The Kongo class in WW2 - Battlecruiser or Fast Battleship?
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- Опубліковано 20 жов 2024
- Today we take a look at the description used by the Kongo class in the Second World War, and if they really deserve the title of Fast Battleship?
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Capital Ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy 1868-1945: Ironclads, Battleships and Battle Cruisers: An Outline History of Their Design, Construction and Operations. Vol. I: Armourclad Fusō to Kongō Class Battle Cruisers
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Pinned post for Q&A :)
I know the scope of the channel and how you don’t care for politics but can you do a video about “black tot day”? July 31 1970 they took away rum rations and I was thinking the whole time “but Drach hand it out every Wednesday”…
A long time ago in one of the countless dry dock videos you were asked a question about the Fuso and Ise classes.
The question talked about the two aforementioned classes having their centre two turrets removed and the using the extra displacement to increase the ships speed to around 27-28 knots.
Now that question asked how much more flexibility the IJN would gain from this and if at all possible I’d appreciate a quick recap of that part but I want ti focus on the logistics side of such refits.
How long would it take to have the ships rebuilt, and (I’m assuming Japan has the dockyard space for this but I don’t know) would this have hindered another construction and refits of other build programs at the time.
On a side note maybe this should be a topic for a Friday video?
Hello Drach, I was wondering if you will be continuing the book recommendations series. I'd love to see "Learning about the Regia Marina" in the future.
Failing a full video, beyond Ermingo Bagnasco's Littorio Class and Vincent O'Hara's Struggle for the Middle Sea, do you have any quick recommendations you could give?
So what were the Scharnhorsts???😉😉😉😉
In World of Warships, there is a fictional Swedish battleship that used an German battleship as a basis. Was it possible for Sweden to use a battleship after WW1?
They are not Battleships nor are they Battle cruisers: they are TORPEDO BOATS
Sincerely,
Kamchatka
You have got to be kidding me....
Are these "torpedo boats" in the room with us?
No wonder Kamchatka was paranoid!
😂😂😂😂
😂😂😂😂😂
Drac explaining what is a Battlecruiser at this point can be marked as an annual event.
Maybe we should even make it into a holiday.
Next time on “Drach asks, is this a Battle Cruiser”: are the Los Angeles Class attack subs battle cruisers because they carry on with surface cruiser naming convention and more?
August 2nd should be named “Battlecruiser Day”
@@Poverty-Tier And the Spongebob memes are right there ready to be adapted
@@PatrickTower-ln7oi you mean "Large Cruiser Day"
Battlecruiser Day. August 2, folks! Put it on your calander!
Battle-Destroyer by JMSDF standards
😂 We checked again they are 2 750 t battle destroyers 🤣
It's a multirole OPV
Nan, that would be the Yamatos. The Kongos are clearly patrol gun boats.
JMSDF wth their not-carriers and not-cruisers, just so many different flavors of DESTROYER.
@@LWGanucheau The not-cruiser thing is a bit meaningless since there's literally only two navy in the world who still use Cruiser designation. JMSDF Aegis ship is an enlarge Arleigh Burke which is a US-certified Destroyer and nobody is calling the 15kton Zumwalt or 10kton Sejong-class cruiser now are they.
Also the Yamato are clearly Air-condition Support Destroyer
Maybe the real battlecruisers are the friends we made along the way
My first actual lol of the day.
Or the real friends are the battlecruisers you met along the way.
When there’s one set of prints, that’s when the battlecruiser carried you.
“The more you battlecruiser.”
Battlecruiser, it’s what’s for dinner.
Based on the classification of current Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, it is a heavy artillery destroyer
The best classification.
Based on the absurd American classification that the Alaska's are just really, really big cruisers with enormous guns, then so are the Kongos.
A Heavy Artillery Destroyer activated sounds really cool.
USS Washington: "we can save time about terminology and go straight to empirical testing"
Failing to an point-blank ambush by a 16" battleship does not automatically make you a battle cruiser ;) not stressing that Kongo's were battleships, just saying the Washington thing is not a great argument...
There is no battleship that actually existed that would have done any better in the scenario that kirishima found herself in.
@josefchmelar9070 maybe not, but Washington certainly helped refit them to coral reef class ships
Japanese captain: Test results not good (for us) It's like the American captain is an Olympic target shooting champion
@@warwatcher91There's plenty that would've done better. It's not like they were caught in a planned ambush. They saw the USS South Dakota, illuminated it, fired on it multiple times, and the crew either through incompetence or negligence didn't see the USS Washington, which had been near the South Dakota, flank them.
The undeniable fact is that all Kongos by July 1945 had been reclassified as submarines.
More like deep aquatic fish structure habitat.
*artificial reefs
One of them even resurfaced.
The Haruna may have been "sunk" at her moorings, but her main deck was still above the water line.
@@Edax_Royeaux so you're saying they weren't even GOOD artificial reefs...
Fun fact Mt. Kongo or Kongo san sits on the boarder of Nara and Osaka prefectures, and is the tallest mountain on the five mountain Diamond Trail hiking course, which is a delight to hike.
Kongo san is also a sacred mountain, hence the use of san, and has a beautiful shrine on its peak.
And they’re clearly oversized corvettes.
"san" means "mountain." 山 It's not an honorific in this case.
Drach: "What is a battlecruiser?"
Me: "I'll do you one better. WHERE is a battlecruiser?"
I'll do you one better: Why a battlecruiser?
Everyone asks, "What is a battlecruiser?" Noone ever asks, "How is a battlecruiser?"
no its why is a battlecruiser
Everyone ask where the battlecruser is, no HOW the battlecruiser is.
I'll go you SIX better, WHEN is a battlecruiser?
I can see Bugs and Daffy saying Battleship, Battle Cruiser.
FIRE!
Elmer Class Ship.
The answer is obviously Waifu.
The Fudd class of cruisers were the first attempt at stealth ships. They were vewy, vewy quiet.
Is it battlecruiser season or battleship season?
I think Renown and Repulse are the best example of why the Kongo's are still battlecruisers, they are built around the same era, have simular speed, firepower and protection and have simular mission roles, if ones a Battlecrusier then the others are the same.
*Renown. Sorry, but it bugged me
Also, both classes were battlecruisers, and while Renown and Repulse were always battlecruiser, the Kongo class becomes murky. The best way to tell is just to go by their classifications when built and sunk.
@@danielcrud9345 Don't worry i've also fixed it.
And while i see your argument the only reason the Kongo's are murky is because of the Japanese reclassification and well i could reclassify Warspite into a cruiser doesn't make her one.
If we go buy their roles in the fleet which was to bully anything smaller then them and run from something bigger and their one paper stats the Kongo's are still Battlecrusers.
@@joshthomasmoorenew There in lies the dilemma: going by roles, well they changed to suit the warfare that took place, and the classifications also changed multiple times throughout the war.
I don't think there is one correct classification for these ships, and it goes for all battlecruisers, and a lot of warships in general. Destroyers, Battleships, Carriers: what are they but a loose definition of what we see them as.
I don't think battlecruisers are the only point of contention in regards to ship classification, I'd say large cruisers are harder to define, and have even murkier designations.
those go 30 knots. kongos dont.
Well actually they can
Battlefastcruiseship.
Now everyone can hate the category together.
You forgot the "r" on end of cruiser! YOU CAN'T EVEN GET THAT RIGHT!! FFS, WHAT IS THE POINT IN ARGUING??!!!!! I give up.............
I think that a Battlefastcruiseship would actually be The Love Boat.
You have that tune stuck in your head now, haven't you?
@@notshapedforsportivetricks2912 AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr............rrrrrrrr...
Basically, they were Battlecruisers cosplaying as Battleships. We can disagree on the classification, but we have to agree the Kongos where some of the most good-looking ships of the IJN
Splendid Cat DNA. ❤
Japan and making (splendid) cats appeal, a classic combination.
Were they
Look even better as artificial reefs. USS Washington was so nice and considerate for giving the fish so many extra doors into their new home.
@Nyx_2142 Yeah, as an individual who's played wargames as Japan, only an idiot would've put any Kongo-class battleship into a situation where it would've faced U.S. battleships.
American battleships were tougher than practically anything Japan had except the Nagato-class battleships. Personally, even then, I would've preferred the Yamato-class battleships taking the lead with the Nagato-class in a supporting role (and everything else falling in behind). This is simply due to the U.S. having more ships and any serious damage will take strategic assets out of action (for repairs) when it may be needed later.
I think another good point is that the Amagi-class, which Japan themselves considered to be battlecruisers, had more armor than the Kongos did after their reconstruction.
not really. The Amagis were new designs and built (or almost built) from scratch, while the rebuild Kongous had to work within fairly strict limits imposed by the already existing hull structure. Even if they wanted, they couldn't just slap a 12" or 13" armor belt on them without severe sacrifices in other areas, like speed, range, armament or AA defences, just to name a few.
@@boreasreal5911 I'm confused by your argument. You're saying that they couldn't armor the Kongos up to the level of a battleship, which I agree with, but how does that refute my argument at all?
10 seconds home from work and immediately a perfect start to my weekend
Drach woke up and chose violence for "fun" Friday :)
pretty sure "lively debate" is what Drach considers fun, so it tracks
Alternate classification system...
You're taking fire from a battleship without support, how did the engagement end?
1) I vanquished the enemy - Congratulations, you're a battleship of some sort.
2) I survived long enough to run away - OK, you're a fast battleship.
3) I sank - Definitely a battle cruiser. (If you exploded first, give my regards to Admiral Beatty.)
4) I avoided getting into such a situation - Congratulations, you're a well commanded battle cruiser.
By this logic, Bismarck was a Battlecruiser because it took fire from 2 Battleships and Bismarck had no support, and sank, despite being very heavily armored.
Agree with 1, 3 ands 4 and why I consider Kongo's and Scharnhorst class to both be Battle Cruisers. Regarding "2" All US "Fast Battleships" would not need to "run away" from any WW2 BB, but doing so until dark for most if not all would be wise vs Yamato class.
@@Edax_Royeaux Yes two while immobilized.
@@Edax_Royeaux I did say 'a battleship' singular.
By the logic of Item 2 the ships of 1stSG of the HSF are what I have long called them, Light Fast Battleships. Though many still demand they be called battlecruisers
Kirishima: Am I a fast battleship or am I still a battlecruiser?
USS Washington: 'Points loaded guns at Kirishima' Neither, you're scrap.
At that range, all the armor still wouldn’t have made a difference.
@@CorePathwaygives real "Parry this you filthy casual" vibes
Kongos! Crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside!
Yeah, at that range, and with the element of surprise on the Washington's side, all the armor on Kirishima wouldn't have been able to keep out Nine of the /45 caliber Mark 1 Naval Guns, going rapid fire on Kirishima's broadside. And if Takao and Atago had'nt have realized what they were going up against, Washington would have easily picked them off one by one, making Willis Lee one of the most decorated Admirals in the USN.
Admiral Lee: "Tastes like chicken either way."
Thoroughly enjoyed this, and I agree with you. But i do wish that you'd covered the subdivision argument. As, I understand it, the block coefficient of the Kongo's increased significantly during refit. This was a result of increased structural integrity, new girders, that sort of thing.
I could see that making a big difference in terms of survivability versus just side armor. Maybe subdivision is more important than armor?
That sounds like a dry dock question.
Very much depends on where the hits land I suppose. Fragging chain lockers and mess halls is one thing, but magazines are quite another.
Surely their block coefficient decreased given the extra beam, length, and draught relative to the increased displacement?
"Battlecruiser or Fast Battleship?"
Haruna is daijoubu.
I can tell you what USS Alaska is in one word: Beautiful.
Beautiful lines. She was gorgeous. Unfortunately, by the time they lunched, there was no mission for them. 12" armed super cruisers were expensive to build, expensive to operate, and at least as vulnerable to the emerging naval weapons systems as any other ship with main battery artillery. Jets and missiles, followed by precision guided munitions made any large surface ship that relied on its guns to defend or provide offensive fires obsolete. So went the US battleships and so went the 12", 8", 6" and 5" cruisers.
USS Alaska CB-1 was in service for just under three years, going to the fleet reserve in 1947 and scrapped in 1960, never having gone to sea again.
Look, down on the water ! It's a battlecruiser. It's a battleship ! OMG IT'S ANOTHER GREAT DRACH VIDEO !!!
I am one of those people Drach mentioned in the intro: I don't really care one way or another what people call them.
Personally, by the late interwar period, I only differentiate between slow battleships (i.e. dreadnoughts) and fast battleships and just specify if absolutely necessary. For example, I would call the Kongos lightly armored fast battleships, the Scharnhorsts lightly armed fast battleships and so on. This is completely my own layman's notion, but i works for me.
However, all that is actually beside the point. The most important thing when talking about the Kongo refits: They are really pretty ;)
I just like giving Washington the W on being the only US BB to sink a Japanese BB during the war. But Kirishima was functionally a battlecruiser.
That's my thoughts. The US wants them to be BBs for that very reason. The IJN wanted to call them BBs back then for their own propaganda reasons.
Battlecruiser? Nah, clearly a large light cruiser.
A Medium Pocket Battlecruiser? Too slow to be a true battlecruiser, too under armoured to be a battleship. Too big to be a light cruiser and too heavily armed to be a heavy cruiser.
Nah just a fast super heavy cruiser
Reminds me of a video where someone modernized the Yamato battleship and called it a "large destroyer" 😅
Shush, it was a frigate.
You are wrong it's a Colossal Destroyer
If the Kongo class has the armor to withstand its guns, then they are (fast) battleships. If not, they are battlecruisers. My opinion of course.
At what range and angle though? Or does it depends on having a immune zone or not?
That makes North Carolina a battlecruiser.
@@frednoneI mean kinda
And if the Scharnhorsts got their 15in guns do they turn into battlecruisers?
They were supersized versions of HMS Tiger with 14" guns. They were battlecruisers through and through.
Obviously they're battleships because they're in the BB line in known historical simulator World of Warships.
Lol beat me to it, came here to essentially say the same thing.
Well, in the old forms, they had BB and BC under Battleships. And CA, CB and CL under cruisers, even big cruisers like Alaska or Kronhstadt.
Beat me too it as well lol
Kudos for making a trivial issue (or really only of interest to rivet counters) into an entertaining 30 minutes.
The battleship, fast battleship, and battlecruiser debate has some parallels with tank development.
Battlecruisers sacrificed armament and/or armor for speed so that they can chase down cruisers, flank, and scout out enemies. Light tanks are very similar, sacrificing armament and/or armor to be fast, so they can act as scouts and exploit openings to chase down retreating enemies or flank.
Meanwhile, battleships are to form the line of battle and slug it out with the enemy battle line. Medium and heavy tanks also are supposed to slug it out with enemy tanks and defensive positions.
Eventually, engine technology allowed all tanks to move as fast has a light tank, replacing all roles with just a main battle tank. Similarly, new oil boilers allowed battleships to cruise as fast as Battlecruisers.
Pretty darn decent battlecruisers.
boy howdy that sunset picture of the Kongo at sunset near the end of the video is gorgeous
Another Friday Drach video? Splendid.
Why do I get the idea that you, Alex, and the rest of the team argued about this for some miles in Scandinavia?
The Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were "light battleships". The Kongos were indeed "battle cruisers". The former had armor thickness similar to their gun caliber. The Kongos were eggshells wielding sledgehammers. Ergo battle cruisers.
had they been armed with 15 inch guns they would have been battleships, with the 11 inch guns they were saddled with they had BB armor (kinda) but substandard guns, they would have been a detriment in the battle line with the lack of firepower so classing them as a BB is a stretch. fast super-heavy cruiser, (or "light battleship" i guess).you almost hate to call them a Battlecruiser just on the copious presence of armor alone, but if they cant serve in the line of battle you just cannot class them as a BB. they were unique. the WoW nerds (i say that with reverence) wished they would have gotten the Bismarck class guns, fortunately they did not. Bismarck and Tirpitz were scary enough. a fight between the Scharnhorst and the Kongo would be an interesting battle maybe the aforementioned WoW gang could whistle up a straight fight scenario and game it out enough to see where the arms versus armor argument ends up.
@@mikeholton3914 Yeah, the Kongo vs the Scharnhorst . OR the Kongo mano Y mano with the American Alaska/Guam class. Both would be interesting match ups!
@mikeholton3914 had they been armed with 38cm guns they wouldn't have been complete by ww2 and the Bismarck's likely never would have been ready. The whole reason 28cm guns were chosen is that those guns were ready for production while the 35cm gun wasn't and the 38cm needed a larger ship.
The Germans were playing name games because of Versailles treaty
@@JeffEbe-te2xs no the treaty of versailles has no bearing on the Scharnhorst she's 3x over the weight limit for a panzerschiffe
Drach, what a great detailed analysis of Kongo "battlecruiser" question
The only thing that I'd have added was that it doesn't really matter all that much. Clearly the _Kongo_-class were useful ships - almost certainly the _most_ useful (and effective, though not at fighting enemy battleships) of all the IJN's big gun capital ships - and it's remarkable that the argument over what to call them gets so heated.
fast battleships and battlecurisers are very good at finding jobs that need something like them.
The Kongos were the most ACTIVE IJN big-gun units, but they didn’t actually accomplish all that much (literally one shore bombardment session is the only significant contribution they made to the IJN war effort). Their utility is massively overblown.
@@toawingno, people have a tendency to force them into jobs they were never designed for and were massively wasteful for.
@@bkjeong4302 while true it's a case were for carrier escort and such the Kongo class were the only real option. Cruisers lack firepower to be sure and battleships lack speed
They would be better used elsewhere but Japan didn't have many options and leaving their carrier force vulnerable to a nighttime cruiser attack is unthinkable
@@toawing
You don’t need big guns when all you’re going to be shooting at are aircraft, nighttime surface attacks were a FALSELY ASSUMED threat as things turned out.
This is why I like "capital ship" as a designation.
It's a broad term that encompasses just about everything in the battleship-fast battleship-battle cruiser family of ships.
See's Friday Drach video: Yay! 😀
See's subject is Kongo's: Awesome! 😁
See's topic is "Is it a battle cruiser?" *TRIGGERED!* 🫨😵💫😵💀
Glad to see this wasn't another entry in the "nothing is a battle cruiser" school of thought that seems to have taken hold in the last decade (barring the Alaska bit 😭) Great vid, and I'll always happily spend a half hour looking at pictures of Kongo's, doubly so with a bonus Alaska and Dunkerque! 😊
The rebuilt Kongos are Super Cruisers
Kongo: 30-31kn, little slower than cruisers, 8x14in guns, can easily kill cruisers but insufficient for BBs, 8in flat armor, will only stop cruiser guns at reasonable battle ranges, ~32,000tons
Alaska: 32-33kn, little slower than cruisers, 9x12in guns, can easily kill cruisers but insufficient for BBs, 9in inclined armor, will only stop cruiser guns at reasonable battle ranges, ~30,000tons
By that Logic, you could argue that that makes Alaska a Battlecruiser (which it is).
@@schiefer1103 I'd argue that by WW2 all of the former battlecruisers were no longer able to fulfill the mission role of being apex predator cruiser hunters. To reliably be able to hunt cruisers in all weathers and sea states they'd have to be at least 35-36kn. The super cruiser (ie. cruiser killer) role only requires battlecruiser protection and firepower, but not quite as much speed. Hence I'd argue they should be considered mere super cruisers (cruiser killers), despite that the Kongo's were once able to be battlecruisers in the 1910s. Admittedly, if you want to define what, say, the Kongo class's overall type is rather than what roles it can accomplish after 3 decades and 2 rebuilds then battlecruiser is a good choice. If you consider Kongo a battlecruiser, then Alaska could also be safely considered a battlecruiser.
@@schiefer1103 That's a fine hair to split. The Alaska "only" had 12" guns, but they were arguably as powerful as the Kongos' 14" guns, being compared to the 14" guns on US pre-treaty BBs. And she had nine of them.
My opinion is that USS Alaska was indeed a Supercruiser. Larger and more powerful than the heavy cruisers of the interwar period.
@@RenManiel The USS Alaska only had a top speed of 33 knots. The Kumas and the Mogamis were faster at 35-36 knots. So based on speed more of a battlecruiser than a heavy cruiser.
Battlecruiser ❌
Cattlebruiser ✅
I need you to understand that I'm gonna have a class in Ultimate Admirals named this. With such vessels as Bull Hook and Uppercut Heiffer.
Shattlebip.
That’s a good term for a meat tenderizer
Creavy Hruiser
Borpedo toats
A hunk, a hunk a' BURNING LOVE!
Needs more "Burning Love"
Drach always comes up with good stuf always!!
32:10, the sun sets on this argument... Nice touch Drach. Your editing skills are too often under appreciated, good sir. Well done. Love the video, as always.
Yay a new drach video
Glad to see a Photo of Yamato Included - Thanks, Mark - Dave...
With that armor? Battlecruiser.
That's my reasoning. Renown and Repulse are battle cruisers and nobody seems to disagree. The Kongos have thinner armor and two more, but smaller, main battery guns.
HMS tiger (What the kongō are based on) is also well known as a battlecruiser, even though she had up to the same belt thickness as post refit kongōs
I think has to be the crucial argument doesn’t it?
Hypothetical curiosity though. If it had been reworked and had a top speed the same of 27kts and added 2 more main calibre guns would it still be a battle cruiser? Just a bad one?
@@owensteam Still a battlecruiser in my estimation. It traded armor for speed, and this is an inborn, characterizing quality that separated battlecruisers from battleships. If it were the opposite, it would have been a slower dreadnought battleship like the Nagato-class. And if you somehow managed to cram two more main guns on its deck (presumably by installing newer, more space-efficient power plants), I think it would just have been a well-armed retrofitted battlecruiser. As for whether it would be good or bad... well, plane fodder is plane fodder...
@@bdub1682kongo was laid down before tiger.
FINALLY U COVERED MY FAVORITE SHIP
Battlecruiser. You can raid Halfords for spoilers,xenon lights,induction kits etc but you cant make a RS 200 out of a Ford escort.
This was the first interesting (and convincing) contribution to the everlasting 'battlecruiser or battleship' debate I have seen. Thank you.
I'll go with the Star Trek rule: EVERYTHING IS A BATTLE-CRUISER!!!! In my head canon, it is why Starfleet gives every hull the "NCC" designation where 'N' is the exoatmospheric designation.
Interesting. I never even spared a single thought why it was NCC. It just was. Trivia! ^-^
Love your videos and history on ships. By the far best content creator when it comes to ships and your knowledge of them are superior in video quality and history knowledge.
The placement of the aft turret would have given them a rather large field of fire.
Don't post often been watching for years, thought now would be a good time to say thanks, great content, very insightful, have yet to find anything in your presentations that is not both well researched and succinct, well done indeed that man! Both you and Perun are on a par for content, quality and delivery. I greatly look forward to your nest release.
I particular enjoyed you presentations on the old Foudroyant renamed as she was; this i did not know at the time; which we used to help out with when we where doing our training back in the 80s at HMS Raleigh. A good memory of great times i thank you for reminding me.
Removed my earlier post, i do agree that ships really are defined by the roles they play not by their designation, just seems a tad superfluous when i re read it and really wanted to say thanks for all you have contiruted
I read somewhere that the definition of a battlecruiser was a ship of similar proportions and armament to a battleship, but sacrificing armouur protection for speed. It was to reconnoitre for the main fleet, pushing past any small cruisers that got in the way (presumably destroying them if necessary). To me the Kongo is such a ship. By the way Drac, your knowledge of such things is truly encyclopedic. However, as far as I'm aware, ducks don't talk they quack! 😅
That's a somewhat misleading definition. It's more accurate for British ships, very inaccurate for German ships. Fortunately it is easy to fix.
The RN developed the battlecruiser as the application to a cruiser design of the Dreadnought 'one-size-big-gun' concept. While making the primary guns the same size, they also made the ships bigger and more heavily armored than cruisers. The additional length permitted these ships to be faster than cruisers. See The Grand Fleet, DK Brown.
Just as Dreadnought made all prior battleships obsolete, the battlecruiser made all cruisers (armored or otherwise) obsolete. This is why the British stopped building cruisers when they developed the battlecruiser (they would resume cruiser construction when naval treaties prevented them from having so many larger ships, effectively killing the battlecruiser expect for a few ships 'grandfathered in').
All battlecruisers had both better armor and better guns than prior-era cruisers. However, the British put more emphasis on big guns, the Germans on armor. This is where the above definition gets misleading. The armor on the German ships is actually really close to that of first rate WW1-era battleships like Iron Duke - and better than older battleships - but the guns were smaller, so it was more a sacrifice of the guns for speed on German ships. On British ships, it was a sacrifice of armor for speed.
Hence, a better definition is that a battlecruiser is a ship armed with one size of main gun, larger than a cruiser, and with more armor and speed than a cruiser, but with either less armor *or* lighter guns than a same-era battleship. It's very much a WW1-era concept, so applying the name to certain older Japanese ships is reasonable even if they didn't use that term themselves.
For reference - I've made this point at more length in another post in greater detail - fast battleships are not battlecruisers, they have *both* battleship weapons and battleship grade armor - but with the later fast battleships the armor is distributed in different places on the ship to deal with a changed threat environment. Some of the total armor weight is taken from the belt (where hits are less likely than previously at expected combat ranges) and moved to other places like the deck(s) and turrets and/or traded for better torpedo protection (all of which become more of a concern when these ships are built). Many people miss this distinction when they do a superficial examination of the stats on these ships.
@@bluelemming5296 thanks for your reply. In my opinion the trouble with your definition is that it complicates matters, which is the very thing the video is seeking to eliminate. By adding additional factors, as you kindly describe, it becomes harder and harder to differentiate between classes of ships. I realise that British and German battlecruisers varied due to their anticipated mission profiles but to me they are faster but similarly armed versions of that nations battleships. Whether that's down to one less gun turret or a thinner and/or less comprehensive protection scheme is simply what the designers thought best. Take Hood for example, she was built as a battlecruiser but received various upgrades over the years, inculding additional plating. However until that reached the geneal level of contemporary capital ships she should not be regarded as a fully fledged battleship. Unless everyone can agree on an accepted classification rule then this remains a matter of debate.
@@rob5944 Actually, Hood was initially planned to be a battlecruiser, with the same 8 inch armor belt as Tiger. However the plans were changed during construction. This confuses a lot of people.
She ended with essentially the armor protection as an Iron Duke class battleship. The Iron Duke was commissioned in 1914: it was selected as the flagship of the Grand Fleet during WW1 as one of the newest and most modern battleships.
Assuming Wikipedia is accurate:
1. Both ships had 12 inches of belt at their thickest point, Iron Duke would narrow down to 4 inches, Hood to 5 inches.
2. Iron Duke had 10 inches of armor on her barbettes, Hood had 11 to 15 inches.
3. Iron Duke had 11 inches of armor on her turrets, Hood had 11 to 15 inches.
4. Iron Duke had 1 to 2.5 inches of deck armor, Hood had 1 to 3 inches.
There are probably all manner of minor details that are missing in this summary, but the big picture is probably accurate.
_From this data, the conclusion follows that Hood had essentially the same protection as a contemporary battleship, and should be regarded as a fully fledged WW1-era fast battleship._
This protection would be highly out-of-date well before WW2. But that would be equally true for any other WW1 battleship that didn't receive massive refits. For example, all the ships of the WW1 Queen Elizabeth class such as Warspite were built with deck armor in the 1-3 inch range, just like Hood. Nobody denies Warspite was a battleship: why do people still deny Hood the same status? All these ships had weak deck and turret armor compared to what was done in later ships.
We reach the same conclusion if we base our definitions on the naval treaties that followed WW1, which didn't have a battlecruiser category.
@@bluelemming5296 off the top of my head it was her deck amour that was increased at some point in her career, but it was still regarded as thin, especiallyby ww2 standards. I'd have to look it up.
Hehe...I got a wicked "oh, dis gonn be good" smile on my face when I saw this title. I comprehensively agree with your arguments about the Kongos. I've always stated my dividing line between a fast battleship and a battlecruiser is that the former is still designed and intended to fight another true battleship whereas the latter is not and is simply meant to run away from a battleship. The Kongos, even post-refit, were clearly not capable of taking on a battleship 1v1 on anything approaching equal terms. Any of the British, American, or Japanese contemporary pre-treaty battleships would have easily outmatched the Kongos 1v1 (trying to kite and win by scoring hits at extreme range really isn't a viable tactic in practice), and obviously the Kongos were no match for any of the more modern fast battleships that were built from the mid-1930s onward.
They are ships that do battle, and are also kinda fast.
Ofc that also applies to stuff like the Akizukis.
Akizuki-class Fast Battleship.
I read somewhere that the IJN simply did not have the concept of a battlecruiser by the time of the Kongou refits. Is there anything to this? If so, in this context, it's just a naming convention issue. The Japanese are not stupid and Kongou clearly does not have the armour for a slugging fight. "Fast Battle Vessel" is probably a better translation.
Also: "Curiously Flat Destroyers" as my friend liked to call the modern Kaga.
Drachinifel addresses that in the video. They were still getting battlecruiser missions during WW2 so the IJN clearly still had battlecruiser doctrine
@@adam_mawz_maas My problem with that is I'm not convinced they had a choice. The only other ships they could send on those missions were either slower, more important, or heavy cruisers that had their own area to cover.
I just appreciate the nice picture of USS Alaska to admire. No offense to the museums, but I’d trade two Iowas for an Alaska museum ship.
Could you imagine the US Navy said, nah lets keep the Alaska's and Des Moines active, because we like rapid firing 8" guns, and heavy hitting 12" guns.
Trade Intrepid for Alaska or Guam. I've been to Intrepid and while it's a wonderful museum, I'd trade it for a ship that has a more illustrious service history (Staring violently at Enterprise before she met her distasteful end in 1958). So yeah Alaska or Guam or even the Franklin since she was extremely unique and would've made for a superb WWII aircraft carrier actually left in her original configuration.
In the episode of The Unauthorized History of the Pacific War Podcast on the battle between USS Washington and one of the Kongos Jon Parshall says that the IJN didn't consider the Kongos fit to stand in the line of battle. It seems to me that if they'd been sufficiently upgraded to be considered fast battleships the IJN would've wanted to hold them back for the all-important decisive battle instead of sending them piecemeal into Iron Bottom Sound.
The problem was that of the large surface vessels available, the Kongo’s were the only “battleships” with the speed to be able to run down The Slot to Guadalcanal, perform shore bombardment, and retreat far enough to have some degree of air cover/support by daylight when the Cactus Air Force was up and in business. None of the other battleships in the IJN fleet were deemed capable of matching the Kongo’s speed.
The other factor was that since the Kongo’s were the oldest battleships in service, the traditionalists in the IJN deemed losing some Kongo’s as an acceptable loss since their was less prestige to be lost if a 35+ year old battleship was lost compared to a newer battleships (even if a majority of the battleship fleet was maybe only a decade younger).
Exactly, they were supposed to run with the IAN'S fast carriers.
Tbh, the IJN had precious few ships able to "stand in the line of battle" - they had a collection of reconstructed WW1-era ships. All their resources went into building ridiculous monsters (the Yamatos) rather than building modern fast battleships like everyone else did (KGVs, SoDaks, Littorios, etc). They had nothing that could compare with those classes when it came down to it, and it looks like they knew that from how they used what they had. The Kongos were probably the best because they were reasonably fast. The other classes were all just too slow to be useful.
@@alun7006 Well they got treaty-capped and knew that when they needed to catch up they had to go big or go home. It was well known they would get outproduced on quantity, so you'd need a few battleships that would knock out enemy battleships in return.
@@alun7006 The IJN had to follow an entirely different battle theory than the other major navies, if they wanted a shot at creating the, what was it, "Greater Asian-Pacific Co-Prosperity Sphere."
How that entire vision was formed, battered, abused, corrupted, and sentenced to death is a very important lesson in State Departments and Political Science _realpolitik._
Asking the real questions, Drach.
One of the finest battle cruiser designs of its era. Arguably did more for the IJN than any other countries battle cruisers did for them.
Between the losses at Jutland, Hoods demise and the kicking the Kongos took, makes one question how great of an idea the BC concept was.
The initial concept of "hunting down enemy cruisers" worked well enough in WW1: both the battles near Helgoland and at the Falklands ending exactly as intended: with cruisers being match/outclassed in speed and hopeless outgunned defeated.
The "problem" with the concept is in my eyes that they worked out so well that they made themselves obsolete: not only did their intended prey (armored cruisers, pre-dreadnoughts) effectively die out just because everybody realized that keeping those "5-minute ships" made little sense (post-treaty Germany as well as small navies not counted as "we cannot have better stuff" kinda makes all other arguments obsolete) when any battlecruiser would clean it up with limited effort, but also when the gap to battleships closed from both sides: the battleships getting faster yet the battlecruisers needing more guns and armor to keep up with facing their new opponents (other battlecruisers)
More than Lion,Tiger,Princess Royal,Indomitable or Tiger?
Not convinced.
@karl3998 Exactly, battlecruisers were rendered obsolete by advancing technology, just look at Hood. In her completed state she had equal or superior armour to full fledged battleships of her era, while retaining battlecruiser speeds (and ofc BB armament). There are also the Iowa's, So Daks, hell even the Yamato are also examples.
@MattVF the Kongos had more of an effect on WW2 than the British battle cruisers had on WW1
Thank you for this interesting discussion
Always having been partial to the Kongo’s, I continue to see them as very valuable and versatile assets to the Japanese…but: they failed to do their battlecruiser job of “sweeping the seas” of enemy cruisers during the first battle of Guadalcanal. During Leyte Gulf, Haruna was chugging ahead drawing a bead on Taffy 2, doing text book Battlecruiser things, yet failed to do anything productive at all. Funny, every time I see Alaska mentioned online I feel a mysterious excitement over its perceived capability and have to go play it in WOW Blitz, and always get my butt handed to to me handily.
Excellent video Drach! But of course you already knew that!
Also Drach, i thought you classified the Lexingtons as tinfoil.
Tin foil seems generous lol
I think he also classifies Indefatigable as tin foil so it still works
yes, i.e. battlecruisers.
@@empath69 Specifically, crappy battlecruisers.
Excellent as always. Just 1 thing drach.
I need the final part of Johnnie walkers life and career etc.
I too am waiting eagerly to hear what happened to Johnnie Walker
This is gonna be interesting
Glad you made this video - This just came up over at Quora, so I referenced this vid.
The Battleship/battlecruiser designation is obsolete by WW2. You simply had large ships that could keep up with carriers and those that couldn't.If you evaluate the US Fast battleships the way you evaluate to Congo mission set, they aren't very different. Shore bombardment,carrier/convoy escort, small group engagements.The US seemed to use the Older/slower battleships battle line engagements (Ok a small set) .
Exactly. Half the video was explaining about the ROLES the Kongo played on WW2. What role did the Iowas play? By that logic they would be BC.
@@valrondthere are some who do say we should classify the Iowas as those, yes.
Bloody hell Drach you are such an authoritarian!
This one is easy: if you're British - they're battlecruisers. If you're American - they're fast battleships.
That photograph at 11:30 is epic, with the airship in the distance!
My favourite Japanese capital ships
Dang, Drach- I'm having a tough time keeping up with your prolific posting rate this last week- starting with five hours of Drydock, then the US fire control vid, this, and now the Town class guide!
I'm not complaining, they're all good, but its an effort! (Keep it up amd Ill keep watching!) 😄👍
Way back in the DOS days I spent time designing a battleship on a spreadsheet. Eventually there would be a spreadsheet battle using probability for hits and misses. Of course, I went to other things.
Games like that need to be a thing again.
Imagine; now, two dozen players could meet and game it out with charts (nautical, flow, and calculations) and spreadsheets, on Google Docs.
Ah another great Drachinifel history video.
Kirishima's audition as a battleship was going great! South Dakota's power failures left her helpless against the Japanese onslaught. But...
Kirishima hadn't read the whole script, Otherwise, she would have known that Act 2 called for her to become the newest coral reef in the Slot 😂😂😂
The Washington stepped in and said, "I am your opponent", eh? :-)
Another solid video. Great.👍
Refitted I think the Kongo could smack the crap out of the refitted Italian Dreadnoughts as for Scharnhorst I think that is a very even fight with the Germans enjoying much better protection but the Japanese having the firepower advantage and neither having that much of an immunity zone against each other. Both of which are Battleships albeit a bit crap. I would also expect the Kongo's to wipe the floor with the Ganguts, Bretagne's and Courbets, Admirante Latorre, MInas Geraes or any of the other South American ships. All of which are near contempories to the Kongos when originally built. I would argue that Kongo is a second-rate fast battleship not up to the standard of the big boys but could certainly kick the crap of a significant number of the Battleships in existence in mid-1930s. In addition at the long ranges expected Belt armour is largely irrelevant and deck armour is way more important Kongo's upgraded Deck armour gave it a quite significant zone of immunity over any of the 14-inch standards as well as the R-Class and the unmodified QE's (Barham and Malaya). While not the best at almost 5 inches Kongo had more deck armour than any of the Standards had more than the Scharnhorsts thus arguably giving it more effective protection at the expected battle-ranges.
The Kongo will forever be associated with "BURNING LOVE"
I had no idea Dunkerque and Strasbourg had differing levels of protection
Strasbourg had an extra inch on her belt.
Dunkerque is tier 6 and Strasbourg tier 7.
Many years experience has taught me that on all matters naval to defer to Drach!
I thought the CC for the Lexingtons meant Cardboard Cruiser.
Capital Cruiser. Which is pretty much what they were, even if the designator isn't particularly descriptive of mission.
@@davefinfrock3324
I’d always heard CC defined as Command Cruiser.
@@waynesworldofsci-techUSN class designators in some cases never really make much sense. A senior enlisted person once told me BB is that way because it looks the nicest because if you give the battleship a designator of BS plenty of personnel will make jokes about it as well as the media which would ruin the image of the navy.
I just want to say that post refit I find the Kongo aesthetically pleasing
My two cents worth: a navy can call a ship whatever it wants. The RN called the Courageouses "large light cruisers". That classification appears to have been accepted by the Washington conference, as the Courageouses are not listed among capital ships on either the retention or disposal lists. So the Courageouses appear to have been grandfathered, as were all the other cruisers that exceeded treaty limits for cruisers. That opens the door to the possibility that, if the RN had continued with the classification of "dreadnought armed cruiser", all of the ships now regarded as "battle cruisers", would have been recognized by the treaty as "cruisers.
Yeah, outside the main classifications, DD CL, CA, etc I think it starts to split too many hairs. Battlecruisers itself felt like a marketing tool. "Unarmored Battleship" just isn't attractive. We tend not to care if a Carrier is armored or not, unless its a escort/light CV.
The two Courageous class ships were on he ‘convert to carrier’ list along with 2 Lexington’s and 2 Amagi’s, the RN having already scrapped the 3 incomplete Admiral class.
So the Washington Conference treated them as Battlecruisers
@@adam_mawz_maas The two Lexingtons and two Amagis that were converted are on the capital ship disposal lists. The Courageouses are not. Chapter 1, Article IX, says that only the ships that would otherwise be scrapped, are eligible for conversion under that Article. Again, the Courageouses are not on the disposal list, nor retention list, so are not covered by the capital ship provisions of the treaty. If I missed a clause and am mistaken, please point out where I am wrong.
Greetings and Salutations! I totally agree with your reasoning on this one. I love the Kongos, I built two plastic models, both of the Haruna actually. Just a reminder; do a vid on the British Tribals in general, and the HMS Ashanti in particular. Love your work, all the best, Billi.
You should do a series where you play world of warships, and rant about the accuracy(or lack of) of various ships and rant about the lack of proper navel strategy with your teamates.😂
Every time i watch this channel, i feel like it should be sponsored by world of warships.
One of the reasons I dropped that game (played since Beta) was that the mechanics didn't lend themselves towards naval strategy or planning. The maps and weapon ranges really don't allow for it, nor ships going invisible.
It _would_ be fun if Drachnifel could arrange a World of Warships server, and hand out the address to chosen teams who agree to play according to his rules; it would be awesome if there were (cadet) and (faculty) teams representing various Naval Academies and War Colleges, like the USN, USCG, RN, JMSDF. Arrange for hostfile and server mod files to run, too.
the lemming strategy would make for endless video's.
The rule of thumb I give [mainly when debunking claims that anything in the Russian navy is a battleship or battlecruiser], based in part on your videos is as such:
-Battleship
Primary Armament 10"+ [WW1era] or 12'+ [ww2 era] guns in 3+ mounts of 2-4 guns per turret
Armor: enough to protect itself from its guns at medium engagement range
Role: line battle and shore bombardment
-Battlecruiser
Primary Armament: same as battleships but usually 1 less turret and/or barrel
Armor: Enough to protect from cruiser-grade weapons at the medium engagement range of the BC's guns
Role: Escorting carriers, hunting cruisers
-Heavy/Armored Cruiser
Primary Armament: 6-12" guns ["Cruiser-Grade"] in 2-4 mounts of 2-4 barrels each
Armor: enough to protect it from its own guns at medium engagement range
Role: Escorting Convoys and Battleships
-Medium Cruiser
Primary Armament: Varies, often at least 1 cruiser-grade turret with 1-4 barrels, plus torpedoes, a heavy anti-aircraft battery and specialist equipment
Armor: Enough to protect from Destroyer-Grade weapons [3-6" dual-purpose guns]
Role: Screening, scouting, hunting shipping, special missions based on equipment [like missile barrage in modern times, like the aforementioned Russian "battlecruisers", the Kirov and Moskva, both just guided missile cruisere, maybe even light cruisers since they only have destroyer guns and splinter proofing]
As anybody who has watched Kancolle knows the class is a waifu harem
Thanks Drach, my vote same as always Battlecruiser.
USS Johnston is a fast battleship, change my mind. It attacked Yamato and Nagato and sent them packing. Might not have the armor of a battleship, but the spirit is there.
Amazing video!👍 Really appreciate you clearing up the mess, and yes the Kongos are irrefutably battlecruisers.
See, I’ve typically taken the opposite approach to classifying ships, which is to ignore everything and just call it what the navy called it. If no one can agree on what exactly a word means, no one really follows the rules for it strictly, and different navies have different interpretations of it, then does it really have any actual power as an overarching classification? Is it really worth the effort to figure out which classification an individual ship technically belongs to when navies, and indeed individual admirals and captains, are just going to use them how they think they should be used anyways? I’m not entirely convinced it is. I think you make very good arguments, I just don’t understand why it actually matters in practice.
"You sank my battleship!"
"Well actually its an interwar battlecruiser undergoing carrier conversion refitting."
"I'm not playing with you anymore."
@CheddarBaconCheddarBacon According to DK Brown, in The Grand Fleet, the BC concept was originally developed to do the same thing to all existing cruisers as the Dreadnaught had done to all existing battleships. He was a RN ship designer, and as such he had access to all the primary sources when he wrote his books, so I think we can take this as authoritative.
As with Dreadnaught, the BCs had all one-size primary guns, faster speed than any cruiser, larger guns than any cruiser, and thicker armor than any cruiser. The British and the Germans would approach BC construction differently, with the British putting on heavier guns and the Germans thicker armor, so a good definition of Battlecruiser is:
_Battlecruiser: a WW1-era ship that is more capable than any period cruiser, but has either smaller guns or less armor than a battleship of that era._
A good battleship for comparison purposes is HMS Iron Duke, a ship commissioned in 1914 and as such one of the newest battleships in the RN, in fact the one that was selected to be the flagship of the fleet.
As a matter of naval architecture, all else being equal, it's easier to build long ships (and hence bigger ships) faster than shorter ships. Similarly, bigger ships also tend to have more free space (and hence longer range, more ammunition) and can handle rough weather better, while smaller ships have to devote a larger portion of their hull to engines if they want to go fast (relatively speaking, assuming equivalent technology). So there are some hidden advantages here that might not be obvious: the BCs were potentially much more capable and useful ships in many ways than any previous cruiser, simply as a result of being longer ships - and not just due to their armor and firepower.
There are also disadvantages in terms of needing larger drydocks and not being able to get as close to shore.
The BCs actually weren't that much more expensive at first. Armored cruiser HMS Shannon [1906] cost ~1.4m pounds, HMS Invincible [commissioned 1909] cost ~1.7m pounds. If you compare the two ships stats, you'll see that Invincible really did outclass Shannon, for only about 20% more money - and Shannon already outclassed most of the armored cruisers in the world at that time. The RN would actually stop building armored cruisers due to the existence of the BC.
A good light cruiser comparison is HMS Southampton [1912]. Once the BC made the bigger cruisers obsolete, Britain could focus on building lighter cruisers, and get more ships that way. A lot of potential raiders were themselves light cruisers, so this gave the combination of lots of smaller ships to hunt down raiders, which might actually be able to deal with the raiders by themselves, plus a core of faster more powerful ships to crush them if needed (see the Battle of the Falkland Islands [1914] for an example of BCs running down and sinking a powerful and well trained force of legacy cruisers). The light cruisers cost about ~334k pounds - so for the cost of 2 armored cruisers they could have roughly one BC and 3 CLs, at least in the beginning, which is a pretty good deal. In practice the cost of the BCs went up pretty quickly, perhaps more than they anticipated ...
In short, like the DN concept, the BC concept was to force every other nation to either accept inferior status to the RN in battle, or rebuild a whole bunch of their ships at considerable cost. Given the wealth generated by the British Empire - and the fact that they could focus more on the navy and less on the army than would be possible for a land-based power - that worked out to the advantage of Britain.
The post-war naval treaties would kill the BC concept, and large cruiser construction would resume.
The Japanese gave that war their best shot and did their best with what they had. So much so that President Truman used the Atomic Bombs and was considering using Chemical Weapons for the invasion of mainland Japan! The comparison between their arsenal and what was arrayed against them in terms of quantity and technology was vast. Let us hope that all war stops forever.
I love the mention of the new Kaga. They are truly carrying on the mischievous tradition of their ancestors
Haruna wa daijoubu desu~!
Came to the comments section looking for a KanColle reference, was not disappointed.
@@CaptainSpadaro If you're wasting time in the comments you best have brought Mogador home first.
@@Pangora2 I don't play KanColle, unfortunately.
さよぅでござる。
I'm seeing a lot of people here confusing belt armor thickness with overall protection, and thus attempting to claim that WW2 'fast battleships' were actually battle-cruisers.
The WW1 battlecruiser was originally the application of the 'all-primary-guns-identical' idea to cruisers. See DK Brown - The Grand Fleet. It was intended to make all other cruisers obsolete in the same way that HMS Dreadnought made all pre-dreadnaught battleships obsolete. In short, a 'battlecruiser' was the new cruiser design, replacing the old cruisers. The British actually stopped building large cruisers when they developed this idea, because they were now obsolete.
The treaty system that appeared after WW1 killed the battlecruiser (aside from a few existing ships 'grandfathered in') and brought back the large cruiser.
Fast battleships are not cruisers: they are battleships. Other than some old ships from WW1 or built shortly after, no BCs were being built or operated in WW2. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were designed as battleships but were stuck with smaller guns than originally planned due to logistics and planning issues (which sometimes confuses people into thinking they were BCs). Hood would start life as a BC (with armor like Tiger, which sometimes confuses people into thinking Hood was a BC) but would change to battleship-grade armor during construction - in fact it would have armor very similiar to the Iron Duke class battleships that first went into service in 1914 - hence it was a fast battleship.
Some folks point out that WW2 fast battleships had a belt not all that different from some German WW1 BCs. This doesn't make them BCs.
_The emphasis in WW2-era battleship armor shifted away from the belt because combat was expected to occur at longer ranges than in WW1._
As the shooting data presented in Warship International 2005-2006 clearly shows, the US fast battleships (and probably the best RN ships) could expect to get hits at 32k+ yards - with ever increasing accuracy as the range closed. This is far beyond the effective range of WW1 warships. Both optical and radar based shooting are shown in the paper. The range change meant armor needed to be in different places than in the past. For example, the turret and deck armor on the Iowas enormously exceeds that of a WW1 Iron Duke class battleship - and Iron Dukes were brand new ships that only started commissioning in 1914. If I recall correctly, Jellicoe's flagship was Iron Duke, which shows how highly regarded these ships were in WW1: the Iron Dukes were top-of-the-line 'WW1 modern' battleships.
So in some ways - reflecting the new threat environment - Iowa has armor superior to a top-of-the-line WW1 battleship. In other ways, the armor is not as good. Both situations reflect the new priorities in battleship design.
Changing where the ship was armored does not magically change the designation from BB to BC. Iowa is properly designated a fast BB and not a BC. It's a logical successor to the fast battleships of the WW1 era: the Queen Elizabeth class, and Hood.
It's to the credit of the designers of Iowa and similiar ships that they were able to let go of the past and think of something new - that's something a lot of people have trouble with, as we see on this forum sometimes.
Similarly, Alaska is a cruiser, not a BC. It was intended to be the next generation of cruiser, replacing the WW2 and prior era cruisers - the same thing that the BCs had done earlier, but nobody wanted to call it a BC due to urban legends and myths about what had happened at Jutland (there was nothing wrong with the BC designs, it was failure to properly follow the flash protection procedures - a point which divers on the wrecks have show by looking inside the surviving turrets - a reminder that if folks forget correlation is not causation they are very likely to jump to erroneous conclusions).
A lot of people still haven't caught up with the data from the WI articles - they were based on data declassified in the early 2000s and a lot of books and even some well known web sites haven't been updated to reflect the new information. Quite a few people still haven't realized how much they need to change their mental model in order to draw accurate conclusions when reasoning about the WW2-era ships with modern fire control.
Another major change was the introduction of 'super-heavy' shells, which flowed from improvements in chemistry and materials science. A 16 inch shell from Iowa was roughly equivalent to an 18 inch shell of the WW1 design. _This placed a premium on getting hits, and made it impossible to have armor that could stop the ship's own shells and still keep high speed._
Having high speed was very helpful when dodging torpedoes and evading subs, plus accompanying fleet carriers (which needed the speed for flight operations). WW2 torpedoes were a lot better than WW1 torpedoes, so having that high speed advantage wasn't something they wanted to just give up. It wasn't a luxury: torpedo defense systems did exist, but they only reduced damage, they didn't prevent it entirely, and the torpedo had become such a potentially dangerous weapon that nobody wanted to take chances - especially since a 'mission kill' is almost as good in many situations as sinking a ship.
The loss of HMS Barham demonstrates just how powerful WW2 torpedoes had gotten: this ship was one of the most modern battleships in the world when it was commissioned in WW1, but three torpedoes sank it in under 10 minutes (you can see the ship's final moments in a well known video, look at one of the modern upsampled versions for the best video quality).
_So fundamentally, the 'fast battleship' was a perfectly legitimate battleship design, it just made different trade-offs than those that had been made for battleships in the past, because of changes in the threat environment._