How many battleships were built?

[USSWisconsin]

I believe that cruisers, scout and treaty types will need to be a separate but similar work, it can include armored carriers. It would change the nearly finished battleship work so much, it would go back to being less than half finished.

Their origins in the frigates and dispatch sailing ships of the age of sail seems to be a good starting point, though they too have more ancient origins, in the age of oars. Since I am dealing with armored ships, the final ship designs covered will mainly be from WWII, though a few ships were completed later. A few of the early cold war cruisers also had some armor, I'll look at those too.

[USSWisconsin]

"There's something wrong with our bloody ships today"

Those enduring words were spoken by Admiral David Beatty on the bridge of his flagship, the battlecruiser HMS Lion, as he saw three of his battlecruisers explode. Actually there were several things wrong. Ammunition was the most troublesome, with poor safety practices and defective projectiles. The British were actually at a disadvantage in this battle. While they prevailed in the battle of Jutland, they did so at a terrible price. The British had a clear superiority, in numbers of battleships and guns, they should have annihilated the High Seas Fleet. Instead, the Royal Navy lost ships and men in a ratio of nearly 3:1 to the German fleet. The lighter armor of the battlecruisers was often cited by historians as the primary problem for the Grand Fleet, but had the existing flash safety systems been properly utilized, many of these losses might have been avoided. The defects of the British AP projectiles meant that the German ships frequently survived what could have been crippling hits, continued to fight and then made it back to their bases after the battle. Beatty's performance was very audacious, but equally problematic, he failed to communicate with Jellicoe, leaving the commander in the dark about the position of the Germans. Failing in the scouting mission that the battlecruiser squadron was intended to perform. Then, by positioning his ships between Jellico's battleships and the enemy fleet at a critical moment, he denied a clear line of fire to the greatly superior battleline of the Grand Fleet, giving the Germans a break that shouldn't have occurred. Stockpiling powder in the gun houses, packing passageways with ready to use charges, leaving the flash proof doors open, which might have prevented the massive cordite fires. rather than leaving the extra charges safely in their magazines, ensured the German hits had catastrophic effects. The desire to achieve higher rates of fire lead to this disaster, and the abysmal quality of the British heavy AP projectile's made this higher rate of fire far less decisive than it might have been. The battlecruiser turret hits certainly would have put the turrets that were hit out of commission, but the loss of the ships might have been avoided. The RN intelligence back in London was another failure, the British on shore had decoded key German radio transmissions disclosing their true position that were not forwarded to Jellicoe, in command of the Grand Fleet. Combined with Beatty's failure to do his job, the British admiral had another disadvantage, lack of information, and the night action failed to inflict much damage on the High Seas Fleet as they escaped. Had any of these flaws in the British performance been avoided, the Germans might have lost more ships, or the British might have lost fewer. The loss of the British armored cruisers was somewhat predicable, as they was no match for the German battleships they faced, but their crews added to the already unacceptable British personnel losses.

[zraver]

"There's something wrong with our bloody ships today"

Those enduring words were spoken by Admiral David Beatty on the bridge of his flagship, the battlecruiser HMS Lion, as he saw three of his battlecruisers explode. Actually there were several things wrong. Ammunition was the most troublesome, with poor safety practices and defective projectiles. The British were actually at a disadvantage in this battle. While they prevailed in the battle of Jutland, they did so at a terrible price. The British had a clear superiority, in numbers of battleships and guns, they should have annihilated the High Seas Fleet. Instead, the Royal Navy lost ships and men in a ratio of nearly 3:1 to the German fleet. The lighter armor of the battlecruisers was often cited by historians as the primary problem for the Grand Fleet, but had the existing flash safety systems been properly utilized, many of these losses might have been avoided. The defects of the British AP projectiles meant that the German ships frequently survived what could have been crippling hits, continued to fight and then made it back to their bases after the battle. Beatty's performance was very audacious, but equally problematic, he failed to communicate with Jellicoe, leaving the commander in the dark about the position of the Germans. Failing in the scouting mission that the battlecruiser squadron was intended to perform. Then, by positioning his ships between Jellico's battleships and the enemy fleet at a critical moment, he denied a clear line of fire to the greatly superior battleline of the Grand Fleet, giving the Germans a break that shouldn't have occurred. Stockpiling powder in the gun houses, packing passageways with ready to use charges, leaving the flash proof doors open, which might have prevented the massive cordite fires. rather than leaving the extra charges safely in their magazines, ensured the German hits had catastrophic effects. The desire to achieve higher rates of fire lead to this disaster, and the abysmal quality of the British heavy AP projectile's made this higher rate of fire far less decisive than it might have been. The battlecruiser turret hits certainly would have put the turrets that were hit out of commission, but the loss of the ships might have been avoided. The RN intelligence back in London was another failure, the British on shore had decoded key German radio transmissions disclosing their true position that were not forwarded to Jellicoe, in command of the Grand Fleet. Combined with Beatty's failure to do his job, the British admiral had another disadvantage, lack of information, and the night action failed to inflict much damage on the High Seas Fleet as they escaped. Had any of these flaws in the British performance been avoided, the Germans might have lost more ships, or the British might have lost fewer. The loss of the British armored cruisers was somewhat predicable, as they was no match for the German battleships they faced, but their crews added to the already unacceptable British personnel losses.

Jay, running off of memory here, but were not all but 1 of the BC losses suffered by the older ships that basically used wax paper and prayers for armor when speed failed? Queen Mary the most modern of the losses was almost certainly an ammo handling disaster, but wasn't indefatigable doomed before she blew up? Could anything have saved Invincible with her paper thin armor at such short ranges? If I recall correctly the German ships used lighter guns but much heavier armor.

[USSWisconsin]

Jay, running off of memory here, but were not all but 1 of the BC losses suffered by the older ships that basically used wax paper and prayers for armor when speed failed? Queen Mary the most modern of the losses was almost certainly an ammo handling disaster, but wasn't indefatigable doomed before she blew up? Could anything have saved Invincible with her paper thin armor at such short ranges? If I recall correctly the German ships used lighter guns but much heavier armor.

The Invincible and the Indefatigable were near sisters, with the Indefatigable being slightly improved later edition with staggered wing turrets, while the Invincible was the first battlecruiser in the world (commissioned in 1909). They were only about 6 years old at the time. They were lightly armored compared to the German ships which were more like fast battleships than traditional battlecruisers. Both ships succumbed to turret fires spreading into the magazines, there were antiflash measures built in, but the crews kept extra uncased charges stacked in the turrets and passageways to increase the rate of fire. This was attributed to the desire for fast shooting, almost an obsession with the Royal Navy at the time. They were trying to maintain that high rate of fire, and avoid "starving the guns". Their armor was inadequate to stop the larger German shells, but that wasn't primarily what caused them to blow up that day. The Invincible took a hit to the front of Q turret, fires broke out in the turrets and she was blown in two a few minutes later, when the fires spread to the magazines. Analysis of the wreckage shows the damage in the passageways where the powder was stacked - the flash doors were missing. The Indefatigable appeared to suffer a similar problem from a turret hit aft with the magazine explosion following those hits by a a couple minutes, but two additional hits forward, a few minutes later, may have directly penetrated and detonated the forward magazines - she blew up fore and aft almost simultaneously.

The British battlecruisers weren't built to slug it out (particularly the first two classes), the Germans were, but there were other factors that made a difference, the powder handling was found, by the Admiralty investigation, to be the most critical issue at the time. The handling of the battlecruisers at Jutland was pretty poor, and one of the contributing factors to the British losses. Not only did Beatty over expose them by steaming down the German line at close range, he blocked the line of sight for Jellicoe's battleships while he was at it.

Later the defective British shells got the attention they deserved. At the battle of the Falkland Islands, it was apparent that something was wrong - the captured German sailors told the British that the 12" shells were passing through their ships without detonating or if they did go off, they usually burned and smoked rather than explode. The British battlecrusiers used 3/4 of their ammunition and hit the German cruisers over 50 times each, and still the Gniesenau had to be scuttled by here crew because she wasn't sinking. Similar problems were seen at Dogger Bank, when the Blucher took an enormous number of shells to sink her, and several other German ships were hit more than a dozen times. If the British shells had detonated as well as the German shells, the British probably would have sunk more ships at Dogger bank and Jutland.