The Alaska Class - "Large Cruiser or Battlecruiser?"
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- Опубліковано 7 кві 2024
- Warship Guide - The Alaska Class
USS Alaska (CB-1) & USS Guam (CB-2)
The Alaska class has been referred to in many ways over the years, from super cruisers to unrestricted cruisers, to battlecruisers, but, officially, they were designated as Large Cruisers by the US Navy. They were quite impressive warships that had the size of a battleship but the capabilities of a cruiser. Named after territories of the United States at that time, they would never fight in the cruiser killer role they were intended for, instead settling into an escort role for the valuable fleet carriers of the fast carrier task force. Six ships were authorized, but only 3 would find their way to the slipways, while the other 3 were canceled in favor of more pressing needs.
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Well I think one thing we can agree on is they were some beautiful looking ships!
Ironically the only two battle cruisers the us ever claimed were Lexington and Saratoga and the were converted into aircraft carriers during their construction
Most people don't understand that these were NOT designed as Battle cruisers. They are literally scaled up heavy cruisers and their mission was ro chase down zmd destroy the large IJN heavy cruisers. They were built on a cruiser hull, and would have fared well against the Scharnhorst class battle cruiser as well as the Panzerschiffs that were intended as commerce raiders. Sadly they were never utilized in their intended roll.
You're correct but it doesn't stop people from wishful thinking it's the same case with the battle cruiser HMS Hood now Hood was a battle cruiser enhanced augmented during her construction but after that she's commissioned in 1920 and the Royal Navy considered her highly susceptible to her own caliber gun rear Admiral Chatfield a man of some significance considered Hood obsolete when she came into commissioned by the time she fights Bismarck she's thoroughly outdated and people with that emotional connection to her want to make her a fast Battleship so she seems to have parody with Bismarck but she wasn't it's the same case with the Alaska's people admire them think they're beautiful but they want them to be somehow greater than what they were and its historical miscategorized to call them anything other than what the Navy intended lots of these ships didn't fulfill their intended function large surface Capital ships ultimately did more in terms of shore bombardment than Battleship versus Battleship or whatever their contemporary classification was and in that role the Alaska's the Iowa's and even if the Montana's had been built keeping everything else the same they all would have done the same job in the end but still we have classifications in categorizations for a reason and calling the Alaska's battle Cruisers is like calling the Admiral class battlecruiser HMS Hood a battleship it just isn't true
I've done a bunch of digging to find out more about the Main Armament on these ships. The one thing that surprised me was how expensive they were- 1.5 Million dollars (in 40s money) per barrel! Since they were basically custom made at Waterlievet Arsenal, I shouldn't have been surprised. That makes them the most expensive Main Armament in the USN back then.
Well done video- subscribed!!
Every ship from destroyers to battleships became a screen for carriers by the 1940s. My grandpa was on a destroyer in the pacific. He was told that if you were in a fleet with a carrier, it didn't matter what your ship was designed for, protection of the carrier was the mission. But as otherx have said here, this was a beautiful vessel.
If it's beautiful, it's useful. These ships were nice ships, so they were good ships, no matter if the were battle Cruisers or just heavy cruisers.
A person might give a flower to a member of the Death Korps of Krieg, I doubt it would be considered useful.
"If it looks right, it is"? Is that your philosophy? If so, I truly pity you.
The type (or subtype) of cruiser is important. It determines the roles that it will fill. Or more properly, the role determines the design. Either way design and role are intimately linked. When you forget what type of ship you have, you end up with the Atlantas (the light cruisers with what I call super-duperfiring 5" twins). They didn't have the best of days when people thought they were proper cruisers and not just gigantic destroyers. Though they did make for pretty nice AA platforms with the 16, 5" guns they had.
Alaska and Guam are perhaps my favorite ships. But I am the first to categorically state that they were not worth the effort put into them. The way we fought had changed by the time they were ready. Beautiful, very much so. Useful, not-so-much.
😂
Contemporary speaking they had shared characteristics with previous designs and previews battle Cruisers and other forms of capital ships but the USS Alaska and her siblings were ultimately not battle Cruisers as they were devised a specific role similar to the battlecruiser concept But ultimately it had a different functionality in the Navy during the second world war to call them battle Cruisers is a mischaracterization of history as the United States Navy did not consider them battle Cruisers.
It's is the same case with the battlecruiser HMS Hood folks would love and like to pretend she was a battleship or a fast Battleship but she was not the Royal Navy did not call her a battleship and never overhauled her or modernized her in any significant capacity and thus Hood was not a battleship she was a battle cruiser first and foremost and served with other battle Cruisers and every successful action she was involved involved same with the Alaska and her sibling invariably like the battlecruiser HMS hood of the Alaska's came to the party too late and we're really white elephants
Drachinifel did a more complete analysis of these ships to determine if they were large cruisers or battlecruisers. His conclusion was large cruisers.
For once I don‘t agree with Drach. In a certain way, all battlecruisers are a kind of large cruisers. But the Alaskas were battlecruisers in the best tradtion of the British WW1 ships:
- purpose: hunt down enemy cruisers,
- armour: ca. 150% of regular heavy cruiser armour,
- armament: well, not quite the calibre of contemporary battleships, but the 12“ Mk.8 had an enormous muzzle velocity and excellent shells. Combined with the higher rate of fire the were at least as good as the old 14“ and anyway closer to battleship than to cruiser calibre.
@@RayyMusik well, then I would argue the Iowa class were better battlecruisers than the Alaska.
@@RayyMusik Armament: Not anywhere near a contemporary capital ship. And remember BCs used the same guns as contemporary BBs.
Speed: Not faster than Iowa.
So, the real question is Iowa a BC?
@@ut000bs No, the Iowas had battleship armour and were thus fast battleships.
@@jimsackmanbusinesscoaching1344 ’Contemporary‘ is a questionable criterion. In the battle of Jutland took part:
a) the QE class of battleships (15“),
b) the Invincible (well, not exactly) and Indefatigable classes (12“).
Do you really think the latter weren‘t battlecruisers?
They are very beautiful ships with amazing speed, guns, and sub-capital, or armoured cruiser guage armour, but maybe more super-cruiser than battlecruiser. Because the ww1 bc had same guns as their year's bb. British bc started at 12", then 13.5", then 15" side by side with that year's battleship guns, just 1 less twin turret i.e. battleship with 5x twins and battlecruiser with 4x.
Don’t care what they were called, they were beautiful ships to behold.
Battlecruiser by design, and - like all battlecruisers, a ship without a mission. By the time it was commissioned, its 'niches' (speed-gun combination) had been superseded by the Iowa-class battleships.
They could handle pocket battleships
And the scharnhorst class 11 inch guns
Slightly less armed than the Strasbourg class of France 13 inch guns
Alaska had 12 inch guns
The Alaska-class were called battlecruisers when they were being built, before the navy came in and said that they're large cruisers. To me, they're battlecruisers. Their role was the same as HMS Invincible all the way back in 1907: Hunt down enemy cruisers while evading enemy battleships. The 12-inch/50cal mark 8 gun was slightly more powerful than the 14-inch/50cal gun found on the New Mexico-class and Tennessee-class battleships. The armor could withstand an 8-inch shell, but nothing bigger. Their tonnage at full load was almost equivalent to that of a treaty-era battleship at standard load. Yes, their speed was the same as the Iowa-class but remember that the distinction between the fast battleship and the battlecruiser was blurred. And given the fact their names are those of American territories (not cities and states) at the time, that fits in perfectly. Alaska and Guam were WW2-era battlecruisers. Battlecruisers built differently from their World War 1 and Interwar period counterparts. A brief revival of an old doctrine.
I've considered them to be "Light Battlecruisers" myself.
@@davidwoods7408 Their armor profile, armament, and tonnage don't really scream "light battlecruiser" to me, though. I mean, obviously they are NOTHING like the Courageous-class battlecruisers the British had. The Alaskas had more armor protection than Courageous and Glorious ever did as "light battlecruisers" before they were rebuilt as aircraft carriers. While the 12-inch gun is considered pretty small compared to what the US Navy was universally using on their capital surface vessels and of course when comparing it to the unfitting 18-inch gun the Courageous had, Alaska and Guam still don't fit that category. I'm still sticking with "WW2-era battlecruiser" or possibly even "modern battlecruiser" (at least for their time).
@@NFS_Challenger54 The 12 inch guns rates them as battlecruisers since those are technically a BB size. The hull length makes them comparable to some WW1 and pre-ww1 BB ships. Same for gun size since some German BB's were using 11 inch in WW1 and2. That's how I see it anyway....
@@davidwoods7408 I don't disagree. All of these characteristics point to the Alaska-class as America's only class of battlecruisers.
@@NFS_Challenger54 Ok, just laying out my reasoning. The Iowa class were not battlecruisers?
Awesome ships in there day!! Too bad they weren't converted to a guided missle ship! That would have been cool in the cold war era! They cost as much as a Iowa class battleship to run!! Thanks!! 🤝👍🎯💯🫡✌️
Beautiful Ships 🚢 😊
A great video as always. 👍🏻
WW1 battlecruisers had no torpedo resistance either. Repulse was sunk easily.
Nicely done and thanks for the education.🇬🇧
This was a great video of the Alaska Cl cruisers. Keep it up.
USS Alaska commissioned 1944 - decommissioned - 1947 - Scrapped 1960 - Screened Carriers in WW2 service. Used very little and scrapped.
But they didn't really go away. Like all of those ships, their steel went on to be parts of our buildings, bridges and automobiles
Battle cruisers
One thing not being mentioned enough here - is the Mission of Battle Cruisers.
_"To Beat anything they couldn't run away from and run away from anything they couldn't beat."_
The Mission these ships were designed for - was that of Battle Cruisers - to hunt down enemy Surface Commerce Raiders and Scouts - OR - to be Surface Commerce Raiders and Scouts themselves.
Back in the days at the start of WWII when people still thought you could do Commerce Raiding with Surface Ships - as in WWI - you had a need for Battle Cruisers to be able to run down enemy Cruisers and Battle Cruisers. This is what happened at the Falklands in WWI. That was Battle Cruisers doing the Mission they'd been designed for.
Because they were fast they could be used by the fleet as Scouts that could kill the enemy's Scouts but having them engage Battleships just because they had big guns - wasn't a good idea.
In WWII - you had _Exeter_ , _Ajax_ and _Achilles_ - 3 cruisers - take on _Graf Spee_ and lose - tactically. This was exactly the reason that the US wanted Battle Cruisers - to hunt down enemy Commerce Raiders. THAT was the original Mission of the Battle Cruisers - NOT - to be in the Line of Battle - but to hunt down Commerce Raiders. Battle Cruisers in The Line of Battle - taking on Battleships - tended to get sunk just like _Hood_ taking on _Bismarck_ and _Kirishima_ taking on _Washington_ .
Aircraft put an end to Surface Commerce Raiders - and thus Battle Cruisers were not needed any more. Aircraft also ended the need for Surface Ships as Scouts.
The original Mission these ships were built for - was gone - not because the specific ships they might have fought were gone - but because Aircraft had ended the idea of Surface Commerce Raiding and Scouting.
But they were fast and could escort the carriers - so that's what they used them for. They also canceled the last of them. The real Missions of Battle Cruisers - hunting down Surface Commerce Raiders and Scouting - had ended because of Aircraft.
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Though I love these ships I think they would have been more practical with the 12' guns removed and replaced with a shit load of added 5" and 40mm guns for carrier protection.
They are large cruisers.
Battlecruisers had 3 things in common: high speed, armored against cruisers, and contemporary battleship guns or larger.
The Alaska class had the high speed and the light armor but mounted 12" guns. The US Navy hadn't built a 12" gunned battleship in 40 years. So, two out of three.
The Iowa class had the high speed, the battleship armament, but it had battleship armor. So, two out of three.
If the Alaska class is a battlecruiser, the Iowas are better battlecruisers.
Actually, battlecruisers turned into fast battleships. Battleships like the Iowas had the capability of performing the job performed by battlecruisers in earlier years which was scouting with the cruisers and destroyers. They would have been excellent in that role. At Jutland the Iowas would have been with Beatty's battlecruisers and you know it.
nuts no.way would the Iowa's be in battle cruiser they had good armour and speed and 16/inch. guns.
@@davidroginsky8076 so, they had awesome armor for a battlecruiser. Other than the armor, they were battlecruisers in every measure but one just like the Alaska class of cruisers.
Battlecruisers were traditionally capital ships because they tended to be larger than their battleship counterpart.
I don't think Alaskas were considered capital ships compared to the planned Lexington class battlecruisers that displaced as much as their battleship counterpart (1921) South Dakota.
You could make a funny argument that the Iowas are battlecruisers if you consider historical comparisons.
If the Montanas were completed this could have made the Iowas into a battlecruiser analogue similar to the HMS Renown and HMS Revenge (or any other WW1 battlecruisers).
You could make another historical analogue with USS South Dakota and USS Iowa and the historical HMS Revenge and HMS Hood.
Also a Battlecruiser for the Royal Navy from 1920 onward applies to any battleship that can go 30 knots or faster.
The planned G3 battlecruiser would have packed thicker citadel armor than even an Iowa and HMS Vanguard was classed as a battlecruiser during the planning phase.
So at what point does a ship become a battle ship??? In your self proclaimed analysis, at what point does a ship not considered a battleship????
The early BC’s were longer than BB’s in order to accommodate 2X or more engine shp. Tonnage was not hugely different. That was what was required to achieve the extra 6 or so kt. Post wwi development allowed much higher power density. But that just upped BB speed to 27 kt and BC speed to 31+kt
@@jackdaniel7465 I would love to explain my position more extensively. Unfortunately for you, you're not worth the effort since you are obviously beneath the intellectual capacity of cattle.
Displacement should surely decide. It's almost the same as the Scharnhorst. It's a Battlecruiser.
Super heavy cruiser
(aka Battlecruiser)
@@GuitarKelly no, it would’ve been considered a battle cruiser if it had 14 inch cannons. Going back to as early as World War I the United States Navy first dreadnought the USS Texas had a battery of 1014 inch guns. We did not mount 12 inch guns on any of the standard tight battleships. our next primary naval ornament was the 16 inch 45 caliber and the 16 inch 50 caliber. The fact that the Alaska were produced with 12 inch main battery guns put them in the class of a super heavy cruiser. Not a battle cruiser. The admiral class battle cruisers of the Royal Navy, of which they were only one the HMS hood mounted 15 inch, main cannon. The Alaska class represented a super heavy cruiser not a battle cruiser because they did not mount the minimum standard main battery of a main class battleship of the Navy that they served.
Fabulous. The magnificent Russian Battle Cruiser, Peter the Great, still in service, is perhaps arguably, the most attractive and lethal ship afloat anywhere. A Missile Battle Cruiser. Well worth a look to any who love ships of War.
If the desmoines could serve during the cold war as pseudo capital ships I don’t see why the alaskas where denied of that chance, specially since the Soviets keep a whole lot of gun base light cruisers, sounds like a work for, I don’t know, a freaking cruiser killer 🫤.
It would have been cool if not only the Iowa class were reactivated during to 80s the Alaska and Guam were also activated, with the Tomahawk, Harpoons missiles and the phalanx CIWS added. The Alaska class could have a stopgap for the Aegis cruisers under construction....
They were only marginally less expensive to operate than the NoDaks/NorCar class BBs...so after the war they were never considered for use...it it's going to cost the same as a BB to operate...why not use a BB?
@@rvail136too bad the Ukraine didn’t need them.
Cruiser-Killers. 12" Guns, but only Cruiser-Grade Armor and Torpedo Protection.
Similar to pre WW1 battlecruisers though? The concept died in WW1.
So first of all you have to look at the ships relative to their contemporaries not WWI vintage ships. The 12” was not a battleship caliber gun in WW2 period.
Second if you look at the British Battlecruisers you see several distinguishing characteristics.
First they have the same size guns as their contemporary battleships just one less turret. Thats not true of Alaskas. Second they are actually larger than contemporary battleships with the added hull length needed to give them their speed and hold the machinery required. Not true of Alaska. Third they were built to the same standards as contemporary battleships trading protection for speed. Also not true of the Alaska since it was built to US cruiser standards and ultimately their level of protection was dictated by the fact the USN didn’t want a small battleship almost as big as a North Carolina it wanted a big cruiser and that’s what it got.
The only thing they share with the original battlecruisers are the cruiser killer role but that role largely died off for the WWI era ships as they were employed as Capital ships in the line of battle for the vast majority of the war.
A battlecruiser has never been an oversized cruiser with slightly bigger guns. And that’s what the Alaska’s are. To argue that because their 12” guns had ballistic performance comparable to a 1910 vintage 14” gun makes them battlecruisers is just laughable. The difference in performance between a WW2 16” 45 and the Alaska’s 12” is several orders of magnitude larger than the difference in fire power between any unarguable battlecruiser and its contemporary battleships.
53rd, 10 April 2024
You can command one in World Of Warships.
They're named after Alaska? What do you expect? They gotta be appropriately sized.
The Alaska class was intended to fight the upgraded Kongo class battlecruisers, as well as hypothetical Japanese supercruisers. They fit the original role of British battlecruisers, but not what they soon became. Large cruiser is sort of the default classification.
What a waste of barely used heavy hitting cruisers
Not necessarily.
As a gun platform, an Alaska's crew compliment was comparable to a 'fast BB's', but her smaller guns had neither the range nor hitting power of the battleship guns. From the Navy's perspective, this meant that an Alaska cost as much to operate as a BB, without the power projecting ability of the BB.
To any Alaskan who is actually aware of these ships, they were obviously battlecruisers. 😁
Bby definition of firepower, ALASKAs weren`tbattlecruisers since JANES definition requires capitol ship caliber guns... No navy fielded 12" guns for their battleships since before WWI. .. By the start of WWI navies were usually fielding 13.5", 14", and e en 15" guns...If the ALASKAs were built between 1906-1912 thet would have been battlecruisers
Janes listed them as battlecruisers
these cant not be cruisers ... they have more tonnage than a lot of battleships .....they have bigger guns than any other cruisers ..they may have started out as designed heavy cruiser but they are now double that tonnage !
It is a shame these ships were brand new basically. The navy didn't get the money's worth. Let's put it this way, I think they should of converted them to guided missile cruisers. They've couldn't have gotten another 25 to 30 years out of those ships instead what our government does best is waste Americans money.
Like the zumwalts? Or yamato class for Japan? The ultimate irony is the 3 yamatos cost Japan over 24 billion in today's dollars.
And the 3 now basically useless/missionless/toothless zums also cost us taxpayers? Over 24 billion of course! Nothing ever changes.😀
This class are BATTLECRUISERS, designed and built to offset the German BC's Scharnhorst & Gneisenau...but they entered service toooooo late to impact the war.
HOOKERS
They're Battle Cruisers.
One of the things you have is knowledgeable people coming up with unneeded categories of things.
Look at machine guns. They're got all these different categories they put machine guns into - when all they need are Light, maybe Medium and Heavy.
Same things with these ships.
Battleships, Battle Cruisers and Cruisers. For any more refined category - use the ship class.
A Battle Cruiser is anything between a Cruiser and a Battleship. These were in between Cruisers and Battleships - so - they were Battle Cruisers.
Anything else is just stupidity.
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If they would have kept these ships in mothballs they would have made great candidates for conversion to guided missile cruisers in the late 50's/early 60's.
Exercise in futility! The “Not ships” … not Battleships, not Battle Cruisers, not Heavy Cruisers, not Light Cruisers … SO WHAT WERE THEY?
TARGET SHIPS! Aircraft targets … U-Boat targets!
ABSOLUTE WASTE OF RESOURCES … SCRAPPED IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE WAR!
Completely pointless in the carrier era is what they are.
SWELL
Considering what other navies called battlecrusiers, pocket battleships, the Alaska Class were true battlecruisers of their day. Over 30,000 tons with 9 - 12 inch main guns and able to do 32 knots. It would have been interesting to see these warships modernized after WW2 rather than scrapped as they were. 𝙎𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙢
Battle cruisers had the then contemporary main gun caliber of the Battle ships so in this case that would have had to have been at a very minimum 14" guns, but even then, the actual contemporary caliber for the US would have been 16", So Cruiser Killer, Yes, Battle Cruiser, No...
@@MemorialRifleRange Really admiral? The German warships Scharnhorst & Gneisenau are often referred to as "Battlecruisers" and they had 11 inch main guns. Shalom
@@politicsuncensored5617 Ok, what was the contemporary main battleship caliber of the Kriegsmarine in 1935 when they were laid down? Oh yeah, they didn't have any... Thanks for playing.
@@MemorialRifleRange Captain the Kriegsmarine would have been far better off if someone had taken Hitler out. The German navy under Hitler was a sad joke and never had a chance. Boink match over. 𝙎𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙢
@@politicsuncensored5617 Deflection to a completely off topic and irrelevant opinion does not grant you a falsely claimed win in the debate. The USN DeJure Caliber for capitol ships had been est. though both the NC and SoDak and later the Iowa's at 16" Hence the topic of the AK's 12" MB does not qual as Battlecruiser. KM Scharnhorst is a false equivalency, Try harder.
Should be called Battle Cruisers. It sounds so much cooler!!!