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<blockquote data-quote="Eltab" data-source="post: 6766788" data-attributes="member: 6803337">First Sea Lord and Admiral &quot;Jackie&quot; Fisher, (British) Royal Navy, studied the after-action reports from the 1904 Russo-Japanese War, talked to the 'cutting-edge' technology vendors of the day, and designed a new type of warship that would be able to do 2 of 3 things to any other warship afloat:&nbsp; (1) Move faster; (2) Bigger guns; (3) More large guns.&nbsp; To accomplish this, he had to sacrifice armor thickness.&nbsp; The result, in between a battleship and a cruiser, he christened a battle-cruiser.His new ships were so effective that he gave them appropriate names: HMS Invincible, HMS Indefatigable, HMS Inflexible.&nbsp; The prospective enemy would be facing ships that can't be beat, never get tired, and won't turn away from a fight.Technology of course does not stand still, it keeps improving.&nbsp; Ten years later, it was possible to build engines that could move a heavier load just as fast.&nbsp; Several nations (especially Germany) built battlecruisers with the extra weight applied to armor.&nbsp; In 1915 the big ships met in combat.&nbsp; The British battlecruisers proved to be explodable: a single large-shell hit would penetrate down to somewhere critical, such as the engine room or an ammunition magazine.&nbsp; They could not run away from superior firepower any more because the enemy was just as fast as they were.On 30 May 1916, the British lost three battlecruisers in one day - including the no-longer-aptly-named Invincible - due to taking a thin-skinned but high-value ship within prime weapon range of heavy artillery.&nbsp; (Interestingly, the newly-built, fully-armored, and equally fast Queen Elizabeth class &quot;fast battleships&quot; survived the same battle conditions just fine.)What was learned was that speed is not a substitute for armor.This long-winded reply is an explanation of the &quot;Jackie Fischer Battlecruiser Problem.&quot;</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Eltab, post: 6766788, member: 6803337"] First Sea Lord and Admiral "Jackie" Fisher, (British) Royal Navy, studied the after-action reports from the 1904 Russo-Japanese War, talked to the 'cutting-edge' technology vendors of the day, and designed a new type of warship that would be able to do 2 of 3 things to any other warship afloat: (1) Move faster; (2) Bigger guns; (3) More large guns. To accomplish this, he had to sacrifice armor thickness. The result, in between a battleship and a cruiser, he christened a battle-cruiser. His new ships were so effective that he gave them appropriate names:[I] HMS Invincible, HMS Indefatigable, HMS Inflexible[/I]. The prospective enemy would be facing ships that can't be beat, never get tired, and won't turn away from a fight. Technology of course does not stand still, it keeps improving. Ten years later, it was possible to build engines that could move a heavier load just as fast. Several nations (especially Germany) built battlecruisers with the extra weight applied to armor. In 1915 the big ships met in combat. The British battlecruisers proved to be explodable: a single large-shell hit would penetrate down to somewhere critical, such as the engine room or an ammunition magazine. They could not run away from superior firepower any more because the enemy was just as fast as they were. On 30 May 1916, the British lost three battlecruisers in one day - including the no-longer-aptly-named [I]Invincible[/I] - due to taking a thin-skinned but high-value ship within prime weapon range of heavy artillery. (Interestingly, the newly-built, fully-armored, and equally fast [I]Queen Elizabeth[/I] class "fast battleships" survived the same battle conditions just fine.) What was learned was that speed is not a substitute for armor. This long-winded reply is an explanation of the "Jackie Fischer Battlecruiser Problem." [/QUOTE]

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