163-582: The Battle Cruiser Fleet, (BCF) , later known as Battle Cruiser Force , a naval formation of fast battlecruisers of the Royal Navy , operated from 1915 to 1919. The Fleet was formed on 11 February 1915 when the Admiralty ordered the deployment of its faster Battlecruiser squadrons to the Rosyth Command and grouped them together as the new Battle Cruiser Fleet . The name 'Fleet' remained until 1916 although it
326-637: A Neutrality Pact in April 1941, and Japan adopted the doctrine of Nanshin-ron , promoted by the Navy, which took its focus southward and eventually led to war with the United States and the Western Allies. In Europe, Germany and Italy were becoming more aggressive. In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria , again provoking little response from other European powers. Encouraged, Hitler began pressing German claims on
489-564: A cautious French probe into the Saarland . The Western Allies also began a naval blockade of Germany , which aimed to damage the country's economy and war effort. Germany responded by ordering U-boat warfare against Allied merchant and warships, which would later escalate into the Battle of the Atlantic . On 8 September, German troops reached the suburbs of Warsaw . The Polish counter-offensive to
652-790: A battlecruiser, causing some to refer to her as a fast battleship. However, her protection was markedly less than that of the British battleships built immediately after World War I, the Nelson class . The navies of Japan and the United States, not being affected immediately by the war, had time to develop new heavy 16-inch (410 mm) guns for their latest designs and to refine their battlecruiser designs in light of combat experience in Europe. The Imperial Japanese Navy began four Amagi -class battlecruisers. These vessels would have been of unprecedented size and power, as fast and well armoured as Hood whilst carrying
815-461: A battleship would score any hits, as the heavy guns relied on primitive aiming techniques. The secondary batteries of 6-inch quick-firing guns, firing more plentiful shells, were more likely to hit the enemy. As naval expert Fred T. Jane wrote in June 1902, Is there anything outside of 2,000 yards that the big gun in its hundreds of tons of medieval castle can affect, that its weight in 6-inch guns without
978-534: A classification for the World War I–era capital ships that remained in the fleet; while Japan's battlecruisers remained in service, they had been significantly reconstructed and were re-rated as full-fledged fast battleships. Battlecruisers were put into action again during World War II , and only one survived to the end. There was also renewed interest in large "cruiser-killer" type warships, but few were ever begun, as construction of battleships and battlecruisers
1141-607: A cruiser capable of 25.5 knots (47.2 km/h; 29.3 mph), also with 12-inch guns and no intermediate armament, armoured like Minotaur , the most recent armoured cruiser, and also capable of using existing docks. Under the Selborne plan of 1902, the Royal Navy intended to start three new battleships and four armoured cruisers each year. However, in late 1904 it became clear that the 1905–1906 programme would have to be considerably smaller, because of lower than expected tax revenue and
1304-913: A faster, more lightly armoured battleship. As early as 1901, there is confusion in Fisher's writing about whether he saw the battleship or the cruiser as the model for future developments. This did not stop him from commissioning designs from naval architect W. H. Gard for an armoured cruiser with the heaviest possible armament for use with the fleet. The design Gard submitted was for a ship between 14,000–15,000 long tons (14,000–15,000 t), capable of 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph), armed with four 9.2-inch and twelve 7.5-inch (190 mm) guns in twin gun turrets and protected with six inches of armour along her belt and 9.2-inch turrets, 4 inches (102 mm) on her 7.5-inch turrets, 10 inches on her conning tower and up to 2.5 inches (64 mm) on her decks. However, mainstream British naval thinking between 1902 and 1904
1467-434: A few battleships for more fast armoured cruisers? In such a case, neither side wanting battleships is presumptive evidence that they are not of much value. Fisher's views were very controversial within the Royal Navy, and even given his position as First Sea Lord, he was not in a position to insist on his own approach. Thus he assembled a "Committee on Designs", consisting of a mixture of civilian and naval experts, to determine
1630-497: A few years earlier. Seydlitz was Germany's last battlecruiser completed before World War I. The next step in battlecruiser design came from Japan. The Imperial Japanese Navy had been planning the Kongō -class ships from 1909, and was determined that, since the Japanese economy could support relatively few ships, each would be more powerful than its likely competitors. Initially the class
1793-463: A light cruiser. The design was generally regarded as a failure (nicknamed in the Fleet Outrageous , Uproarious and Spurious ), though the later conversion of the ships to aircraft carriers was very successful. Fisher also speculated about a new mammoth, but lightly built battlecruiser, that would carry 20-inch (508 mm) guns, which he termed HMS Incomparable ; this never got beyond
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#17328695563871956-499: A main battery of ten 16-inch guns, the most powerful armament ever proposed for a battlecruiser. They were, for all intents and purposes, fast battleships—the only differences between them and the Tosa -class battleships which were to precede them were 1 inch (25 mm) less side armour and a .25 knots (0.46 km/h; 0.29 mph) increase in speed. The United States Navy, which had worked on its battlecruiser designs since 1913 and watched
2119-522: A more thorough reconstruction between 1937 and 1939. Her deck armour was increased, new turbines and boilers were fitted, an aircraft hangar and catapult added and she was completely rearmed aside from the main guns which had their elevation increased to +30 degrees. The bridge structure was also removed and a large bridge similar to that used in the King George V -class battleships installed in its place. While conversions of this kind generally added weight to
2282-758: A new design. Fisher finally received approval for this project on 28 December 1914 and they became the Renown class . With six 15-inch guns but only 6-inch armour they were a further step forward from Tiger in firepower and speed, but returned to the level of protection of the first British battlecruisers. At the same time, Fisher resorted to subterfuge to obtain another three fast, lightly armoured ships that could use several spare 15-inch (381 mm) gun turrets left over from battleship construction. These ships were essentially light battlecruisers, and Fisher occasionally referred to them as such, but officially they were classified as large light cruisers . This unusual designation
2445-701: A particular naval threat; the Russian navy had largely been sunk or captured in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, while the French were in no hurry to adopt the new dreadnought -type design. Britain also boasted very cordial relations with two of the significant new naval powers: Japan (bolstered by the Anglo-Japanese Alliance , signed in 1902 and renewed in 1905), and the US. These changed strategic circumstances, and
2608-514: A pretext to initiate the invasion. The first German attack of the war came against the Polish defences at Westerplatte . The United Kingdom responded with an ultimatum for Germany to cease military operations, and on 3 September, after the ultimatum was ignored, Britain and France declared war on Germany. During the Phoney War period, the alliance provided no direct military support to Poland, outside of
2771-715: A pretext to worsen relations. On 29 August, Hitler demanded that a Polish plenipotentiary immediately travel to Berlin to negotiate the handover of Danzig , and to allow a plebiscite in the Polish Corridor in which the German minority would vote on secession. The Poles refused to comply with the German demands, and on the night of 30–31 August in a confrontational meeting with the British ambassador Nevile Henderson , Ribbentrop declared that Germany considered its claims rejected. On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland after having staged several false flag border incidents as
2934-637: A reduced number of boilers and an increase in hull length by 26 feet (7.9 m) allowed them to reach up to 30 knots once again. They were reclassified as "fast battleships," although their armour and guns still fell short compared to surviving World War I–era battleships in the American or the British navies, with dire consequences during the Pacific War , when Hiei and Kirishima were easily crippled by US gunfire during actions off Guadalcanal, forcing their scuttling shortly afterwards. Perhaps most tellingly, Hiei
3097-469: A secret protocol that defined German and Soviet "spheres of influence" (western Poland and Lithuania for Germany; eastern Poland , Finland, Estonia , Latvia and Bessarabia for the Soviet Union), and raised the question of continuing Polish independence. The pact neutralised the possibility of Soviet opposition to a campaign against Poland and assured that Germany would not have to face the prospect of
3260-743: A similar pact and rejected ceding part of its territory to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union invaded Finland in November 1939, and was subsequently expelled from the League of Nations for this crime of aggression. Despite overwhelming numerical superiority, Soviet military success during the Winter War was modest, and the Finno-Soviet war ended in March 1940 with some Finnish concessions of territory . In June 1940,
3423-519: A speed of 32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph), but he received no support from the authorities and the engine makers refused his request. 1912 saw work begin on three more German battlecruisers of the Derfflinger class , the first German battlecruisers to mount 12-inch guns. These ships, like Tiger and the Kongō s, had their guns arranged in superfiring turrets for greater efficiency. Their armour and speed
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#17328695563873586-519: A two-front war, as it had in World War I. Immediately afterwards, Hitler ordered the attack to proceed on 26 August, but upon hearing that the United Kingdom had concluded a formal mutual assistance pact with Poland and that Italy would maintain neutrality, he decided to delay it. In response to British requests for direct negotiations to avoid war, Germany made demands on Poland, which served as
3749-668: A varying degree) and a somewhat lighter main gun battery than contemporary battleships, installed on a longer hull with much higher engine power in order to attain greater speeds. The first battlecruisers were designed in the United Kingdom , as a development of the armoured cruiser , at the same time as the dreadnought succeeded the pre-dreadnought battleship . The goal of the design was to outrun any ship with similar armament, and chase down any ship with lesser armament; they were intended to hunt down slower, older armoured cruisers and destroy them with heavy gunfire while avoiding combat with
3912-478: The Admiral Nakhimov has been inactive (in storage or refitting) since 1999. The battlecruiser was developed by the Royal Navy in the first years of the 20th century as an evolution of the armoured cruiser . The first armoured cruisers had been built in the 1870s, as an attempt to give armour protection to ships fulfilling the typical cruiser roles of patrol, trade protection and power projection. However,
4075-467: The Invincible class . Fisher later claimed, however, that he had argued during the committee for the cancellation of the remaining battleship. The construction of the new class was begun in 1906 and completed in 1908, delayed perhaps to allow their designers to learn from any problems with Dreadnought . The ships fulfilled the design requirement quite closely. On a displacement similar to Dreadnought ,
4238-543: The Tsukuba and Ibuki classes, carrying four 12-inch guns, as battlecruisers; nonetheless, their armament was weaker and they were slower than any battlecruiser. The next British battlecruiser, Tiger , was intended initially as the fourth ship in the Lion class, but was substantially redesigned. She retained the eight 13.5-inch guns of her predecessors, but they were positioned like those of Kongō for better fields of fire. She
4401-588: The Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German–Polish declaration of non-aggression . The situation became a crisis in late August as German troops continued to mobilise against the Polish border. On 23 August the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany, after tripartite negotiations for a military alliance between France, the United Kingdom, and Soviet Union had stalled. This pact had
4564-599: The Battle of the Falkland Islands . The British battlecruisers Inflexible and Invincible did precisely the job for which they were intended when they chased down and annihilated the German East Asia Squadron , centered on the armoured cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau , along with three light cruisers, commanded by Admiral Maximilian Graf Von Spee , in the South Atlantic Ocean. Prior to
4727-770: The Borodino s was halted by the First World War and all were scrapped after the end of the Russian Civil War . For most of the combatants, capital ship construction was very limited during the war. Germany finished the Derfflinger class and began work on the Mackensen class . The Mackensen s were a development of the Derfflinger class, with 13.8-inch guns and a broadly similar armour scheme, designed for 28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph). In Britain, Jackie Fisher returned to
4890-662: The British Empire , with fighting in the Balkans , Mediterranean, and Middle East , the aerial Battle of Britain and the Blitz , and naval Battle of the Atlantic . Through a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany took control of much of continental Europe and formed the Axis alliance with Italy , Japan , and other countries. In June 1941, Germany led the European Axis in an invasion of
5053-566: The German Revolution of 1918–1919 , and a democratic government, later known as the Weimar Republic , was created. The interwar period saw strife between supporters of the new republic and hardline opponents on both the political right and left. Italy, as an Entente ally, had made some post-war territorial gains; however, Italian nationalists were angered that the promises made by the United Kingdom and France to secure Italian entrance into
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5216-656: The German invasion of Poland and the United Kingdom and France 's declaration of war on Germany two days later on 3 September 1939. Dates for the beginning of the Pacific War include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or the earlier Japanese invasion of Manchuria , on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor , who stated that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously, and
5379-502: The Invincible class themselves were referred to as "cruiser-battleships", "dreadnought cruisers"; the term "battlecruiser" was first used by Fisher in 1908. Finally, on 24 November 1911, Admiralty Weekly Order No. 351 laid down that "All cruisers of the "Invincible" and later types are for the future to be described and classified as "battle cruisers" to distinguish them from the armoured cruisers of earlier date." Along with questions over
5542-449: The Invincible s were 40 feet (12.2 m) longer to accommodate additional boilers and more powerful turbines to propel them at 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph). Moreover, the new ships could maintain this speed for days, whereas pre-dreadnought battleships could not generally do so for more than an hour. Armed with eight 12-inch Mk X guns , compared to ten on Dreadnought , they had 6–7 inches (152–178 mm) of armour protecting
5705-567: The Italian mainland , and Allied offensives in the Pacific—cost the Axis powers their initiative and forced them into strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France at Normandy , while the Soviet Union regained its territorial losses and pushed Germany and its allies westward. At the same time, Japan suffered reversals in mainland Asia, while the Allies crippled
5868-537: The Japanese Navy and captured key islands . The war in Europe concluded with the liberation of German-occupied territories ; the invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the fall of Berlin to Soviet troops; Hitler's suicide ; and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945 . Following the refusal of Japan to surrender on the terms of the Potsdam Declaration ,
6031-682: The League of Nations as a force to preserve peace. Both Italy and Ethiopia were member nations, but the League did little when the former clearly violated Article X of the League's Covenant . The United Kingdom and France supported imposing sanctions on Italy for the invasion, but the sanctions were not fully enforced and failed to end the Italian invasion. Italy subsequently dropped its objections to Germany's goal of absorbing Austria . When civil war broke out in Spain, Hitler and Mussolini lent military support to
6194-693: The Nationalist rebels , led by General Francisco Franco . Italy supported the Nationalists to a greater extent than the Nazis: Mussolini sent more than 70,000 ground troops, 6,000 aviation personnel, and 720 aircraft to Spain. The Soviet Union supported the existing government of the Spanish Republic . More than 30,000 foreign volunteers, known as the International Brigades , also fought against
6357-515: The North Sea which culminated in a pitched fleet battle, the Battle of Jutland . British battlecruisers in particular suffered heavy losses at Jutland, where poor fire safety and ammunition handling practices left them vulnerable to catastrophic magazine explosions following hits to their main turrets from large-calibre shells. This dismal showing led to a persistent general belief that battlecruisers were too thinly armoured to function successfully. By
6520-911: The Ottoman Navy , and this was instrumental in bringing the Ottoman Empire into the war as one of the Central Powers . Goeben herself, renamed Yavuz Sultan Selim , fought engagements against the Imperial Russian Navy in the Black Sea before being knocked out of the action for the remainder of the war after the Battle of Imbros against British forces in the Aegean Sea in January 1918. The original battlecruiser concept proved successful in December 1914 at
6683-677: The Rome–Berlin Axis . A month later, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact , which Italy joined the following year. The Kuomintang (KMT) party in China launched a unification campaign against regional warlords and nominally unified China in the mid-1920s, but was soon embroiled in a civil war against its former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) allies and new regional warlords . In 1931, an increasingly militaristic Empire of Japan , which had long sought influence in China as
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6846-603: The Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers . Nearly all the world's countries —including all the great powers —participated, with many investing all available economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities in pursuit of total war , blurring the distinction between military and civilian resources. Tanks and aircraft played major roles , with
7009-409: The Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1941. By contrast, the Germans were steadily making preparations for an attack on the Soviet Union, massing forces on the Soviet border. Hitler believed that the United Kingdom's refusal to end the war was based on the hope that the United States and the Soviet Union would enter the war against Germany sooner or later. On 31 July 1940, Hitler decided that
7172-421: The Stresa Front in April 1935 in order to contain Germany, a key step towards military globalisation ; however, that June, the United Kingdom made an independent naval agreement with Germany, easing prior restrictions. The Soviet Union, concerned by Germany's goals of capturing vast areas of Eastern Europe , drafted a treaty of mutual assistance with France. Before taking effect, though, the Franco-Soviet pact
7335-523: The Sudetenland , an area of Czechoslovakia with a predominantly ethnic German population. Soon the United Kingdom and France followed the appeasement policy of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and conceded this territory to Germany in the Munich Agreement , which was made against the wishes of the Czechoslovak government, in exchange for a promise of no further territorial demands. Soon afterwards, Germany and Italy forced Czechoslovakia to cede additional territory to Hungary, and Poland annexed
7498-428: The Tanggu Truce was signed in 1933. Thereafter, Chinese volunteer forces continued the resistance to Japanese aggression in Manchuria , and Chahar and Suiyuan . After the 1936 Xi'an Incident , the Kuomintang and CCP forces agreed on a ceasefire to present a united front to oppose Japan. The Second Italo-Ethiopian War was a brief colonial war that began in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war began with
7661-466: The Trans-Olza region of Czechoslovakia. Although all of Germany's stated demands had been satisfied by the agreement, privately Hitler was furious that British interference had prevented him from seizing all of Czechoslovakia in one operation. In subsequent speeches Hitler attacked British and Jewish "war-mongers" and in January 1939 secretly ordered a major build-up of the German navy to challenge British naval supremacy. In March 1939, Germany invaded
7824-506: The Treaty of Craiova . The loss of one-third of Romania's 1939 territory caused a coup against King Carol II, turning Romania into a fascist dictatorship under Marshal Ion Antonescu , with a course set towards the Axis in the hopes of a German guarantee. Meanwhile, German-Soviet political relations and economic co-operation gradually stalled, and both states began preparations for war. In April 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway to protect shipments of iron ore from Sweden , which
7987-401: The United Kingdom and France to declare war on Germany. Poland was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , in which they had agreed on " spheres of influence " in Eastern Europe. In 1940, the Soviets annexed the Baltic states and parts of Finland and Romania . After the fall of France in June 1940, the war continued mainly between Germany and
8150-426: The Wehrmacht rapidly advanced to the Channel and cut off the Allied forces in Belgium, trapping the bulk of the Allied armies in a cauldron on the Franco-Belgian border near Lille. The United Kingdom was able to evacuate a significant number of Allied troops from the continent by early June, although they had to abandon almost all their equipment. On 10 June, Italy invaded France , declaring war on both France and
8313-451: The aftermath of World War I and the rise of fascism in Europe and militarism in Japan . Key events leading up to the war included Japan's invasion of Manchuria , the Spanish Civil War , the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War , and Germany's annexations of Austria and the Sudetenland . World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1 September 1939, when Nazi Germany , under Adolf Hitler , invaded Poland , prompting
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#17328695563878476-433: The cordite handling, the battle was mostly inconclusive, though both the British flagship Lion and Seydlitz were severely damaged. Lion lost speed, causing her to fall behind the rest of the battleline, and Beatty was unable to effectively command his ships for the remainder of the engagement. A British signalling error allowed the German battlecruisers to withdraw, as most of Beatty's squadron mistakenly concentrated on
8639-553: The quick-firing guns of enemy battleships and cruisers alike. In 1896–97 France and Russia, who were regarded as likely allies in the event of war, started to build large, fast armoured cruisers taking advantage of this. In the event of a war between Britain and France or Russia, or both, these cruisers threatened to cause serious difficulties for the British Empire 's worldwide trade. Britain, which had concluded in 1892 that it needed twice as many cruisers as any potential enemy to adequately protect its empire's sea lanes, responded to
8802-404: The reunification of East and West Germany to take place and resolved most post–World War II issues. No formal peace treaty between Japan and the Soviet Union was ever signed, although the state of war between the two countries was terminated by the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956 , which also restored full diplomatic relations between them. World War I had radically altered
8965-409: The slipway or converted to aircraft carriers. In Japan, Amagi and Akagi were selected for conversion. Amagi was damaged beyond repair by the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake and was broken up for scrap ; the hull of one of the proposed Tosa -class battleships, Kaga , was converted in her stead. The United States Navy also converted two battlecruiser hulls into aircraft carriers in the wake of
9128-511: The torpedo , armour had lost some of its validity; and second, because of its greater speed, the battlecruiser could control the range at which it engaged an enemy. Between the launching of the Invincible s to just after the outbreak of the First World War, the battlecruiser played a junior role in the developing dreadnought arms race, as it was never wholeheartedly adopted as the key weapon in British imperial defence, as Fisher had presumably desired. The biggest factor for this lack of acceptance
9291-403: The Admiralty. While initially envisaged as a battleship, senior sea officers felt that Britain had enough battleships, but that new battlecruisers might be required to combat German ships being built (the British overestimated German progress on the Mackensen class as well as their likely capabilities). A battlecruiser design with eight 15-inch guns, 8 inches of armour and capable of 32 knots
9454-409: The Allies were attempting to cut off . Denmark capitulated after six hours , and despite Allied support , Norway was conquered within two months. British discontent over the Norwegian campaign led to the resignation of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain , who was replaced by Winston Churchill on 10 May 1940. On the same day, Germany launched an offensive against France . To circumvent
9617-400: The Axis war against the Soviet Union, in Romania's case partially to recapture territory ceded to the Soviet Union . In early June 1940, the Italian Regia Aeronautica attacked and besieged Malta , a British possession. From late summer to early autumn, Italy conquered British Somaliland and made an incursion into British-held Egypt . In October, Italy attacked Greece , but the attack
9780-451: The Battle of Tsushima in 1905 about the armoured cruiser's ability to survive in a battle line against enemy capital ships due to their superior speed. These assumptions had been made without taking into account the Russian Baltic Fleet 's inefficiency and tactical ineptitude. By the time the term "battlecruiser" had been given to the Invincible s, the idea of their parity with battleships had been fixed in many people's minds. Not everyone
9943-519: The Bight and turned the tide of the battle, ultimately sinking three German light cruisers and killing their commander, Rear Admiral Leberecht Maass . The German battlecruiser Goeben perhaps made the most impact early in the war. Stationed in the Mediterranean, she and the escorting light cruiser SMS Breslau evaded British and French ships on the outbreak of war , and steamed to Constantinople ( Istanbul ) with two British battlecruisers in hot pursuit. The two German ships were handed over to
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#173286955638710106-421: The Blitz , but largely ended in May 1941 after failing to significantly disrupt the British war effort. Using newly captured French ports, the German Navy enjoyed success against an over-extended Royal Navy , using U-boats against British shipping in the Atlantic . The British Home Fleet scored a significant victory on 27 May 1941 by sinking the German battleship Bismarck . In November 1939,
10269-526: The British response to the Amagi and Lexington types: four 48,000-long-ton (49,000 t) G3 battlecruisers . Royal Navy documents of the period often described any battleship with a speed of over about 24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph) as a battlecruiser, regardless of the amount of protective armour, although the G3 was considered by most to be a well-balanced fast battleship. The Washington Naval Treaty meant that none of these designs came to fruition. Ships that had been started were either broken up on
10432-405: The European Axis declaring war on the US. Japan conquered much of coastal China and Southeast Asia , but its advances in the Pacific were halted in mid-1942 after its defeat in the naval Battle of Midway ; Germany and Italy were defeated in North Africa and at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union. Key setbacks in 1943—including German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasions of Sicily and
10595-410: The French possessions of Syria and Lebanon , assisted by the Free French . With the situation in Europe and Asia relatively stable, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union made preparations for war. With the Soviets wary of mounting tensions with Germany, and the Japanese planning to take advantage of the European War by seizing resource-rich European possessions in Southeast Asia , the two powers signed
10758-426: The Germans, and the last large operational unit of the Polish Army surrendered on 6 October . Despite the military defeat, Poland never surrendered; instead, it formed the Polish government-in-exile and a clandestine state apparatus remained in occupied Poland. A significant part of Polish military personnel evacuated to Romania and Latvia; many of them later fought against the Axis in other theatres of
10921-450: The Nationalists. Both Germany and the Soviet Union used this proxy war as an opportunity to test in combat their most advanced weapons and tactics. The Nationalists won the civil war in April 1939; Franco, now dictator, remained officially neutral during World War II but generally favoured the Axis . His greatest collaboration with Germany was the sending of volunteers to fight on the Eastern Front . In July 1937, Japan captured
11084-422: The Royal Navy had decided to use 12-inch guns for its next generation of battleships because of their superior performance at long range, Fisher began to argue that big-gun cruisers could replace battleships altogether. The continuing improvement of the torpedo meant that submarines and destroyers would be able to destroy battleships; this in Fisher's view heralded the end of the battleship or at least compromised
11247-452: The Royal Navy putting three Italian battleships out of commission after a carrier attack at Taranto , and neutralising several more warships at the Battle of Cape Matapan . Italian defeats prompted Germany to deploy an expeditionary force to North Africa; at the end of March 1941, Rommel 's Afrika Korps launched an offensive which drove back Commonwealth forces. In less than a month, Axis forces advanced to western Egypt and besieged
11410-423: The Soviet Union occupied the entire territories of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as the Romanian regions of Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and the Hertsa region . In August 1940, Hitler imposed the Second Vienna Award on Romania which led to the transfer of Northern Transylvania to Hungary. In September 1940, Bulgaria demanded Southern Dobruja from Romania with German and Italian support, leading to
11573-421: The Soviet Union , opening the Eastern Front and initially making large territorial gains. Japan aimed to dominate East Asia and the Asia-Pacific , and by 1937 was at war with the Republic of China . In December 1941, Japan attacked American and British territories in Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific , including Pearl Harbor in Hawaii , which resulted in the US and the UK declaring war against Japan, and
11736-570: The Soviet Union and Mongolia . The Japanese doctrine of Hokushin-ron , which emphasised Japan's expansion northward, was favoured by the Imperial Army during this time. This policy would prove difficult to maintain in light of the Japanese defeat at Khalkin Gol in 1939, the ongoing Second Sino-Japanese War and ally Nazi Germany pursuing neutrality with the Soviets. Japan and the Soviet Union eventually signed
11899-738: The Soviet Union should be eliminated and aimed for the conquest of Ukraine , the Baltic states and Byelorussia . However, other senior German officials like Ribbentrop saw an opportunity to create a Euro-Asian bloc against the British Empire by inviting the Soviet Union into the Tripartite Pact. In November 1940, negotiations took place to determine if the Soviet Union would join the pact. The Soviets showed some interest but asked for concessions from Finland, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Japan that Germany considered unacceptable. On 18 December 1940, Hitler issued
12062-451: The US dropped the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August. Faced with an imminent invasion of the Japanese archipelago , the possibility of further atomic bombings, and the Soviet declaration of war against Japan and its invasion of Manchuria , Japan announced its unconditional surrender on 15 August and signed a surrender document on 2 September 1945 , marking
12225-568: The United Kingdom and France guaranteed their support for Polish independence ; when Italy conquered Albania in April 1939, the same guarantee was extended to the Kingdoms of Romania and Greece . Shortly after the Franco - British pledge to Poland, Germany and Italy formalised their own alliance with the Pact of Steel . Hitler accused the United Kingdom and Poland of trying to "encircle" Germany and renounced
12388-538: The United Kingdom attacked on 3 July in an attempt to prevent its seizure by Germany. The air Battle of Britain began in early July with Luftwaffe attacks on shipping and harbours . The German campaign for air superiority started in August but its failure to defeat RAF Fighter Command forced the indefinite postponement of the proposed German invasion of Britain . The German strategic bombing offensive intensified with night attacks on London and other cities in
12551-455: The United Kingdom. The Germans turned south against the weakened French army, and Paris fell to them on 14 June. Eight days later France signed an armistice with Germany ; it was divided into German and Italian occupation zones , and an unoccupied rump state under the Vichy Regime , which, though officially neutral, was generally aligned with Germany. France kept its fleet, which
12714-589: The United States was assisting China and the Western Allies, and had amended the Neutrality Act to allow "cash and carry" purchases by the Allies. In 1940, following the German capture of Paris, the size of the United States Navy was significantly increased . In September the United States further agreed to a trade of American destroyers for British bases . Still, a large majority of the American public continued to oppose any direct military intervention in
12877-433: The United States, Great Britain and Japan were scrapped or converted into aircraft carriers under the terms of the treaty. Improvements in armour design and propulsion created the 1930s "fast battleship" with the speed of a battlecruiser and armour of a battleship, making the battlecruiser in the traditional sense effectively an obsolete concept. Thus from the 1930s on, only the Royal Navy continued to use "battlecruiser" as
13040-711: The Washington Naval Treaty, although HMS Tiger later became a victim of the London Naval Conference 1930 and was scrapped. Because their high speed made them valuable surface units in spite of their weaknesses, most of these ships were significantly updated before World War II. Renown and Repulse were modernized significantly in the 1920s and 1930s. Between 1934 and 1936, Repulse was partially modernized and had her bridge modified, an aircraft hangar , catapult and new gunnery equipment added and her anti-aircraft armament increased. Renown underwent
13203-565: The Washington Treaty: USS ; Lexington and USS Saratoga , although this was only considered marginally preferable to scrapping the hulls outright (the remaining four: Constellation , Ranger , Constitution and United States were scrapped). In Britain, Fisher's "large light cruisers," were converted to carriers. Furious had already been partially converted during the war and Glorious and Courageous were similarly converted. In total, nine battlecruisers survived
13366-590: The Yellow River ; this manoeuvre bought time for the Chinese to prepare their defences at Wuhan , but the city was taken by October. Japanese military victories did not bring about the collapse of Chinese resistance that Japan had hoped to achieve; instead, the Chinese government relocated inland to Chongqing and continued the war. In the mid-to-late 1930s, Japanese forces in Manchukuo had sporadic border clashes with
13529-451: The approach to both battleship and armoured cruiser construction in the future. While the stated purpose of the committee was to investigate and report on future requirements of ships, Fisher and his associates had already made key decisions. The terms of reference for the committee were for a battleship capable of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph) with 12-inch guns and no intermediate calibres, capable of docking in existing drydocks ; and
13692-476: The armoured cruiser in its current form had come to the logical end of its development and the Invincible s were so far ahead of any enemy armoured cruiser in firepower and speed that it proved difficult to justify building more or bigger cruisers. This lead was extended by the surprise both Dreadnought and Invincible produced by having been built in secret; this prompted most other navies to delay their building programmes and radically revise their designs. This
13855-526: The barbette. The propellant charges being hoisted upwards were ignited, and the fireball flashed up into the turret and down into the magazine , setting fire to charges removed from their brass cartridge cases. The gun crew tried to escape into the next turret, which allowed the flash to spread into that turret as well, killing the crews of both turrets. Seydlitz was saved from near-certain destruction only by emergency flooding of her after magazines, which had been effected by Wilhelm Heidkamp . This near-disaster
14018-437: The battle, Seydlitz barely making it home, for they had been the focus of British fire for much of the battle. In the years immediately after World War I, Britain, Japan and the US all began design work on a new generation of ever more powerful battleships and battlecruisers. The new burst of shipbuilding that each nation's navy desired was politically controversial and potentially economically crippling. This nascent arms race
14181-533: The battle, the Australian battlecruiser Australia had unsuccessfully searched for the German ships in the Pacific. During the Battle of Dogger Bank in 1915, the aftermost barbette of the German flagship Seydlitz was struck by a British 13.5-inch shell from HMS Lion . The shell did not penetrate the barbette, but it dislodged a piece of the barbette armour that allowed the flame from the shell's detonation to enter
14344-415: The battlecruiser and battleship concepts into what would eventually become the fast battleship. The 'X4' design combined the full armour and armament of Dreadnought with the 25-knot speed of Invincible . The additional cost could not be justified given the existing British lead and the new Liberal government's need for economy; the slower and cheaper Bellerophon , a relatively close copy of Dreadnought ,
14507-518: The battlecruiser and the modern fast battleship became blurred; indeed, the Japanese Kongō s were formally redesignated as battleships after their very comprehensive reconstruction in the 1930s. Hood , launched in 1918, was the last World War I battlecruiser to be completed. Owing to lessons from Jutland, the ship was modified during construction; the thickness of her belt armour was increased by an average of 50 percent and extended substantially, she
14670-537: The battlecruisers, and then German battleships before the arrival of the battleships of the British Grand Fleet . The result was a disaster for the Royal Navy's battlecruiser squadrons: Invincible , Queen Mary , and Indefatigable exploded with the loss of all but a handful of their crews. The exact reason why the ships' magazines detonated is not known, but the abundance of exposed cordite charges stored in their turrets, ammunition hoists and working chambers in
14833-451: The capital Nanking in December 1937. After the fall of Nanking, tens or hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and disarmed combatants were murdered by the Japanese . In March 1938, Nationalist Chinese forces won their first major victory at Taierzhuang , but then the city of Xuzhou was taken by the Japanese in May. In June 1938, Chinese forces stalled the Japanese advance by flooding
14996-400: The castle could not affect equally well? And inside 2,000, what, in these days of gyros, is there that the torpedo cannot effect with far more certainty? In 1904, Admiral John "Jacky" Fisher became First Sea Lord , the senior officer of the Royal Navy. He had for some time thought about the development of a new fast armoured ship. He was very fond of the "second-class battleship" Renown ,
15159-646: The concept stage. It is often held that the Renown and Courageous classes were designed for Fisher's plan to land troops (possibly Russian) on the German Baltic coast. Specifically, they were designed with a reduced draught , which might be important in the shallow Baltic. This is not clear-cut evidence that the ships were designed for the Baltic: it was considered that earlier ships had too much draught and not enough freeboard under operational conditions. Roberts argues that
15322-403: The conflict well into 1941. In December 1940, Roosevelt accused Hitler of planning world conquest and ruled out any negotiations as useless, calling for the United States to become an " arsenal of democracy " and promoting Lend-Lease programmes of military and humanitarian aid to support the British war effort; Lend-Lease was later extended to the other Allies, including the Soviet Union after it
15485-515: The creation of a " New Roman Empire ". Adolf Hitler , after an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government in 1923, eventually became the Chancellor of Germany in 1933 when Paul von Hindenburg and the Reichstag appointed him. Following Hindenburg's death in 1934, Hitler proclaimed himself Führer of Germany and abolished democracy, espousing a radical, racially motivated revision of
15648-482: The crippled armoured cruiser Blücher , sinking her with great loss of life. The British blamed their failure to win a decisive victory on their poor gunnery and attempted to increase their rate of fire by stockpiling unprotected cordite charges in their ammunition hoists and barbettes. At the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916, both British and German battlecruisers were employed as fleet units. The British battlecruisers became engaged with both their German counterparts,
15811-789: The dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian Empires. To prevent a future world war, the League of Nations was established in 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference . The organisation's primary goals were to prevent armed conflict through collective security, military, and naval disarmament , as well as settling international disputes through peaceful negotiations and arbitration. Despite strong pacifist sentiment after World War I , irredentist and revanchist nationalism had emerged in several European states. These sentiments were especially marked in Germany because of
15974-568: The edge over the Lion s in speed and firepower. The heavy guns were also better-positioned, being superfiring both fore and aft with no turret amidships. The armour scheme was also marginally improved over the Lion s, with nine inches of armour on the turrets and 8 inches (203 mm) on the barbettes. The first ship in the class was built in Britain, and a further three constructed in Japan. The Japanese also re-classified their powerful armoured cruisers of
16137-637: The end of May completed the German conquest of the Balkans. Partisan warfare subsequently broke out against the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia , which continued until the end of the war. In the Middle East in May, Commonwealth forces quashed an uprising in Iraq which had been supported by German aircraft from bases within Vichy-controlled Syria . Between June and July, British-led forces invaded and occupied
16300-406: The end of the war, capital ship design had developed, with battleships becoming faster and battlecruisers becoming more heavily armoured, blurring the distinction between a battlecruiser and a fast battleship . The Washington Naval Treaty , which limited capital ship construction from 1922 onwards, treated battleships and battlecruisers identically, and the new generation of battlecruisers planned by
16463-508: The end of the war. World War II changed the political alignment and social structure of the world, and it set the foundation of international relations for the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st century. The United Nations was established to foster international cooperation and prevent conflicts, with the victorious great powers—China, France, the Soviet Union, the UK, and the US—becoming
16626-566: The first step of what its government saw as the country's right to rule Asia , staged the Mukden incident as a pretext to invade Manchuria and establish the puppet state of Manchukuo . China appealed to the League of Nations to stop the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Japan withdrew from the League of Nations after being condemned for its incursion into Manchuria. The two nations then fought several battles, in Shanghai , Rehe and Hebei , until
16789-496: The fleet. On 29 November 1916 it was renamed Battle Cruiser Force . The force was disbanded in April 1919. Post holders included: Post holders included: Battlecruisers The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser ) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships , but differed in form and balance of attributes. Battlecruisers typically had thinner armour (to
16952-556: The focus on the Baltic was probably unimportant at the time the ships were designed, but was inflated later, after the disastrous Dardanelles Campaign . The final British battlecruiser design of the war was the Admiral class , which was born from a requirement for an improved version of the Queen Elizabeth battleship. The project began at the end of 1915, after Fisher's final departure from
17115-843: The former Chinese imperial capital of Peking after instigating the Marco Polo Bridge incident , which culminated in the Japanese campaign to invade all of China. The Soviets quickly signed a non-aggression pact with China to lend materiel support, effectively ending China's prior cooperation with Germany . From September to November, the Japanese attacked Taiyuan , engaged the Kuomintang Army around Xinkou , and fought Communist forces in Pingxingguan . Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed his best army to defend Shanghai , but after three months of fighting, Shanghai fell. The Japanese continued to push Chinese forces back, capturing
17278-626: The great success of the Dreadnought ensured that she rather than the Invincible became the new model capital ship. Nevertheless, battlecruiser construction played a part in the renewed naval arms race sparked by the Dreadnought . For their first few years of service, the Invincible s entirely fulfilled Fisher's vision of being able to sink any ship fast enough to catch them, and run from any ship capable of sinking them. An Invincible would also, in many circumstances, be able to take on an enemy pre-dreadnought battleship . Naval circles concurred that
17441-414: The heavy armour of SMS Von der Tann . This class came to be widely seen as a mistake and the next generation of British battlecruisers were markedly more powerful. By 1909–1910 a sense of national crisis about rivalry with Germany outweighed cost-cutting, and a naval panic resulted in the approval of a total of eight capital ships in 1909–1910. Fisher pressed for all eight to be battlecruisers, but
17604-577: The hull and the gun turrets. ( Dreadnought ' s armour, by comparison, was 11–12 inches (279–305 mm) at its thickest.) The class had a very marked increase in speed, displacement and firepower compared to the most recent armoured cruisers but no more armour. While the Invincible s were to fill the same role as the armoured cruisers they succeeded, they were expected to do so more effectively. Specifically their roles were: Confusion about how to refer to these new battleship-size armoured cruisers set in almost immediately. Even in late 1905, before work
17767-512: The invasion of the Ethiopian Empire (also known as Abyssinia ) by the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy ( Regno d'Italia ), which was launched from Italian Somaliland and Eritrea . The war resulted in the military occupation of Ethiopia and its annexation into the newly created colony of Italian East Africa ( Africa Orientale Italiana , or AOI); in addition it exposed the weakness of
17930-453: The latest developments in this class with great care, responded with the Lexington class . If completed as planned, they would have been exceptionally fast and well armed with eight 16-inch guns, but carried armour little better than the Invincible s—this after an 8,000-long-ton (8,100 t) increase in protection following Jutland. The final stage in the post-war battlecruiser race came with
18093-726: The latter enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and delivery of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, resulting in 70 to 85 million deaths , more than half being civilians. Millions died in genocides , including the Holocaust of European Jews, as well as from massacres, starvation, and disease. Following the Allied powers' victory, Germany , Austria , Japan , and Korea were occupied, and war crimes tribunals were conducted against German and Japanese leaders . The causes of World War II included unresolved tensions in
18256-402: The more powerful but slower battleships. However, as more and more battlecruisers were built, they were increasingly used alongside the better-protected battleships. Battlecruisers served in the navies of the United Kingdom , Germany , the Ottoman Empire , Australia and Japan during World War I, most notably at the Battle of the Falkland Islands and in the several raids and skirmishes in
18419-450: The need to buy out two Chilean battleships under construction in British yards, lest they be purchased by the Russians for use against the Japanese, Britain's ally. These economic realities meant that the 1905–1906 programme consisted only of one battleship, but three armoured cruisers. The battleship became the revolutionary battleship Dreadnought , and the cruisers became the three ships of
18582-589: The new ships' nomenclature came uncertainty about their actual role due to their lack of protection. If they were primarily to act as scouts for the battle fleet and hunter-killers of enemy cruisers and commerce raiders, then the seven inches of belt armour with which they had been equipped would be adequate. If, on the other hand, they were expected to reinforce a battle line of dreadnoughts with their own heavy guns, they were too thin-skinned to be safe from an enemy's heavy guns. The Invincible s were essentially extremely large, heavily armed, fast armoured cruisers. However,
18745-473: The office of First Sea Lord in October 1914. His enthusiasm for big, fast ships was unabated, and he set designers to producing a design for a battlecruiser with 15-inch guns. Because Fisher expected the next German battlecruiser to steam at 28 knots, he required the new British design to be capable of 32 knots. He planned to reorder two Revenge -class battleships , which had been approved but not yet laid down, to
18908-570: The only British ships capable of taking on the German Mackensen class; nevertheless, German shipbuilding was drastically slowed by the war, and while two Mackensen s were launched, none were ever completed. The Germans also worked briefly on a further three ships, of the Ersatz Yorck class , which were modified versions of the Mackensen s with 15-inch guns. Work on the three additional Admirals
19071-417: The perceived threat by laying down its own large armoured cruisers. Between 1899 and 1905, it completed or laid down seven classes of this type, a total of 35 ships. This building program, in turn, prompted the French and Russians to increase their own construction. The Imperial German Navy began to build large armoured cruisers for use on their overseas stations, laying down eight between 1897 and 1906. In
19234-419: The period 1889–1896, the Royal Navy spent £7.3 million on new large cruisers. From 1897 to 1904, it spent £26.9 million. Many armoured cruisers of the new kind were just as large and expensive as the equivalent battleship. The increasing size and power of the armoured cruiser led to suggestions in British naval circles that cruisers should displace battleships entirely. The battleship's main advantage
19397-497: The permanent members of its security council . The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers , setting the stage for the Cold War . In the wake of European devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and Asia . Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery and expansion . World War II began in Europe on 1 September 1939 with
19560-459: The political European map with the defeat of the Central Powers —including Austria-Hungary , Germany , Bulgaria , and the Ottoman Empire —and the 1917 Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia , which led to the founding of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the victorious Allies of World War I , such as France, Belgium, Italy, Romania, and Greece, gained territory, and new nation-states were created out of
19723-583: The port of Tobruk . By late March 1941, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact ; however, the Yugoslav government was overthrown two days later by pro-British nationalists. Germany and Italy responded with simultaneous invasions of both Yugoslavia and Greece , commencing on 6 April 1941; both nations were forced to surrender within the month. The airborne invasion of the Greek island of Crete at
19886-695: The quest to increase their rate of fire undoubtedly contributed to their loss. Beatty's flagship Lion herself was almost lost in a similar manner, save for the heroic actions of Major Francis Harvey . The better-armoured German battlecruisers fared better, in part due to the poor performance of British fuzes (the British shells tended to explode or break up on impact with the German armour). Lützow —the only German battlecruiser lost at Jutland—had only 128 killed, for instance, despite receiving more than thirty hits. The other German battlecruisers, Moltke , Von der Tann , Seydlitz , and Derfflinger , were all heavily damaged and required extensive repairs after
20049-693: The remainder of Czechoslovakia and subsequently split it into the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and a pro-German client state , the Slovak Republic . Hitler also delivered an ultimatum to Lithuania on 20 March 1939, forcing the concession of the Klaipėda Region , formerly the German Memelland . Greatly alarmed and with Hitler making further demands on the Free City of Danzig ,
20212-436: The results were rarely satisfactory, as the weight of armour required for any meaningful protection usually meant that the ship became almost as slow as a battleship. As a result, navies preferred to build protected cruisers with an armoured deck protecting their engines, or simply no armour at all. In the 1890s, new Krupp steel armour meant that it was now possible to give a cruiser side armour which would protect it against
20375-458: The significant territorial, colonial, and financial losses imposed by the Treaty of Versailles . Under the treaty, Germany lost around 13 percent of its home territory and all its overseas possessions , while German annexation of other states was prohibited, reparations were imposed, and limits were placed on the size and capability of the country's armed forces . The German Empire was dissolved in
20538-494: The start or prelude to World War II. The exact date of the war's end also is not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 15 August 1945 ( V-J Day ), rather than with the formal surrender of Japan on 2 September 1945, which officially ended the war in Asia . A peace treaty between Japan and the Allies was signed in 1951. A 1990 treaty regarding Germany's future allowed
20701-575: The strong Maginot Line fortifications on the Franco-German border, Germany directed its attack at the neutral nations of Belgium , the Netherlands , and Luxembourg . The Germans carried out a flanking manoeuvre through the Ardennes region, which was mistakenly perceived by the Allies as an impenetrable natural barrier against armoured vehicles. By successfully implementing new Blitzkrieg tactics,
20864-601: The terms of the Washington treaty) in two substantial reconstructions (one for Hiei ). During the first of these, elevation of their main guns was increased to +40 degrees, anti-torpedo bulges and 3,800 long tons (3,900 t) of horizontal armour added, and a "pagoda" mast with additional command positions built up. This reduced the ships' speed to 25.9 knots (48.0 km/h; 29.8 mph). The second reconstruction focused on speed as they had been selected as fast escorts for aircraft carrier task forces. Completely new main engines,
21027-577: The two wars became World War II in 1941. Other proposed starting dates for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939. Others view the Spanish Civil War as
21190-449: The validity of heavy armour protection. Nevertheless, armoured cruisers would remain vital for commerce protection. Of what use is a battle fleet to a country called (A) at war with a country called (B) possessing no battleships, but having fast armoured cruisers and clouds of fast torpedo craft? What damage would (A's) battleships do to (B)? Would (B) wish for a few battleships or for more armoured cruisers? Would not (A) willingly exchange
21353-596: The very similar Queen Mary . By 1911 Germany had built battlecruisers of her own, and the superiority of the British ships could no longer be assured. Moreover, the German Navy did not share Fisher's view of the battlecruiser. In contrast to the British focus on increasing speed and firepower, Germany progressively improved the armour and staying power of their ships to better the British battlecruisers. Von der Tann , begun in 1908 and completed in 1910, carried eight 11.1-inch guns, but with 11.1-inch (283 mm) armour she
21516-608: The vessel, Renown ' s tonnage actually decreased due to a substantially lighter power plant. Similar thorough rebuildings planned for Repulse and Hood were cancelled due to the advent of World War II . Unable to build new ships, the Imperial Japanese Navy also chose to improve its existing battlecruisers of the Kongō class (initially the Haruna , Kirishima , and Kongō —the Hiei only later as it had been disarmed under
21679-527: The viability of the armoured cruiser was already in doubt. A cruiser that could have worked with the Fleet might have been a more viable option for taking over that role. Because of the Invincible s ' size and armament, naval authorities considered them capital ships almost from their inception—an assumption that might have been inevitable. Complicating matters further was that many naval authorities, including Lord Fisher, had made overoptimistic assessments from
21842-504: The war were not fulfilled in the peace settlement. From 1922 to 1925, the Fascist movement led by Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy with a nationalist, totalitarian , and class collaborationist agenda that abolished representative democracy, repressed socialist, left-wing, and liberal forces, and pursued an aggressive expansionist foreign policy aimed at making Italy a world power, promising
22005-475: The war. Germany annexed western Poland and occupied central Poland ; the Soviet Union annexed eastern Poland ; small shares of Polish territory were transferred to Lithuania and Slovakia . On 6 October, Hitler made a public peace overture to the United Kingdom and France but said that the future of Poland was to be determined exclusively by Germany and the Soviet Union. The proposal was rejected and Hitler ordered an immediate offensive against France, which
22168-503: The west halted the German advance for several days, but it was outflanked and encircled by the Wehrmacht . Remnants of the Polish army broke through to besieged Warsaw . On 17 September 1939, two days after signing a cease-fire with Japan , the Soviet Union invaded Poland under the supposed pretext that the Polish state had ceased to exist. On 27 September, the Warsaw garrison surrendered to
22331-687: The world order , and soon began a massive rearmament campaign . France, seeking to secure its alliance with Italy, allowed Italy a free hand in Ethiopia , which Italy desired as a colonial possession. The situation was aggravated in early 1935 when the Territory of the Saar Basin was legally reunited with Germany, and Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, accelerated his rearmament programme, and introduced conscription. The United Kingdom, France and Italy formed
22494-614: Was invaded by Germany. The United States started strategic planning to prepare for a full-scale offensive against Germany. At the end of September 1940, the Tripartite Pact formally united Japan, Italy, and Germany as the Axis powers . The Tripartite Pact stipulated that any country—with the exception of the Soviet Union—that attacked any Axis Power would be forced to go to war against all three. The Axis expanded in November 1940 when Hungary , Slovakia , and Romania joined. Romania and Hungary later made major contributions to
22657-480: Was adopted instead. The X4 concept would eventually be fulfilled in the Queen Elizabeth class and later by other navies. The next British battlecruisers were the three Indefatigable class , slightly improved Invincible s built to fundamentally the same specification, partly due to political pressure to limit costs and partly due to the secrecy surrounding German battlecruiser construction, particularly about
22820-409: Was begun on the Invincible s, a Royal Navy memorandum refers to "large armoured ships" meaning both battleships and large cruisers. In October 1906, the Admiralty began to classify all post-Dreadnought battleships and armoured cruisers as " capital ships ", while Fisher used the term "dreadnought" to refer either to his new battleships or the battleships and armoured cruisers together. At the same time,
22983-582: Was clearly in favour of heavily armoured battleships, rather than the fast ships that Fisher favoured. The Battle of Tsushima proved the effectiveness of heavy guns over intermediate ones and the need for a uniform main caliber on a ship for fire control. Even before this, the Royal Navy had begun to consider a shift away from the mixed-calibre armament of the 1890s pre-dreadnought to an "all-big-gun" design, and preliminary designs circulated for battleships with all 12-inch or all 10-inch guns and armoured cruisers with all 9.2-inch guns. In late 1904, not long after
23146-411: Was crippled by medium-caliber gunfire from heavy and light cruisers in a close-range night engagement. There were two exceptions: Turkey's Yavuz Sultan Selim and the Royal Navy's Hood . The Turkish Navy made only minor improvements to the ship in the interwar period, which primarily focused on repairing wartime damage and the installation of new fire control systems and anti-aircraft batteries. Hood
23309-546: Was curtailed in favor of more-needed convoy escorts, aircraft carriers, and cargo ships. During (and after) the Cold War , the Soviet Kirov class of large guided missile cruisers have been the only ships termed "battlecruisers"; the class is also the only example of a nuclear-powered battlecruiser. As of 2024, Russia operates two units: the Pyotr Velikiy has remained in active service since its 1998 commissioning, while
23472-645: Was decided on. The experience of battlecruisers at the Battle of Jutland meant that the design was radically revised and transformed again into a fast battleship with armour up to 12 inches thick, but still capable of 31.5 knots (58.3 km/h; 36.2 mph). The first ship in the class, Hood , was built according to this design to counter the possible completion of any of the Mackensen-class ship. The plans for her three sisters, on which little work had been done, were revised once more later in 1916 and in 1917 to improve protection. The Admiral class would have been
23635-418: Was due to the way that ammunition handling was arranged and was common to both German and British battleships and battlecruisers, but the lighter protection on the latter made them more vulnerable to the turret or barbette being penetrated. The Germans learned from investigating the damaged Seydlitz and instituted measures to ensure that ammunition handling minimised any possible exposure to flash. Apart from
23798-453: Was far better protected than the Invincible s. The two Moltke s were quite similar but carried ten 11.1-inch guns of an improved design. Seydlitz , designed in 1909 and finished in 1913, was a modified Moltke ; speed increased by one knot to 26.5 knots (49.1 km/h; 30.5 mph), while her armour had a maximum thickness of 12 inches, equivalent to the Helgoland -class battleships of
23961-481: Was faster (making 29 knots (54 km/h; 33 mph) on sea trials ), and carried a heavier secondary armament. Tiger was also more heavily armoured on the whole; while the maximum thickness of armour was the same at nine inches, the height of the main armour belt was increased. Not all the desired improvements for this ship were approved, however. Her designer, Sir Eustace Tennyson d'Eyncourt , had wanted small-bore water-tube boilers and geared turbines to give her
24124-409: Was given heavier deck armour, and the protection of her magazines was improved to guard against the ignition of ammunition. This was hoped to be capable of resisting her own weapons—the classic measure of a "balanced" battleship. Hood was the largest ship in the Royal Navy when completed; because of her great displacement, in theory she combined the firepower and armour of a battleship with the speed of
24287-399: Was in constant service with the fleet and could not be withdrawn for an extended reconstruction. She received minor improvements over the course of the 1930s, including modern fire control systems, increased numbers of anti-aircraft guns, and in March 1941, radar. World War II Asia-Pacific Mediterranean and Middle East Other campaigns Coups World War II or
24450-416: Was its 12-inch heavy guns, and heavier armour designed to protect from shells of similar size. However, for a few years after 1900 it seemed that those advantages were of little practical value. The torpedo now had a range of 2,000 yards, and it seemed unlikely that a battleship would engage within torpedo range. However, at ranges of more than 2,000 yards it became increasingly unlikely that the heavy guns of
24613-471: Was officially subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief, Grand Fleet . The fleet initially contained the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Battlecruiser Squadrons but this was reduced to the 1st and 2nd BC Squadrons in June 1916. It also included two light cruiser squadrons and two destroyer flotillas , in addition the new 5th Battle Squadron that included the new fast Queen Elizabeth-class battleships operated with
24776-406: Was particularly true for cruisers, because the details of the Invincible class were kept secret for longer; this meant that the last German armoured cruiser, Blücher , was armed with only 21-centimetre (8.3 in) guns, and was no match for the new battlecruisers. The Royal Navy's early superiority in capital ships led to the rejection of a 1905–1906 design that would, essentially, have fused
24939-405: Was planned with the Invincible s as the benchmark. On learning of the British plans for Lion , and the likelihood that new U.S. Navy battleships would be armed with 14-inch (360 mm) guns, the Japanese decided to radically revise their plans and go one better. A new plan was drawn up, carrying eight 14-inch guns, and capable of 27.5 knots (50.9 km/h; 31.6 mph), thus marginally having
25102-452: Was postponed until the spring of 1940 due to bad weather. After the outbreak of war in Poland, Stalin threatened Estonia , Latvia , and Lithuania with military invasion, forcing the three Baltic countries to sign pacts allowing the creation of Soviet military bases in these countries; in October 1939, significant Soviet military contingents were moved there. Finland refused to sign
25265-433: Was prevented by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, where the major naval powers agreed to limits on capital ship numbers. The German navy was not represented at the talks; under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles , Germany was not allowed any modern capital ships at all. Through the 1920s and 1930s only Britain and Japan retained battlecruisers, often modified and rebuilt from their original designs. The line between
25428-657: Was repulsed with heavy Italian casualties; the campaign ended within months with minor territorial changes. To assist Italy and prevent Britain from gaining a foothold, Germany prepared to invade the Balkans, which would threaten Romanian oil fields and strike against British dominance of the Mediterranean. In December 1940, British Empire forces began counter-offensives against Italian forces in Egypt and Italian East Africa . The offensives were successful; by early February 1941, Italy had lost control of eastern Libya, and large numbers of Italian troops had been taken prisoner. The Italian Navy also suffered significant defeats, with
25591-408: Was required because construction of new capital ships had been placed on hold, while there were no limits on light cruiser construction. They became Courageous and her sisters Glorious and Furious , and there was a bizarre imbalance between their main guns of 15 inches (or 18 inches (457 mm) in Furious ) and their armour, which at three inches (76 mm) thickness was on the scale of
25754-441: Was required to go through the bureaucracy of the League of Nations, which rendered it essentially toothless. The United States, concerned with events in Europe and Asia, passed the Neutrality Act in August of the same year. Hitler defied the Versailles and Locarno Treaties by remilitarising the Rhineland in March 1936, encountering little opposition due to the policy of appeasement . In October 1936, Germany and Italy formed
25917-482: Was similar to the previous Seydlitz class. In 1913, the Russian Empire also began the construction of the four-ship Borodino class , which were designed for service in the Baltic Sea . These ships were designed to carry twelve 14-inch guns, with armour up to 12 inches thick, and a speed of 26.6 knots (49.3 km/h; 30.6 mph). The heavy armour and relatively slow speed of these ships made them more similar to German designs than to British ships; construction of
26080-429: Was so convinced. Brassey ' s Naval Annual , for instance, stated that with vessels as large and expensive as the Invincible s, an admiral "will be certain to put them in the line of battle where their comparatively light protection will be a disadvantage and their high speed of no value." Those in favor of the battlecruiser countered with two points—first, since all capital ships were vulnerable to new weapons such as
26243-582: Was suspended in March 1917 to enable more escorts and merchant ships to be built to deal with the new threat from U-boats to trade. They were finally cancelled in February 1919. The first combat involving battlecruisers during World War I was the Battle of Heligoland Bight in August 1914. A force of British light cruisers and destroyers entered the Heligoland Bight (the part of the North Sea closest to Hamburg ) to attack German destroyer patrols. When they met opposition from light cruisers, Vice Admiral David Beatty took his squadron of five battlecruisers into
26406-418: Was the marked change in Britain's strategic circumstances between their conception and the commissioning of the first ships. The prospective enemy for Britain had shifted from a Franco-Russian alliance with many armoured cruisers to a resurgent and increasingly belligerent Germany. Diplomatically, Britain had entered the Entente cordiale in 1904 and the Anglo-Russian Entente . Neither France nor Russia posed
26569-489: Was unable to have his way; he had to settle for six battleships and two battlecruisers of the Lion class . The Lion s carried eight 13.5-inch guns , the now-standard caliber of the British "super-dreadnought" battleships. Speed increased to 27 knots (50 km/h; 31 mph) and armour protection, while not as good as in German designs, was better than in previous British battlecruisers, with nine-inch (230 mm) armour belt and barbettes . The two Lion s were followed by
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