WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.860 I want you to picture something in your mind's 00:00:01.860 --> 00:00:05.040 eye. Imagine a warship the size of a massive 00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:07.440 battleship. Right. We were talking a true floating 00:00:07.440 --> 00:00:10.279 fortress here. Exactly. It's packing the exact 00:00:10.279 --> 00:00:14.400 same devastating firepower. Guns so massive they're 00:00:14.400 --> 00:00:17.640 literally hurling explosives while the weight 00:00:17.640 --> 00:00:21.719 of a small car over the horizon. But, and here's 00:00:21.719 --> 00:00:24.480 the catch. This ship has only half the armor 00:00:24.480 --> 00:00:26.519 of a standard battleship. And instead of that 00:00:26.519 --> 00:00:29.179 heavy armor, its hull is just packed with massive 00:00:29.179 --> 00:00:31.320 roaring engines. Engines designed to make it 00:00:31.320 --> 00:00:33.920 outrun absolutely anything on the ocean. You 00:00:33.920 --> 00:00:36.859 are looking at the ultimate glass cannon. Welcome 00:00:36.859 --> 00:00:40.100 to this deep dive. Today, we have a really fascinating 00:00:40.100 --> 00:00:42.320 mission for you. We're looking at a comprehensive 00:00:42.320 --> 00:00:45.100 historical overview from Wikipedia all about 00:00:45.100 --> 00:00:47.840 a single highly radical ship design. The Battle 00:00:47.840 --> 00:00:50.479 Cruiser. The Battle Cruiser. Our goal today is 00:00:50.479 --> 00:00:53.079 to explore how this one audacious idea really 00:00:53.079 --> 00:00:55.700 defined an entire era of naval warfare. We're 00:00:55.700 --> 00:00:57.659 going to see how it sparked a massive, incredibly 00:00:57.659 --> 00:01:00.500 expensive global arms race. And ultimately became 00:01:00.500 --> 00:01:03.000 a catastrophic liability on the high seas. Yeah, 00:01:03.140 --> 00:01:05.859 we are going from top secret technological marvels 00:01:05.859 --> 00:01:09.819 to tragic explosive disasters. It really is this 00:01:09.819 --> 00:01:12.000 sweeping dramatic arc. You have this moment in 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:15.980 history, the the dawn of the 20th century, where 00:01:15.980 --> 00:01:19.060 naval technology was evolving so rapidly that 00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:21.799 navies were practically scrambling to figure 00:01:21.799 --> 00:01:24.519 out what to do with it all. And the battle cruiser 00:01:24.519 --> 00:01:26.799 is the physical embodiment of that scramble. 00:01:27.459 --> 00:01:30.459 It was a brilliant theory that When confronted 00:01:30.459 --> 00:01:33.659 with the brutal reality of actual warfare, yielded 00:01:33.659 --> 00:01:36.099 some incredibly dark results. Okay, let's unpack 00:01:36.099 --> 00:01:38.879 this. We need to go back to the early 1900s to 00:01:38.879 --> 00:01:41.700 look at the birth of this glass cannon. The core 00:01:41.700 --> 00:01:43.840 definition of a battle cruiser was actually pretty 00:01:43.840 --> 00:01:46.760 simple in concept. You build a ship that is fast 00:01:46.760 --> 00:01:49.359 enough to outrun any vessel with similar guns. 00:01:49.540 --> 00:01:51.480 And powerful enough to chase down and destroy 00:01:51.480 --> 00:01:53.900 any vessel with smaller guns. Right. It was supposed 00:01:53.900 --> 00:01:56.739 to be the apex predator of the ocean. And the 00:01:56.739 --> 00:01:59.159 visionary behind this was a British admiral named 00:01:59.159 --> 00:02:02.359 John Fisher, widely known as Jackie Fisher. He 00:02:02.359 --> 00:02:05.939 became first sea lord in 1904. And from the source 00:02:05.939 --> 00:02:08.139 material, he sounds like a fiercely eccentric 00:02:08.139 --> 00:02:10.099 guy. Oh, absolutely. He looked at the state of 00:02:10.099 --> 00:02:13.270 naval warfare. and basically decided that traditional 00:02:13.270 --> 00:02:16.669 heavily armored battleships were completely obsolete. 00:02:16.949 --> 00:02:18.949 Right. And to understand why he thought that, 00:02:19.349 --> 00:02:21.430 you really have to look at the massive leaps 00:02:21.430 --> 00:02:23.590 in weapons technology happening right under their 00:02:23.590 --> 00:02:26.550 noses. At the turn of the century, torpedoes 00:02:26.550 --> 00:02:29.229 were suddenly gaining a reliable range of about 00:02:29.229 --> 00:02:32.229 2000 yards. Which changes everything. It changes 00:02:32.229 --> 00:02:34.349 everything. Naval experts looked at that and 00:02:34.349 --> 00:02:37.139 realized no battleship captain in their right 00:02:37.139 --> 00:02:39.879 mind was going to risk getting within 2 ,000 00:02:39.879 --> 00:02:43.219 yards of an enemy ship. Because one good torpedo 00:02:43.219 --> 00:02:45.680 hit and your incredibly expensive battleship 00:02:45.680 --> 00:02:47.680 is at the bottom of the ocean. Exactly. But if 00:02:47.680 --> 00:02:50.520 you stay further away than 2 ,000 yards, the 00:02:50.520 --> 00:02:53.139 heavy battleship guns of the era were notoriously 00:02:53.139 --> 00:02:56.060 inaccurate. They relied on very primitive optical 00:02:56.060 --> 00:02:59.120 aiming techniques. So Fisher's argument was essentially 00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:02.039 this. If we are fighting at long ranges where 00:03:02.039 --> 00:03:04.759 heavy guns can't reliably hit anything, and getting 00:03:04.759 --> 00:03:08.120 close means taking a torpedo, what is the point 00:03:08.120 --> 00:03:10.879 of a slow ship weighed down by thousands of tons 00:03:10.879 --> 00:03:13.800 of massive armor? He wanted ships that prioritized 00:03:13.800 --> 00:03:16.699 speed and big guns above all else. Exactly. Which 00:03:16.699 --> 00:03:20.719 leads us to the very first of its kind, the 1906 00:03:20.719 --> 00:03:23.719 British Invincible Class. This thing was built 00:03:23.719 --> 00:03:27.099 in total secrecy. To really understand the scale 00:03:27.099 --> 00:03:28.879 of what we're talking about, you have to compare 00:03:28.879 --> 00:03:31.620 it to the legendary HMS Dreadnought, which was 00:03:31.620 --> 00:03:34.580 the benchmark battleship of the era. On a very 00:03:34.580 --> 00:03:37.280 similar overall size, the Invincible was 40 feet 00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:39.620 longer. And that extra room was literally just 00:03:39.620 --> 00:03:41.759 to fit in more boilers and massive turbines. 00:03:41.979 --> 00:03:43.979 Just huge amounts of propulsion. It could hit 00:03:43.979 --> 00:03:46.800 25 knots, and unlike older ships, it could maintain 00:03:46.800 --> 00:03:49.979 that speed for days. For context for you listening, 00:03:50.360 --> 00:03:52.919 25 knots in a ship this size is like taking a 00:03:52.919 --> 00:03:55.050 steel skyscraper and making it move through the 00:03:55.050 --> 00:03:57.729 water at highway speeds. It's an incredible engineering 00:03:57.729 --> 00:04:00.150 seat. It really is. It carried eight 12 -inch 00:04:00.150 --> 00:04:02.949 guns, just like a battleship. But the armor was 00:04:02.949 --> 00:04:05.169 the trade -off. The Invincible only had about 00:04:05.169 --> 00:04:07.210 six to seven inches of armor, whereas the Dreadnought 00:04:07.210 --> 00:04:09.689 had almost double that. It's like taking a Ferrari 00:04:09.689 --> 00:04:12.150 and stripping out the airbags, the seatbelts, 00:04:12.189 --> 00:04:14.629 and the reinforced frame just to make it go five 00:04:14.629 --> 00:04:17.350 miles per hour faster. What's fascinating here 00:04:17.350 --> 00:04:20.329 is the inherent identity crisis built into the 00:04:20.329 --> 00:04:23.279 very steel of these ships. And this is really 00:04:23.279 --> 00:04:25.540 a failure of military doctrine keeping up with 00:04:25.540 --> 00:04:27.800 engineering capabilities. From the moment they 00:04:27.800 --> 00:04:30.079 touched the water, there was confusion. Yeah. 00:04:30.300 --> 00:04:32.699 Was the battle cruiser a super scout? Was his 00:04:32.699 --> 00:04:35.660 job to roam the oceans, hunt down smaller enemy 00:04:35.660 --> 00:04:38.959 cruisers, and protect global commerce? If so, 00:04:39.220 --> 00:04:41.100 seven inches of armor is totally fine. But it 00:04:41.100 --> 00:04:43.339 looks exactly like a battleship. Exactly. Because 00:04:43.339 --> 00:04:45.699 it was the size of a battleship and carried battleship 00:04:45.699 --> 00:04:48.339 guns, naval commanders just couldn't resist the 00:04:48.339 --> 00:04:50.699 temptation to put it in the main battle line 00:04:50.699 --> 00:04:53.300 against other massive capital ships. Which defeats 00:04:53.300 --> 00:04:55.759 the purpose. Entirely. And if it's standing in 00:04:55.759 --> 00:04:58.060 the main battle line, trading blows with heavily 00:04:58.060 --> 00:05:00.839 armored dreadnoughts, that thin armor makes it 00:05:00.839 --> 00:05:04.180 terrifyingly vulnerable. That philosophical confusion 00:05:04.180 --> 00:05:06.779 over its role would ultimately doom it. And, 00:05:06.959 --> 00:05:09.060 initially, the world was totally caught off guard 00:05:09.060 --> 00:05:11.699 by these ships. Because the British built the 00:05:11.699 --> 00:05:14.759 invincible class in secret, the rest of the world's 00:05:14.759 --> 00:05:17.600 navies were suddenly entirely obsolete overnight. 00:05:18.199 --> 00:05:20.180 I was reading this great detail in the source 00:05:20.180 --> 00:05:23.930 about the German armored cruiser Blücher. Right. 00:05:25.009 --> 00:05:26.670 Germany was building it while the invincible 00:05:26.670 --> 00:05:30.149 was still a secret. They gave the blusher 8 .3 00:05:30.149 --> 00:05:33.009 -inch guns, thinking, hey, this is plenty big 00:05:33.009 --> 00:05:35.579 enough for a cruiser. As soon as the British 00:05:35.579 --> 00:05:38.379 revealed the invincible with its massive 12 -inch 00:05:38.379 --> 00:05:41.379 guns, the brand -new German ship was instantly 00:05:41.379 --> 00:05:43.639 outclassed before the paint was even dry. It 00:05:43.639 --> 00:05:45.860 was a massive embarrassment for Germany, and 00:05:45.860 --> 00:05:48.839 it kicked off a terrifyingly expensive global 00:05:48.839 --> 00:05:51.500 arms race. I want you, the listener, to think 00:05:51.500 --> 00:05:53.879 about the sheer economic weight of this race 00:05:53.879 --> 00:05:56.860 for a second. Imagine being a finance minister 00:05:56.860 --> 00:05:59.279 during this time. Building these ships was the 00:05:59.279 --> 00:06:01.560 equivalent of the space program in the mid -20th 00:06:01.560 --> 00:06:04.560 century. Definitely. pouring staggering amounts 00:06:04.560 --> 00:06:06.839 of their national wealth into these experimental 00:06:06.839 --> 00:06:09.399 leviathans, essentially bankrupting themselves 00:06:09.399 --> 00:06:12.500 to avoid falling behind. And as this arms race 00:06:12.500 --> 00:06:15.300 heated up, we see a sharp divergence in design 00:06:15.300 --> 00:06:18.019 philosophies, particularly between Britain and 00:06:18.019 --> 00:06:20.779 Germany. How so? Well, Britain doubled down on 00:06:20.779 --> 00:06:24.220 Fisher's vision, speed and firepower at all costs. 00:06:24.639 --> 00:06:27.199 They built the lion class and later the tiger, 00:06:27.519 --> 00:06:31.319 stepping up to massive 13 .5 inch guns and pushing 00:06:31.319 --> 00:06:35.100 speeds near 30 knots. But Germany looked at the 00:06:35.100 --> 00:06:37.180 battle cruiser concept and said, wait a minute, 00:06:37.779 --> 00:06:40.240 survivability still matters. So they bulked them 00:06:40.240 --> 00:06:42.959 up. Right. German ships like the von der Tann 00:06:42.959 --> 00:06:44.779 and the Seydlitz took a completely different 00:06:44.779 --> 00:06:48.279 approach. They consciously chose survival over 00:06:48.279 --> 00:06:51.160 raw punching power. They used slightly smaller 00:06:51.160 --> 00:06:53.730 guns, but they had much thicker armor. up to 00:06:53.730 --> 00:06:56.529 12 inches in places. They were willing to sacrifice 00:06:56.529 --> 00:06:59.050 a little bit of offensive capability to ensure 00:06:59.050 --> 00:07:00.829 the ship could actually take a hit and keep its 00:07:00.829 --> 00:07:03.470 crew alive. I was reading the notes on Japan's 00:07:03.470 --> 00:07:05.170 entry into this race, and it sounds like they 00:07:05.170 --> 00:07:07.410 completely panicked when they heard a rumor about 00:07:07.410 --> 00:07:09.250 American ships. What exactly happened there? 00:07:09.550 --> 00:07:11.569 Oh, it's a perfect example of the paranoia of 00:07:11.569 --> 00:07:14.230 the era. Japan was jumping into the fray with 00:07:14.230 --> 00:07:16.509 the conquer class. They were initially gonna 00:07:16.509 --> 00:07:20.129 use the British invincibles as a benchmark. But 00:07:20.129 --> 00:07:22.509 then they heard a rumor that the United States 00:07:22.509 --> 00:07:25.310 Navy might start using 14 inch guns on their 00:07:25.310 --> 00:07:27.589 new battleships. Just a rumor. Just a rumor. 00:07:27.839 --> 00:07:30.740 And the Japanese literally scrapped their existing 00:07:30.740 --> 00:07:33.360 blueprints, went entirely back to the drawing 00:07:33.360 --> 00:07:36.079 board, and designed a battle cruiser with massive 00:07:36.079 --> 00:07:39.360 14 -inch guns that could still do 27 .5 knots. 00:07:40.040 --> 00:07:42.259 They basically built a ship that completely edged 00:07:42.259 --> 00:07:44.899 out the newest British designs, all based on 00:07:44.899 --> 00:07:47.060 a rumor of what America might do. The one -upmanship 00:07:47.060 --> 00:07:49.879 is just staggering. But all of this theoretical 00:07:49.879 --> 00:07:52.160 design, all of this staggering expense was about 00:07:52.160 --> 00:07:55.019 to be put to the ultimate test. theory was about 00:07:55.019 --> 00:07:56.899 to meet the crucible of the First World War. 00:07:57.360 --> 00:07:59.319 And initially, it looked like Fisher was an absolute 00:07:59.319 --> 00:08:02.699 genius, didn't it? It really did. The early success 00:08:02.699 --> 00:08:07.120 of the battle cruiser was undeniable. In 1914, 00:08:07.379 --> 00:08:09.639 at the Battle of the Falkland Islands, the British 00:08:09.639 --> 00:08:13.220 battle cruisers, invincible and inflexible, chased 00:08:13.220 --> 00:08:15.959 down a German armored cruiser squadron across 00:08:15.959 --> 00:08:19.110 the South Atlantic. They engaged them and they 00:08:19.110 --> 00:08:21.750 absolutely annihilated them. Textbook. Completely 00:08:21.750 --> 00:08:23.689 textbook. It was exactly what the glass cannon 00:08:23.689 --> 00:08:26.949 was designed to do. Use its speed to catch smaller 00:08:26.949 --> 00:08:29.910 ships and use its big guns to crush them from 00:08:29.910 --> 00:08:32.029 a safe distance. Here's where it gets really 00:08:32.029 --> 00:08:34.509 interesting and terrifying if you're a sailor. 00:08:34.730 --> 00:08:36.909 Because the very next year at the Battle of Dogger 00:08:36.909 --> 00:08:39.889 Bank in 1915, the cracks in the theory began 00:08:39.889 --> 00:08:42.309 to show. The British engaged the German battle 00:08:42.309 --> 00:08:45.620 cruisers, the German flagship, The seedlets took 00:08:45.620 --> 00:08:48.620 a direct hit from a British 13 .5 -inch shell. 00:08:48.799 --> 00:08:51.679 A massive shell. Yeah. The shell struck the barbette, 00:08:51.820 --> 00:08:53.659 which is the heavily armored cylinder supporting 00:08:53.659 --> 00:08:55.899 the gun turret. It didn't fully penetrate, but 00:08:55.899 --> 00:08:58.279 it dislodged a piece of armor, and the flash 00:08:58.279 --> 00:09:00.320 from the explosion entered the turret. And we 00:09:00.320 --> 00:09:02.639 really have to pause here to understand how catastrophic 00:09:02.639 --> 00:09:05.649 a flash fire is inside a warship. Right. I want 00:09:05.649 --> 00:09:07.929 you to put yourself in the shoes of a sailor 00:09:07.929 --> 00:09:11.110 inside that turret on the saidlets. You are in 00:09:11.110 --> 00:09:14.389 a cramped steel drum filled with heavy machinery 00:09:14.389 --> 00:09:17.769 and high explosives. You hear a deafening crash. 00:09:17.990 --> 00:09:21.549 You see a blinding flash and suddenly a fireball 00:09:21.549 --> 00:09:23.850 is igniting the propellant charges that were 00:09:23.850 --> 00:09:26.129 being hoisted up to the guns. It's a nightmare 00:09:26.129 --> 00:09:29.110 scenario. That fireball races straight down the 00:09:29.110 --> 00:09:31.450 ammunition elevator shaft deep into the ship's 00:09:31.450 --> 00:09:34.470 magazine. It's essentially a fuse leading right 00:09:34.440 --> 00:09:37.580 the main powder keg. And the crew tried to escape 00:09:37.580 --> 00:09:40.139 into the adjacent turret, which tragically just 00:09:40.139 --> 00:09:41.919 opened a door and allowed the fire to spread 00:09:41.919 --> 00:09:44.460 there too. Both turrets were completely wiped 00:09:44.460 --> 00:09:47.419 out in seconds. The saidlets was only saved from 00:09:47.419 --> 00:09:49.159 being blown out of the water because a badly 00:09:49.159 --> 00:09:51.659 burned sailor managed to turn the valves for 00:09:51.659 --> 00:09:53.759 the emergency flooding of the magazines. Wow! 00:09:54.220 --> 00:09:56.440 It was a razor -thin escape from total annihilation. 00:09:56.509 --> 00:09:59.370 So the Germans learn this terrifying lesson about 00:09:59.370 --> 00:10:01.769 flash fires. They bring the ship home. They fix 00:10:01.769 --> 00:10:04.809 their procedures. And the British, what do they 00:10:04.809 --> 00:10:07.309 do? The British essentially ignored the warning 00:10:07.309 --> 00:10:10.049 signs. The Germans investigated exactly what 00:10:10.049 --> 00:10:12.570 happened and realized that a hit to a turret 00:10:12.570 --> 00:10:15.470 could sink the entire ship if the flames reached 00:10:15.470 --> 00:10:18.529 the magazine. They immediately instituted strict 00:10:18.529 --> 00:10:21.309 new measures for handling ammunition, using flash 00:10:21.309 --> 00:10:24.169 -tight doors and minimizing exposed powder. But 00:10:24.169 --> 00:10:27.230 the British didn't. No. Operating under a completely 00:10:27.230 --> 00:10:29.590 different institutional culture, they actually 00:10:29.590 --> 00:10:31.629 went in the opposite direction. Which brings 00:10:31.629 --> 00:10:33.909 us to the tragedy of the Battle of Jutland in 00:10:33.909 --> 00:10:39.179 May 1916. This was the massive clash of the dreadnoughts, 00:10:39.299 --> 00:10:41.639 the ultimate naval battle of the First World 00:10:41.639 --> 00:10:44.720 War. And it was an absolute disaster for the 00:10:44.720 --> 00:10:46.940 British battle cruisers. It was. When forced 00:10:46.940 --> 00:10:48.919 to fight in the main battle line against heavy 00:10:48.919 --> 00:10:51.240 capital ships, that identity crisis we talked 00:10:51.240 --> 00:10:53.840 about proved fatal. The Invincible, the Queen 00:10:53.840 --> 00:10:56.820 Mary, and the Indefatigable all took hits from 00:10:56.820 --> 00:10:59.700 large caliber German shells. And just like on 00:10:59.700 --> 00:11:01.419 the side lifts, the Flash traveled down into 00:11:01.419 --> 00:11:03.840 their magazines. But this time, there was no 00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:06.710 emergency flooding in time. All three British 00:11:06.710 --> 00:11:09.809 ships suffered catastrophic magazine explosions. 00:11:10.809 --> 00:11:13.029 Thousands of tons of cordite detonating all at 00:11:13.029 --> 00:11:15.769 once. They were literally blown completely in 00:11:15.769 --> 00:11:18.389 half, sinking in minutes, killing almost all 00:11:18.389 --> 00:11:21.629 of the thousands of men aboard. It was an apocalyptic 00:11:21.629 --> 00:11:24.610 scene. If we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:11:24.870 --> 00:11:27.070 we have to look at exactly why this happened, 00:11:27.429 --> 00:11:29.850 so disproportionately to the British. It wasn't 00:11:29.850 --> 00:11:32.250 just the thin armor, right? No, it wasn't. Yes, 00:11:32.409 --> 00:11:34.529 the thin armor of the battle cruiser was a foundational 00:11:34.529 --> 00:11:37.350 flaw when placed in the line of battle. But it 00:11:37.350 --> 00:11:40.090 was compounded immensely by human error and a 00:11:40.090 --> 00:11:42.049 dangerous obsession with the rate of fire. Right, 00:11:42.190 --> 00:11:44.909 shooting faster. Exactly. The British believed 00:11:44.909 --> 00:11:47.639 that shooting faster equaled victory. So to shoot 00:11:47.639 --> 00:11:50.379 faster, gun crews were intentionally bypassing 00:11:50.379 --> 00:11:52.620 safety doors. They were propping them open and 00:11:52.620 --> 00:11:55.639 stockpiling unprotected, highly explosive cordite 00:11:55.639 --> 00:11:57.779 charges right there in the turrets and in the 00:11:57.779 --> 00:12:00.240 ammunition hoists. Unbelievable. They deliberately 00:12:00.240 --> 00:12:02.360 created a continuous train of explosives from 00:12:02.360 --> 00:12:04.340 the gun barrel all the way down to the magazine 00:12:04.340 --> 00:12:06.440 just to shave a few seconds off their reload 00:12:06.440 --> 00:12:09.379 time. It's a staggering failure of procedure. 00:12:09.820 --> 00:12:12.139 You have to imagine being an engineer who designed 00:12:12.139 --> 00:12:14.779 safety doors only to find out the crews were 00:12:14.779 --> 00:12:18.289 wedging them open. Meanwhile... Heavily armored 00:12:18.289 --> 00:12:20.970 German battle cruisers like the Lutzow and the 00:12:20.970 --> 00:12:24.389 Seydlitz took dozens of heavy shell hits at Jutland. 00:12:24.570 --> 00:12:26.129 They were battered. They were taking on water. 00:12:26.190 --> 00:12:29.070 But because of their thicker armor and much safer 00:12:29.070 --> 00:12:32.029 methodical ammunition handling, they largely 00:12:32.029 --> 00:12:34.950 survived the battle and made it home. It proved 00:12:34.950 --> 00:12:37.750 definitively that prioritizing raw speed and 00:12:37.750 --> 00:12:40.129 offensive output over the lives and survivability 00:12:40.129 --> 00:12:42.950 of the crew was a flawed doctrine when facing 00:12:42.950 --> 00:12:45.330 an equal adversary. But you'd think that after 00:12:45.330 --> 00:12:47.559 Jutland, after losing three massive ships and 00:12:47.559 --> 00:12:50.179 thousands of sailors in an afternoon, everyone 00:12:50.179 --> 00:12:52.620 would abandon the thin armored concept entirely. 00:12:52.960 --> 00:12:55.279 Instead, things got even weirder. Jackie Fisher, 00:12:55.419 --> 00:12:57.179 the original visionary, came back into power 00:12:57.179 --> 00:12:59.720 later in the war and he pushed for these bizarre 00:12:59.720 --> 00:13:02.240 extreme designs. Oh, the large light cruisers. 00:13:02.580 --> 00:13:05.740 Yes. He started building what he called large 00:13:05.740 --> 00:13:11.799 light cruisers. Glorious and furious. They had 00:13:11.799 --> 00:13:15.399 massive 15 -inch or even 18 -inch guns, but only 00:13:15.399 --> 00:13:18.440 three inches of armor. Three inches on a capital 00:13:18.440 --> 00:13:20.740 ship. It's almost comical. The sailors in the 00:13:20.740 --> 00:13:22.700 Royal Navy thought this was so ridiculous they 00:13:22.700 --> 00:13:25.279 gave the ships joke nicknames. The outrageous, 00:13:25.539 --> 00:13:28.269 the uproarious, and the spurious. Fisher even 00:13:28.269 --> 00:13:30.649 had a concept drawn up for a ship called the 00:13:30.649 --> 00:13:33.529 HMS Incompable that would have carried 20 inch 00:13:33.529 --> 00:13:35.970 guns with barely any armor. That's not even stripping 00:13:35.970 --> 00:13:37.870 the airbags out of the Ferrari. That's strapping 00:13:37.870 --> 00:13:40.110 a rocket engine to a bicycle. It was taking the 00:13:40.110 --> 00:13:43.389 glass cannon concept to an almost absurd, completely 00:13:43.389 --> 00:13:47.850 unviable extreme. But reality and economics eventually 00:13:47.850 --> 00:13:50.330 forced everyone's hand. After the First World 00:13:50.330 --> 00:13:53.070 War ended, the global economy was in ruins. Nobody 00:13:53.070 --> 00:13:54.769 could afford to keep building these incredibly 00:13:54.769 --> 00:13:57.669 expensive, experimental capital ships. So they 00:13:57.669 --> 00:14:00.830 signed a treaty. Right. In 1922, the major powers 00:14:00.830 --> 00:14:03.669 signed the Washington Naval Treaty. This treaty 00:14:03.669 --> 00:14:06.509 placed strict limits on the number and size of 00:14:06.509 --> 00:14:09.409 capital ships each nation could possess, effectively 00:14:09.409 --> 00:14:11.929 halting that massive arms race in its tracks. 00:14:12.269 --> 00:14:14.769 But the treaty left navies with a major problem. 00:14:14.960 --> 00:14:17.100 Imagine you're the head of the Navy. What do 00:14:17.100 --> 00:14:20.039 you do with these massive, incredibly fast battle 00:14:20.039 --> 00:14:21.879 cruiser hulls that are currently sitting half 00:14:21.879 --> 00:14:24.179 -built in your shipyards? You've spent millions 00:14:24.179 --> 00:14:26.340 on them, but you can't finish them as battle 00:14:26.340 --> 00:14:28.860 cruisers under the new international rules. This 00:14:28.860 --> 00:14:31.120 raises an important question about adaptability 00:14:31.120 --> 00:14:33.700 and military procurement. And the solution they 00:14:33.700 --> 00:14:36.559 found completely changed the face of naval warfare. 00:14:37.230 --> 00:14:39.590 Because the rules of the treaty allowed for certain 00:14:39.590 --> 00:14:42.450 conversions, navies took these massive fast battle 00:14:42.450 --> 00:14:44.889 cruiser hulls and transformed them into the very 00:14:44.889 --> 00:14:48.169 first major fleet aircraft carriers. Wow. The 00:14:48.169 --> 00:14:50.789 United States Navy took two battle cruiser hulls 00:14:50.789 --> 00:14:53.649 and turned them into the USS Lexington and the 00:14:53.649 --> 00:14:57.470 USS Saratoga. Japan took a hull and created the 00:14:57.470 --> 00:15:00.090 legendary carrier Akagi. That is such a brilliant 00:15:00.090 --> 00:15:02.929 pivot. It really was. The high speed that was 00:15:02.929 --> 00:15:04.690 originally intended to help a battle cruiser 00:15:04.690 --> 00:15:07.669 hunt down smaller ships turned out to be absolutely 00:15:07.669 --> 00:15:10.580 perfect for an aircraft carrier. Carriers need 00:15:10.580 --> 00:15:13.580 to sail incredibly fast directly into the wind 00:15:13.580 --> 00:15:16.159 to generate enough lift over the deck to help 00:15:16.159 --> 00:15:19.039 planes take off. The battlecruiser hull was the 00:15:19.039 --> 00:15:21.399 perfect platform for the next generation of warfare. 00:15:21.679 --> 00:15:23.919 And the older battlecruisers that did survive 00:15:23.919 --> 00:15:26.480 the treaty, they were radically rebuilt. Nobody 00:15:26.480 --> 00:15:29.320 wanted a glass cannon anymore. Japan, for example, 00:15:29.440 --> 00:15:32.159 took their Kongu class and basically rebuilt 00:15:32.159 --> 00:15:34.789 them from the ground up. massive overhauls. Yeah, 00:15:35.110 --> 00:15:37.509 they added massive amounts of deck armor and 00:15:37.509 --> 00:15:39.809 anti -torpedo bulges to protect against submarines 00:15:39.809 --> 00:15:42.370 and swapped out the engines to push their speed 00:15:42.370 --> 00:15:46.350 up to 30 knots. After all that work, Japan literally 00:15:46.350 --> 00:15:49.070 reclassified them from battlecruisers to fast 00:15:49.070 --> 00:15:51.909 battleships. And that term, fast battleship, 00:15:52.289 --> 00:15:54.389 is really the death knell for the traditional 00:15:54.389 --> 00:15:57.360 battlecruiser. By the 1930s, improvements in 00:15:57.360 --> 00:15:59.799 propulsion technologies, specifically more efficient 00:15:59.799 --> 00:16:03.179 high -pressure boilers and geared turbines, meant 00:16:03.179 --> 00:16:05.220 that you didn't have to compromise anymore. You 00:16:05.220 --> 00:16:07.320 could have both. Exactly. You didn't have to 00:16:07.320 --> 00:16:09.820 choose between speed and armor. You could finally 00:16:09.820 --> 00:16:12.320 build a ship that had the thick, impenetrable 00:16:12.320 --> 00:16:14.919 armor of a traditional dreadnought, but could 00:16:14.919 --> 00:16:17.240 still achieve the high speeds of a battle cruiser. 00:16:17.919 --> 00:16:20.480 The fast battleship made the entire concept of 00:16:20.480 --> 00:16:24.580 the glass cannon entirely obsolete. But unfortunately, 00:16:24.779 --> 00:16:27.580 the older battlecruisers from the World War I 00:16:27.580 --> 00:16:29.779 era were still in service when the Second World 00:16:29.779 --> 00:16:33.279 War broke out. And we see the exact same tragic 00:16:33.279 --> 00:16:37.440 flaws exposed all over again. In 1941, the pride 00:16:37.440 --> 00:16:40.179 of the Royal Navy, the Battlecruiser HMS Hood, 00:16:40.759 --> 00:16:43.379 intercepted the brand -new German battleship 00:16:43.379 --> 00:16:45.779 Bismarck. A legendary encounter. The Hood was 00:16:45.779 --> 00:16:48.279 heavily armed, but because she was an older design, 00:16:48.440 --> 00:16:51.379 her deck armor was still relatively thin. A massive 00:16:51.379 --> 00:16:53.080 shell from the Bismarck plunged right through 00:16:53.080 --> 00:16:55.340 the Hood's deck and ignited her magazine. It 00:16:55.340 --> 00:16:57.940 was jet -land all over again. Exactly. The Hood 00:16:57.940 --> 00:17:00.519 exploded and sank in three minutes. Out of a 00:17:00.519 --> 00:17:02.840 crew of over 1 ,400 men, there were only three 00:17:02.840 --> 00:17:05.789 survivors. Three. It's a chilling of history. 00:17:06.589 --> 00:17:09.670 The fatal flaw was never truly fixed. And it 00:17:09.670 --> 00:17:11.869 wasn't just the guns of other battleships that 00:17:11.869 --> 00:17:14.690 proved lethal to these massive ships. Later that 00:17:14.690 --> 00:17:17.930 same year, the British battle cruiser HMS Repulse 00:17:17.930 --> 00:17:21.180 was operating off the coast of Singapore. She 00:17:21.180 --> 00:17:24.460 was attacked by a swarm of Japanese torpedo bombers. 00:17:24.779 --> 00:17:27.880 And speed didn't save her. No. Despite her incredible 00:17:27.880 --> 00:17:30.099 speed and agility, which allowed her captain 00:17:30.099 --> 00:17:33.240 to dodge an impressive 33 torpedoes, she was 00:17:33.240 --> 00:17:35.680 eventually overwhelmed, hit multiple times, and 00:17:35.680 --> 00:17:38.680 sunk. Which definitively proved that without 00:17:38.680 --> 00:17:41.900 dedicated air cover, these massive, fast capital 00:17:41.900 --> 00:17:44.019 ships were nothing more than sitting ducks in 00:17:44.019 --> 00:17:46.680 the modern era of aerial warfare. It didn't matter 00:17:46.680 --> 00:17:48.779 how fast you could sail if a plane could just 00:17:48.779 --> 00:17:51.289 fly over you. Precisely. And even those heavily 00:17:51.289 --> 00:17:53.650 upgraded Japanese Konzer -class ships, the ones 00:17:53.650 --> 00:17:55.730 they spent so much money reclassifying as fast 00:17:55.730 --> 00:17:58.150 battleships, found that their World War I -era 00:17:58.150 --> 00:18:01.109 roots simply couldn't hold up. During a chaotic, 00:18:01.369 --> 00:18:04.769 point -blank night action off Guadalcanal, the 00:18:04.769 --> 00:18:07.569 Hai was crippled not by another battleship, but 00:18:07.569 --> 00:18:10.529 by medium -caliber gunfire from American heavy 00:18:10.529 --> 00:18:13.269 and light cruisers. It was a complete reversal 00:18:13.269 --> 00:18:15.809 of the battle cruiser's intended role. The Hunter 00:18:15.809 --> 00:18:18.130 was taken down by the very ships it was originally 00:18:18.130 --> 00:18:20.470 designed to destroy. By the end of World War 00:18:20.470 --> 00:18:23.109 II, the classic battle cruiser was effectively 00:18:23.109 --> 00:18:26.410 extinct. The source material does mention a brief 00:18:26.410 --> 00:18:28.789 late war renaissance with what were called cruiser 00:18:28.789 --> 00:18:31.569 killers, like the American Alaska class. These 00:18:31.569 --> 00:18:33.789 were very large cruisers designed specifically 00:18:33.789 --> 00:18:36.549 to hunt down enemy heavy cruisers. They were 00:18:36.549 --> 00:18:39.470 fast, they had big 12 inch guns, but they still 00:18:39.470 --> 00:18:41.910 lacked the heavy armored belt of a true battleship. 00:18:42.049 --> 00:18:43.980 But they were too late. Right. By the time they 00:18:43.980 --> 00:18:46.500 actually entered service, almost the entire Japanese 00:18:46.500 --> 00:18:48.619 cruiser fleet had already been sunk by planes 00:18:48.619 --> 00:18:50.900 and submarines. They were a weapon without a 00:18:50.900 --> 00:18:53.579 target. So what does this all mean for us today? 00:18:53.740 --> 00:18:56.140 Are there any battle cruisers left on the ocean 00:18:56.140 --> 00:18:59.160 right now? Well, if we flash forward to the Cold 00:18:59.160 --> 00:19:02.019 War, the Soviet Union introduced the Kirov class. 00:19:02.220 --> 00:19:05.859 The Kirov is an absolute monster. It is. It displaces 00:19:05.859 --> 00:19:09.680 over 24 ,000 tons. It's nuclear powered and it 00:19:09.680 --> 00:19:12.559 is packed to the brim with guided missiles. It 00:19:12.559 --> 00:19:15.220 is the only ship operating today that is occasionally 00:19:15.220 --> 00:19:17.900 referred to as a battle cruiser. Right. But it's 00:19:17.900 --> 00:19:19.720 vital to note that it's called a battle cruiser 00:19:19.720 --> 00:19:23.160 mostly just because of its sheer terrifying size 00:19:23.160 --> 00:19:25.859 compared to modern cruisers. The Kirov lacks 00:19:25.859 --> 00:19:28.359 the traditional defining characteristic of a 00:19:28.359 --> 00:19:30.599 battle cruiser. It doesn't have that dramatic 00:19:30.599 --> 00:19:33.099 distinction of sacrificing physical armor for 00:19:33.099 --> 00:19:36.970 speed. warfare changed? Entirely. Modern naval 00:19:36.970 --> 00:19:39.410 warfare is totally different. Physical steel 00:19:39.410 --> 00:19:41.970 armor is far less relevant in an age of precision 00:19:41.970 --> 00:19:45.349 -guided supersonic anti -ship missiles. The Kurov 00:19:45.349 --> 00:19:47.509 relies on its offensive missile capability and 00:19:47.509 --> 00:19:49.869 electronic defense systems, not a thick belt 00:19:49.869 --> 00:19:52.509 of steel. So to wrap up this incredible journey, 00:19:52.930 --> 00:19:54.869 we've seen how the Battle Cruiser started as 00:19:54.869 --> 00:19:57.529 a seemingly brilliant, highly specific concept. 00:19:58.089 --> 00:20:00.829 A ship built to outrun what it couldn't outgun, 00:20:01.250 --> 00:20:03.410 designed to hunt down enemy cruisers and protect 00:20:03.410 --> 00:20:05.230 trade routes. But they couldn't stick to the 00:20:05.230 --> 00:20:07.970 plan. Exactly. Because they were so big and so 00:20:07.970 --> 00:20:10.109 well -armed, admirals just couldn't resist putting 00:20:10.109 --> 00:20:11.890 them into the main battle line against heavy 00:20:11.890 --> 00:20:15.049 dreadnoughts. And there, their foundational flaw, 00:20:15.289 --> 00:20:17.529 sacrificing vital protection for a few extra 00:20:17.529 --> 00:20:21.049 knots of speed, was brutally exposed. It's a 00:20:21.049 --> 00:20:23.549 stark reminder for you, the listener, about the 00:20:23.549 --> 00:20:25.990 danger of pushing any technology into a role 00:20:25.990 --> 00:20:29.289 it fundamentally wasn't designed to fill. And 00:20:29.289 --> 00:20:30.890 that leads to a fascinating point to ponder as 00:20:30.890 --> 00:20:33.829 we close. The entire concept of the battlecruiser 00:20:33.829 --> 00:20:37.089 relied on the doctrine that speed is armor. And 00:20:37.089 --> 00:20:39.809 as we've seen, that doctrine proved disastrously 00:20:39.809 --> 00:20:42.950 wrong. Once weapons technology like better optical 00:20:42.950 --> 00:20:45.369 rangefinders, plunging shell trajectories, and 00:20:45.369 --> 00:20:47.930 eventually aircraft managed to catch up. Right. 00:20:48.109 --> 00:20:49.970 So if we look at today's military, which heavily 00:20:49.970 --> 00:20:52.289 relies on concepts like stealth technology or 00:20:52.289 --> 00:20:54.789 extreme speed to survive, how might those systems 00:20:54.789 --> 00:20:57.130 hold up against the next generation of unforeseen 00:20:57.130 --> 00:20:59.690 disruptive technology? Will today's invisible 00:20:59.690 --> 00:21:02.490 stealth jets or hypersonic missiles one day face 00:21:02.490 --> 00:21:05.230 their own jetland moment when a new sensor or 00:21:05.230 --> 00:21:07.730 weapon renders their primary defense completely 00:21:07.730 --> 00:21:09.690 useless? Now that is something to think about.