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A fast battleship was a battleship which emphasized speed without — in concept — undue compromise of either armor or armament. Most of the early WWI-era Dreadnought battleships were typically built with low design speeds, so the term "fast battleship" is applied to a design which is considerably faster. The extra speed of a fast battleship was normally required to allow the vessel to carry out additional roles besides taking part in the line of battle, such as escorting aircraft carriers. A fast battleship was distinguished from a battlecruiser in that it would have been expected to be able to engage hostile battleships in sustained combat on at least equal terms. The requirement to deliver increased speed without compromising fighting ability or protection was the principal challenge of fast battleship design. While increasing length-to-beam ratio was the most direct method of attaining a higher speed, this meant a bigger ship that was considerably more costly and/or could exceed the naval treaty tonnage limits (where these applied—such as the Washington Naval Treaty shaping Naval fleet composition before World War II). Technological advancements such as propulsion improvements and light, high-strength armor plating were required in order to make fast battleships feasible. Unlike ''battlecruiser'', which became official Royal Navy usage in 1911,〔''Admiralty Weekly Order no. 351'', 24 November 1911; quoted in Roberts, p.24〕 the term ''fast battleship'' was essentially an informal one. The warships of the were collectively termed the ''Fast Division'' when operating with the Grand Fleet. Otherwise, fast battleships were not distinguished from conventional battleships in official documentation; nor were they recognized as a distinctive category in contemporary ship lists or treaties. There is no separate code for fast battleships in the US Navy's hull classification system, all battleships, fast or slow, being rated as “BB”. ==Origins== Between the origins of the armoured battleship with the French and the Royal Navy’s at the start of the 1860s, and the genesis of the Royal Navy’s ''Queen Elizabeth'' class in 1911, a number of battleship classes appeared which set new standards of speed. The ''Warrior'' herself, at over under steam, was the fastest warship of her day as well as the most powerful. Due to the increasing weight of guns and armour, this speed was not exceeded until achieved under steam. The Italian of 1880 was a radical design, with a speed of , heavy guns and no belt armour; this speed was not matched until the 1890s, when higher speeds came to be associated with second-class designs such as the of 1895 (18 knots) and the and of 1903 (20 knots). In these late pre-dreadnought designs, the high speed may have been intended to compensate for their lesser staying power, allowing them to evade a more powerful opponent when necessary. From about 1900, interest in the possibility of a major increase in the speed of Royal Navy battleships was provoked by Sir John (“Jackie”) Fisher, at that time Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet.〔Roberts, p.11〕 Possibly due to Fisher’s pressure, The Senior Officer’s War Course of January 1902 was asked to investigate whether a ship with lighter armour and quick-firing medium guns (6-inch to 10-inch (150 mm – 254 mm) calibre), with a advantage in speed, would obtain any tactical advantage over a conventional battleship.〔''Ibid'', p.16〕 It was concluded that “gun power was more important than speed, provided both sides were determined to fight”; although the faster fleet would be able to choose the range at which it fought, it would be outmatched at any range. It was argued that, provided that the fighting was at long range, an attempt by the faster fleet to obtain a concentration of fire by ”crossing the T” could be frustrated by a turn-away, leading to the slower fleet “turning inside the circle of the faster fleet at a radius proportional to the difference in speed”〔''Ibid'', p.17〕 (Figure 1). War games conducted by the General Board of the US Navy in 1903 and 1904 came to very similar conclusions.〔Brown, “Warrior to Dreadnought”, p.188〕 Fisher appears to have been unimpressed by these demonstrations, and continued to press for radical increases in the speed of battleships. His ideas ultimately came to at least partial fruition in the of 1906; like ''Warrior'' before her, ''Dreadnought'' was the fastest as well as the most powerful battleship in the world. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fast battleship」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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