Lesforan wrote:
As has been pointed out before in this thread, the Germans were limited by treaty to 11" guns at the time the Scharnhorsts were built. So if the Germans were to build battleships and comply with the treaty, 11" was the max.
Not quite. The panzerschiffe were limited to 11" guns. But, the Anglo-German accord that "legalized" the larger Scharnhorsts would have also allowed larger guns. However, the development of those guns would have delayed their completion, so the existing 11" was retained and the larger guns made available for the next class.
Lesforan wrote:
JSD, The American BB's lacked hangers, but that didn't mean they lacked aircraft. Contemporary German and Japanese battleships did carry both hangers and aircraft. The carriage of aircraft has become almost universal in surface combatants.
While true, that was not the point JSD was making. It was not the aircraft, it was the hangars. BB's had aircraft, but no hangars, because the battlefleet as a whole had many aircraft and a handful of unservicable planes would not seriously impact the fleet's ability to operate. Cruisers, on the other hand, often operated independently, and so needed every plane they had. Therefore, after the Pensacolas, all US cruisers that carried aircraft were equipped with hangars to protect them. That placed the Alaska's aircraft arrangements clearly withinin the cruiser requirement realm. Other cruiser features the Alaskas shared were the single rudder, the 5" gun arrangement, and the limitation to two MK-37 AA directors.
Filipe Ramires wrote:
The official definition provided by the USN at the time for the Alaska was CB-1 which means large cruiser (i.e., Battle-cruiser).
Not quite true. Under the US designation system "CC" was "battlecruiser". The CB designation was brand new and stood for "Cruiser - Big". (This paralleled the CVB designation, which although some people say it meant "Battle CV's", it actually was designated a "large" carrier, or a "CV-Big".) Had the Alaskas been intended as battlecruisers, no new designation would have been needed, they would have just used the existing "CC".
As for comparisons with the Scharnhorsts, the German ships had full BB armor. In fact, their side belt was slightly thicker than that on the Bismarcks. The Germans considered them to be BB's. The Alaskas make no pretense about having BB armor. Their immunity zone was calculated on the 60 degree target angle used for calculating the immunity zones of the US heavy and light cruisers, not the 90 degree target angle used for the US BB's.