Talk:Heavy cruiser

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I think “big guns�? should be elaborated on. -Jeoth 14:53, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

AFAIR the Netherlands and Argentina had no heavy cruisers. Pibwl 22:37, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• Argentina purchased a pair of Brooklyn class CAs after the war. The USS Phoenix was sunk in the Falklands war. 68.206.21.37 17:43, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

The Brooklyns were light cruisers(CL) according to treaty definitions because of their armament consisting of 6 inch guns. But otherwise they were at least as effetive as the CA's. Nevfennas 18:46, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Washington Naval Treaty

The text say: "The term was given a definition by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1921." but I cannot find any reference to "cruiser" in the text of the Washington Naval Treaty, here]. --Moroboshi 09:36, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

It's actually in the follow-up treaty of London in 1930 [1] Nevfennas 13:46, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

The term nevertheless dates from 1922 (not 1921). Because Washington defined a capital ship as one with guns 8.1-inch or heavier in calibre, there was immediate interest in ships with 8-inch guns... will dig my sources out later on! The Land (talk) 16:23, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

"Heavy cruiser" : referred to guns, not ship weight ?

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the term "heavy cruiser" referred to it being equipped with heavy guns, compared to the 6-inch guns of "light cruisers". Certainly the WWII "light cruiser" like the British Town class were large and designed to the same 10,000 ton limits as heavy cruisers. HMS Belfast ended up over 11,000 tons. The difference between light and heavy cruisers appears to have been in gunnery philosophy : plaster the enemy with salvos of light shells (6 inch 112 lb in British case : 12 x 112 = 1344 lb) or blast him with a few heavy shells (256 lb 8 inch in British case : 8 x 256 = 2048). There was hence no comparison in raw broadside weight; But a light cruiser was far more useful in typical wartime general actions, which no longer consisted of ships sitting next to each other and trading broadsides, but involved a wide range of duties requiring high rates of fire such as shore bombardment, anti-submarine, anti-destroyer, anti-aircraft. British 6-inch guns could attain nearly twice the rate of fire of the 8-inch - loading was largely manual. This greatly evened up the notional "broadside weight" figures. We also need to consider the issue of gun barrel life : 1100 rounds for 6-inch Mk XXIII, 550 rounds for 8-inch Mk VIII. This made the modern 6-inch gun far more useful to the British with their heavy global commitments. Hence a heavy cruiser could be more of a liability than an asset in a war of constant varied and distant action : its guns wore out quickly, they couldn't take on other ships with similar armament and hence posed no more offensive threat than a light cruiser; light cruisers, with more guns firing faster, posed a greater threat to smaller ships.Rcbutcher (talk) 05:47, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

London Naval Treaty defined "light" cruisers up to 6.1in calibre, heavy up to 8.1in. Both types limted to 10,000 tons. Britain never built any 'heavy' cruisers after 1930, for the reasons you describe above, see DK Brown "Nelson to Vanguard". Other nations did, presumably not because they were stupid. The Land (talk) 11:23, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of original research

"In the mid 1930s, Britain, France and Italy ceased building heavy cruisers. It was felt that in a likely cruiser engagement, a larger number of 155 mm (6-inch) guns would be preferable to a smaller number of 203 mm (8-inch). The heavier shell of the 203 mm weapon was of little advantage, as most ships that could withstand a 6-inch hit were also well-protected against 8-inch shells. This led to the construction of cruisers up to the 10,000-tons limit, with twelve to fifteen 155 mm guns. While these ships fell into the 'light cruiser' classification by virtue of the calibre of their main armament, they were designed to fight a heavy cruiser on equal terms again making something of a nonsense of the classifications."

This assertion pops in other articles on heavy cruisers and has been deleted from some. Without citation/references from another (non-wiki) source, it seems to fall under the no original research prohibition and should be deleted. Seki1949 (talk) 01:10, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Friedman mentions the above plus the fact that these nations had built up treaty limits for total tonnage for heavy cruisers as the reasons for the switch to 6-inch-gunned ships in the 1930s. I agree that the info above needs to be cited but that's just the tip of the iceberg. The entire article needs an overhaul and expansion. It's really a pretty flimsy piece of work. Jonyungk (talk) 15:34, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

D K Brown, in "Nelson to Vanguard", states on page 74: "Considerable thought was given in all major navies to the value of the big 6in ship as against those armed with 8in. The 6in could fire more quickly, 6-8 rounds per minute as opposed to 2 for the 8in (5 possibly for the RN turrets), which also had longer range, better penetration and caused more damage when it hit. The key question was whether the slow-firing 8in could inflict fatal damage on a 6in ship between 28,000 and 22,000 yards, the maximum effective ranges of the 8in and 6in gun respectively. Most navies seem to have favoured the 6in ship..."

That is not quite exactly what's said in the text under discussion but I think it's a question of rewording rather than removing the point. And I concur with Jonyungk's point that the whole article could be much improved. The Land (talk) 18:12, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

"The 6in could fire more quickly, 6-8 rounds per minute as opposed to 2 for the 8in (5 possibly for the RN turrets)..." This raises two questions. Why could RN 8" turrets reach a rate of 5 rds per minute when other navies were apparently limited to a max of 2 rds per minute? Is there some technological improvement to the RN turrets that was not made to other major navies? A rate of fire of 6-8 rds per minute for 6" guns is a round fired from every 10 seconds to a round every 7 seconds. While I understand that pure 'throw-weight' could be important, could a 6 inch gun really be loaded, fired, shot fall spotted, gun corrected/adjusted/re-aimed in a 10 to 7 second time frame? I certainly believe that a 6 in gun can be loaded in 10 seconds, but it seems to me that proper aimed fire would take longer. Seki1949 (talk) 04:36, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Most 8" gun turrets on heavy cruisers could fire at 4 rounds per minute. The exception was the Des Moines class that could fire at 10 rpm. All U.S. light cruisers could fire at 10 rpm while the British were working at 8 rpm because of bagged charges. The Tiger and Worcester Classes ended the light cruisers with fully automated firing 6" guns long after it ceased to matter. Agreed this article needs a rewrite and citations. Who wrote thi and got away with it?Tirronan (talk) 23:27, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Me, actually, in 2008. I was sort of hoping someone else would come along and improve it, within 9 years. :) The Land (talk) 09:56, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Sorry Land, no offense intended. The book I need to rewrite this is US Cruisers a Design History by Norman Friedman, unfortunately it costs $235 bucks which I don't have right now.Tirronan (talk) 09:54, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

It's fine :) Yes, that's book's been on my wish list for some time but it's a bit pricy (and I'm more focused on other stuff these days). Maybe you could see if you could a grant to buy it (and then, maybe, make it available to other Milhist editors?) The Land (talk) 14:03, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Ok here is what I know, the US Baltimore, and USS Witchita carried an 8" super heavy shell that would go through 10" of armor at 10,000 yards. In other words, no cruiser ever made carried enough armor to keep that shell out at that range. Given that most foreign cruisers carried 4" of armor at max, any cruiser caught by that class of cruiser was going to be a dog's breakfast 15,000 yards on in and in all probability much further out. Given that by the time that the Baltimore's were out in the fleet they were carrying a really good surface radar fire control setup it gets even more grim. Baltimore's carried a 6" armor belt. As for 6" light cruisers, this was the US Navy's preferred night fighting platform and in fact that Brooklyn's were designed specifically around the concept of smothering fire, given that the class could pump out 150 rounds per minute. I don't have a armor penetration table for the 6"/48 AP Mark 35 shell they were throwing however. I rather doubt that Japanese cruisers would have fared well however giving that they were always lightly armored. However by the time that the USN figured out it did need a night fighting doctrine and did need a CIC to coordinate fires in a night fight the other side quit fighting that way. So we have a dearth of evidence in actual fighting. Empress August Bay is about as close as we are going to get. By late 1943 the Pacific was was an air war and anti-aircraft uber allies was the rule of the day. Heavy cruisers in the US fleet were beloved because they threw almost as much AA as a battleship. Also the 8" guns were nice shore bombardment tools as well.Tirronan (talk) 10:23, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Tense

The article uses the past tense for heavy cruisers, whereas classes such as light cruiser's and battleships's, which are also not in active service but also have modern-day museum ships, use present tense. Tickery (talk) 17:31, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

auto conversion inch to mm

I was just trying to edit the erroneous conversion of 8 inch to 200mm calibre. But this seems to be an auto convert code which I cannot seem to tweak to get the correct result. Or it doesn't show in preview. So could someone please do this and look whether other measurements are correctly converted. No one calls 8in guns 200mm, it's always 203. A conversion tool that garbles results like this is of no use whatsoever. -Caranorn (talk) 18:55, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

{{convert|8|in|mm|0}} gives - 8 inches (203 mm) (Hohum ^@) 20:45, 9 October 2021 (UTC)