Battlecruisers: A Guide to a Potential New Class


Hood (Top Left), Seydlitz (Top Right), Kirishima- after her extensive refits during the interwar period (Bottom Left), and a replica of Seydlitz built by me (Bottom Right)

Hood, Seydlitz, and Kirishima. All of these are quite well-known capital ships. Hood was completed at the end of the First World War and is famous for being sunk by the German battleship Bismarck in the Battle of Denmark Strait. Seydlitz was the flagship of the German High Seas Fleet during the First World War and led the German side in the Battle of Jutland, taking numerous hits and barely making it back to port. Kirishima was completed during the First World War, was refitted during the interwar period, and was later sunk by the American battleship Washington in the battle of Guadalcanal. All of these ships were vitally important to their nation’s fleet- however there was something a bit peculiar about them: they weren’t battleships. They were actually battlecruisers.

What is a Battlecruiser?

Sir John Fisher's battlecruiser design Invincible (1907)

A battlecruiser, first pushed into service in the early 1900s by British First Sea Lord Sir John Fisher with the three Invincible class ships, are an interesting mix of cruisers and battleships. They possess the firepower of their contemporary battleship counterparts (11-15-inch calibres), and a high speed compared to battleships (25-32 knots as compared to the average of 19-24 knots of battleships). To achieve this high speed, battlecruisers had to sacrifice armour, being on average thinner than contemporary battleships- for example, the reason that H.M.S. Hood was sunk with a single strike is the lack of deck armour above her magazines, meaning there was little to stop that single shell from easily penetrating the armour plate- or lack thereof- and detonating the magazines.

The unique role of battlecruisers arose from the need for greater firepower than that of an armoured cruiser (the term for what is now commonly referred to as a heavy cruiser in the late 19th and early 20th centuries), greater range than that of a battleship to more easily project naval power, and to better allow for fast-reacting forces to be sent to deal with problems abroad- usually onto a European colony in Africa and/or Asia. Battlecruisers were quite often designed to be faster than the average cruiser and be capable of holding up to fire from the common calibres seen on cruisers at the time. 

Battlecruisers in CCNet

Currently, dreadnoughts are much too slow to be viable for long-range power projection. They’re much too vulnerable to be attacked by large numbers of lighter craft. Cruisers are also a bit slow, however their lack of firepower (per shell) compared to a dreadnought is lacking, making their ability to be used for power projection similarly nullified. Destroyers are certainly fast enough; however, they lack the firepower and armour to be used for anything more than intercepting cargo ships and other small warships. All three of these classes lack at least one aspect for power projection and heavy-hitting intercepting. The only class that is capable of filling this role would be, as one may guess, a battlecruiser.

An unsuccessful cruiser is quickly outpaced by the convoy

The battlecruiser may align with the following: 

• Effective at power projection over long ranges and/or intercepting larger crafts
• Effective at escorting cargo ships/convoys
• Effective at substituting dreadnoughts in a line of battle
• A speed and agility that is slightly greater than or equal to that of a cruiser
• Firepower that is equal to that of a dreadnought
• An armour percentage that allows the ship to easily survive an encounter with a cruiser but not a dreadnought

The above conditions can be met with the following specifications: 

• Top speed of 14.5 m/s
• Firepower limit of 200
• Size limit of 9,000 blocks
• Terracotta limit of 25%
• Glazed-terracotta limit of 7.5%
• AA limit of three AA guns
• Torpedo Firepower limit of 12
• The battlecruiser would be an effective middle ground between cruisers and dreadnoughts and hopefully insert a balanced and interesting bit of variety to the battlefield. 

Of course, it's up to the greater movecraft community to decide whether the aforementioned variables in terms of a battlecruisers’ characteristics are balanced or not, or whether to implement battlecruisers at all.