were transports powerful enough to knock out a heavy cruiser?

[mehman6000]

i ask this because C3 merchants caused heavy damage to my CA and i don't think they should have been able to do that

[Sinjen Blackstar]

There was a battle in the pacific where a light cruiser was heavily damaged by a commerce raider. Basically a heavily armed civilian ship disguised as a regular merchant. Without surprise, I don't think they would have had much chance. Std merchant ship would probably be defeated by a sub with a deck gun in many situations. Bear in mind the above ship had a motivated and well drilled military crew, not a civilian crew. I believe this is a link to the account. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_auxiliary_cruiser_Kormoran

[d1xsmle]

I think you'll find that the reason that WW2 submarines lost their deck guns was because merchant ships started to be equipped with guns of their own. Not only were ships more stable gun platforms than submarines, but they could absorb far more damage. Once a submarine had her pressure hull penetrated, she couldn't dive, and if that happened, it spelt curtains for her.

[Apollonir]

What do you mean when you say heavy damage? The game computes damage a bit weird. You can suffer lots of superstructure damage, have small cannons, machineguns, radar, fire directors, turrets damaged, but it is not something the damage control parties can't handle. If this is the case, then I think you should rest easy. I highly doubt a merchant has the means to penetrate any half decently armored ship without armor piercing shells (which they don't get). That is the kind of damage you should be afraid of - internal damage to machinery and magazines, not getting your paint scratched.

[Apollonir]

Also, cruisers were classified as heavy or light based on the caliber of their guns, not based on the protection. It's a common misunderstanding what makes a cruiser heavy or light. A heavy cruiser can have ♥♥♥♥♥ armor.

[Sinjen Blackstar]

Originally posted by Apollonir:

Also, cruisers were classified as heavy or light based on the caliber of their guns, not based on the protection. It's a common misunderstanding what makes a cruiser heavy or light. A heavy cruiser can have ♥♥♥♥♥ armor.

I think the general rule was 6 inch and below were CL?

[Apollonir]

Originally posted by Sinjen Blackstar:

Originally posted by Apollonir:

Also, cruisers were classified as heavy or light based on the caliber of their guns, not based on the protection. It's a common misunderstanding what makes a cruiser heavy or light. A heavy cruiser can have ♥♥♥♥♥ armor.

I think the general rule was 6 inch and below were CL?

Yes. I don't know of any cruiser with 7 inch guns, so that area might be fuzzy. i think anything below 155mm was considered light cruiser, anything higher was considered heavy cruiser, though all heavies featured 203mm.

[76561198007484948]

There were a couple of Heavy British Cruisers in WWII that used 7.5" calibre guns as main armament. And the German 'Panzerschiff' (fighting ships) features 6 x 11" calibre guns - the press called them 'Pocket Battleships', but in reality they were the equivalent of a heavy cruiser. And don't forget the strange Alaska class of cruisers used by the USN, although only two were ever finished before the end of hostlities and saw action. They had 11" guns as main armament and were originally described as 'Battle Cruisers', but then were downgraded to 'Large Heavy Cruisers' even though they were the size of light capital ships, and packed out with all sorts of AA guns in order to protect the carriers from Kamikaze attacks.

[Apollonir]

The Deutschland class does not count as heavy cruiser :))

[mehman6000]

Originally posted by Apollonir:

Also, cruisers were classified as heavy or light based on the caliber of their guns, not based on the protection. It's a common misunderstanding what makes a cruiser heavy or light. A heavy cruiser can have ♥♥♥♥♥ armor.

but would a convoy group have enough time to sink a CA before the CA sinks it?

[JazzObserver127]

Originally posted by mehman6000:

but would a convoy group have enough time to sink a CA before the CA sinks it?

Depends on the CA, but a convoy group wouldn't be able to to sink a US CL before it sinks them, that much I know.

[mal]

Originally posted by sunseekers_:

There were a couple of Heavy British Cruisers in WWII that used 7.5" calibre guns as main armament. And the German 'Panzerschiff' (fighting ships) features 6 x 11" calibre guns - the press called them 'Pocket Battleships', but in reality they were the equivalent of a heavy cruiser. And don't forget the strange Alaska class of cruisers used by the USN, although only two were ever finished before the end of hostlities and saw action. They had 11" guns as main armament and were originally described as 'Battle Cruisers', but then were downgraded to 'Large Heavy Cruisers' even though they were the size of light capital ships, and packed out with all sorts of AA guns in order to protect the carriers from Kamikaze attacks.

Tha alaska was never called a battle cruiser.

[FirestormMk3]

Actually they were. When launched they were given the hull designation CC which was the designation for a battlecruiser in the USN. This was specifically the designation that Lexington and Saratoga would have received if they hadn't been converted to carriers, and those ships were specifically designed as battlecruisers as well. Alaska was a direct response to the belief that the Imperial Japanese Navy was building their own equivalent to the Deutschland-class, and was being prepared as a counter, just as the Montana-class was planned to counter the incorrect information naval intelligence had on the Yamato-class. This is actually also why the ships had names like Alaska, Hawaii, and Guam - they weren't considered battleships worthy of state names, but were also too large to be named after cities, so they were named after US territories (remember Alaska and Hawaii were not yet states). Even All Hands, the magazine at the time published by the USN for navy personnel, called Alaska the first battlecruiser ever to be completed by the USN. Only later did they have their hull designation officially reclassified to CB, or "large cruiser," and the navy sent out an official directive to stop calling them battlecruisers.

That said it's worth noting that the spectrum from large cruiser to battlecruiser to battleship can be hard to pin down with nice divisions. The KM certainly didn't call the Deutschland-class cruisers of any kind, though they didn't exactly call them battlecruisers either, and they were designed primarily for commerce raiding. Plan Z had even called for a new class based on them also with two triple turrets with 11" guns, but the updated version that Scharnhorst got and an increased displacement for longer endurance, but still a commerce raider. As mentioned above people also tend to split heavy and light cruiser based on main armament, but many argue over whether the lines between heavy cruiser, battlecruiser, and battleship are based on that, on speed, or on armor. I've seen in this very forum people insist that the Kongo-class can only be considered a battleship, but the IJN certainly didn't agree. The Iowa-class ended up getting a new name, fast battleship, because of thoughts that she was too fast to not be a battlecruiser but too well armored to not be a battleship. If you can't find the answer to nail down definitively or see classification as debatable you shouldn't be concerned; actual naval historians often dispute whether certain ships of the time were battlecruisers or not.

[FirestormMk3]

Originally posted by sunseekers_:

German 'Panzerschiff' (fighting ships) features 6 x 11" calibre guns - the press called them 'Pocket Battleships', but in reality they were the equivalent of a heavy cruiser.

Originally posted by Apollonir:

The Deutschland class does not count as heavy cruiser :))

Probably should have mentioned this in my last post, but it's also worth noting "Panzerschiff" means "armored ship" and at the time they were constructed (which was under the Reichsmarine, before the Nazi party took power) this term applied broadly to any large, armored, sort of ship of the line, much like one might use the word capital ship today, which can encompass carriers and certain cruisers. The Kriegsmarine did in fact reclassify them as heavy cruisers because by 1940 it was clear they were no match for modern capital ships at all, so the navy that operated them would actually disagree that they don't count as heavy cruisers. The term "pocket battleship" was coined by British press, not German, and in now way applies to how the designers and operators thought of the class.