Real colonial cruiser and monitor

[Garyius2003]

I was doing some reading about the real colonial cruisers and monitors in the British Royal and other Royal navies under their control post WWI.

WWI they would grab a battleship turret and guns and stick it on a slower very much smaller ship, with okay armor. The Roberts class in WWII had a way oversized looking turret with 15in guns, could only go 12 knots, and had 4 inch armor belt. For the cost in manpower of two destroyers of the era, they had two big guns on a port blockade, coastline defense, or shore bombardment.

Unlike the colonial cruisers of the British navy in the late 1800s, which were more gunboats with longer ranges than a real cruiser, the post WWII concept was a ship with cruiser guns but less than a full combat crew and equipment. So real life in this case went from the traveller ideal of a super gunboat called a colonial cruiser in the sense of working alone on patrol--not the ability to stand in a line of battle and also raid and patrol alone--to something much different, a ship that could battle with some upgrades to crew and equipment.

 

[Timerover51]

I was doing some reading about the real colonial cruisers and monitors in the British Royal and other Royal navies under their control post WWI.

WWI they would grab a battleship turret and guns and stick it on a slower very much smaller ship, with okay armor. The Roberts class in WWII had a way oversized looking turret with 15in guns, could only go 12 knots, and had 4 inch armor belt. For the cost in manpower of two destroyers of the era, they had two big guns on a port blockade, coastline defense, or shore bombardment.

Unlike the colonial cruisers of the British navy in the late 1800s, which were more gunboats with longer ranges than a real cruiser, the post WWII concept was a ship with cruiser guns but less than a full combat crew and equipment. So real life in this case went from the traveller ideal of a super gunboat called a colonial cruiser in the sense of working alone on patrol--not the ability to stand in a line of battle and also raid and patrol alone--to something much different, a ship that could battle with some upgrades to crew and equipment.

Ian Buxton's, Big Gun Monitors, gives a detail history of the development of the monitor in the Royal Navy during and after World War 1, and included estimated building costs. Quite a useful book actually. I have had a copy since it was first published.

They are actually built as coastal offensive vessels, and were used heavily along the Belgian coasts, in support of the landing at the Dardanelles, and for army support in Arabia and Palestine.

Another useful book is Hovgaard's A Modern History of Warships, written by a very good naval architect, tracing the design of warships from the Monitor and Virginia to the end of World War 1. Reprints are available.

 

[Enoki]

British colonial monitors and other nation's river monitors are possibly more interesting. These were smaller vessels intended more as overarmed gunboats to either support ground forces, or they were intended to keep the peace like the US China river gunboats of the 20's and 30's. Maybe watching The Sand Pebbles with Steve McQueen would be an inspiration.

 

[Garyius2003]

From what I can tell, the colonial cruisers (through WWI at least) were gunboats that had range, colonial gunboats were shorter range (or river only) but could defeat a merchant vessel, and each power kept a few real cruisers to keep each other in line or prevent China from thinking they could buy a navy and get their country back.

Japan becoming the main threat once even Wilson figured out they had more interest in carving off an empire than helping his ivory tower peaceful world dreams in Siberia.