No Intelligent Design:
Evolution of the Armored Cruiser
By Steve Cabral
April 2013

After the Crimean War, steam power and exploding artillery shells greatly changed naval construction techniques. Fearing the damage shells could wreak on wooden ships, France and Britain experimented with sheathing ships in iron plate. The American Civil War though saw the Confederacy in possession of one slightly burned and sunken frigate, the former USS Merrimack. Undaunted by a ship that had burned to the waterline and sank at its pier, they built a new superstructure on the wreckage and sheathed it in iron.

The Confederates decided that their new ship could easily break the wooden ship blockade off Norfolk. After she did so, the U.S. sent the USS Monitor to Hampton Roads, and so was fought to a draw the first fight between two armored ships. Has any history of this battle not made it sound like the Rebels built the CSS Virginia one day on a lark, while after the First Battle of Hampton Roads the U.S. Navy built the USS Monitor overnight? The CSS Virginia took a year to build while the Federal ship took four months.

In 1866 the Battle of Lissa was fought between Austria and Italy, the first clash of armored fleets. The armored ship was definitely here to stay. In 1873 the first armored cruiser was built by Russia and named General-Admiral; she was followed by HMS Shannon (called initially an armored frigate) in 1875. The first modern armored cruiser was commissioned by France, Dupuy de Lome, in 1887. The Imperial Japanese Navy's Chiyoda, a protected cruiser, actually set the pattern for armored cruiser design as she had the new Vertical Triple Expansion engine (VTE) that would dominate navies until the steam turbine was introduced for capital ships with HMS Dreadnought; the United States used them off and on until USS Oklahoma, the last VTE capital ship that was built.

Armament Around the World

In theory the armored cruiser was to be capable of standing in the line of battle, scouting for the battle fleet and showing the flag in distant waters like traditional cruisers. The navies of the world approached the armament of armored cruisers in a number of different ways. In the Russo-Japanese War the Japanese armored cruisers successfully stood in the line of battle, vindicating the design and causing a flurry of armored cruiser launchings at the beginning of the 20th century.

Italy

San Giorgio and Amalfi (2-4-3 in Great War at Sea): 4 x 10”, 8 x 7.5” and 16 x 3”

Japan

Nisshin (0-5-0): 4 x 8” and 14 x 6”

Greece

Averoff (1-4-3): 4 x 9.2”, 8 x 7.5” and 16 x 3”

United States

New York (0-2-2): 6 x 8”, 12 x 4”
Brooklyn (0-3-3): 8 x 8”, 12 x 5”
Pennsylvania class (0-4-0): 4 x 8”, 14 x 6” and 18 x 3”
Tennessee class (1-3-2): 4 x 10”, 16 x 6” and 22 x 3”

Great Britain

Cressy class (1-2-1): 2 x 9.2”, 12 x 6”
Drake class (1-3-1): 2 x 9.2”, 16 x 6”
Monmouth class (0-3-1): 14 x 6”
Devonshire class (0-3-0): 4 x 7.5”, 6 x 6”
Duke of Edinburgh class (1-2-0): 6 x 9.2”, 10 x 6”
Warrior class (1-2-0): 6 x 9.2”, 4 x 7.5”
Minotaur class (1-4-1): 4 x 9.2”, 10 x 7.5”, 16 x 12 lb

Eleven of the 35 were war losses, nine of them in combat. The 9.2” gun was renowned for inaccuracy and so cited by Adm. Ernest Troubridge at his courts-martial for allowing Goeben to escape in 1914.

Germany

Fürst Bismarck (1-2-1): 4 x 9.4”, 12 x 5.9” and 10 x 3.4”
Prinz Heinrich (1-2-1): 2 x 9.2”, 10 x 5.9” and 10 x 3.45”
Prinz Adalbert, Friedrich Carl (1-2-1): 4 x 8.2”, 10 x 5.9”, 12 x 3.45”
Roon, Yorck (1-2-1): 4 x 8.2”, 10 x 5.9” and 14 x 3.45”
Scharnhorst, Gneisenau (1-3-1): 8 x 8.2”, 6 x 5.9” and 18 x 3.45”
Blücher (2-2-1): 12 x 8.2”, 8 x 5.9” and 16 x 3.45”

In theory Scharnhorst and Blücher should be about the pinnacle of armored cruiser design (Italy would disagree), yet in Great War at Sea they’re both not very much out of the ordinary, and markedly inferior to many older ships gunnery-wise. The reason is Germany’s intransigent insistence that their smaller-caliber guns were superior to other nation’s larger guns. The 8.2” had a shell of 238 lbs, much closer to the 7.5” 200 lbs than the 9.4” 322 lbs or 9.2” 380 lbs.

So instead of splitting between Primary and Secondary they should be lumped in with 5.9” and have just a Secondary and Tertiary rating. Worse, the German cruiser classes ranged 17,000 and 21,000 yards respectively against the 25,000 yards of the British 9.2” gun, so in a gunnery duel they were outranged. By changing to pure Secondary status, the advantage had by Adm. Sturdee’s 12” armed battlecruisers will be readily apparent, and odds of a stray magazine explosion being inflicted on larger ships are reduced with shorter-ranged guns.

Naval Artillery

You can download variant pieces for German armored cruisers here.

Use the new armored cruisers in Great War at Sea: Jutland!