Design 1047 battlecruiser
 An artist's conception of the Design 1047 battlecruiser.
| |
| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Name | Design 1047 |
| Operators | would have been the Royal Netherlands Navy |
| Planned | 3 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Battlecruiser |
| Displacement | 27,950 tons[1] |
| Length | 777 ft 8 in (237.03 m) overall[1] |
| Beam | 98 ft 5 in (30.0 m)[1] |
| Draft | 25 ft 7 in (7.80 m)[1] |
| Propulsion | 4-shaft geared turbines, 8 Werkspoor boilers, and 180,000 shp allowing a top speed of 34 knots[1] |
| Armament | list error: <br /> list (help) Nine 280-millimetre (11 in)/45 caliber guns (3×3)[1] twelve 120-millimetre (5 in)/45 caliber guns (6×2)[1] |
| Armor | list error: <br /> list (help) Main side belt: 225 millimetres (9 in)[1] Decks: 100 millimetres (4 in) (main) and 30 millimetres (1 in) (splinter)[1]
Bulkheads: 225 millimetres (9 in)[1]
Barbettes: 250 millimetres (10 in)[1] |
Design 1047 was intended to be a class of battlecruisers built for the Netherlands prior to the Second World War. As the Dutch needed a counter to continuing Japanese aggression in their Dutch East Indies colonies, they designed a class of "cruiser-killers" with the help of Germany that could overpower Japan's large number of cruisers. However, with the start of the Second World War, the class was canceled before any of the ships were laid down.
Background
In the late 1930s, the Dutch began to worry about the security of their colonies in the East Indies, especially after viewing increasing belligerence from Japan when they invaded Manchuria and then had to pacify all resistance to the puppet government they then set up. With the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Dutch decided to strengthen their defenses in the East Indies by building three battlecruisers.[1][2]
Since the aircraft carrier was considered a supplement to the battleship at the time, the Dutch theory was that Japan's battleships would be preoccupied with the battleships of the United States and Great Britain. If this held true, the East Indies would have to deal with Japan's cruisers, which were both more powerful and abundant than those of the Dutch—without the battlecruisers, the two pre-WWI Sumatra-class cruisers and the modern De Ruyter, with the two Tromp-class light cruisers on order, could be facing down more than 40 of their Japanese counterparts.[2][3]
Design
These concerns led the Dutch to seek a "cruiser-killer" ship capable of destroying Japan's cruisers.[1] However, the Royal Netherlands Navy had no experience building ships of such size[4]— the largest ships built by the Dutch in the 20th Century were the Sumatra-class cruisers of the late 1910s/early 20s, which were only 6,670 tons. The only ships that would have gone above this were the projected battleships recommended by a Royal Commission in 1913, which would have been about 24,650 tons (although no orders or plans for financing the ships was ever made up).[5]
As a result, the Dutch enlisted help from both Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Nazi Germany,[2] whose designers initially came out with a ship strikingly similar to the Scharnhorst-class. These would have had a 27,500 ton displacement with 33 knot speed, with the same nine 280 mm (11 in) guns in triple turrets as the Scharnhorst class and eight 120 mm (4.7 in) guns in 4 turrets. However, the design was then enlarged so that more powerful machinery could be added. Changes included two more twin 120 mm guns, and two funnels instead of one.[1]
Differences from the Scharnhorst ships in the final design were many, although the 1047 design still bore a striking resemblance. The major negative for the 1047 laid in its armor, which could stop 8-inch shells but little else. However, in most or all other aspects, the ships were far superior to the Scharnhorst's: the main guns could elevate to 45°, the anti-torpedo system was thicker, deck protection better handled the boilers in the ship, and the ships would not have had the standard German power plant, which the Kriegsmarine had problems with in their ships during the Second World War.[2]
Fate
With the start of the Second World War, almost all work on the ships was halted, though turrets and gunnery arrangements continued to be looked at until the start of the occupation of the Netherlands and the Western Offensive in May 1940.[4] However, with the first ship scheduled to be completed in 1944,[1] they would have been too late to try to stop the Japanese advance into the Dutch East Indies. Worth speculates that had the ships been completed, commissioned and deployed to the East Indies by 1942, they could have "transformed the strategic picture" because the Imperial Japanese Navy's cruisers could not match these ships.[2]
The design purpose of these ships made them "contemporaries" of the United States' Error: {{sclass}} invalid format code: 6. Should be 0–5, or blank (help), and indeed they were similar to that class in "size, speed, armament and concept."[1]
See also
Notes
References
- Gardiner, Robert; Chesneau, Roger, eds. (1980). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1922-1946. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0870219138.
- Gardiner, Robert; Gray, Randal, eds. (1984). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships: 1906–1921. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0870219073.
- Worth, Richard (2002). Fleets of World War II. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0306-8-1116-2.