As im sure you have all noticed

[Tanthalas]

I have been playing around with realy large battleship caliber gun Armored Cruisers, I realy shouldnt even think about building anything like that and honestly im not planing to (even though it came out perfect in its most recent iteration).  What im curious about is what would the rest of the worlds responce to a ship like that be? how owuld other goverments responded to somthing so obviously useful and worthless at the same time (remember noone OTL knew turbines were about to revolutionise warships).  So I decided to just ask what everyone else would do if plans sliped out in say Janes for the proposed class.

[Walter]

I guess I will build a few concrete battleships as a reply. :)

[KWorld]

Responses to the "White Elephant"?  The USN would, upon seeing the rough outline of the design in Janes, raise a collective eyebrow, take a closer look at the estimated size, then shake it's head.  Italy is a source of interesting ideas, sometimes, but this is an idea that doesn't fit with the USNs favoring of firepower and armor over speed, and as long as the idea doesn't spread to a country that is a possible foe of the US, the USN will regard it as interesting but no more than that.  Another issue for the USN is the sheer size of the ship: 20,000 tons is almost surely more than Congress will be willing to shell out for, especially for a ship that carries fewer guns than a current battleship or armored cruiser.

[Walter]

Pick up your elephant gun and shoot it. Make it a trophy on your wall. :)

[Delta Force]

It doesn't have enough armor to stand up in a line of battle and is too short ranged for raiding. Something like that really has no doctrinal role in the IRN. It clearly isn't meant as a battleship (too fast) but isn't meant as an armored cruiser either (far too massive and poorly armored by IRN standards).

[Jefgte]

 :)
Built standart & dated ships - dont put your eggs in the same basket.

[Tanthalas]

@Kworld the 6600 mile range was actualy calculated to let it raid far into the Atlantic from Gibralter or ports in England, or virtualy anywhere in the Indian Ocean from ports in Italian Africa.  It is only armored to resist the guns on anything with a reasonable chance of catching it, and 6X11" would I think be enough to make any PC or CL skipper think better of the idea.

@Jef but thats what everyone is doing =P someone has to propose the Crazy ships or we would all be building clones of OTL, and where would the fun in that be.

[KWorld]

@Kworld the 6600 mile range was actualy calculated to let it raid far into the Atlantic from Gibralter or ports in England, or virtualy anywhere in the Indian Ocean from ports in Italian Africa.  It is only armored to resist the guns on anything with a reasonable chance of catching it, and 6X11" would I think be enough to make any PC or CL skipper think better of the idea.

The version I was commenting on was the original, with only 4 11" guns.  The newer, better armed, and smaller one is certainly better.  But still, the problem remains: while it's a great ship for beating up PCs or CLs, it's too big to use as a raider (sure, it's effective, but lots smaller ships would be as well); and because of it's light armor, it doesn't want to tangle with ships half it's size or larger (and it's speed isn't a guarantee it won't have to, in cases of reduced visibility).

[Tanthalas]

@KWorld I agree with virtualy everything you said about it, the armor is to light (I would prefer 2-3 more inches on the main belt and 1 more on the upper.  The problem is to do that I need to reduce it to 23 knots and then it looses the one thing that makes it realy cool (being able to outrun anything on the high seas)... I'm not done playing with it but as is I dont see me building it.

[Delta Force]

@Kworld the 6600 mile range was actualy calculated to let it raid far into the Atlantic from Gibralter or ports in England, or virtualy anywhere in the Indian Ocean from ports in Italian Africa.  It is only armored to resist the guns on anything with a reasonable chance of catching it, and 6X11" would I think be enough to make any PC or CL skipper think better of the idea.

@Jef but thats what everyone is doing =P someone has to propose the Crazy ships or we would all be building clones of OTL, and where would the fun in that be.

That is what causes the design the have no clear role. It mounts battleship caliber guns but is only armored against ships that can catch it, and they don't carry battleship caliber guns. Something able to go around 22-23 knots would already be able to catch up with the fastest armored cruisers in service and have a good chance of beating them, which would make it an effective armored cruiser killer. The additional knot of speed surely comes at a tremendous cost and you might even be able to lay down an unprotected or protected cruiser for that price. In any case, it is poor tactics for such a powerful ship to burn through its coal reserves chasing down small cruisers, because that is the only way you are going to touch them at all.

I'm not sure if the tactics are around for such a concept yet, but you could form quite the raiding group if you dropped the speed on your monster cruiser down enough that it can catch any armored cruiser afloat. You can then construct some unprotected or protected cruisers to follow it around as a small flotilla to chase smaller cruisers and do most of the commerce raiding, perhaps operating just over the horizon to cover an area of a few dozen miles, essentially acting as a giant fishnet for trading ships. That would be a nightmare scenario for any major trading nation, as they would have to dispatch multiple armored cruisers to have a chance of defeating your battlecruiser.

[KWorld]

@KWorld I agree with virtualy everything you said about it, the armor is to light (I would prefer 2-3 more inches on the main belt and 1 more on the upper.  The problem is to do that I need to reduce it to 23 knots and then it looses the one thing that makes it realy cool (being able to outrun anything on the high seas)... I'm not done playing with it but as is I dont see me building it.

Yeah, the 23 knot version is better balanced, surely, but it's still so large that its value is questionable.  This version is a solid large AC, but it lacks the 3-5 knot speed advantage the early BCs had over most ACs, and the 11" gun doesn't have the advantages over a Russian or American 10" gun (or a French 10.78") gun that the British 12" had over the KM's 8.2" guns.

[Jefgte]

I agree with KW,
Too early for that speed, too expensive.
A class between your 13500t & 5000t cruiser, around 9-10000t is probably more useful, You need more classic ACs, not a Masterpiece.

Jef

[The Rock Doctor]

I actually kinda like the V2 vesion with 6x11" and 24 knots.  Yeah, the armor's pretty weak, and yeah, it's a big and expensive ship. 

It would, I'd think, be a real pain in the arse as the anchor of a scouting screen.   The only thing that can drive her away is the very thing she'd want to locate - and once she does so, she can simply shadow a conventional battleline until the cows come home.

As for what Belgium would do in response - I think, "Wow, that's really expensive" would be about right.

[Tanthalas]

@Jef and Kworld Yup its BIG, Yup its Utility is questionable that didnt stop Italy OTL from building the original Regina Elenas whos utility was uhm WTF WHY.  As to the Nverse well I sort of look at it this way... as big as it is its still cheaper than the 20 knot BBs the UK is planing.

@Rock thats more or less how I viewd it honestly I couldnt build more than one or 2 before the game changes with the introduction of Turbines and dreadnaught style ships (I only have one slip capable of handeling it) but ill only be able to build initialy one real battlecruiser so perhaps 2 of these to serve with it wouldnt be such a bad thing.

Realisticly as much as I want to build one I proly cant... atleast not in any sort of reasonable time frame to make use of its capabilities.  Honestly my building plan is more or less set in stone till 1904 with existing classes.

[Darman]

As for what Belgium would do in response - I think, "Wow, that's really expensive" would be about right.

Japan's response would be more along the lines of "wow we could build one of these and maybe a light cruiser every 6 months.... yea not gonna happen"