List of battlecruisers of World War I

This is a list of battlecruisers of World War I. A battlecruiser, or battle cruiser, was a capital ship built in the first half of the 20th century. They were similar in size, cost, and carried similar armament to battleships, but they generally carried less armour to obtain faster speeds. The first battlecruisers were designed in the United Kingdom, in the first decade of the century, as a development of the armoured cruiser, at the same time as the dreadnought succeeded the pre-dreadnought battleship. The original aim of the battlecruiser was to hunt down slower, older armoured cruisers and destroy them with heavy gunfire. However, as more and more battlecruisers were built, they increasingly became used alongside the better-protected battleships.

Battlecruisers served in the navies of Britain, Germany, the Ottoman Empire, Australia and Japan during World War I, most notably at the Battle of the Falkland Islands and in the several raids and skirmishes in the North Sea which culminated in a pitched fleet battle, the Battle of Jutland. British battlecruisers, in particular, suffered heavy losses at Jutland, which modern research has revealed was due to dangerous ammunition handling practises rather than the weak armour usually attributed as the weakness. By the end of the war, capital ship design had developed with battleships becoming faster and battlecruisers becoming more heavily armoured, blurring the distinction between a battlecruiser and a fast battleship. The Washington Naval Treaty, which limited capital ship construction from 1922 onwards, treated battleships and battlecruisers identically, and the new generation of battlecruisers planned was scrapped under the terms of the treaty.

The list includes armed vessels that served during the war and in the immediate aftermath, inclusive of localized ongoing combat operations, garrison surrenders, post-surrender occupation, colony re-occupation, troop and prisoner repatriation. Some uncompleted battlecruisers are included, out of historic interest.

List of battlecruisers of World War I

Ship	Operator	Class	Displacement (tonnes)	First commissioned	End of service	Fate
Australia	Royal Australian Navy	Indefatigable	18,800	21 June 1913	12 December 1921	Scuttled 12 April 1924
Borodino	Imperial Russian Navy	Borodino	33,000			Launched 31 July 1915, sold for scrap 21 August 1923
Courageous	Royal Navy	Courageous	19,490	28 October 1916	17 September 1939	Converted to aircraft carrier 1924–1928, sunk by submarine 17 September 1939
Derfflinger	Imperial German Navy	Derfflinger	26,600	1 September 1914	10 May 1917	Scuttled 21 June 1919, refloated 1939, scrapped 1946–1948
Ersatz Yorck		Ersatz Yorck	33,500			Laid down July 1916, broken up 1918
Fürst Bismarck		Mackensen	31,000			Laid down 3 November 1915, broken up 1922
Furious	Royal Navy	Courageous	19,826	26 June 1917	15 September 1944	Converted to aircraft carrier 1921–1925, paid off April 1945, broken up 1948–1954
Glorious			19,490	14 October 1916	8 June 1940	Converted to aircraft carrier 1924–1930, sunk 8 June 1940
Graf Spee	Imperial German Navy	Mackensen	31,000			Launched 15 September 1917, stricken 17 November 1919, sold for scrap 28 October 1921
Haruna	Imperial Japanese Navy	Kongō	27,384	19 April 1915	28 July 1945	Sunk 28 July 1945, refloated and scrapped 1946
Hiei			27,384	4 August 1914	13 November 1942	Sunk 13 November 1942
Hindenburg	Imperial German Navy	Derfflinger	26,947	10 May 1917	21 June 1919	Scuttled 21 June 1919, refloated 23 July 1930, scrapped 1930–1932
Ibuki	Imperial Japanese Navy	Ibuki	14,871	1 November 1909	20 September 1923	Sold for scrap 20 September 1923
Ikoma		Tsukuba	13,970	24 March 1908	20 September 1923	Stricken 20 September 1923 and scrapped
Indefatigable	Royal Navy	Indefatigable	18,800	24 February 1911	31 May 1916	Sunk 31 May 1916
Indomitable		Invincible	17,530	25 June 1908	31 March 1920	Sold for scrap 1 December 1921
Inflexible			17,530	20 October 1908	31 March 1920	Sold for scrap 1 December 1921
Invincible			17,530	20 March 1909	31 May 1916	Sunk 31 May 1916
Izmail	Imperial Russian Navy	Borodino	33,000			Launched 22 June 1915, broken up 1931
Kinburn			33,000			Launched 30 October 1915, sold for scrap 21 August 1923
Kirishima	Imperial Japanese Navy	Kongō	27,384	19 April 1915	15 November 1942	Sunk 15 November 1942
Kongō			27,384	16 August 1913	21 November 1944	Sunk by submarine 21 November 1944
Kurama		Ibuki	14,871	28 February 1911	20 September 1923	Sold for scrap 20 September 1923
Lion	Royal Navy	Lion	26,690	4 June 1912	30 May 1922	Sold for scrap 31 January 1924
Lützow	Imperial German Navy	Derfflinger	26,600	8 August 1915	1 June 1916	Scuttled 1 June 1916
Mackensen		Mackensen	31,000			Launched 21 April 1917, stricken 17 November 1919, broken up 1922
Moltke		Moltke	22,979	30 August 1911	21 June 1919	Scuttled 21 June 1919, refloated 1927, scrapped 1929
Navarin	Imperial Russian Navy	Borodino	33,000			Launched 9 November 1916, sold for scrap 21 August 1923
New Zealand	Royal Navy	Indefatigable	18,800	19 November 1912	19 December 1922	Sold for scrap 22 January 1923
Princess Royal		Lion	26,690	14 November 1912	19 December 1922	Sold for scrap 22 January 1923
Prinz Eitel Friedrich	Imperial German Navy	Mackensen	31,000			Laid down 1 May 1915, launched 13 March 1920, broken up 1921
Queen Mary	Royal Navy		27,200	4 September 1913	31 May 1916	Sunk 31 May 1916
Renown		Renown	32,740	20 September 1916	21 January 1948	Scrapped, 3 August 1948
Repulse			32,740	18 August 1916	10 December 1941	Sunk during the Naval Battle of Malaya, 10 December 1941
Seydlitz	Imperial German Navy		24,988	22 May 1913	21 June 1919	Scuttled 21 June 1919, refloated 2 November 1928, scrapped 1930
Tiger	Royal Navy		29,000	3 October 1914	15 May 1931	Sold for scrap February 1932
Tsukuba	Imperial Japanese Navy	Tsukuba	13,970	14 January 1907	14 January 1917	Sunk by magazine explosion 14 January 1917
Von der Tann	Imperial German Navy		19,370	1 September 1910	21 June 1919	Scuttled 21 June 1919, refloated 7 December 1930, scrapped 1931
Yavuz Sultan Selim	Ottoman Navy	Moltke	23,100	2 July 1912	14 November 1954	Scrapped, 7 June 1973

See also

• List of battlecruisers
• List of battlecruisers of World War II
• List of battleships of World War I

References

Bibliography

• Burr, Lawrence (2006). British Battlecruisers 1914–18. New Vanguard No. 126. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-84603-008-0.
• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8.
• Gray, Randal (1985). Gardiner, Robert (ed.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921. Naval Institute Press. p. 439. ISBN 978-0-87021-907-8.
• Gibbons, Tony (1983). The Complete Encyclopedia of Battleships and Battlecruisers - A Technical Directory of all the World's Capital Ships from 1860 to the Present Day. London, UK: Salamander Books Ltd. p. 272. ISBN 0-517-37810-8.
• Ireland, Bernard; Grove, Eric (1997). Jane's War At Sea 1897–1997. London, UK: Harper Collins Publishers. p. 256. ISBN 0-00-472065-2.
• Moore, John (Foreword) (1990). Jane's Fighting Ships of World War I. London, UK: Random House Ltd. p. 320. ISBN 1-85170-378-0.
• "NavSource Naval History".
• Roberts, John (1997). Battlecruisers. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-068-1.
• Sondhaus, Lawrence (2001). Naval Warfare, 1815–1914. London, UK: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-21478-0.
• Helgason, Guðmundur (1995–2007). "Allied Warships". Uboat.net.
• "Battleships-Cruisers.co.uk". Cranston Fine Arts. 2001–2007.
• Lambert, Nicholas A. (January 1998). "'Our Bloody Ships' or 'Our Bloody System'? Jutland and the Loss of the Battle Cruisers, 1916". Journal of Military History. 62 (1). Society for Military History: 29–55. doi:10.2307/120394. ISSN 0899-3718. JSTOR 120394.