Quote:
Originally Posted by peter12
But why not just build more heavy cruisers and more battleships? The battlecruiser was too heavy and too expensive to waste on hunter-killer missions that could be better performed by flotillas of smaller ships.
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Heavy cruisers were a post-WWI concept that was effectively a response to the failure of the battlecruisers against heavy firepower. But while Jutland was the faiture of the battlecruiser design against heavy weapons, the Battle of the Falklands was a triumph for the concept against it's intended target and in it's intendend role; long rage armoured-cruiser killing missions.
The only two naval powers that really left the war with battlecruisers were Japan and the UK who basically tried to refit them as close to battleships as possible, or convert them to aircraft carriers. Between naval treaties and technology allowing faster battleships, they could start doing more of the hunter role without the risk of running into larger ships. Heavy cruisers came in to be the advanced patrol ship that could risk contact with the enemy before turning away if outmached, and occupy screening vessels in an escort role to bigger ships. But the interwar heavy cruisers didn't have much success during WWII either, with more role specific light cruisers being preferred (the Atlanta class was basically just a floating AA plaform), along with the destroyers and corvettes for escorts and dealing with subs.
The Kriegsmarine fulfilled the spirit of the battlecruiser role with the Deutchsland-class and Scharnhorst class ships. Fast enough to run from battleships, well gunned enough to take on any cruiser fleet. The Allies had to devote a lot of resoruces to deal with a small number of ships.
Eventually it all got replaced in supremacy by the aircraft carrier anyway. Battleships, battlecruisers, heavy cruisers were all too heavy and expensive to waste on hunter-killer missions that could be better performed by air wings instead.