Cruisers with no Washington Treaty

[zoomar]

Let's imagine that for some reason, the five-powers meeting in Washington were never able to negotiate a comprehensive naval reduction treaty. It is still reasonable to suppose that each of the contracting powers would be faced with internal political and economic constraints that limit new capital ship construction plans, so nobody would ever complete all the huge numbers of massive ships planned by the US, Japan, Britain. A few, perhaps, but not everything.

I'm interested in how the absence of a treaty might affect cruisers. Would ships equivalent to "treaty cruisers" (10,000 tons, eight to ten 8-inch guns, relatively light armor protection, speed over 30 kts) still become the standard in all navies, or would each fleet develop non-capital ships differently, based on their own geostrategic position. I could imagine this ranging from large and powerful commerce-raiding cruisers - and comerce-raiding hunters - , through hybrid flight-deck cruisers, down to only smaller destroyer-leader type ships. To some extent the OTL "heavy cruiser" functioned somewhat as small capital ships and (as during the Solomon campaigns in 1942) engaged in line-of-battle fleet actions because BBs were not available.

 

[Shadow Hawk]

Without the WNT, the designation "Heavy Cruiser" doesn't exist. There would be "armored cruisers" and "scout cruisers". With no limit on tonnage or gun size, the armored cruiser will be bigger (14-15000 tons, I think), and have larger guns. You might see some cruisers carrying battleship guns (four 15") instead of eight to ten 8".

 

[David S Poepoe]

Without the WNT, the designation "Heavy Cruiser" doesn't exist. There would be "armored cruisers" and "scout cruisers". With no limit on tonnage or gun size, the armored cruiser will be bigger (14-15000 tons, I think), and have larger guns. You might see some cruisers carrying battleship guns (four 15") instead of eight to ten 8".

The designation of Heavy Cruiser and Light Cruiser came out of the London Naval Treaty of 1930, not the WNT. The term armored cruisers would still be used, at least by the US Navy since they will keep theirs. The maximum caliber for a while may be 10in, but probably climb to 12in if there are no other limitation treaties.

The British will probably take awhile to develop a more powerful 9in gun. However, I think that they won't go much higher than that.

 

[David S Poepoe]

I don't think the hybrid through deck gun cruisers would be developed, unless there was a severe economic collapse that forcible shrank naval budgets. Most the plans developed out of the consequences of the WNT and following naval limitation treaties.

 

[Riain]

What Washington did was formalise the RN Hawkins class cruiser, which was designed for trade protection in distant waters, as the standard heavy cruiser throughout the world. This suited the USN and IJN to an extent but not so much the RN who would have preferred larger numbers of smaller cruisers liked the Leander and Arethusa classes for trade protection.

 

[Living in Exile]

You might see some cruisers carrying battleship guns (four 15") instead of eight to ten 8".

That sounds a lot like the Glorious and the Courageous. I'm pretty sure they were regarded as expensive failures as large light cruiser...battlecruiser...type things. Which is why they were made into aircraft carriers.

I don't think the hybrid through deck gun cruisers would be developed, unless there was a severe economic collapse that forcible shrank naval budgets. Most the plans developed out of the consequences of the WNT and following naval limitation treaties.

Economic trouble in the 20s and 30s? ASB. Economic issues were just as important, if not more important than treaty considerations.

 

[David S Poepoe]

Here's something that may be of interest:

http://www.avalanchepress.com/AmericanCruisers.php

 

[AdA]

Without the WNT, the designation "Heavy Cruiser" doesn't exist. There would be "armored cruisers" and "scout cruisers". With no limit on tonnage or gun size, the armored cruiser will be bigger (14-15000 tons, I think), and have larger guns. You might see some cruisers carrying battleship guns (four 15") instead of eight to ten 8".

The Hawkins class were the first heavy cruisers in the treaty cruiser sense. It would be a matter of time until someone built a scaled down Hood with 4 twin turrets to surpass them and from there on cruisers would develop much as treaty ones, but limited by cost rather than treaty regulations.

And we did see cruisers with two twin 15'', that was the Courageous class.

 

[phx1138]

I'm wondering if this doesn't effectively eliminate the distinction between "heavy cruiser" & "battlecruiser".

Since the Treaties were also aimed at limiting costs, tho, I suspect an upper limit on guns was going to happen anyhow.

Which makes me wonder if IJN builds more of her mooted "torpedo cruisers". Would anybody else follow this approach?