The ships that immediately followed Dreadnought are often overlooked. None achieved any distinction in the war, and all fell to the axe of the Washington Treaty. However, the development of the battleship didn't suddenly stop after Dreadnought, and the 12"-gunned capital ships introduced a number of innovations, some very successful, others less so.¹

HMS Bellerophon

For the 1906-1907 program, the immediate successor to Dreadnought and the Invincibles, Fisher was not content to rest on his laurels. He sketched a "fusion" ship, intended to have battleship armor with battlecruiser speed. To keep dimensions reasonable, the design would have only four turrets, one on each end and two en echelon amidships, with the wing turrets being triples. The ship would have displaced 22,500 tons,² and cost about a third more than her predecessor. This was a good design, although the triple wing turrets were rather odd, but the Liberal victory in the 1905 election moved social spending up the government's priority list, and the three ships bought were near-repeats of Dreadnought, the Bellerophon class.

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This is a topic first discussed while Naval Gazing was at SSC, but I thought it worth revisiting here.

USN security personnel patrol off San Clemente Island during operation Staple Head

In the summer of 2017, the USN conducted exercises off the coast of San Clemente at the Southern California Offshore Range, under the code name Staple Head. The original purpose was rather mysterious, but eventually several analysts, including yours truly, worked out what was going on. The exercise was a test of USN 3MS,³ apparently in response to a recent increase in the perceived threat level from Russia and China.⁴ Previous exercises had mostly been focused on non-lethal countermeasures to the marine mammal threat, but Staple Head 2017 was a live-fire exercise.⁵

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In honor of our recent discussion of the early battlecruisers, I'm reposting the story of possibly the most influential capital ship of the First World War. The battlecruiser Goeben and the light cruiser Breslau formed the German Mediterranean Division, stationed at Pola, the main Austrian naval base. They had been sent in 1912, to project German power into the region, with the wartime mission of disrupting the flow of troops from French North Africa (modern Algeria) to France. Two years later, they would play a major role in the opening days of the First World War.

SMS Goeben

The British Mediterranean fleet, composed of the battlecruisers Inflexible, Indefatigable and Invincible, four armored and four light cruisers and a flotilla of destroyers, was ordered on July 30th 1914 to cover the French transports, and on August 2nd, to shadow Goeben while maintaining a watch on the Adriatic in case of a sortie by the Austrians. Admiral Souchon, in command of the German force, had already sortied, but was spotted in Taranto, Italy, by the British consul, who reported the findings to London. The Admiralty ordered Indomitable and Indefatigable sent to Gibraltar to guard against a sortie into the Atlantic, presumably an attempt to return to Germany. Souchon, however, was headed for Bone and Philippeville, embarkation ports for French troops in Algeria. On the evening of the 3rd, after having slipped through the Straits of Messina ahead of British searchers, he was informed that the Germans had signed an alliance with Turkey, and he was to head for Constantinople immediately. He ignored these orders, and bombarded the ports (doing very little damage) at dawn on August 4th before heading back to Italy to coal again. Shortly thereafter, Indomitable and Indefatigable sighted Goeben, but the British had not yet entered the war, and they did not engage. Admiral Milne, the British commander, reported the contact, but did not tell the Admiralty (headed by Winston Churchill) that the Germans were heading east, and Churchill continued to believe they would attempt to interfere with the French troop movements.

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Last time we looked at the strategic reasons why nations bought battleships. This time, we'll begin looking at how each nation translated the desire to buy battleships into the actual specifications for the ship.

An early drawing of the Montana class

Every navy had a board of some sort that was responsible for setting the characteristics of new ships, usually composed of Admirals on the verge of retirement. The USN General Board, responsible for American ship characteristics from 1909 to 1950, is probably the best-known example. This board would begin by issuing a set of "Staff Requirements", the broad outline of what they wanted on the next battleship. In most cases, this is basically a request for upgrades to the previous class of battleships, although if that was long enough ago, or if there is reason for a radical departure from previous practice, it might be done from scratch.

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While there were a few submarines used before the First World War, most notably Hunley, the real tale of the war against the submarine didn't begin until the outbreak of that war.

A paravane being hoisted out⁶

In 1914, nobody was really sure how to attack a submerged submarine, or even how to reliably detect one. Submarines were detected by lookouts and attacked on the surface with guns, or if they had just submerged, by ramming. The initial British plan involved the use of explosive paravanes, closely related to those used for minesweeping. These were not particularly effective, and navies began to look for alternatives. One that was used extensively was the naval mine, from small fields off enemy bases to the massive North Sea Mine Barrage. Various types of nets were tried to detect submarines passing checkpoints, none of which worked particularly well. Even weirder and more useless were the various hand-thrown weapons that the British issued to their sailors.

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The following came out of an SSC conversation with Le Maistre Chat. I've rewritten both sides to make it flow better, but I've done my best to preserve the core of the discussion.

Five carriers and other ships moored at Norfolk Naval Base (click for larger version)

Le Maistre Chat: Explain to me why the Navy needs as many ships as the next 17 powers combined when the British Empire maintained hegemony of the seas with a 2-power standard. I’ll start decommissioning while you talk.

bean: I'd better talk fast then. There's two major aspects to it.

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The battlecruiser is perhaps the most misunderstood and maligned warship in history. Conventional wisdom states that they were the result of Jackie Fisher’s bizarre belief that “speed is armor” and that they were ultimately a mistake, as evidenced by the loss of three at Jutland and Hood'⁣s death against Bismarck⁣. In fact, the term battlecruiser applies to at least three different types of ship, which filled critical roles in the fleets of a century ago.

The battlecruisers Australia, New Zealand and Indomitable

The battlecrusier has its origins in the large armored cruisers of the late 19th century. These were approximately the same size as contemporary battleships, trading guns and armor for speed and range. They were intended for trade protection, commerce raiding or working with the battlefleet, depending on doctrine. Krupp armor allowed them be armored effectively against 6″ QF guns, even occasionally matching contemporary battleships, which meant that they were often proposed as a fast wing of the battlefleet. Their armament bore this out. They had a few guns of 8″-10″, and an armament of 6″ QF guns nearly equal to that of contemporary battleships.⁷ The US Navy, after the Spanish-American war, built 10 large armored cruisers and gave them state names, a convention reserved by law for battleships, in recognition of their status and importance. The Royal Navy agreed, classifying those ships as battleships instead of cruisers. It was generally recognized that the armored cruiser and battleship would eventually merge into a fast capital ship.⁸

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My brother (who is a graphic designer) and I were talking yesterday about the possibility of putting Naval Gazing in print, and came up with the idea of reissuing the Jutland series as a sort of magazine/booklet. I'd write a new column or two, go over the old stuff and update it, and most importantly, he'd add pictures and do maps for it. We expect the result to be $10-15, at least within the US. Is there any interest in this? (If this goes through, I still plan to repost the original Jutland columns here in late May/early June, with less editing, a few pictures, and no maps.)

Last time I talked about how I got a chance to ride the amphibious assault ship USS America from San Diego to San Pedro as part of LA Fleet Week 2016. I decided to split the post, due to length. (I took a lot of pictures.) When I left off, I had just gotten kicked off the flight deck, as they were about to start bringing planes aboard.

In the hangar deck, the ship's security detachment was showing off some of their guns. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures, but I did get to handle one of their shotguns, an M9, an M14 and an M16. They all felt pretty much like I expected, and I remembered the M16 manual well enough to run the controls. One of the more interesting observations was that the guy I was with (another Iowa volunteer) and I clearly had gun safety training, while the contingent of potential recruits we were next to clearly did not. It was enough to make one a bit nervous. I was also disappointed that I didn't get to handle the M240 machine gun they had out.

A little bit later, we watched from the hangar as a contingent of airplanes were flown aboard to be displayed during Fleet Week.

A V-22 Osprey landing aboard⁹

Watching air operations from the elevator well of the hangar

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This post was written in April of 2017, while I was still an active tour guide on the Iowa. I've left it intact, as it remained accurate up to the time I left, and I didn't want to mess with tenses or the like.

My first look at Iowa

This time, I’m going to do something that takes no research at all. Instead of talking about battleships, I’m going to discuss my experience as a tour guide.

I started volunteering because, on my first visit to the ship, all the really interesting bits had ‘authorized access only’ signs on them. I asked how I could get authorized, and was told to volunteer. I picked Tours over Operations because I figured it aligned more with my current skills, and I’m really glad I did. Telling people about the ship is so much fun. That’s also why I’ve been doing the battleship columns here.

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