List of battlecruisers of the Second World War

This is a list of battlecruisers of the Second World War. A battlecruiser, or battle cruiser, was a capital ship built in the first half of the 20th century. They were similar in size, cost, and carried similar armament to battleships, but they generally carried less armour to obtain faster speeds. The first battlecruisers were designed in the United Kingdom, in the first decade of the century, as a development of the armoured cruiser, at the same time as the dreadnought succeeded the pre-dreadnought battleship. The original aim of the battlecruiser was to hunt down slower, older armoured cruisers and destroy them with heavy gunfire. However, as more and more battlecruisers were built, they increasingly became used alongside the better-protected battleships.

Battlecruisers served in the navies of Britain, Germany, the Ottoman Empire, Australia and Japan during World War I, most notably at the Battle of the Falkland Islands and in the several raids and skirmishes in the North Sea which culminated in a pitched fleet battle, the Battle of Jutland. British battlecruisers in particular suffered heavy losses at Jutland, where their light armour made them very vulnerable to large-caliber shells. By the end of the war, capital ship design had developed with battleships becoming faster and battlecruisers becoming more heavily armoured, blurring the distinction between a battlecruiser and a fast battleship. The Washington Naval Treaty, which limited capital ship construction from 1922 onwards, treated battleships and battlecruisers identically, and the new generation of battlecruisers planned was scrapped under the terms of the treaty.

From the 1930s on, only the Royal Navy continued to use 'battlecruiser' as a classification for the World War I-era capital ships that remained in the fleet; while Japan's battlecruisers remained in service, they had been significantly reconstructed and were re-rated as full-fledged battleships.

Battlecruisers were put into action again during World War II, and only one survived to the end. There was also renewed interest in large "cruiser-killer" type warships, but few were ever begun, as construction of battleships and battlecruisers were curtailed in favor of more-needed convoy escorts, aircraft carriers, and cargo ships.[1][2] [3][4][5][6]

Dates are year_month_day to allow ordering. Click on headers to sort column alphabetically.

Ship Country Class Type Displacement (tons) First commissioned Fate
Haruna  Imperial Japanese Navy Kongō 31,660 19 April 1915 sunk 28 July 1945
Hiei  Imperial Japanese Navy Kongō 36,600 4 August 1914 sunk 14 November 1942
Hood  Royal Navy Admiral 42,100 5 March 1920 sunk 24 May 1941
Kongō  Imperial Japanese Navy Kongō 36,600 16 August 1913 sunk 21 November 1944
Renown  Royal Navy Renown 32,000 20 September 1916 scrapped 1948
Repulse  Royal Navy Renown 32,000 18 August 1916 sunk 10 December 1941

References

  1. ↑ Sondhaus
  2. ↑ Roberts
  3. ↑ Naval Vessel Register Index
  4. ↑ "US Navy Inactive Classification Symbols". Naval Vessel Register. NAVSEA Shipbuilding Support Office. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  5. ↑ Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships Index
  6. ↑ Archives, The National. "Royal Navy operations in the Second World War - The National Archives". The National Archives. Retrieved 2016-03-29.
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