Are heavy cruisers just a product of the treaty?

As the Navy entered the age of steam—especially after the creation of torpedoes—the importance of this secondary function rose rapidly, to the point that the battlefleet needed the protection of the cruisers, not the other way around. As technology evolved, larger cruisers had acquired naval combat capabilities that were not inferior to battleships, and the Royal Navy's large cruisers of the first rank were repeatedly called "battle-cruisers". The end result of this evolution was the intrepid and the invincible, two capital ships infused with cruiser blood.

This narrative can also be reversed, and in order to defend sea supremacy, the cruiser's naval combat capabilities were forced to constantly increase against the opposing cruisers, eventually raising the cruiser to the level of a battleship. But in any case, the result was certain - a hybrid of a battleship and a cruiser. Pausing at this point to look at the fleet structure, we will see that the light ships followed a similar logic, beginning to merge with the smallest cruisers, the previous cruisers of the third rank and the reconnaissance cruisers.

For example, the Agile level and the Lin Immortal level are all products of this process. So we get two kinds of cruisers: the strongest cruiser that satisfies the cruiser's confrontation (or "counter-cruiser") function, and the cruiser that satisfies the cruiser's bottom limit and guarantees maximum numbers.

Now the "strongest cruiser" that has evolved to the apex is crossed out, leaving the regular cruiser. How to develop such cruisers, there are two options: one is to maintain this "floor demand", always maintain the bottom limit performance and maximize the number; The second is to follow the logic of confrontation and quickly upgrade the design of the cruiser.

The Hawkins and Eagles are the product of the second option. Now it's time to talk about the Omaha class. The Omaha class reflects the U.S. Navy's "floor requirements" for the simple reason that the U.S. Navy, which needs to fight across the oceans, necessarily requires a larger tonnage, while the smaller overseas colonies that do not endanger the economic lifeline determine that the U.S. Navy does not need the same number of cruisers as the British.

In this way, if the total tonnage is equal, the American cruisers will inevitably outwhelm the British cruisers in combat strength, so strengthening their weaker cruisers becomes a natural choice - well, that's how the second option actually came about. Looks reasonable, doesn't it? Going back to the beginning, consider the state of the natural arms race without a treaty.

The appearance of heavy cruisers is inevitable, the caliber of battleships is getting larger and larger, and the tonnage is getting bigger and bigger, when the division of cruisers appears, it is destined for the appearance of battlecruisers, and the battle cruiser is not so much a branch of the battleship, but the ultimate development of the cruiser, and the heavy cruiser is a stage in the development of the light cruiser to the battle cruiser, which is only artificially divided, even if there is no so-called naval agreement, the heavy cruiser will still appear, It's just that the so-called division of how many calibers and how many tonnages will become more ambiguous.

The destroyer mission is to deal with submarines, offshore and to expel rogue gunboats of small tonnage and escort missions. The cruiser mission is colonial domination, the flagship of overseas colonies, and the long-range long-term breakage at sea. Destroy destroyers and other offshore ships. Or serve as the flagship of the destroyer fleet.

Indeed, if there is no treaty, it will produce about 20,000 tons, and more than 8-inch guns, as long as it is more cost-effective than battleships.

It seems that there was a Hawkins-class cruiser before the heavy cruiser, and this should be the prototype! The speed is super high, the caliber of the main gun is unified, and all turrets are used.

This can be interpreted in two ways, one is the re-patrol derived from the restrictions of the treaty, and the other is derived according to its own needs. The treaty must be known to everyone, he stipulates the indicators of heavy cruisers, and countries have developed their own heavy cruisers within the indicators, and I want to say that the heavy cruisers developed according to their own needs, if there is no treaty, then with the confrontation and development of the major maritime powers, the light cruiser may develop to the level of the subsequent treaty heavy cruiser, and the heavy patrol is likely to develop to the extent of Alaska and super armor patrol. According to the judgment of history, capital ships are often not easily dispatched, and before, instead of capital ships to perform various tasks in the ocean, it was mounted and light cruisers, then, as a ship inferior to the capital ships, it is the most economical to perform some secondary tasks, which will not be suppressed by light ships, but also have strong combat effectiveness, so if there is no treaty Alaska, ships of this level will inevitably appear.

The last product before the breakthrough of technology is definitely related to the framework

The "Washington Treaty" signed in 1922 limited the total tonnage of capital ships and aircraft carriers of the five countries of Britain, the United States, France, Japan, and Italy, but Xiaoying imposed restrictions on the tonnage and armament of auxiliary ships (that is, cruisers with a standard displacement of no more than 10,000 tons and a main gun caliber of no more than 203 mm), but did not impose a limit on the total amount of fine combustion, so countries began to build a large number of cruisers one after another. For 15 years, from 1922 to 1936, the Great Powers largely complied with the construction limits of the Washington Treaty. In addition to battleships and aircraft carriers, the navies of the great powers worked hard to build ships with a displacement of 10,000 tons or close to 10,000 tons and a main gun caliber of 203 mm.

These ships were positioned as quasi-capital ships, which were the Treaty Wide Bush heavy cruisers. Later, according to the Treaty of London, the possession of these ** was also limited, so the construction of most cruisers gradually changed to cruisers equipped with 152 mm guns, that is, the so-called treaty light cruisers.

Development of a treaty-type heavy cruiser.

When it comes to the 10,000-ton ** armament with 203 mm guns, the first thing that comes to mind is the armored cruisers before the First World War. For example, the Japanese armored cruisers, which were very active in the Russo-Japanese War, had a full load displacement of 9,300 9,700 tons, were armed with four 203 mm guns, and the armor at the waterline was 152 mm thick, and the speed was 20 knots. However, after World War I, the naval powers required cruisers to have a speed of more than 30 knots, which required more powerful engines, and in order to strengthen firepower, it was necessary to increase the number of guns, which required an increase in the displacement of **.

Sacrifice defense.

At that time, the power system of the main warships of the naval powers had evolved from steam engines to steam turbines, and the weight of the power plant was reduced, but it was still unable to meet the needs of both power and firepower under the limit of 10,000 tons of displacement. In this case, the Pact heavy cruisers had to sacrifice defensive forces and reduce their armor to the extent that they were not enough to defend against 203 mm guns.

At the end of World War I or just after World War I, the Great Powers increased the size of the cruiser, which had only 5,000 tons, to more than 7,000 tons, with broadside and upper decks. The defensive decks were all extremely thin in armor, but were armed with guns of a caliber of 152 mm or more.

The Cavendish class of the British Navy (plan 1915, 9,550 tons), the Omaha class of the US Navy (plan 1917, 7,050 tons), etc., all fall into this category. Cavendish Class Speed Knot, Omaha Class Design Up to 35 Knots. 7 Cavendish class millimeter guns.

The Emerald class (7,550 tons) and Enterprise class (7,380 tons) that were later planned to be built were downsized, and the artillery was reduced to 152 mm. The main gun turret, like the light cruiser, had only 25 mm thick armor. These cruisers were not completed until the end of World War I.

In 1920, the Japanese Navy's shipbuilding design director, Hiraga Rang Daisa, proposed the "88 Ship Oak Trouble" plan. The plan included a large 8,000-ton cruiser with a single-barreled 203-mm gun with six guns on the centerline. The goal of this scheme was to surpass the Anglo-American cruisers described above.

After the signing of the Washington Treaty, the Hiraga Plan became the basic content of the Military Command Department's requirements, and the Furutaka and Aoba classes built in Japan were also related to the Hiraga Plan.

The first point of Hiraga's design was the weight reduction of the hull. He had already experimented with this design on the light cruiser Yubari that he had previously designed: the length-to-width ratio was increased and the waterline was lengthened, which could increase the ability to resist wind and waves.

At the same time, the armor also bears the load as a structural part of the hull.

Britain, France and Italy were the first to install eight 203-mm guns on treaty-type heavy cruisers, which squeezed out the weight share of the armor, resulting in extremely poor defense of treaty-type heavy cruisers that were started in the 20s of the 20th century. By the 30s, these 3 countries began to gradually pay attention to the protection of **, but the speed was reduced to 31 33 knots. Cruisers with 203-mm guns, completed in the second half of the 20s, were significantly inferior in performance to cruisers with 152-mm guns, built in the 30s.

Both Japanese and American treaty-type cruisers were initially armed with millimeter-thick armor, 9-10 203-mm guns, and were designed for a speed of 32 35 knots. Swing has always been a major weakness of theirs due to their heavy equipment. When the cruisers with 203 mm guns approached the treaty limit, the two countries also began to build 15 cruisers with 152 mm guns.

The treaty-type heavy cruiser was a deformity created in a special international political environment**. In World War II, the performance of these ** was different, and it became an eternal topic for researchers of ship history.