• Liaison TripleA '11 '10

    What about that Submersible French Cruiser?


  • @Gargantua:

    What about that Submersible French Cruiser?

    Good point – the Surcouf was classified as an “undersea cruiser”, and because she had 8-inch guns she would qualify as a heavy cruiser rather than a light cruiser.  But of course, if a submersible cruiser was too heavy, it might well never come back up after submerging.  :)

  • Liaison TripleA '11 '10

    @CWO:

    @Gargantua:

    What about that Submersible French Cruiser?

    Good point – the Surcouf was classified as an “undersea cruiser”, and because she had 8-inch guns she would qualify as a heavy cruiser rather than a light cruiser.  But of course, if a submersible cruiser was too heavy, it might well never come back up after submerging.  :)

    The french always do find the most secure ways to ensure retreat.


  • The Japanese Heavy Cruiser Tone was a great cruiser and who wouldn’t love to go into battle with the long lance torpedo system and a surplus torpedos. The Tone carried six float planes to act as scouts for the fleet.


  • Good choice Worsham. Just looked it up after remembering it was the Cruiser that escaped the East Solomons 24h August attack. Had  quite a history. Cannot believe the beheading of British prisoners!


  • @wittmann:

    Just looked it up after remembering it was the Cruiser that escaped the East Solomons 24h August attack. Had  quite a history.

    If I recall correctly, the Tone was the ship to which Admiral Nagumo transferred his flag at Midway after his carrier flagship was dive-bombed.

  • '12

    @CWO:

    My own choice would probably be the Baltimore class, the first American heavy cruiser class built free of the restrictions imposed by the Washington and London Treaties.  They had a large main battery (nine 8-inch guns) and a very large number of anti-aircraft guns; they were well armoured for a cruiser and were reasonably fast.

    This statement sent me down an odd path of thought- did the US Congress officially pass legislation that repudiated these treaties once the war started?  Presumably most treaties don’t include a clause that reads unless there's a war, in which case forget all this stuff, so a nation that wishes to maintain a moral high ground should in theory officially legally repudiate it instead of just discarding it immediately out of hand.


  • @Eggman:

    This statement sent me down an odd path of thought- did the US Congress officially pass legislation that repudiated these treaties once the war started?  Presumably most treaties don’t include a clause that reads unless there's a war, in which case forget all this stuff, so a nation that wishes to maintain a moral high ground should in theory officially legally repudiate it instead of just discarding it immediately out of hand.

    Interesting question.  I don’t think the US formally repudiated the Washington Treaty and the two subsequent London Treaties.  At least one of these treaties (I think it was the second London one) did have an escalator clause allowing the signatories to build battleships with 16-inch guns if any signatory exceeded that treaty’s 14-inch ceiling, but I don’t know if the treaties had an automatic nullification-in-case-of-war clause.  I don’t have any expertise in treaty law, but my guess is that an international disarmament treaty would become a moot point if a war broke out, even if the treaty contains no specific abrogation clause.  It should in any case be noted that, by the time WWII started, the naval limitation treaties had already been bent, stretched and broken to various degrees, thereby de facto rendering them void – though even on this point, some legalistic fudging comes into play.  Germany, for example, wasn’t bound by any of those three treaties, but rather by the Versailles Treaty.  In principle Versailles was even more restrictive – but when Germany tore up Versailles, the British (who had the most to fear from German  naval expansion) negotiated the Anglo-German Naval Treaty which “legalized” German naval expansion within certain parameters (which Germany wasn’t too fussy about respecting).  Germany’s new heavy surface warships were generally larger than their legal displacement maxima, some by as much as 50% as I recall.  Japan didn’t sign the Second London Treaty, so it wasn’t bound by it.  Japan had signed the First London Treaty, but when the Treaty expired in 1935 Japan began planning the Yamato class battleships, whose 18-inch armament blew a huge hole in the escalated 16-inch caliber ceiling…though ironically, it wasn’t until after WWII that the US found out that the Yamatos had 16-inch rather than 18-inch guns.

  • '17 '16 '15 '14 '12

    I would want this Russian “carrier killer” missile cruiser that’s been in the news lately, just because it looks so cool and deadly, and I’d want it back in 1940 too, just because.

    http://www.cruiser-moskva.info/eng/


  • I’d pick the Alaska class.

    Highest speed, best fire control for the biggest guns, plus a better-than-most AA outfit. Yes, historically they were expensive, late, and pretty much obsolete due to events…and no, they didn’t have the kind of armor necessary for taking on true capitol ships, but I wouldn’t require them too. I would use them in the true traditional roles of cruisers, not as thin-skinned additions to the battle line. Against the majority of other heavy cruiser classes of the era, they could more than hold their own.

    Rob.


  • Isn’t the Alaska class a BC class?

    Not a bad choice though.


  • The official USN designation for the class was ‘heavy cruiser’.

    The only ‘battle-cruisers’ the USN ever built were the six Lexington class; none were completed as such, two being converted into carriers and the other four scrapped per the WNT.

    Rob.

Suggested Topics

  • 3
  • 1
  • 3
  • 31
  • 6
  • 7
  • 16
  • 2
Axis & Allies Boardgaming Custom Painted Miniatures

33

Online

17.0k

Users

39.3k

Topics

1.7m

Posts