The Ships of Battlegroup and Task Forces at War: Introduction

By S. Craig Taylor Jr.

The contest between Great Britain and Germany to build the most and best dreadnought battleships and battlecruisers had been a root cause of the First World War. When World War I ended and saw the end of the German Kaiser’s High Seas Fleet, it appeared as if a new naval arms race was about to heat up. This time the contest would center on Great Britain, the United States and Japan, all initiating or planning massive new building programs. The United States wanted a fleet that was "Second to None," especially with regards to the potential threat of the then-current Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the Japanese, with a bloated and unsupportable naval budget, wanted the power to face the United States Pacific Fleet and carry out their expansionist strategy in Asia. Budgetary constraints forced Great Britain to retreat from its prewar guideline of having as large a fleet as the next two largest fleets combined to a policy of a "One Power Standard" to match the other largest fleet, in this case the United States Navy. This expensive arms race, which none of the naval powers really wanted, was ended by a series of treaties, starting with the Washington Conference and Treaty of 1921–1922 which limited battleship numbers, tonnage and new construction. The treaty coincided with the lapsing of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which, at the request of British Commonwealth members Australia and New Zealand, was not renewed by Great Britain.

With these treaties, many of the dreadnoughts of World War One passed from the scene almost as quickly as they had appeared. The capital ships of the German fleet had been destroyed when they were interned and then scuttled by their own crews at Scapa Flow, the Austro-Hungarian Empire disappeared along with its navy and the new communist successors to the Russian Empire did not see a powerful navy as a necessary adjunct to fomenting world-wide revolution. The number of French and Italian dreadnoughts had never been large and their numbers remained small. The British, Japanese and American navies all trimmed down their fleets by scrapping their oldest and least useful capital ships, by converting some battleship and battlecruiser hulls to aircraft carriers and by disposing of new and incomplete hulls before spending additional money on them. Great Britain scrapped 30 ships, most of them their oldest battleships and battle cruisers with 12 inch and 13.5 inch guns, the United States deleted 19 hulls, most of them new vessels in various stages of construction and the Japanese discarded only four incomplete hulls plus demilitarizing the obsolete Settsu .

For a period of over 15 years there were very few new battleships constructed and not many more of the then novel and controversial aircraft carriers. Due to the long treaty-imposed lull in building, most of the battleships that served during World War Two were launched during World War One or shortly after, although the game tends to concentrate on the newer battleships. Many of these older ships were extensively updated between the wars but the fact remains that the majority of the naval big guns of the war were carried on hulls twenty or more years old. As a counterpoint, World War II aircraft carriers, which became the new capital ships during the war, were largely built during the Second World War, the United States alone building over 100 new flattops.

This article is intended to provide players of the Lost Battalion Games’ BATTLEGROUP card game with some idea about the histories and capabilities of the 46 battleship and 18 aircraft carrier cards found in the game. It is in no way intended to be a definitive or exhaustive naval history and many capital ships of the World War Two era were left out simply because they are not found in the game. Years ago this would have been a magazine article on the background to the game but today it is in the form of a series of online article as progress marches on. Ships are classed as either battleships (BB) or aircraft carriers (CV), even if some of them were sometimes classified as battlecruisers or light aircraft carriers at the time and this is explained in the text. The data found in this article came from a number of sometimes conflicting sources; different nations used different measuring techniques and, in most cases, the figures are rounded off. The belt armor figures are generally given for the thickest part and, roughly, give an idea of a ship’s armor protection against enemy shells. The deck armor figure provides an idea of a ship’s ability to absorb bomb damage and often includes the cumulative thickness of the armor on more than one deck. Standard displacement figures are given, as this is more consistent than using loaded figures as loading standards varied widely. The beam figures are at the waterline for battleships but at deck level for aircraft carriers. The other figures give an idea of how one ship’s size, firepower and speed compared to other ships. Secondary and tertiary armament, intended to ward off enemy destroyers and aircraft, changed so often and so much that it is equally ignored in these sketches, although it is accounted for in the game’s antiaircraft values. Suffice it to say that antiaircraft protection increased as the war continued and the threat of bomber attack grew with improved torpedoes and bombs and the aircraft that carried these weapons. In some cases, some figures were "fudged" slightly to provide a better-balanced game.

The game’s sortie cards are of the three types of historical situations that led to battles at sea. Convoy sorties represent the battles on the high seas between escorts and their convoys and enemy surface vessels. The chase of the Bismarck and the action between the Duke of York and the Scharnhorst are the most famous of these, although there were also many clashes between the British and Italian fleets in the Mediterranean as convoys fought their way to Malta. Base raid sorties represent attacks on enemy bases. The British attack on the Italian base at Taranto, the Japanese attack on the American base at Pearl Harbor and the American attack on the Japanese base at Truk are the most famous base raids of World War Two. Invasion sorties represent attempted sea-borne invasions that cause naval battles. The German invasion of Norway in the face of the British Royal Navy, the aborted Japanese invasion on Port Moresby, which led to the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Battle of Midway, the Battle of the Philippine Sea ("The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot"—caused by the United States’ invasion of the Marianas Islands) and the Battle of Leyte Gulf (caused by the United States’ invasion of the Philippines) were all sea battles brought on by a land invasion.

For World War I era battleships and battlecruisers that were kept and served in World War II see: Andrea Doria, Arkansas, Bretagne, Caio Duilio, Conte di Cavour, Fuso, Giulio Cesare, Haruna, Hiei, Hood, Hyuga, Ise, Kirishima, Kongo, Maryland, Mississippi, Mutsu, Nagato, Pennsylvania, Repulse, Revenge, Texas, Warspite and Yamashiro .

For battleships commissioned between World War One and September 1939, see: Dunkerque, Nelson, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst .

For aircraft carriers built before World War II see: Akagi, Ark Royal, Bearn, Enterprise, Hermes, Hiryu, Kaga, and Soryu .

For ships built during the Second World War (September 1939 through August 1945, see: Alabama, Bismarck, Guam, Hornet (CV-12), Intrepid (CV-11), Iowa, King George V, Lexington (CV-16), Littorio, Massachusetts, Missouri, Musashi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Richelieu, Roma, Shokaku, Tirpitz, Victorious, Vittorio Veneto, Washington, Wisconsin, Yamato, Yorktown (CV-10), Zuiho and Zuikaku .

For ships that were never actually commissioned, see: Aquila and Graf Zeppelin.