Talk:Cruiser

This article intertwines with destroyer and frigate. I haven't yet decided if there's a reasonable single "fast attack craft" to include classic torpedo and motor gunboats, as well as missile boats. I'm also not sure, given the confusion in the three main vessel names, whether there needs to be an additional category that would include such things as oceangoing corvettes (e.g., Israeli Sa'ar), the latest incarnation of the Littoral Combat Ship, etc.

Indeed, I have not yet started frigate. Expect much back-and-forth among cruiser, destroyer, and frigate even in the early drafts. Howard C. Berkowitz 12:06, 19 July 2008 (CDT)

let's not forget the mighty Hood, me myte

Out of the cold and foggy night came the British ship the Hood
And every British seaman he knew and understood
They had to sink the Bismarck the terror of the sea
Stop those guns as big as steers and those shells as big as trees.

They'd find the German battle ship was makin' such a fuss
We gotta sink the Bismarck 'cause the world depends on us
Yeah, hit the decks a running boys and spin those guns around
When we find the Bismarck we gotta cut her down.

The Hood found the Bismarck and on that fatal day
The Bismarck started firing fifteen miles away
We gotta sink the Bismarck was the battle sound
But when the smoke had cleared away the mighty Hood went down.

Hood is problematic to discuss. Yes, she suffered from the limitations of battlecruisers, but it remains unclear if the hit that sank her came from Bismarck or the accompanying cruiser Prinz Eugen. Still, she was underarmored to be exchanging fire with a true battleship, and recent simulations show serious problems in her compartmentation and explosion protection. Up-armoring had been scheduled...

Jutland was a different situation -- Beatty's battlecruisers didn't need to be in battle line. In chasing Bismarck, it was reasonable to shadow and harass her with cruisers, with the assumption that battleships eventually would engage. Actually, the Germans had more respect for the British torpedo aircraft, which eventually crippled her, than did the British. Howard C. Berkowitz 23:14, 27 June 2009 (UTC)