I have classified all the 20th Century battleships of the Royal Navy into sub-types on the battleships page.

Any mistakes/corrections/feedback?

I have listed them as:

Pre-Dreadnought
Dreadnought
Super-Dreadnought
Fast Battleship
Battle cruiser
Amphibious bombardment cruiser

The last one being the title I settled on for the unclassifiable Courageous class. For those that are not familiar, they were armoured more like light cruisers, armed like battleships, but had an insufficent number of guns for salvo fireing and so could not hit moving targets.

I would subdivide battle cruiser into "Dreadnought battle cruiser" and "SuperDreadaught battle cruiser" as applicable.

It's interesting that for Germany you included the Duetchlands as "pocket battleships"- thought this is certainly correct, based on the scales we're using, they were really just heavy cruisers (I would just drop them from the list).

For the Kirovs, the "Super-sized missile cruiser" term sounds rather clumsy- or like a hamburger meal. Maybe just Missile battle cruiser?

Additionally, the first Super Dreadnaught was the Queen Elizabeth class, because they burned oil instead of coal, and used turbines. IIRC. According to Wiki I'm wrong, but that sounds fishy.

Okay, I will do that (once "super-Dreadnought" has been sorted out (below)).



Yeah I know that they are not really battleships, but since the Graf Spee was such a famous ship (and is always referred to as a "Pocket Battleship" rather than heavy cruiser in popular history) I felt obliged to include them. I will make a definitions page for all the types once the list is completed to explain exactly what they really are.



Okay.



I was going by gun size greater than 12". Thus starting with the Orions (13.5"). They did use steam turbines (though they must have been coal fired). So basically it comes down to does being oil fired make a super-dreadnought? Or more complicated than that?

Spelling errors.

Heh, one typo copy/pasted several times.

Corrected. Thank you.

With the Deutschlands, the Germans never referred to them as 'battleships' of any type. They referred to them as 'Armoured Ships' more in line as fast pre-dreadnoughts.

Sorry but whoever put this description doesnt know their ships too well.....
"Lord Nelson class - The Lord Nelson class carried the heaviest secondary armament of any Pre-Dreadnought, ten 9.2-inch guns. "
the Satsuma's carried 12x10", which I figure is slightly better than 10x9.2"

Howdy,
I was thinking about the 'Amphibious Bombardment Cruiser' designation.
The originals of this type of vessel were designated 'Bomb Ketch' in the late 1700's and were armed with two large 'mortars' for land bombardment. The lineage of these vessels culminated in the 'Monitor' type vessels the last of which were Abercrombie and Roberts of 1943.
So in keeping with your other descriptions, The Courageous Class could be described as 'Super Dreadnought Monitors' which would be a much nearer classification.
Always interesting to follow where the warship classifications originated from.
'Corvette' type vessels were a French designation for sailing ships between sloop and frigate which made them both gracefull, speedy and well armed vessels for their size. I dont think any of the WW2 Corvettes matched that description at all. I figure the original sailing ships were probably faster and more comfortable to sail in than the UK Gladiolous type too!!

I'm aware of the Deutschland's not being battleships. They are really only there because they have been labeled battleships in the popular media.

[Edit: I see now this was a reference to the word "panzerschiff". I've edited the "battleship types" page accordingly.]



My source for that was Jane's Battleships of the 20th Century 1st ed., pp.99. Being Jane's I didn't bother to cross check, but you are of course correct. I'll see about changing that.

I admit that "Amphibious Bombardment Cruiser" is a horribly clumsy designation, if rather matter-of-fact. Re-designating them monitors sounds like a good idea, since shallow-draft was also a design consideration.

Cheers NigeVids.