battlecruisers which had battleship guns but lighter armor. The German-pattern battlecruisers were actually the opposite, with battleship-grade armor but their own intermediate gun caliber. Considering this, the Alaskas sit very nicely as a hybrid between the British and German design concepts. Given the actual performance of their weapons, it is perfectly reasonable to call them a battlecruiser.
My deepest apologies for the large block of text but I don't agree with your argument. The primary problem here lies in that you're comparing ships from quite different eras. You cant really compare new ships with old standards(sry for the bad pun). When reading this, pay attention to the 1st, 2nd, and 4th paragraphs in particular, as the 3rd is kinda just me ranting abt German battlecruisers. A good example is that the Hippers have greater penetration than the Deutschland class battleships(not the panzerschiffe) that the Germans were still using, but nobody says the Hippers "throw like a battleship". It is, admittedly, a ludicrous example but it gets the point across. The Scharnhorsts are a very peculiar pair in that they were envisioned to have 15" guns, the slight problem being that Germany didn't have any 15" guns and put 11" guns with provision to upgrade. In addition to that, no contemporary American battleships were being built with anything short of 16" guns(admittedly, the North Carolinas were designed with 14" with provision to upgrade to 16"). As to Dunkerque and Strasbourg, they were very neat little battleships with the intention to counter the Italian rebuilds as well as give their cruiser screen a little more punch. Considering that, its quite easy to see why the French chose the 330mm gun and a 9" belt(albeit 11" on Strasbourg). By the time the Alaskas are laid down, the environment has changed somewhat, with newbuilds bringing 15 or 16" guns(Bismarck, Littorio, Iowa, SoDak, etc). I'd argue that the KGVs are a little more the exception rather than the rule, as they heavily emphasized protection over firepower(15" belt over magazines! Das THICC). I would like to appraise you for bringing in the German battlecruisers, which are painfully ignored in most conversations, but your comparison of the Alaskas to them is completely wrong. The Alaskas have a 9" belt, which is woefully unprepared to take anything close to a contemporary capital ship shell, whereas German battlecruisers from ww1, bar the Moltkes and Von der Tann, all have 11.8" belts. When you compare gun caliber to belt thickness, the germans have almost the same caliber as belt(Moltke with 11" guns and 10" belt, Seydlitz with 11" guns and 11.8" belt, the Derfflingers with 12" guns and 11.8" belt). German battlecruisers also have very similar guns to their battleship counterparts, with Moltke and Seydlitz having 11" guns compared to the contemporary Helgoland and Kaiser, carrying 12" guns. Both Von der Tann and the Derfflingers carry the same guns as their contemporaries, with VdT having the same 11" guns as Nassau and the Derfflingers carrying the same 12" guns as the Königs. A very minor point I'd like to make about your analysis of German Battlecruisers is that they have Battleship grade armour, which is technically true albeit somewhat misleading. Compared to British battleships, yes they often have thicker armour, however, when compared to german battleships, they have less armour with 35cm on Kaiser and König vs 30cm on seydltiz and Derfflinger. My point with this is that the Germans also sacrificed a bit of armour for speed, just not nearly to the same extent as British battlecruisers. My point with this paragraph being that the Alaskas are nothing like German battlecruisers. Another thing to note is that Battlecruisers are always the same size, if not larger, than their battleship counterparts. My favourite example is that the Derfflingers are 3000 some tonnes heavier than the Königs at deep load. The Alaskas are 29k standard, whereas the contemporary Iowas are 48k standard. The rare exception to this rule is the Large light cruisers, which can be referred to as battlecruisers but they are really quite silly things which do not follow the general trend. As such, I have come to the conclusion that calling them battlecruisers is quite wrong due to the fact that, although they compare favourably to old battleships, they compare horribly with contemporary battleships and hence, the comparison doesnt work.
The USS Alaska was slightly cheaper then the battleship South Dakota class. The Alaska cost $74 million compared to the South Dakota at $77 million. This was a great sacrifice in armor and fire power to gain six more knots of speed.
At the same time, three KGVs did cost less than one, single Iowa apparently. But the reason the KGVs had such short lifespans was that slow 28kt speed, HMS Vanguard being slightly faster made her all the more useful to the Royal Navy. Spending the extra money for speed was a worthwhile investment in hindsight.
I would request a video on the Kongo-class battlecruisers of the IJN, as I have read in more than one place that the Iowa-class BBS were designed in part to hunt those BCs down.
To a US or RN battleship, the Nagatos were the most dangerous of the older IJN ships. The 14" guns of the Kongos did not actually prove to be terribly effective, as the SoDak demonstrated, and at the same range, the Washington tore the Kirishima apart. 20 x 16" hits, 40 x 5" hits, knocking out all main guns, all secondary guns, all propulsion machinery, and decimating the watertight protection. While many claim the Japanese scuttled the Kirishima, accounts from the survivors lead to the conclusion that massive flooding led to free surface effect causing the ship to capsize. There is no doubt, the Washington killed the Kirishima in about 20 minutes or so.
The Kongo's, when they were first launched in the 19Teens, created quite the Brew HaHa in the US Navy as we had nothing in the Pacific that was comparable to them, but since at the time Japan was our Ally I guess we didn't get THAT concerned. However, I would think that the development of the Lexington Class Battlecruisers was in part an answer to the Kongos. Of course, concurrent to our Lexington's the Japanese were developing and laying down the Amagi Class Battlecruisers, slightly slower but more heavily armed than Lexington. Of course, Naval Treaties and Japanese Earthquakes resulted in Scrapping or Carrier Conversions of these.
@@timclaus8313 Yeah, Kirishima was torn to pieces. The only Real Advantage the Japanese had was their skill at Night Fighting and Long Lance Torpedoes, which to some extent served them well at Guadalcanal. But yeah, a Kongo, even after Reconstruction, was not built to withstand point blank 16 in. hits.
@@edwardmcirvin8342 No ship really was able to withstand point blank hits with impunity. Even Yamato would not have been immune at that range, though she would have done extensive damage in return. And in reality, any WWI ship would be at a significant disadvantage against any post-treaty battleship. 20+ years of development on guns and shells had changed the equations of armor protection schemes a bit.Okun Resource - World War II Naval Gun Armor Penetration Tables - NavWeaps These charts show how the various guns penetrated during different eras as shells were improved.
@@edwardmcirvin8342 Once the USN started getting more admirals like Add Lee that understood and truster radar, that was the ned of the IJN advantage at night. Adm Oldendorf used that skill to good advantage at Suragao Straight.
I think the Alaska class would have mode a great combination gun/missile cruiser. But I can see where the Navy thought it was a lot of money and personnel to run a really big cruiser that was almost as big as a BB.
I would have love to seen a comparison between the Alaska class vs the Scharnhorst-class. The Scharnhorst-class had better armor protection but 9 11 inch guns. It would have been an interesting comparison.
They were designated CB and the three laid down would have been the perfect companions assigned to the CVB Midways post war Ii. Even more so if the 5 inch/ 54 twin mounts of the aborted Montana class would have been reassigned to them instead of the 5 inch/ 38 twins mounts originally installed. These ships also would have been better platforms for the installation of the Regulus missiles recycling their amidship twin armor storage bays.
Could we see a video on the general super cruiser concept comparing the Alaska's to unbuilt designs like the Stalingrad, proposed British super cruisers, and Japanese B-64/65?
When Operation Ten Go (Yamato’s death ride) began the USN original attack plan was to send the Battleships Massachusetts, Indiana, South Dakota, New Jersey, Missouri & Wisconsin. The USN also sent Alaska, Guam & 21 destroyers. Of course, while sent Marc Mitchner deployed nearly 400 attack planes & the Yamato never made it past that aerial gauntlet.
For everyone interested how a ship that didn’t or doesn’t exist anymore looked like I recommend to search the internet for pictures of the particular ship you want to see from World of Warships by WarGaming. Like for instance the Japanese „cruiser killer“ can be found under the name Yoshino, so the search term I’d suggest is „WoWS Yoshino“. I can’t guarantee that the 3D models are historically accurate though. Not meant to be advertising, just a friendly recommendation and hint.
Take the hull of an Alaska. Change propulsion to CODOG electric drive. Minimal super structure covered with SPY-6 radar, an Aegis combat systems with VLS tubes all over. Now you have an arsenal ship.
They were Battlecruisers. Same mission. There is no reason to overcomplicate this. If both the Wyomings and the Iowas are both Battleships, there is no reason to nitpick the Alaskas. They were closer to BB's than CA's, with (albeit older) BB caliber guns, high speed , armor tough enough to fight CA's but not enough for BB's...They were Battlecruisers. The only thing that makes it hazy was how amazing the Iowa level fast BB's were.
I view Alaska and Guam to be large cruisers. 1). they had cruiser speed. 2). Who says (in 1941 or 1942) that cruisers can only have 8-inch main batteries.? 3)They only had one rudder, whereas battleships have two rudders. 4). The floatplanes were located amidships, like heavy cruisers have. 5). they were designed to do battle with enemy cruisers, not to slog it out with battleships. I view it as tragic that after WW2 they were not used as fleet flagships, that ships like Des Moines and Salem were used instead. a). they were faster than other cruisers, b). they were bigger, hence had more room for flagship-required office space and flagship-specific crew accommodations. I also view it as negligent criminality that Alaska was not preserved as a museum ship.
If I was a WWI battleship I wouldn't want to to fight 2 Alaska class cruisers. The Alaska's were too fast, could fire quicker and had sufficent large guns with super powerful 12 inch shells to pummel an old battleship. I think they even had torpedos. Were the Alaska's battlecruisers? Depends on what they fight. Old battleships and cruisers I think you could rank them a battlecruiser. New heavy cruisers and battleships no. They were heavy cruisers. Why not make a battlecruiser with 14 inch guns and heavier armor? That would require more displacement and larger engines and in that case just build a fast battleship. That was an issue the Navy delt with in making them what they became. One thing they did have going for them is the shipyards could build them faster than battleships. If the war hadn't ended in 45 when they were just getting into service they may have proved their concept. I think they are beautiful ships. Well proportioned. They look fast!
Now that I think about it, the description of something that is basically a smaller/faster battleship actually matches up very closely with the pre-dreadnought 2nd-class battleships. And I think there was even the confusion of where to draw the line between a 2nd class battleship and an armored cruiser, seeing as how both of them (as well as 1st class battleships) are all part of the same continuum at various points inside the iron triangle of mobility/protection/firepower
The U.S.S. Alaska class ships are almost an American version of the German "pocket battleship" concept, or the Japanese Kongo-class battle-cruisers - which were later re-classed as battleships. Fascinating concept, if a dead-end developmentally, for the U.S. Navy.
I would think these 12 inch guns should have a better rate of fire than 14 and 16 inch gun ships since they probably had lighter projectiles. But being more modern even though the guns were smaller they were no doubt as effective.
As a point to ponder, if the Alaska class would have pre-dated the Deutschland class (and Dunkerque's,) would they have been the original "pocket battleship"? Thing about this, when you factor everything into it, i.e. the doctrine when designed, intended purpose, and the actual usage after being in the water, there are so many variables that it becomes an academic exercise that could have gone any way.
I’d like to see a video accurately dealing with the German development of the battle cruiser concept that created the concept of the “ fast battleship” that the Iowa’s are arguably the ultimate expression of in terms of ships actually constructed
Wasnt the Battlecruiser a british thing, made for colonial patrouls, and something that the germans then copied? The fast battleship, as far as I can see, just describes "modern" WW2 battleships that reached above 30 knots without sacrificing any armor, making the battlecruiser kinda pointless. Ofc the Iowa, like a lot of US battleships, did sacrifice a bit of main belt thickness, but not to the degree where it made it anything else but battleship.
After Midway, Coral Sea and Guadalcanal were US cruisers were often hit by long lance torpedoes 50 knot torpedoes running for 20 miles, it was clear US Battleship design had to be revised radically, mere padding and space with double hulls and padding as well as armour down below was not enough So the Montana class planned battleships were canceled and the last two Iowa's Kentucky and Illinois were suspended and redesigned with completely new underwater protection spacing and padding to absorb torpedoes So in the interim mid 42-44 there was building space for 3 Alaska's extra to the first 4 Iowa programme in some ways the ten Alaska triple turrets were the most.modrn capital ship armament ever built. Hawaii was stopped in 1947, 82 percent complete with the main and secondary armament fitted 12 inch and 5 inch fitted. The money to complete instead of say the last Baltimore saw Toledo was in the budget as an option but the large crew and turning circle little better than an Iowa and the fact that by 1947-8 the peace dividend might have seen the Alabama's or Iowa's then being mothballed actually struck.
Excellent discussion! "Cruiser killer" - that was precisely what the original "dreadnought cruiser" which later was called a battlecruiser was supposed to be! Also...it seems most miss this - the German term for their battlecruisers in WW1 was "Große Kreuzer" which directly translates to "Big" or "Great" Cruiser ( = "Large Cruiser")! Call them what you will - the Alaska's had guns more powerful than the German Scharnhorsts', belt armour of equivalent thickness to the British Renowns', thicker than the Japanese Kongos' and a speed that eclipsed that of every battleship and battlecruiser class except the Iowas. Personally, I call them battlecruisers as they were a revival of the original concept at a time when, yes, their main guns were smaller than their immediate contemporary battleships, but 16-inch guns would have been overkill for a cruiser killer role. (What if they had carried 6 16-inch in twin turrets??) 12-inch were capital ship calibre nevertheless. But that's me. As I said..iImperial German Navy called their battlecruisers Big/Great/Large Cruisers too! It's all semantics. BTW, I had the unforgettable privilege of visiting the New Jersey in 2003.
its worth considering how much closer Cruisers and Battleship main gun armaments' were before ww1. Cruisers originally had guns up to 9inch with 8inch, 7 and 6 inch also common. Dreadnoughts started with 12inch which is only marginally better on paper than the cruiser armaments. With treaties and the BB arms race we see a major divergence in the top end armaments with CAs still only mounting 8inch while large BBs get up to 18inch guns. Battle Cruisers used for anything else then hunting down weaker Cruisers is a waste since they lack armor to survive BB hits.
@@williamt.sherman9841 Interesting thought. They were even closer considering the 11-inch guns of early German pre-dreadnoughts. But the shell weight differences were significant - eg British 9.2-inch, 370 lb, 12-inch 851 lb. I'd say that's a bit more than marginal. In terms of BC utilization, that depends... German BC's stood up very well to British 15-inch shells at Jutland, though the poor quality of the British shells at the time was a factor. The British BC's flouted safety protocols by cordite stacking, so those who got hit in the right place blew up. What befell Hood could just as easily have befallen any of the R-class, Barham or Malaya. Renown was one of the most useful capital ships in the RN in WW2 and performed well in many roles - though, perhaps fortunately for her, she never came under sustained fire from heavy calibre shells. Scharnhorst & Gneisenau, Vittorio Veneto & Guilio Cesare all headed for the horizon....
@@Chartdoc62 the growth in weight from 8inch to 12 inch is significant. the 370 you cite is 170lbs heavier than 250lbs common with 8inch guns. Shell weight grows exponentially with size increases of course. Really this comes down to what a Battle Cruiser is. Is it a fast Battleship that can and should fight on the Battle line against other BBs or is it a Bully Cruiser intended to club seals? I think it can be either- and its not a bad idea to lump all the strange outsiders who don't fit clearly into Cruiser or Battleship into the BC role- Either French Dunkirk types or The German Pocket Battleships or the Scharnhorst or Alaska class. some are more "battle" than "cruiser"
The Baltimore class cruisers also had an armored belt that was partially as thick as the Renowns. So does that make them battlecruisers too? More probable, its just anachronistic to compare a ship from WW1 to one from 30 years later. Nobody made Battlecruisers after WW1, thats just the reality. Alaskas had weak armor, they were clearly less protected compared to similar weight Battleships like the Scharnhorst, and they lacked the underwater and torpedo protection. They were scaled up cruisers by design, not intermediate battlecruisers, let alone battleships.
Yes. My father was on the USS Guam CB2 and he said the same thing. He was a MM2 . He called it a Battle Cruiser. The designation is CB, which should read Cruiser, Battle.
I generally agree, although I think Large Cruiser was a fine designation. The real problem with the Alaskas was that they cost as much as a battleship to operate and didn't offer a meaningful advantage over one. They had about the same crew requirement as a South Dakota. Their 12" guns actually cost more than the Iowas' 16". It was really the existence of the Iowas that doomed the Alaskas. Anything an Alaska could do, an Iowa could do better for just a little more money. Plus the Iowas could do things the Alaskas could not. The Alaskas were fine and interesting ships, and none of this is meant to denigrate them. They could have been the top ship in many other navies, they just did not have a useful niche to fill in the USN.
Robert, I couldn’t agree more ! To me, the building of niche warships is not a very good strategy, particularly for the USN. That said, answering a rival’s ship design with a comparable design was very common practice. Example the IJN Mogami class built with 15 x 6 inch guns, which were countered with the Brooklyns. By the time the Cleveland class design was finalized it was realized 12 guns were much more practical. In the case of the Alaska class, there was potential threats to be countered. With only 3 available by 1945ish, what are the chances they will be at the right place at the right time to meet comparable enemy ships? Not all that likely. If a nation could afford to do so, just build more fast battleships, which the USA could. Chances are with 10 + 3 more fast BBs, there would always be some available in theater. This actually came to pass at the second naval battle of Guadalcanal, scratch one Kongo class and save Henderson Field from another bombardment. As for designation of the Alaskas, I think the USN called it correct, CB: Large Cruisers.
@@markam306 I generally agree. To be fair, there is one argument for building the Alaskas. They could be built on smaller slipways than the Iowas, meaning more shipyards could do it, and required less materials. If the USN feared a number of new Japanese unrestricted cruisers would appear on the seas, then there is an argument to build a bunch of Alaskas alongside the Iowas. It's strictly about putting out more ships to counter the enemy at that point. However, the USN basically knew that the Japanese were not producing the feared super cruisers. They lowered the priority of the Alaskas and some argued strongly for cancellation or conversion to carriers. Rumor has it that FDR intervened to have them completed as cruisers.
I’ve read opinions that the reason the Alaska class was built was built was they were a pet project of President FDR. Does that rumor have any basis in fact?
I believe Drachinifel has the Alaska Class categorized the same way you do as a Cruiser Killer. Agreed 100% they are not Battle Cruisers since that classification really disappeared with HMS Hood. Respectfully I don’t think the US every built a true battle cruiser, the closest would be the Fast Battle ship. What if’s are like rabbit holes. An interesting video idea could be the following. What could the US have done with the Alaska class after the Second World War, Comparison to USS Little Rock which was saved from the breakers.
I classify the Alaska’s as battlecruiser in the original Dreadnought armoured cruiser name tag of the Invincible’s. Unfortunately despite being excellent ships they never had a purpose given the lack of heavy cruiser squadrons threatening US shipping - plus they were just too expensive re bang-for-buck compared with either the 8” cruisers or Iowa’s.
Analysis has shown she could also deal with any of the older Japanese or European battleships still in the fleet. While not really meant to be alongside a SoDak, Iowa or KG V slugging it out with a Bismarck, Veneto, or Yamato, they could hold their own with any older BB from any other navy.
@@DeeEight Could hurt pretty much any of the WW I BBs, though the Alaskas were vulnerable in return. On their side was far better fire control, rate of fire, maneuverability and speed.
Battle Cruiser designation for Alaska class does not fit for a number if reasons, even if only considering US Navy standards. No way the guns were contemporary battleship or battlecruiser in penetrating power, though 1 level below them. Torpedo protection was cruiser standards. Shell protection was cruiser level. A battle cruiser would be expected to defeat an Alaska Class ship 1-on-1. I call them Super Heavy Cruisers, though this is not an official term.
Out of all the ships lost to the breakers perhaps the only ship that ranks higher on my list of ships that should have been preserved, is HMS Dreadnought. Add in ships that were lost due to actual combat and there is only one more above it, Yamato. edit: Connecticut is also around the top of my list of ships I wish were preserved, but I omit it here because a huge reason for that, is because I am from said state.... though being a great example of what people like to call semi-dreadnoughts, I really wish it had been preserved.
I prefer the term super cruiser it's a better fit the 12in gun hadnt been a BB caliber gun for 25 plus years.... The 12in gun would of never been put in a battleline so it eliminated the weakness of BCs mainly crazy admirals us8ng them like BBs... The Alaskas were perfect cruiser killers...
The Alaska-class "large cruisers" were pretty much Baltimore-class heavy cruisers on steroids😅 "Cruiser Killer" I agree is an appropriate title for this class. Plus the name "Cruiser Killer" sounds cool 😁
If my memory is serving me correctly, Japan's answer to the US Alaska Class was a Ship very similar in design, although I believe one variant had 14 in. guns as opposed to 12 in. I also believe the Japanese DID NOT refer to them as Battlecruisers but instead as Super Type A Cruisers. The 2 planned vessels were only numbered as 795 and 796 and were never named or laid down. Generally, they would have resembled Scaled Down Yamato's.
But do you LIKE the ship design? How was it for her crews? Berthing, Mess, etc? Range? How difficult to put torpedo blisters and an extra rudder or 2 on it?
They probably would've made excellent shore bombardment vessels for areas the battleships couldn't get into or where you may not have wanted to risk a battleship where their 12" guns could pulverize anything that the 6" and 8" guns of cruisers may not have.
It's a battlecruiser, there's no need to reinvent the wheel. They might've taken a whole different route to get there but that's what they ended up with.
Nice video on the often forgotten Alaska class ships. The heavy 12 inch main battery should have qualified these cruisers to remain in service for the shore bombardment role after WWII along with the Iowas, especially since many 8 inch cruisers were kept in service even into the 1970's. I do agree with your favored term of Cruiser Killers for these ships as one of their original reasons for design was to counter the threat of the German Pocket Battleships (which were really cruisers armed with six 11 inch guns). Alaska class ships would have made Swiss cheese out of the Pocket Battleships had they ever met.
That, and the threat of the Azuma class cruisers Japan wanted to build. Those were a lot more like the Alaskas. Unfortunately, (for Japan) they were never built, because they didn't have the resources to spare by then. So we had these massive beasts, but the ships they were built to counter didn't exist/no longer existed when they were launched. Not to mention Japan no longer really had ANY surface fleet of note by this time. Most of it was already on the bottom of the ocean, or stuck in port, because there was no fuel to send them out. So we ended up with another class of really big, really expensive CV AA escorts. The Des Moines class also came too late. Probably a stroke of luck for our enemies- both classes would not have been much fun to fight, lol.
Absolutely agree with you, hard counter against the Deutschlands and maybe even the Kongos. A post war refit Alaska would have been really interesting. They would have been able to do the same post-war missions, that the Iowas ended up doping (shore bombardment and missile plattform). Beeing newer, and less worn out, maybe even slightly more cost effective (the 12 in guns had only 10% less range than the 16 in). So i guess it's a good thing they where scrapped, or there would have been less Iowas as museum ships.
@@kilianortmann9979 I doubt any of the Iowas would have been scrapped even if the Alaskas were retained but it would have been great if one of the Alaska class was preserved. At least we do have Heavy Cruiser USS Salem preserved in Quincy, MA (and as an interesting note, she played the part of the German Pocket Battleship in the famous movie, "Pursuit of the Graf Spee."
CC is the US Navy battlecruiser designation, not CB. It's what the Lexington class used and what the Alaskas were originally going to use until they were reclassified as "large cruiser." Likely it means Cruiser, Big, since CL was already in use for light cruisers. I agree with the curator. These ships are large cruisers or cruiser killers, not battle cruisers. If anything, these ships are a reinvention of the armored cruiser. The "capital ship guns start at 8.2 inch" thing is an entirely political concept that comes out of the Washington Treaty. During the 1890s, armored cruisers had 9.2" and 10" guns, like the British Minotaur class and American Tennessee class. They were longer than battleships and armored against the guns of enemy cruisers, but were not capable of standing up to the firepower of battleships. I view them as one branch in a fork that split heavy cruiser development around World War II as the treaties broke down and countries looked to develop new cruisers superior to the treaty ships. The Alaska class, along with Churchill's 9.2" cruisers, the B-65 class, the Dutch 1047 class, and the Stalingrad class, went for bigger guns. The other fork is embodied by the Des Moines class, which went for improved volume of fire using rapid-fire 8" guns instead, like a kind of Heavy-Light cruiser. The Des Moines were more successful because they did what a heavy cruiser needed to do without being astronomically expensive to run like the Alaskas were. In a lot of ways it mirrors what happened with light cruiser development, where navies first went for 8" gun ships like the Pensacola, County, and York classes and then switched to rapid-fire six inch guns like on the Brooklyn and Town classes once the technology became available. Also, one thing to note about classical battlecrusiers is that, outside of the original dreadnought armored cruisers of the Invincible class (and the politically mandated Indefatigable class), even the lightly armored British battlecruisers were armored against capital ship guns in a way the Alaska class really aren't. The Lion class were designed to resist the 11" and 12" guns of the German battlecruisers, which were still somewhat competitive against battleships, and were capable of doing it when not plagued by Beatty's poor ammunition handling standards, as HMS Tiger proved at Jutland. The Alaskas are barely competitive with the Standard Class, and those ships were 25 years old by the time the Alaska class were built and were really no match for a modern capital ship (for that matter, even the Kongo class would have been a not-insignificant threat to them, and they were actual battlecruisers that predated World War I). Compared to Yamato they look like, well, a heavy cruiser. The treaty system did a real number on battleship development. Yamato is only a taste of what battleships would have been without it. Every other battleship built post-Colorado, Revenge, and Nagato are stunted by its effects. Also also, US battlecruisers used a different naming convention to the Alaska class. The Alaska class are named after territories, while the Lexington class were named after battles or concepts important to the United States, in a manner very similar to the original Six Frigates. Indeed, three of the Lexingtons were named after some of the frigates, and USS Constitution was temporarily renamed "Old Constitution" to make the name available for her successor. Still, it would have been neat to see Hawaii (or Kentucky for that matter) completed as a guided missile ship. THAT would have been a cool museum piece.
The Germans never used the term battlecruiser in WWI. Their ships were classified "" or great cruiser and were not built to the same protection v. gun v. speed formulation as the British. 'Battlecruiser' is just an English language grouping of ships that somewhat approximated the British battlecruiser concept, even if they colored outside the lines like the Germans did. I can see how the Alaska class can be argued either way. Too bad they were completed too late to see surface combat but it was very much a carrier war. WWI is where battleships and battlecruisers actually mattered. WWII was just a few battles between ones and twos mainly. Nothing like Jutland or even Dogger Bank.
Patriots point here in Charleston did something with world of warships. If you bought a ticket, on the back there was a voucher code for an early ship of a certain class
Beautiful ships, they look fast. A look at any cruiser, heavy or light, would be interesting. They tend to be very active, and involved in lots of different kinds of operation, like the British ww2 light cruisers.
Warships are classified according to their highest reasonable ABILITY. A destroyer, for example can do almost anything, but it would be foolish to create a merchant fleet of destroyers. Alaska class are battlecruisers because they could reasonably take on other battlecruisers. They cannot survive battleship rounds, but they can penetrate the thin armor of battlecruisers, and can easily fulfill any cruiser mission or ability. Alaska's highest classification is that of battlecruiser. MCI
I don’t care what you call them, I call it a crying shame one of the Alaska’s didn’t get the chance to fight one of the Japanese battleships. Any of those tubs save of course the Yamato’s would have been mauled by the Alaska in my opinion. The new rapid fire mounts combined with superior fire control equipment and higher speed would leave one of those old tubs headed for the bottom.
Nagato had enough belt to resist Alaska's guns at decent range while having 16.1" guns herself. Probably the one capital ship that really falls behind Alaskas are the Kongo-class. Similar bursting charge and penetrative power-but one less barrel and 2" less armour would seal the deal.
Puerto Rico in Wows was one of the many different design proposals for the Alaska class, coming in at a 38,00” ton mini-battleship. You’re probably thinking of Hawaii, she was laid down and constructed to the point she coukd have been converted to a carrier, but deemed not worth it
As far as i am concerned the Alaska's were Battlecruisers. Fast , lighter armoured , long , thin and reasonably armed . It would have been interesting if they went up against the Scharnhorst's and i think its possible they could win even though the Scharnhorst had better armour . Most of the time German Commanders were ordered to stay away from fights with pier opponents . Battlecruisers . And thats what the Scharnhorst's were too. Thick armour or not.
Richard Newcombe A missed bout. Think of the pay-for-view receipts! Anyway, it probably depends on who gets in the first licks. In good weather and daylight I vote Scharnhorst. The opposite conditions, Alaska, as US radar and fire control were superior to the best of the Kriegsmarine WWII equipment.
I think the USN's term for them - large cruiser - is fairly fitting. It could be applied to the Deutschland class, the Dunquerque class, and probably even to the Cold War-era Russian Kirovs.
I do understand one argument I've seen for ships like this that we should refer to them how the constructing navy did, so referring to the refitted Kongo's as Fast Battleships, the Scharnhorst's (as-built) as Battleships and the Alaska's as Large Cruisers is technically the most correct thing to call them, but to me they are ALL battlecruisers. Alaska's role is to hunt down and destroy heavy cruisers, which let's be honest, is the original concept of the Invincible class, so even by role the Alaska's are battlecruisers. They could provide battlefleet scouting and protection as well, which was the other role of the original battlecruisers. What qualifies as a battleship and what qualifies as a battlecruiser is always fun to discuss though.
The biggest mistake with this design, I feel, is the single rudder. The second mistake is a total absence of a torpedo defense system. I think it would have been worth to at least put a minimal system on the hall but that's just me. I like the Alaska class other than those things.
Ok, you asked for suggestions. How about the Sverige and Ilmarinen class ships of the Swedish and Finnish navies. Then there’s the capital ships left over from the South American dreadnought race, the Yaviz, and how about the ships the Norwegian and Danish navies had. I’m fascinated with coastal battleships. According to papers from the Reichsmarine the reason Sweden wasn’t invaded was the three Sverige class and the older coastal battleships the Swedes still had in commission.
@@BattleshipNewJersey I always do. I’m a naval history geek and love your videos. Curiously Dr. Alex Clarke says that Hood was definitely a battlecruiser because of the framing. His dad was a naval architect, and he’s a history professor, so I’d consider him a good source. In fact I’d love to see you and him debate the issue. I think that would be a great video to watch.
@@BattleshipNewJersey Fantastic. I find the ships of the minor navies, and why they were designed, crewed, and operated the way they were fascinating. The Sverige class when I first ran across an article about them in Warship really intrigued me, and it looks like the Swedes got their money’s worth out of those ships. Just curious, have you ever heard of Sabaton? They have a great song about the Bismarck. ruclips.net/video/oVWEb-At8yc/видео.html
![SahBabii - Viking [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/D37cL92JX0I/mqdefault.jpg)
Even with flaws, the Alaska Class remains one gorgeous ship.
USN could've keep them patrolling the Sea of Japan and Hokkaido while doing exercise with ROKN and JMSDF from the 50's to the 60's. Later add them into SLEP and retrofit them with the latest missile and radar technology.
If the USN mothballed the Alaska's a little longer they could have turned them into heavy missile cruisers, or guided missile battle cruisers with vertical launch systems. The American taxpayers didn't get their $350 million dollars out of them
Ever since I first learned about Alaska and Guam, that is precisely what I have thought.
They were simply stunning. Truly great looking ships. Not to mention that even if they were not the best design for the way naval warfare was evolving, they were still formidable ships and it is sad that they are almost forgotten.
minor correction: two gorgeous ships, not one :P
Had they been around in the 80s they probably would of been reactivated....
It's a shame the Alaska wasn't saved.
Grandfather served on the USS Guam in the Gunnery Department. Still have his ship book and a nice 16 x 20 picture from the 40's that i placed in a museum quality glass frame. Like most sailors, he was very proud of his ship.
My father served on the USS Alaska. I too have the ships book and other pictures. He was very proud to have served during the war. He dropped out of high school and finished after the war.
Would you be able to make a photo copy of the book? My grandpa finished out the war on the Guam but the book on ebay is over $330 !
My grandfather was also on the Guam, in the marine detachment. Which i think is part of the gunnery dept, atleast in that book you are talking about.
My dad was also on the Guam and i also have the book and the picture
My father served on the Guam in 5th division, gunnery department. He loved that ship. I also have his cruise book from that period. I am retired army and had volunteered on the Missouri with the engineering/shipfitter's section since it arrived here in Hawaii in 98 until @ March 2016. Found this segment very interesting today and wish one of this class had been saved.
I agree. You an Drachinifel have come to the same appropriate conclusion.
I always saw them as a next generation heavy cruiser that ended up being a dead end. It's like heavy cruiser development split as the treaties broke down. One branch went down the Alaska route, where the cruiser escalated through bigger guns, and the other went for a higher rate of fire, which gave us the Des Moines class.
It really reminds me of how the light cruiser escalated in the 1920s and early 30s. At first, next-generation light cruisers were ships like the County, York, and Pensacola classes, which tried to improve on older designs by using bigger 8" guns instead of 6" guns. However, as technology improved it made rapid-firing six inch guns practical and they became the preferred option for light cruisers (not helped by the London treaty messing everything up by defining "heavy cruiser" as anything with an 8" gun).
Also, a fun note on the naming convention. "Actual" US battlecruisers were named after less material things important to the United States, like the Battle of Lexington, Congress, or the Constitution, in a manner very similar to the original Six Frigates, while, as you mentioned, the Alaska class are named after territories, like an overgrown heavy cruiser or undercooked battleship.
They did have a practical use as part of the escorting screen tied to a fast carrier group. Only the Iowas were fast enough to stay with the fleet and light carriers of all the battleships, the Alaska and Guam were easily powerful enough to deal with any ship fast enough to get to the carrier groups at night. Plus, they carried more AA firepower than even the Atlanta or Baltimore cruisers. If the war had lasted longer, they would have been handy to have. To point out that they were only kept in service for a couple of years, well that applied to many ships of many classes, including the SoDaks, the Washingtons, and even a couple of Essex carriers that had significant damage. Plus, 5 Montanas, 2 Iowas, 4 Alaskas, 12 Essex/Ticonderoga carriers, 26 cruisers and over 200 destroyers were cancelled, and of those built, many had only a few years of war time service when decommissioned. All pre-war ships were shifted to mothballs once the troops were home.
By 1945. Japan has no capital ships left to fight in the open ocean.
@@studinthemaking Yamato was sunk in Apr '45, Hyuga, Ise and Haruna in July 45, Nagato survived the war to be sunk at Bikini Atoll in 46. The carrier Amagi was sunk in July 45, and Ryuho and June survived the war to be scrapped in 46 and 47 respectively. What Japan lacked more than ships was fuel to sail them. Su until the summer of 45, with enough fuel, Japan still had enough naval power to do some damage, even if not stop an invasion force.
@@timclaus8313 the key phrase being "until the summer of '45." The invasion of Japan wasn't scheduled until the autumn.
@@studinthemaking You have to consider when the Alaskas were started, and no one really expected Japan to make the mistakes wasting their capital ships as actually happened.
Germany also had the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and while sunk harbor, the Dunkerque and Strasbourg were still available to be raised and repaired.
US Navy: “Give us a design for a ship in between a battleship and cruiser using new concepts and designs.”
Ship Designers: *throws designs for Baltimore and Iowa into a blender* “Will this work?”
US Navy: “It’s fucking brilliant”
why fix what aint broke, downsize some bits and upsize some others.
Usn: And we need the new designs by Monday.
The Alaska-class, the Iowa-Class’ angry little sisters
I like that!
The entire concept of "large crusiers" started with the Deutschland class "pocket Battleships"
I would say more Oregon City classes big sister.
Then would that also make the Baltimore-Class, Alaska Class' angry little sister.
And while we are at it, we can also argue that the Cleveland Class is Baltimore Class' angry little sister.
Gotta love how US ship designs in WW2 share a roughly similar design layout, especially when you compare the Alaska Class to the Baltimore Class, which looks like a supersized Baltimore with 12 inch guns.
And yes, the Cleveland Class, Baltimore Class, and Alaska Class do use the same layout for their dual 5 inch guns with 2 turrets on each side and 1 each in the bow and stern.
@@macrossMX does that make the Gearing the Cleveland's angry little sister or what
The UUS Navy 12" Mark 18 MOD 1 AP projectile used in the ALASKA Class weighed 1140 pounds (same weight versus size ratio as used with the 16" Mark 8 and 8" Mark 21 used with the new battleships and new heavy cruisers). All of these shells were very similar in general design, with small changes from manufacturer to manufacturer and from different dates. The main changes these shells had that was altered in later designs was:
(1) That the earliest versions (MOD 1 and MOD 2 for most versions - not the 12" Mark 18, though, which started out so late in the war that it had most of the later "tweaks" used with the other shells in their later MODs), to save machining expense of the AP cap and windscreen, had the windscreen made longer and the AP cap made slightly narrower so that the windscreen was screwed on near the lower edge of the AP cap just above the base of the nose where the cap "skirt" (conical side) was soft, unlike the hard metal that made up most of the forward portion of the cap where it protected the shell's nose during face-hardened armor impact. Thus, with these older windscreen/cap designs, unique to the US Navy at the start of WWII, most of the AP cap was completely hidden inside the windscreen. Later, the caps were widened slightly and the windscreens thread to the upper edge of the cap face, with the side skirt of the cap making up much more of the visible lower nose area. These changes did not change the drag of the shell in flight, but merely had some effect on the cost of manufacture and reducing the chance of damage during handling in the later designs due to having more solid nose and less dentable, bendable thin windscreen in the nose region. The 12" Mark 18 MOD 1 had the short-windscreen design from the start.
(2) The later AP shells made during WWII for US Naval guns of all sizes from 6" up were significantly improved in their AP capability as the war went on (unlike most foreign AP projectiles during WWII, which mostly only changed in minor ways). Note that in the US Navy since at least 1900, if not earlier, smaller guns, except for some also used by the US Army, such as the 40mm Mark 81 or 81A AP Shot (no AP cap or explosive filler) and the 3" Mark 29 MODs 1 and 2 AP Shot - later turned into a shell by adding a small Explosive "D" filler and a US Army M66 very-short-delay base fuze - both of which were delegated in the US Navy for firing against such things as surfaced submarines and other protected-by-steel-plating small targets, did not have "AP" projectiles as defined by the Navy, but were base-fuzed "Common" shells with reinforced bodies and reduced-size explosive charges compared to HE shells to allow penetration through substantial homogeneous, ductile (STS, Class "B" type) armor, but did not have an AP cap to protect against hitting strong face-hardened Class "A" armor. Since there was only the single MOD 1 version of the 12" Mark 18 AP shell delivered late in WWII, it had most of the later improvements of the other size shells for AP capability, with one major exception: At the end of the year 1942, a new kind of AP cap was developed for the extra-heavy (but kept at 130 pounds to allow manual handling if needed) 6" Mark 35 AP Projectile (used in the MOD 9 and MOD 10 versions) and in the super-heavy 335-pound 8" Mark 21 MOD 5 AP Projectile, which was otherwise an exact duplicate of the earlier MOD 3 (there was no MOD 4 issued, since the MOD 5 was such a major improvement over the MOD 3). The difference was not in the shape of the cap, which did not look any different from the latest prior caps for those 6" and 8" shells in any significant way, but in the cap's composition and hardening. All earlier US Navy WWII-era AP projectile AP caps, including all of the battleships AP shell caps through the end of WWII, were of about 555-580 Brinell Hardness Number (to get some idea of this, soft wrought iron was 105 BHN, mild steel was usually about 140-150 BHN, Hight Tensile Steel was roughly 170-180 BHN, STS/Class "B" armor was roughly (varied with thickness) 225 BHN, and the surface of Class "A" armor was usually about 650 BHN -- the scale only went up to 700 BHN before the tester began to fail) over most of the cap thickness except just above where it touched the actual projectile nose under it and near the lower edge of the skirt, where is softened to only about 220 BHN to supposedly "cushion" the nose from the Class "A" surface armor impact and to allow crimping of the cap edge into shallow pits in a ring around the lower edge of the nose to reinforce the solder holding on the cap (this design was taken from the British method of attaching AP caps around WWI and after). Most foreign AP caps were somewhat harder in the 600-625 BHN range, which turned out to be better at punching through the face layer of Class "A" plate when the US did its own experiments during the first year or so of WWII. Almost all foreign AP caps were otherwise the same in keeping the cap soft next to the nose to "protect" from the initial impact shock on the hard face of the face-hardened armor. I do not know who decided to find out if this "protection" idea was true or not, but either the US Navy or Crucible Steel Company that made the 8" Mark 21 MOD 3 AP shell, which met all the test standards as-is at the start of WWII, decided that since a harder cap seemed somewhat better, why not "go for broke" and make the AP cap as hard as possible with no cushion layer whatsoever, just retaining the cap's soft lower edge to allow the crimping. They came up with the 6" Mark 35 MOD 9 and 8" Mark 21 MOD 5, which was 650-680 BHN (!!!!) ALL THE WAY THROUGH WITHOUT ANY CUSHION LAYER WHATSOEVER. The cap was now as hard as or even harder than the hardest surface layer of most forms of face-hardened armor (some Krupp KC n/A WWII-era plates had up to 700 BHN at the surface, but no very deep into the face). No other change was made to the projectiles from the last prior design (MOD 8 for the 6" and MOD 3 for the 8"), The result? The penetration of Class "A" plate went up by more than 10% at a given striking velocity in the improved US AP shells AND, most of all, the AP projectiles could penetrate the armor barely above the minimum velocity with virtually NO DAMAGE, since the hard cap had pulverized the face layer of the armor so completely before the projectile nose even touched it. To get this hardness, a special "Triple Alloy" using a lot of the element Molybdenum was produced to allow the caps to be that hard without being so brittle that they could not be safely handled aboard ship. It worked perfectly.
Invincible class, the first battlecruisers, were first described as armoured cruisers. I had always read that battlecruisers were first intended as cruiser killers, and were not intended to face battleships.
Colin MacKenzie Yes, Jackie Fisher wanted and got battle cruisers to kill armored cruisers. It worked. Just ask Adm. Graf von Spee..
Some people consider the Iowa-class as the "Battlecruiser" counterpart to the Montana-class battleships since they sacrificed protection and firepower for speed. The Montanas had an additional three gun turret, had heavier armor, but were a bit slower at 28 knots compared to the Iowa's 33 knots.
JAG that is unfortunately true. It would have been interesting to see these mighty ships been built.
However the United States Navy never concluded that if the Montana's were to be built than the Iowa's would be redesignated as battle Cruisers there's no documentation that illustrates it and it's folks trying to stretch things to suit some sort of Kaleidoscope narrative
For what it's worth, Jane's Fighting Ships has the Alaska class clearly categorised as battle cruisers (two words, not one). Whatever you call them, they were extremely handsome vessels.
They were not battlecruisers or battle cruisers, they were in essence a Large cruiser primarily because the battlecruiser term for HMS Invincible was derived from the term/classification of Dreadnought-armored cruiser before they were renamed Battlecruisers
@@timber_wulf5775 the designation for the Kongo class as launched was "armored cruiser", as that is how they were described by the bill authorizing them in 1911, as well as by the shipyard Vickers-Armstrong. The newspapers described them as large armored cruisers and battle cruisers interchangeably, which was true of ALL battle cruisers at the time. (With the exception of the furious and glorious which were officiallylarge LIGHT cruisers.)
The Kongos got reclassified as battlecruisers, and then as battleships to " save face" when a botched refit cut their speed by 1/3, then as "fast battleships" when a second refit fixed the problem, despite the fact that their protection against gunfire remained unchanged and the pre WW1 layout left the ship vulnerable to progressive flooding from modern 8" gunfire, again because the IJN had to save face.
The Alaska's had approximately equivalent armor but in a superior layout compared to the Kongo class, their modern 12" guns were superior to the Kongo's pre-WW1 14" wire wrapped guns, and they were faster but had worse torpedo protection.
This is not a coincidence, as they were designed to fight a not actually existing cruiser design which was believed to be intended as modern replacements for the Kongo class.
The distinction between battlecruiser and armored cruiser wasn't truly defined until the treaty era which made ships with guns larger than 8" into "capital ships" but, and even then the USA's first 8" treaty cruiser class was initially designated as LIGHT cruisers, until the second naval treaty split non-capital cruisers into light and heavy based on 6" and 8" gun limits.
Under the naval treaty system, the Alaska's would have been "capital" armored cruisers, just like battlecruisers, and before the treaty system they would have been "large armored cruisers", again just like battlecruisers. The USN's internal newsletter even called them battlecruisers in print.
The insistence on not officially classing them as battlecruisers seems to have been a way of saying "This ship is for hunting down cruisers and for guarding against cruiser raids, CRUISERS OF ANY TYPE DO NOT BELONG IN THE BATTLE LINE YOU IDIOTS"
The problem is that capital ship scale Aviation Cruisers (CV) had already surpassed big gun capital cruisers (CC) in every role except for night fighting.
So the only real use for a "large armored cruiser" (CB) was as a CV escort against night attack.
(B for big, or B for battle :|)
They were more less pocket battleships as they were more powerful then normal battle cruisers but not at the level of a full on battleship
In some ways they remind me of the role of an armored cruiser.
However described, they were big, fast and very lethal. Not quite Iowa level lethal, but still capable of taking out all but a very few surface ships in the world. Keeping in mind that by the time Alaska and Guam joined the fleet, of the 1000s of ships that fought WWII, the US had 24 battleships, UK had 14 and one battlecruiser, France had 1, and Japan had 5, of which Alaska could hold her own with Hyuga, Ise and Haruna. So of the 44 big gun ships left in the world in late 44, only 5 were Axis ships, the remainder allied ships. And of the few IJN carriers left, they had very few planes to fly off them. The remaining ships in the world were no match for the 2 large cruisers. Even the oldest US battleship, Arkansas, was no match for Alaska or Guam.
I recently stumbled upon your channel. I just wanted to say thanks for the great information. I'm mowing the your back log of uploads and, I'm looking forward to more videos to come!
My father served on the Alaska. He was specific that it was a battle cruiser. I have his yearbook as well.
A cruiser killer is a battle cruiser. In the same way as battleships developed into fast battleships, battle cruisers became more armoured. Still not a match for a battleship but fitting the role of scouting ahead and being able to defeat the enemies scouting forces.
Except a true battlecruiser would absolutely dumpster an Alaska, because a modern equivalent to, say, the Lion-class battlecruiser would have roughly the same armor as Alaska, but either 14- or 16-inch guns, and likely displace as much if not more than a Treaty battleship. The Alaskas are very much just scaled-up heavy cruisers, especially when you look closer at the design details.
@@griffinfaulkner3514 but if you look at all battlecruisers that were ever built the Alaska holds up just fine. Hood and Scharnhorst were fast BB not BC. Kongo were upgraded to fast BB status. Alaska guns had the punch to match any other battlecruiser built and the speed to outrun all of them. The exception being only the Renown class with their 15" guns and 31 knot speed.
@@mikebronicki8264 You missed the point I was trying to make. Yes, only the Renown-class battlecruisers stand a real chance against an Alaska, but that's more down to the fact that they were arguably the last true battlecruisers to be built than anything else. An Alaska, from a design perspective, is literally a Baltimore that's been scaled up to the point that it can mount 12-inch guns. Between the armor being designed to cruiser standards (only able to resist its own guns if the ship is at a 30-degree angle to incoming fire), the near complete lack of torpedo protection, the secondary battery layout, and the single rudder, the resemblance is too great for it to be called a true battlecruiser.
And no, the Kongo-class were not fast battleships. I don't care what the Japanese called them, 8 inches of belt armor and only 10 inches on the turrets is *not* battleship-level protection, even by WWI standards.
@@griffinfaulkner3514 I guess I'm still missing it. BC design is highlighted by a lack of armor and abundance of firepower. No BC was designed to withstand its own guns. Is it the single rudder that disturbs you? To my eyes Alaska is the natural progression of the archetypal battlecruiser design. What is it about Lion or Tiger that qualifies them as a BC that Alaska lacks? I am trying to understand.
@@mikebronicki8264 A battlecruiser trades armor for speed, but retains battleship grade guns in terms of caliber, if not barrel count. The Lions, for example, used the exact same 13.5 inch guns as the Iron Duke-class battleships, but lost a turret to make room for additional machinery, and actually displaced 2,000 tons more at full load despite having 3 inches less belt armor. (Sidenote, the Lions were actually fairly well protected against German 11 and 12 inch guns at long range, and if it weren't for the battlecruiser squadron's horrible ammunition storage and handling practices Queen Mary at least likely would've survived Jutland. The Invincibles and Indefatigable classes, not so much)
The part that makes the Alaskas cruisers, above all else, is combination of the guns and armor. While the Mark 8 12"/50 is by far the most powerful gun of its caliber ever designed, it still pales when compared to the sheer brute force of its battleship contemporaries in the 16"/45 and 16"/50 found on the South Dakota, North Carolina, and Iowa-class battleships. Note that I mentioned that the Alaskas were explicitly armored to cruiser standards, which means being able to withstand their own guns, so long as they remained at a 30 degree angle relative to incoming fire. Also worth mentioning is their displacement- a full 2,000 tons less than even a treaty era battleship, when battleships closest to them chronologically are the 48,000 ton Iowas.
Long story short, the design of the Alaskas is much closer to a massively scaled-up heavy cruiser than a proper battlecruiser. They lack the battleship-grade firepower that defines that entire classification and are far better protected relative to their own firepower than any battlecruiser ever was.
I found the maneuvering vs. Torpedos and lack of torpedo defense fascinating. They were fast, but straight line fast.
Not picking on American cars as I've owned 10 of them. But it is kind of like your muscle cars. Fantastic looking fantastic sounding. Fast as heck - in a straight line. Avoid corners lol.
I don't have a clever comment, just wanted to say how much I love your channel.
Thanks for a great presentation on these Alaska class cruisers and the thinking of the other nations along these lines.
Baltimore and the up-scaled Alaska class ships just have a timeless look to them. Like a fleet of very angry baby battleships with 8in and 12in shells
They were designed to be proof against any 8" armor piercing shell pretty much throughout their range. The Alaskas were what happened to CAs when treaty restrictions lifted and you were right again saying they came too late. If things had been different with aircraft and all gun capital ships continued I think you would either see heavy cruisers with a new 12" standard battery or you would see them merge into BBs with light cruisers morphing into more powerful cruisers. Imagine a 38 knot cruiser with 12 12" guns. That was doable.
Ryan, you are awesome for doing this and I notice you do practically all of it from memory and you do it accurately. I've been studying WW2 and the Pacific War in particular as my main hobby since I was 10 years old. That was over 50 years ago and I ain't stopping. I think you and I may be brothers in that perspective. I'd love to sit around the man-portable pumps with you and talk about things like Leyte Gulf and whatnot. My father was there and I assume with the Taffys or with the force in Surigao Strait. I only assume that because his DD was one of the first into Leyte Gulf proper while protecting some minesweepers. A side note, when I was Navy I lived next door to a lady who was Filipina. Her father was up a palm tree on Leyte watching the first American ships come in. He literally watched my dad.
Well, the Navy gave these two ladies the CB designation. CL would have been just right for “Cruiser: Large,” but that was already taken. As such, CB looks more like a Cruiser: Battle, as in Battlecruiser.
Edit: ok, I’ll say CB = Cruiser Buster, to go along with Ryan’s cruiser killer idea.
According to naming conventions at the time, Battleships were named for States, Heavy Cruisers were named for State Capitols, and Light Cruisers were named for Cities in States. Alaska, Guam, and Hawaii were Territories, not States but more than just Cities.
I personally think the Alaskas and Deutschlands are "supercruisers" while Scharhorst and Strasbourg are "light battleships", but putting them all under "cruiser killer" works. The distinction being how each design was arrived at.
Alaska has battleship size guns and Scharnhorst doesn't. To me if anything Scharnhorst is more of a modern armored cruiser and Alaska is a Battlecruiser.
@@SRR-5657 Scharnhorst had 11" guns, Alaska had 12" guns. Neither were the caliber of contemporary battleships; trying to separate them that way is pointless.
@@TheSchultinator Battleships of that era were almost all still Dreadnought type battleships, Dreadnought defined that type of ship, Dreadnought had 12" guns. We talk a lot about the cool modern fast battleships but in reality they were far from the majority of the worlds battleships. The IJN only had 2, KMS had 2 or 4, RN had 5 or 6, France had 2 or 4, Italy had 3, the US had 10. To me Alaska is clearly a Battlecruiser, and it's hard for me to call Scharnhorst a battleship, I also generally hate making up new terms for only like 2 or 3 examples of some new class. No Alaska is t exactly like Renown and Repulse but it's pretty close. Like, Alaska is larger than all but 1 class of American battleship, has (albeit small for the era) battleship size guns, but is a cruiser, to me that's a battlecruiser. I guess to me, if Alaska isn't a Battlecruiser, then Shcarnhorst definitely isn't a damn battleship. You can't have smaller and fewer guns than Dreadnought and still claim to be a battleship in the 1940s, that's nonsense. Literally Dreadnought is better armed than Scharnhorst, so is Alaska. So if we're saying Alaska isn't a Battlecruiser then fine, but Scharnhorst then isn't a battleship or even a Battlecruiser, Scharnhorst is just a heavy cruiser.
@@SRR-5657 The 12" guns weren't seen as viable battleship weapons even in WWI, let alone WWII. Most everyone was moving into 14" or 15" guns, bar the Germans (who used.. 11" guns). How many of those 12"-gun WWI-era BBs were sent into frontline combat in WWII? Their existence does not make 12" a BB-grade gun in WWII.
My justification for how I'm labeling the ships comes from the design intent and process. The Alaskas were always designed and built as extra-large cruisers, whereas the Schornhorsts were always smaller battleships. I would be willing to call Scharnhorst a battlecruiser, but not the Alaska. Keep in mind, the battlecruiser was created by stripping down a battleship design. The "first battlecruisers", the Invincible and Inflexible classes, were bigger armored cruisers with bigger guns and thus were called "dreadnought armored cruisers". If we're going to follow the historical trends, Alaska is a large cruiser and the Scharnhorst a battlecruiser.
@@TheSchultinator Scharnhorst has more armor than gun, literally the opposite of what a a Battlecruiser normally is. Alaska has stupendously large guns for a cruiser and less armor, like a battlecruiser.
Alaska and Gearing classes is my favorite WW2 era ships.
Would be interesting to hear about the proposed Yamato-killer, the Montana-class battleships. None were built, but the plans were there and we have good idea what they would have been like.
The Yamato and Musashi killers were the Iowa class. The 16 inch guns on the Iowa were faster firing, more accurate and better penetration than the 18.1 guns on the IJN tubs. Also our ships had far better damage control and overall better sailors. I know the arguments very well about "look at the damage they took before being sunk" . Gun battles are different than aerial to ship battles. One other thing the Iowas were extremely fast and maneuvered very fast.
If he grew his hair out and grew a beard, this guy could be the "Battleship Jesus".
This needs to happen.
White Elephants is a good term for these ships. They have similar tonnage, cost, and crew to that of a 35,000 ton treaty Battleship but not the capacity. Hindsight would have called for a revised 35k ton treaty Battleship with a higher speed and the 5”38 arrangement of the Alaskas.
"Ligtht Battlecruiser"? Maybe? First what's a "Light Battleship"?
The Alaska class followed the general pattern for a battlecruiser. The guns were battleship-grade, the armor and speed were cruiser-grade. Where it misses the traditional battlecruiser formula is its guns are much smaller than battleships of its day.
Like the way you are highlighting the ships that are the basis for the World of Warship game! Congrats on 100K Subs!
The Alaska’s were the ultimate expression of the big gun heavy cruiser concept as developed int the interwar/ early ww2 design era. They were too lightly armored to severe in the fashion of earlier German battle cruisers of the ww1 era, they were the pet project of FDR’s naval thinking as regards to the potential German and Japanese ships that were never built due to obvious difficulties in those nations ship’s construction programs after the war began. The Alaska’s were a failure because there was no need for shops of their capabilities, heavy cruisers had the same AA, and similar armor. Fast BBS had better AA and FAR better survivabilty as regards bombs and most importantly torpedoes. The Alaska’s were ships designed for a specific enemy that never really existed . They were extremely handsome warships tho
The Scharnhorsts and Deutchlands were built though. And your forgetting the other impetus for her being built. Dunkerque and Strasbourg.
@@imjashingyou3461 The Scharnhorsts were proper battleships, with the heavy armor to go with it. Remember, there were long-term plans to replace the triple 11-inch guns with twin 15s, similar to the Bismarck's turrets. The Deutschlands were purpose-built commerce raiders, not battlecruisers, with armor only slightly superior to that of a heavy cruiser, and WWI-era 11-inch guns that were significantly less powerful than those found on the Scharnhorsts. Dunkerque and Strasbourg were originally designed as traditional battlecruisers, though if you look at Strasbourg in specific, she's carrying far more armor than her sister as a direct response to the existence of the Scharnhorsts, as Dunkerque's armor was more than sufficient to deal with a Deutschland's older guns. The Alaskas were designed to engage heavy cruisers in general, and the Deutschlands in specific, but were NOT intended to fight actual battlecruisers. Strasbourg in particular would've given an Alaska all sorts of problems in a straight fight.
The Alaskas had specific targets to go after at the time of their design, but due to arguments over said design and construction delays,by the time they were actually built both the Deutschlands and the entire Japanese cruiser force were very, very dead.
i would look more towards calling them super heavy cruisers myself. Fast enough to catch other cruisers and beat them in gunnery, while able to outrun most anything that could challenge them for gunnery. While a case could be made for using something like the Renown class to catch and outgun them, the armour of a Renown class ship would have difficulty standing up to the 12" guns the Alaska class were armed with.
I would say overall the Alaska class were a 'better' blend of speed/armour/firepower than the Renown class. But it does depend on what the original designers were told to design AGAINST more than anything. If the 12" guns were actually better than the older 14" guns of WW1, then look out any navy that tried it on with an Alaska. Someone was going to get a good fright.
The U.S. Navy had a special need for these Hybrid Cruisers. Specially built the unusual way that they were, to be used as Admiral Loews Fast Attack Cruiser Fleet. The Cruisers Tactics were Powerfully deployed several times thorough the war, but only to have the Naval Air Forces, show up on the opposing forces first. The Powerful, Fast Attack Cruiser Force, could only properly be compared to the U.S. Naval Air Forces.
some notes here:
1) Alaska Class is a testament of both USA Industrial capacity AND also the overkill money expended at the expense of the taxes people paid. Arguably a Cleveland could produce about the same level of AA and they costed quite less. In other time this would had been Zumwalt class level of scandal
2) This is (in my opinion) an enlarged cruiser, period. It is the path cruisers would have taken if 50.000tn with 16/18 inch guns would have carried on.
3) Spee, Strassbourg, Duilios/Dorias and Scharnhorst were of a different arms race.
A) Deuschland was (weight limitations broken in secret aside) a 10.000tn ship armed with 11' guns. Germany design the best ship they could design under those specific Versailles restrictions. This limitation was imposed so Germany could only build cruisers or coastal monitors, but with welding technology and better engines, Germany managed to sneak a "little battlecruiser" able to defeat any treaty heavy cruiser, while only 3 British battlecruisers and 4 Japanese Battlecruisers were indeed a threat they couldn't run from, too few battleships to really hunt them across the entire Atlantic.
B) As a response for this ships, France used their chance of renewing battleships to specifically counter this threat, therefore Strassbourg came into play. France didn't need to prepare against many large industrial adversarys, just the Germans and the Italians, Italy only had 4 12' battleships and Germany had this 11' "thing". So a 13' gun ships with the speed to hunt a Deuschland but still armored to fight against the Italian WW1 era Battleships.
C) The Strassbourg design really worried Germany AND Italy. The Italian response was the design of the first fast battleship in the world, the 45000tn Littorio, but since Italian industrial capacity was limited, they think they wouldn't have them built before the outbreak of WW2, and their 4 battleships were in fact hopless against newer French ships. so they extensively rebuilt their existing battleships (something somehow cheaper than a new construction, but since it was such a deep redesign, it wasn't that great move anyway) to a 12.5in shell and well armored against 13' shells, being a little lesser gun they had 2 more barrels per gun. Also they were arguably about as fast as Strassbourg.
D) The German Response, in express agreement with the UK, was the Scharnhorst class, a class that despite being design for later 15' gun adition, at launch it had heavier 11' guns that could penetrate strassbourg and was armored as a battleship, not just against the 13' of the French ships but also against the 15' guns from the UK.
E) UK looked at this "lower tier capital ship" race with relatively ease since they already had a great 15' or bigger slow Battleship lineup but they also had 3 "battlecruisers" that had battleship level armor at least in the belt. They had from day 1, 3 ships able to hunt and kill Deuschlands, Strassbourg (if they have needed to), Dorias and (arguably) Scharnhorst. Japan also had 2 "kind of" fast battleship (Nagato) and 4 Kongos, so they had the propper response also.
F) USA Didn't have anything to counter these ships. USNavy didn't have any ship that would sail faster than 20/21knot and have battleship (11' and above) size guns. The USA line of battle doctrine wasn't that good since it was severely one-sided approach, they didn't have a couple of ships of fast design and armored compromise. This is the reason behind the Alaska. USNavy did need a specific ship to response for Deuschland, they designed fast battleships to chase the Kongos, but they were just too much for the Deuschland. And since USA had extra resources to expend, they wasted money in a good but rather obsolete by concept design
Carl Linnaeus had a similar problem in that he started to run out of Latin names to describe new species.
Big battleships, little, fast , pocket, hybrid, treaty, battle cruisers, heavy cruisers, light, fast, cruiser killers.
Are there Cliff Notes?
A number of 1950s papers list them as Large Cruisers... and describe them as battle cruisers. (uncapped and with the space. The US made them because FDR wanted them and picked them. As for their combat... they spent a lot of time not just as AAA defense but used their radar to act as Air Traffic Control as their radar was the most advanced around.
Pretty much every "battlecruiser" launched before WW1 were originally classed as Armored Cruisers (or in one example "large Light cruisers" ). The 1911 Kongo class were originally Armored Cruisers.
The Media coined the term battlecruiser, as well as the earlier term dreadnought armored cruisers.
The Lexington class were officially "cruiser" cruisers (CC) in the same way that the dreadnought battleships were classed as "battle" battleships (BB), then redesigned and reclassed as "aviation cruisers" (Cruiser Volaire, CV)
The Pensacola class with their 10x8" guns were originally light cruisers (CL), but the armored cruiser "CA" designation got revived due to treaty limits despite having tin can armor.
The issue was not designing them or even starting to build, it was the failure to adjust them for a role need, in this case as an all out AA Ship which clearly was seen as needed and well known that the recovered Pearl Harbor BBs more than filled that need (or perceived need though arguably failure to deploy them to the Solomon's was a huge mistake). If you can't maneuver what good are you? Ok, as an AA platform and sacrificial if need be yes.
When trying to figure out the names of ships like this, the key for me is to dumb everything down to the simplest denominators then compare like-to-like.
Battlecruisers, when initially-designed, were upgunned, fast armored cruisers. They were never intended *originally* to fight in the line of battle, yet by WWI it was increasingly-obvious that through the consequence of their design (they outgunned all the ships they WERE designed to fight, thus an opponent needed bigger ships to counter them), they had inherited a line-of-battle role against each other as well as other fast capital ships. They're capital ships serving a cruiser role but technically able to fight in the line of battle--hence battlecruisers.
The simple fact that distinguishes a battlecruiser from anything else (whether its an armored cruiser like the pocket battleships, a treaty heavy cruiser, or a light cruiser) is that if it gets engaged by a battleship, it CAN fight back; sooner or later ships like Renown get thrown at battleships like Scharnhorst because they're capable of fighting it and they're in the right place, and WWI showed very clearly that no one is going to hunt cruiser killers with just other cruisers; either battleships or battlecruisers get sent.
Looking at doctrine or WWI-design philosophy makes it get confusing because different nations treated similar designs very differently, but as long as you focus on the capabilities of the ships rather than their role, it helps to clear things up a little more.
Here's why I consider them battlecruisers: their 12" guns actually had better penetration than the 14" guns of the older Standard battleships. The ships could throw like a battleship. Compare this to the Scharnhorst class battleships, which had 11" guns, and the King George V class which had 14" guns. Shell diameter wasn't everything at this stage of the game because, even among newer ships accepted to be battleships, it was all over the place. Furthermore, most people thinking of battlecruisers are only thinking of the British-pattern battlecruisers which had battleship guns but lighter armor. The German-pattern battlecruisers were actually the opposite, with battleship-grade armor but their own intermediate gun caliber. Considering this, the Alaskas sit very nicely as a hybrid between the British and German design concepts. Given the actual performance of their weapons, it is perfectly reasonable to call them a battlecruiser.
My deepest apologies for the large block of text but I don't agree with your argument. The primary problem here lies in that you're comparing ships from quite different eras. You cant really compare new ships with old standards(sry for the bad pun). When reading this, pay attention to the 1st, 2nd, and 4th paragraphs in particular, as the 3rd is kinda just me ranting abt German battlecruisers. A good example is that the Hippers have greater penetration than the Deutschland class battleships(not the panzerschiffe) that the Germans were still using, but nobody says the Hippers "throw like a battleship". It is, admittedly, a ludicrous example but it gets the point across.
The Scharnhorsts are a very peculiar pair in that they were envisioned to have 15" guns, the slight problem being that Germany didn't have any 15" guns and put 11" guns with provision to upgrade. In addition to that, no contemporary American battleships were being built with anything short of 16" guns(admittedly, the North Carolinas were designed with 14" with provision to upgrade to 16"). As to Dunkerque and Strasbourg, they were very neat little battleships with the intention to counter the Italian rebuilds as well as give their cruiser screen a little more punch. Considering that, its quite easy to see why the French chose the 330mm gun and a 9" belt(albeit 11" on Strasbourg). By the time the Alaskas are laid down, the environment has changed somewhat, with newbuilds bringing 15 or 16" guns(Bismarck, Littorio, Iowa, SoDak, etc). I'd argue that the KGVs are a little more the exception rather than the rule, as they heavily emphasized protection over firepower(15" belt over magazines! Das THICC).
I would like to appraise you for bringing in the German battlecruisers, which are painfully ignored in most conversations, but your comparison of the Alaskas to them is completely wrong. The Alaskas have a 9" belt, which is woefully unprepared to take anything close to a contemporary capital ship shell, whereas German battlecruisers from ww1, bar the Moltkes and Von der Tann, all have 11.8" belts. When you compare gun caliber to belt thickness, the germans have almost the same caliber as belt(Moltke with 11" guns and 10" belt, Seydlitz with 11" guns and 11.8" belt, the Derfflingers with 12" guns and 11.8" belt). German battlecruisers also have very similar guns to their battleship counterparts, with Moltke and Seydlitz having 11" guns compared to the contemporary Helgoland and Kaiser, carrying 12" guns. Both Von der Tann and the Derfflingers carry the same guns as their contemporaries, with VdT having the same 11" guns as Nassau and the Derfflingers carrying the same 12" guns as the Königs. A very minor point I'd like to make about your analysis of German Battlecruisers is that they have Battleship grade armour, which is technically true albeit somewhat misleading. Compared to British battleships, yes they often have thicker armour, however, when compared to german battleships, they have less armour with 35cm on Kaiser and König vs 30cm on seydltiz and Derfflinger. My point with this is that the Germans also sacrificed a bit of armour for speed, just not nearly to the same extent as British battlecruisers. My point with this paragraph being that the Alaskas are nothing like German battlecruisers.
Another thing to note is that Battlecruisers are always the same size, if not larger, than their battleship counterparts. My favourite example is that the Derfflingers are 3000 some tonnes heavier than the Königs at deep load. The Alaskas are 29k standard, whereas the contemporary Iowas are 48k standard. The rare exception to this rule is the Large light cruisers, which can be referred to as battlecruisers but they are really quite silly things which do not follow the general trend.
As such, I have come to the conclusion that calling them battlecruisers is quite wrong due to the fact that, although they compare favourably to old battleships, they compare horribly with contemporary battleships and hence, the comparison doesnt work.
The USS Alaska was slightly cheaper then the battleship South Dakota class. The Alaska cost $74 million compared to the South Dakota at $77 million. This was a great sacrifice in armor and fire power to gain six more knots of speed.
Bruce McCall or pay for 1 or 2 more Iowas!
At the same time, three KGVs did cost less than one, single Iowa apparently. But the reason the KGVs had such short lifespans was that slow 28kt speed, HMS Vanguard being slightly faster made her all the more useful to the Royal Navy. Spending the extra money for speed was a worthwhile investment in hindsight.
Aircraft Carrier escorts
I would request a video on the Kongo-class battlecruisers of the IJN, as I have read in more than one place that the Iowa-class BBS were designed in part to hunt those BCs down.
To a US or RN battleship, the Nagatos were the most dangerous of the older IJN ships. The 14" guns of the Kongos did not actually prove to be terribly effective, as the SoDak demonstrated, and at the same range, the Washington tore the Kirishima apart. 20 x 16" hits, 40 x 5" hits, knocking out all main guns, all secondary guns, all propulsion machinery, and decimating the watertight protection. While many claim the Japanese scuttled the Kirishima, accounts from the survivors lead to the conclusion that massive flooding led to free surface effect causing the ship to capsize. There is no doubt, the Washington killed the Kirishima in about 20 minutes or so.
The Kongo's, when they were first launched in the 19Teens, created quite the Brew HaHa in the US Navy as we had nothing in the Pacific that was comparable to them, but since at the time Japan was our Ally I guess we didn't get THAT concerned. However, I would think that the development of the Lexington Class Battlecruisers was in part an answer to the Kongos. Of course, concurrent to our Lexington's the Japanese were developing and laying down the Amagi Class Battlecruisers, slightly slower but more heavily armed than Lexington. Of course, Naval Treaties and Japanese Earthquakes resulted in Scrapping or Carrier Conversions of these.
@@timclaus8313 Yeah, Kirishima was torn to pieces. The only Real Advantage the Japanese had was their skill at Night Fighting and Long Lance Torpedoes, which to some extent served them well at Guadalcanal. But yeah, a Kongo, even after Reconstruction, was not built to withstand point blank 16 in. hits.
@@edwardmcirvin8342 No ship really was able to withstand point blank hits with impunity. Even Yamato would not have been immune at that range, though she would have done extensive damage in return. And in reality, any WWI ship would be at a significant disadvantage against any post-treaty battleship. 20+ years of development on guns and shells had changed the equations of armor protection schemes a bit.Okun Resource - World War II Naval Gun Armor Penetration Tables - NavWeaps These charts show how the various guns penetrated during different eras as shells were improved.
@@edwardmcirvin8342 Once the USN started getting more admirals like Add Lee that understood and truster radar, that was the ned of the IJN advantage at night. Adm Oldendorf used that skill to good advantage at Suragao Straight.
I think the Alaska class would have mode a great combination gun/missile cruiser. But I can see where the Navy thought it was a lot of money and personnel to run a really big cruiser that was almost as big as a BB.
I would have love to seen a comparison between the Alaska class vs the Scharnhorst-class. The Scharnhorst-class had better armor protection but 9 11 inch guns. It would have been an interesting comparison.
They were designated CB and the three laid down would have been the perfect companions assigned to the CVB Midways post war Ii. Even more so if the 5 inch/ 54 twin mounts of the aborted Montana class would have been reassigned to them instead of the 5 inch/ 38 twins mounts originally installed. These ships also would have been better platforms for the installation of the Regulus missiles recycling their amidship twin armor storage bays.
Could we see a video on the general super cruiser concept comparing the Alaska's to unbuilt designs like the Stalingrad, proposed British super cruisers, and Japanese B-64/65?
Alaska Class seem to be basically light Treaty Battleships
One of my favorite ships.
Super cruisers.
Love this thing in wows.
When Operation Ten Go (Yamato’s death ride) began the USN original attack plan was to send the Battleships Massachusetts, Indiana, South Dakota, New Jersey, Missouri & Wisconsin. The USN also sent Alaska, Guam & 21 destroyers. Of course, while sent Marc Mitchner deployed nearly 400 attack planes & the Yamato never made it past that aerial gauntlet.
Don't forget, they already lost a slug-fest with DD's and DE's.
For everyone interested how a ship that didn’t or doesn’t exist anymore looked like I recommend to search the internet for pictures of the particular ship you want to see from World of Warships by WarGaming. Like for instance the Japanese „cruiser killer“ can be found under the name Yoshino, so the search term I’d suggest is „WoWS Yoshino“. I can’t guarantee that the 3D models are historically accurate though. Not meant to be advertising, just a friendly recommendation and hint.
Take the hull of an Alaska. Change propulsion to CODOG electric drive. Minimal super structure covered with SPY-6 radar, an Aegis combat systems with VLS tubes all over. Now you have an arsenal ship.
your level of knowledge on this subject is impressive
They were Battlecruisers. Same mission. There is no reason to overcomplicate this. If both the Wyomings and the Iowas are both Battleships, there is no reason to nitpick the Alaskas. They were closer to BB's than CA's, with (albeit older) BB caliber guns, high speed , armor tough enough to fight CA's but not enough for BB's...They were Battlecruisers. The only thing that makes it hazy was how amazing the Iowa level fast BB's were.
I view Alaska and Guam to be large cruisers. 1). they had cruiser speed. 2). Who says (in 1941 or 1942) that cruisers can only have 8-inch main batteries.? 3)They only had one rudder, whereas battleships have two rudders. 4). The floatplanes were located amidships, like heavy cruisers have. 5). they were designed to do battle with enemy cruisers, not to slog it out with battleships. I view it as tragic that after WW2 they were not used as fleet flagships, that ships like Des Moines and Salem were used instead. a). they were faster than other cruisers, b). they were bigger, hence had more room for flagship-required office space and flagship-specific crew accommodations. I also view it as negligent criminality that Alaska was not preserved as a museum ship.
Wonder why they weren't converted to CGs?
If I was a WWI battleship I wouldn't want to to fight 2 Alaska class cruisers. The Alaska's were too fast, could fire quicker and had sufficent large guns with super powerful 12 inch shells to pummel an old battleship. I think they even had torpedos. Were the Alaska's battlecruisers? Depends on what they fight. Old battleships and cruisers I think you could rank them a battlecruiser. New heavy cruisers and battleships no. They were heavy cruisers. Why not make a battlecruiser with 14 inch guns and heavier armor? That would require more displacement and larger engines and in that case just build a fast battleship. That was an issue the Navy delt with in making them what they became. One thing they did have going for them is the shipyards could build them faster than battleships. If the war hadn't ended in 45 when they were just getting into service they may have proved their concept. I think they are beautiful ships. Well proportioned. They look fast!
Now that I think about it, the description of something that is basically a smaller/faster battleship actually matches up very closely with the pre-dreadnought 2nd-class battleships. And I think there was even the confusion of where to draw the line between a 2nd class battleship and an armored cruiser, seeing as how both of them (as well as 1st class battleships) are all part of the same continuum at various points inside the iron triangle of mobility/protection/firepower
Sounds like the Alaska class was a lite battle ship
The U.S.S. Alaska class ships are almost an American version of the German "pocket battleship" concept, or the Japanese Kongo-class battle-cruisers - which were later re-classed as battleships. Fascinating concept, if a dead-end developmentally, for the U.S. Navy.
I would think these 12 inch guns should have a better rate of fire than 14 and 16 inch gun ships since they probably had lighter projectiles. But being more modern even though the guns were smaller they were no doubt as effective.
As a point to ponder, if the Alaska class would have pre-dated the Deutschland class (and Dunkerque's,) would they have been the original "pocket battleship"? Thing about this, when you factor everything into it, i.e. the doctrine when designed, intended purpose, and the actual usage after being in the water, there are so many variables that it becomes an academic exercise that could have gone any way.
I’d like to see a video accurately dealing with the German development of the battle cruiser concept that created the concept of the “ fast battleship” that the Iowa’s are arguably the ultimate expression of in terms of ships actually constructed
Wasnt the Battlecruiser a british thing, made for colonial patrouls, and something that the germans then copied? The fast battleship, as far as I can see, just describes "modern" WW2 battleships that reached above 30 knots without sacrificing any armor, making the battlecruiser kinda pointless.
Ofc the Iowa, like a lot of US battleships, did sacrifice a bit of main belt thickness, but not to the degree where it made it anything else but battleship.
After Midway, Coral Sea and Guadalcanal were US cruisers were often hit by long lance torpedoes 50 knot torpedoes running for 20 miles, it was clear US Battleship design had to be revised radically, mere padding and space with double hulls and padding as well as armour down below was not enough So the Montana class planned battleships were canceled and the last two Iowa's Kentucky and Illinois were suspended and redesigned with completely new underwater protection spacing and padding to absorb torpedoes
So in the interim mid 42-44 there was building space for 3 Alaska's extra to the first 4 Iowa programme in some ways the ten Alaska triple turrets were the most.modrn capital ship armament ever built.
Hawaii was stopped in 1947, 82 percent complete with the main and secondary armament fitted 12 inch and 5 inch fitted. The money to complete instead of say the last Baltimore saw Toledo was in the budget as an option but the large crew and turning circle little better than an Iowa and the fact that by 1947-8 the peace dividend might have seen the Alabama's or Iowa's then being mothballed actually struck.
Excellent discussion! "Cruiser killer" - that was precisely what the original "dreadnought cruiser" which later was called a battlecruiser was supposed to be! Also...it seems most miss this - the German term for their battlecruisers in WW1 was "Große Kreuzer" which directly translates to "Big" or "Great" Cruiser ( = "Large Cruiser")! Call them what you will - the Alaska's had guns more powerful than the German Scharnhorsts', belt armour of equivalent thickness to the British Renowns', thicker than the Japanese Kongos' and a speed that eclipsed that of every battleship and battlecruiser class except the Iowas.
Personally, I call them battlecruisers as they were a revival of the original concept at a time when, yes, their main guns were smaller than their immediate contemporary battleships, but 16-inch guns would have been overkill for a cruiser killer role. (What if they had carried 6 16-inch in twin turrets??) 12-inch were capital ship calibre nevertheless. But that's me. As I said..iImperial German Navy called their battlecruisers Big/Great/Large Cruisers too! It's all semantics.
BTW, I had the unforgettable privilege of visiting the New Jersey in 2003.
its worth considering how much closer Cruisers and Battleship main gun armaments' were before ww1. Cruisers originally had guns up to 9inch with 8inch, 7 and 6 inch also common. Dreadnoughts started with 12inch which is only marginally better on paper than the cruiser armaments.
With treaties and the BB arms race we see a major divergence in the top end armaments with CAs still only mounting 8inch while large BBs get up to 18inch guns.
Battle Cruisers used for anything else then hunting down weaker Cruisers is a waste since they lack armor to survive BB hits.
@@williamt.sherman9841 Interesting thought. They were even closer considering the 11-inch guns of early German pre-dreadnoughts. But the shell weight differences were significant - eg British 9.2-inch, 370 lb, 12-inch 851 lb. I'd say that's a bit more than marginal.
In terms of BC utilization, that depends... German BC's stood up very well to British 15-inch shells at Jutland, though the poor quality of the British shells at the time was a factor. The British BC's flouted safety protocols by cordite stacking, so those who got hit in the right place blew up. What befell Hood could just as easily have befallen any of the R-class, Barham or Malaya. Renown was one of the most useful capital ships in the RN in WW2 and performed well in many roles - though, perhaps fortunately for her, she never came under sustained fire from heavy calibre shells. Scharnhorst & Gneisenau, Vittorio Veneto & Guilio Cesare all headed for the horizon....
@@Chartdoc62 the growth in weight from 8inch to 12 inch is significant. the 370 you cite is 170lbs heavier than 250lbs common with 8inch guns. Shell weight grows exponentially with size increases of course.
Really this comes down to what a Battle Cruiser is. Is it a fast Battleship that can and should fight on the Battle line against other BBs or is it a Bully Cruiser intended to club seals?
I think it can be either- and its not a bad idea to lump all the strange outsiders who don't fit clearly into Cruiser or Battleship into the BC role- Either French Dunkirk types or The German Pocket Battleships or the Scharnhorst or Alaska class.
some are more "battle" than "cruiser"
The Baltimore class cruisers also had an armored belt that was partially as thick as the Renowns. So does that make them battlecruisers too?
More probable, its just anachronistic to compare a ship from WW1 to one from 30 years later. Nobody made Battlecruisers after WW1, thats just the reality.
Alaskas had weak armor, they were clearly less protected compared to similar weight Battleships like the Scharnhorst, and they lacked the underwater and torpedo protection. They were scaled up cruisers by design, not intermediate battlecruisers, let alone battleships.
My father served on the USS Alaska CB1 during WW2. He said it was a heavy cruiser that was built to compete with the German pocket battleships.
There is a fair bit of truth in that. I think that they were designed as cruiser hunters and killers.
Yes. My father was on the USS Guam CB2 and he said the same thing. He was a MM2 . He called it a Battle Cruiser. The designation is CB, which should read Cruiser, Battle.
I generally agree, although I think Large Cruiser was a fine designation. The real problem with the Alaskas was that they cost as much as a battleship to operate and didn't offer a meaningful advantage over one. They had about the same crew requirement as a South Dakota. Their 12" guns actually cost more than the Iowas' 16". It was really the existence of the Iowas that doomed the Alaskas. Anything an Alaska could do, an Iowa could do better for just a little more money. Plus the Iowas could do things the Alaskas could not. The Alaskas were fine and interesting ships, and none of this is meant to denigrate them. They could have been the top ship in many other navies, they just did not have a useful niche to fill in the USN.
Robert,
I couldn’t agree more !
To me, the building of niche warships is not a very good strategy, particularly for the USN. That said, answering a rival’s ship design with a comparable design was very common practice. Example the IJN Mogami class built with 15 x 6 inch guns, which were countered with the Brooklyns. By the time the Cleveland class design was finalized it was realized 12 guns were much more practical.
In the case of the Alaska class, there was potential threats to be countered. With only 3 available by 1945ish, what are the chances they will be at the right place at the right time to meet comparable enemy ships? Not all that likely. If a nation could afford to do so, just build more fast battleships, which the USA could. Chances are with 10 + 3 more fast BBs, there would always be some available in theater. This actually came to pass at the second naval battle of Guadalcanal, scratch one Kongo class and save Henderson Field from another bombardment.
As for designation of the Alaskas, I think the USN called it correct, CB: Large Cruisers.
@@markam306 I generally agree. To be fair, there is one argument for building the Alaskas. They could be built on smaller slipways than the Iowas, meaning more shipyards could do it, and required less materials. If the USN feared a number of new Japanese unrestricted cruisers would appear on the seas, then there is an argument to build a bunch of Alaskas alongside the Iowas. It's strictly about putting out more ships to counter the enemy at that point. However, the USN basically knew that the Japanese were not producing the feared super cruisers. They lowered the priority of the Alaskas and some argued strongly for cancellation or conversion to carriers. Rumor has it that FDR intervened to have them completed as cruisers.
I’ve read opinions that the reason the Alaska class was built was built was they were a pet project of President FDR. Does that rumor have any basis in fact?
That audio is brutal!
Good stuff. I've always thought that the Alaskas should have been called battlecruisers, but "cruiser-killer" works great!
I wish Alaska would have been saved. Would've made sense to stick her in Cook Inlet
Thank you for this one.
Jusr finished building a 1/350 USS Guam, CB-2. Lots of firepower.
I believe Drachinifel has the Alaska Class categorized the same way you do as a Cruiser Killer. Agreed 100% they are not Battle Cruisers since that classification really disappeared with HMS Hood. Respectfully I don’t think the US every built a true battle cruiser, the closest would be the Fast Battle ship.
What if’s are like rabbit holes. An interesting video idea could be the following. What could the US have done with the Alaska class after the Second World War, Comparison to USS Little Rock which was saved from the breakers.
I classify the Alaska’s as battlecruiser in the original Dreadnought armoured cruiser name tag of the Invincible’s. Unfortunately despite being excellent ships they never had a purpose given the lack of heavy cruiser squadrons threatening US shipping - plus they were just too expensive re bang-for-buck compared with either the 8” cruisers or Iowa’s.
Analysis has shown she could also deal with any of the older Japanese or European battleships still in the fleet. While not really meant to be alongside a SoDak, Iowa or KG V slugging it out with a Bismarck, Veneto, or Yamato, they could hold their own with any older BB from any other navy.
@@DeeEight Could hurt pretty much any of the WW I BBs, though the Alaskas were vulnerable in return. On their side was far better fire control, rate of fire, maneuverability and speed.
Battle Cruiser designation for Alaska class does not fit for a number if reasons, even if only considering US Navy standards. No way the guns were contemporary battleship or battlecruiser in penetrating power, though 1 level below them. Torpedo protection was cruiser standards. Shell protection was cruiser level. A battle cruiser would be expected to defeat an Alaska Class ship 1-on-1. I call them Super Heavy Cruisers, though this is not an official term.
Out of all the ships lost to the breakers perhaps the only ship that ranks higher on my list of ships that should have been preserved, is HMS Dreadnought.
Add in ships that were lost due to actual combat and there is only one more above it, Yamato.
edit: Connecticut is also around the top of my list of ships I wish were preserved, but I omit it here because a huge reason for that, is because I am from said state.... though being a great example of what people like to call semi-dreadnoughts, I really wish it had been preserved.
I prefer the term super cruiser it's a better fit the 12in gun hadnt been a BB caliber gun for 25 plus years.... The 12in gun would of never been put in a battleline so it eliminated the weakness of BCs mainly crazy admirals us8ng them like BBs... The Alaskas were perfect cruiser killers...
Super Heavy Cruisers? Kinda fits with the "Super Carrier" class-name convention.
The Alaska-class "large cruisers" were pretty much Baltimore-class heavy cruisers on steroids😅 "Cruiser Killer" I agree is an appropriate title for this class. Plus the name "Cruiser Killer" sounds cool 😁
Or to push the envelope a bit, how about CRUISER DESTROYER?
If my memory is serving me correctly, Japan's answer to the US Alaska Class was a Ship very similar in design, although I believe one variant had 14 in. guns as opposed to 12 in. I also believe the Japanese DID NOT refer to them as Battlecruisers but instead as Super Type A Cruisers. The 2 planned vessels were only numbered as 795 and 796 and were never named or laid down. Generally, they would have resembled Scaled Down Yamato's.
But do you LIKE the ship design? How was it for her crews? Berthing, Mess, etc? Range? How difficult to put torpedo blisters and an extra rudder or 2 on it?
They probably would've made excellent shore bombardment vessels for areas the battleships couldn't get into or where you may not have wanted to risk a battleship where their 12" guns could pulverize anything that the 6" and 8" guns of cruisers may not have.
It's a battlecruiser, there's no need to reinvent the wheel. They might've taken a whole different route to get there but that's what they ended up with.
Nice video on the often forgotten Alaska class ships. The heavy 12 inch main battery should have qualified these cruisers to remain in service for the shore bombardment role after WWII along with the Iowas, especially since many 8 inch cruisers were kept in service even into the 1970's. I do agree with your favored term of Cruiser Killers for these ships as one of their original reasons for design was to counter the threat of the German Pocket Battleships (which were really cruisers armed with six 11 inch guns). Alaska class ships would have made Swiss cheese out of the Pocket Battleships had they ever met.
Joe Scriff -agree with your comment
That, and the threat of the Azuma class cruisers Japan wanted to build. Those were a lot more like the Alaskas. Unfortunately, (for Japan) they were never built, because they didn't have the resources to spare by then. So we had these massive beasts, but the ships they were built to counter didn't exist/no longer existed when they were launched. Not to mention Japan no longer really had ANY surface fleet of note by this time. Most of it was already on the bottom of the ocean, or stuck in port, because there was no fuel to send them out. So we ended up with another class of really big, really expensive CV AA escorts. The Des Moines class also came too late. Probably a stroke of luck for our enemies- both classes would not have been much fun to fight, lol.
Absolutely agree with you, hard counter against the Deutschlands and maybe even the Kongos.
A post war refit Alaska would have been really interesting.
They would have been able to do the same post-war missions, that the Iowas ended up doping (shore bombardment and missile plattform).
Beeing newer, and less worn out, maybe even slightly more cost effective (the 12 in guns had only 10% less range than the 16 in).
So i guess it's a good thing they where scrapped, or there would have been less Iowas as museum ships.
@@kilianortmann9979 I doubt any of the Iowas would have been scrapped even if the Alaskas were retained but it would have been great if one of the Alaska class was preserved. At least we do have Heavy Cruiser USS Salem preserved in Quincy, MA (and as an interesting note, she played the part of the German Pocket Battleship in the famous movie, "Pursuit of the Graf Spee."
It's right there in the designation CB, Cruiser, Battle.
CC is the US Navy battlecruiser designation, not CB. It's what the Lexington class used and what the Alaskas were originally going to use until they were reclassified as "large cruiser." Likely it means Cruiser, Big, since CL was already in use for light cruisers.
I agree with the curator. These ships are large cruisers or cruiser killers, not battle cruisers. If anything, these ships are a reinvention of the armored cruiser. The "capital ship guns start at 8.2 inch" thing is an entirely political concept that comes out of the Washington Treaty. During the 1890s, armored cruisers had 9.2" and 10" guns, like the British Minotaur class and American Tennessee class. They were longer than battleships and armored against the guns of enemy cruisers, but were not capable of standing up to the firepower of battleships.
I view them as one branch in a fork that split heavy cruiser development around World War II as the treaties broke down and countries looked to develop new cruisers superior to the treaty ships. The Alaska class, along with Churchill's 9.2" cruisers, the B-65 class, the Dutch 1047 class, and the Stalingrad class, went for bigger guns. The other fork is embodied by the Des Moines class, which went for improved volume of fire using rapid-fire 8" guns instead, like a kind of Heavy-Light cruiser. The Des Moines were more successful because they did what a heavy cruiser needed to do without being astronomically expensive to run like the Alaskas were. In a lot of ways it mirrors what happened with light cruiser development, where navies first went for 8" gun ships like the Pensacola, County, and York classes and then switched to rapid-fire six inch guns like on the Brooklyn and Town classes once the technology became available.
Also, one thing to note about classical battlecrusiers is that, outside of the original dreadnought armored cruisers of the Invincible class (and the politically mandated Indefatigable class), even the lightly armored British battlecruisers were armored against capital ship guns in a way the Alaska class really aren't. The Lion class were designed to resist the 11" and 12" guns of the German battlecruisers, which were still somewhat competitive against battleships, and were capable of doing it when not plagued by Beatty's poor ammunition handling standards, as HMS Tiger proved at Jutland. The Alaskas are barely competitive with the Standard Class, and those ships were 25 years old by the time the Alaska class were built and were really no match for a modern capital ship (for that matter, even the Kongo class would have been a not-insignificant threat to them, and they were actual battlecruisers that predated World War I). Compared to Yamato they look like, well, a heavy cruiser. The treaty system did a real number on battleship development. Yamato is only a taste of what battleships would have been without it. Every other battleship built post-Colorado, Revenge, and Nagato are stunted by its effects.
Also also, US battlecruisers used a different naming convention to the Alaska class. The Alaska class are named after territories, while the Lexington class were named after battles or concepts important to the United States, in a manner very similar to the original Six Frigates. Indeed, three of the Lexingtons were named after some of the frigates, and USS Constitution was temporarily renamed "Old Constitution" to make the name available for her successor.
Still, it would have been neat to see Hawaii (or Kentucky for that matter) completed as a guided missile ship. THAT would have been a cool museum piece.
The Germans never used the term battlecruiser in WWI. Their ships were classified "" or great cruiser and were not built to the same protection v. gun v. speed formulation as the British. 'Battlecruiser' is just an English language grouping of ships that somewhat approximated the British battlecruiser concept, even if they colored outside the lines like the Germans did. I can see how the Alaska class can be argued either way. Too bad they were completed too late to see surface combat but it was very much a carrier war. WWI is where battleships and battlecruisers actually mattered. WWII was just a few battles between ones and twos mainly. Nothing like Jutland or even Dogger Bank.
Would love to see your comparison of the Alaska class vs the Graf Spee.
Why doesn't World of Warships do some sort of collaboration with is channel? Seriously. It would be a win-win. Just say'n.
This is so true. Would help with the furlough too. The Chieftain should help make this happen
Patriots point here in Charleston did something with world of warships. If you bought a ticket, on the back there was a voucher code for an early ship of a certain class
Not enough Russian fanfiction is why.
"cruisers."
The Navy was short sighted post WW2. Alaska class would have been great as fleet flagships with some upgrades in comm systems.
Beautiful ships, they look fast. A look at any cruiser, heavy or light, would be interesting. They tend to be very active, and involved in lots of different kinds of operation, like the British ww2 light cruisers.
Warships are classified according to their highest reasonable ABILITY. A destroyer, for example can do almost anything, but it would be foolish to create a merchant fleet of destroyers. Alaska class are battlecruisers because they could reasonably take on other battlecruisers. They cannot survive battleship rounds, but they can penetrate the thin armor of battlecruisers, and can easily fulfill any cruiser mission or ability. Alaska's highest classification is that of battlecruiser. MCI
I don’t care what you call them, I call it a crying shame one of the Alaska’s didn’t get the chance to fight one of the Japanese battleships. Any of those tubs save of course the Yamato’s would have been mauled by the Alaska in my opinion. The new rapid fire mounts combined with superior fire control equipment and higher speed would leave one of those old tubs headed for the bottom.
Nagato had enough belt to resist Alaska's guns at decent range while having 16.1" guns herself. Probably the one capital ship that really falls behind Alaskas are the Kongo-class. Similar bursting charge and penetrative power-but one less barrel and 2" less armour would seal the deal.
They were sent out for the Yamato, but air-power did it in before they got there.
One of my favorite ships in World of Warships is the Alaska. Also I thought Puerto Rico make it to the stage of construction were she could float.
Puerto Rico in Wows was one of the many different design proposals for the Alaska class, coming in at a 38,00” ton mini-battleship. You’re probably thinking of Hawaii, she was laid down and constructed to the point she coukd have been converted to a carrier, but deemed not worth it
It did not. The Hawaii did but the last 3 didn't even have keels laid down.
As far as i am concerned the Alaska's were Battlecruisers. Fast , lighter armoured , long , thin and reasonably armed .
It would have been interesting if they went up against the Scharnhorst's and i think its possible they could win even though the Scharnhorst had better armour . Most of the time German Commanders were ordered to stay away from fights with pier opponents .
Battlecruisers . And thats what the Scharnhorst's were too. Thick armour or not.
Richard Newcombe A missed bout. Think of the pay-for-view receipts! Anyway, it probably depends on who gets in the first licks. In good weather and daylight I vote Scharnhorst. The opposite conditions, Alaska, as US radar and fire control were superior to the best of the Kriegsmarine WWII equipment.
I think the USN's term for them - large cruiser - is fairly fitting. It could be applied to the Deutschland class, the Dunquerque class, and probably even to the Cold War-era Russian Kirovs.
It's disappointing that she and her sister were both scrapped since they were the only 2 battle cruisers we had....
A Deutschland Class skipper would blanch at the sight of an Alaska. Bigger, faster, more heavily armed and armored....
It makes sense that USS Alaska in particular would be enormous and heavily armed.
I do understand one argument I've seen for ships like this that we should refer to them how the constructing navy did, so referring to the refitted Kongo's as Fast Battleships, the Scharnhorst's (as-built) as Battleships and the Alaska's as Large Cruisers is technically the most correct thing to call them, but to me they are ALL battlecruisers.
Alaska's role is to hunt down and destroy heavy cruisers, which let's be honest, is the original concept of the Invincible class, so even by role the Alaska's are battlecruisers. They could provide battlefleet scouting and protection as well, which was the other role of the original battlecruisers.
What qualifies as a battleship and what qualifies as a battlecruiser is always fun to discuss though.
The biggest mistake with this design, I feel, is the single rudder. The second mistake is a total absence of a torpedo defense system. I think it would have been worth to at least put a minimal system on the hall but that's just me. I like the Alaska class other than those things.
The USS Sacramento and USS Camden supply ships were built from the next 2 battleships that were canceled.
not quite true, the engines came from an uncompleted bb but the hill was new
Ok, you asked for suggestions. How about the Sverige and Ilmarinen class ships of the Swedish and Finnish navies. Then there’s the capital ships left over from the South American dreadnought race, the Yaviz, and how about the ships the Norwegian and Danish navies had.
I’m fascinated with coastal battleships. According to papers from the Reichsmarine the reason Sweden wasn’t invaded was the three Sverige class and the older coastal battleships the Swedes still had in commission.
Sverige is coming in the next few weeks, its on the calendar. We will add your other suggestions to the list, stay tuned!
@@BattleshipNewJersey
I always do. I’m a naval history geek and love your videos.
Curiously Dr. Alex Clarke says that Hood was definitely a battlecruiser because of the framing. His dad was a naval architect, and he’s a history professor, so I’d consider him a good source. In fact I’d love to see you and him debate the issue. I think that would be a great video to watch.
@@BattleshipNewJersey
Fantastic. I find the ships of the minor navies, and why they were designed, crewed, and operated the way they were fascinating. The Sverige class when I first ran across an article about them in Warship really intrigued me, and it looks like the Swedes got their money’s worth out of those ships.
Just curious, have you ever heard of Sabaton? They have a great song about the Bismarck.
ruclips.net/video/oVWEb-At8yc/видео.html
And the 4-turret triple-barrel 12-inch (305mm) has ever existed or planned? Great video btw!