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HMS ''Incomparable'' was the name given by Admiral "Jackie" Fisher to a proposal for a very large battlecruiser which was suggested in 1915. Despite research into the concept it was never to enter the design stage nor was it to come close to being built.〔Breyer, Siegfried: ''Battleships and Battlecruisers of the World, 1905-1970''. Macdonald, London, 1973. p 172. ISBN 0-356-04191-3.〕 Fisher had long been an advocate of improving technology to maintain Britain's naval superiority. At the beginning of the 20th century he had masterminded the introduction of the dreadnought type of battleship and its faster cousin, the battlecruiser. At the start of World War I, Fisher returned to the office of First Sea Lord. Here he oversaw the development of vessels which took the battlecruiser concept to extremes. Favouring an assault on the Baltic coast of Germany, three "large light cruisers" were built. These ships were designed to have to have a relatively shallow draft, but while they mounted large guns, they would have carried less armour than ships of the battle line. The last of these, , was intended to carry two 18-inch guns, far larger and more powerful than the 15-inch weapons that were standard on the and s, and the two s; at the same time her deck and belt armour was at best only 3 inches thick, not really capable of standing up to the guns of even a light cruiser. The guns were actually fitted, but removed after a few months following damage to the ship when they were fired. ''Incomparable'' was suggested up as the logical conclusion of this trend. By the standards of her time, she would have been a mammoth vessel. Her intended displacement of 48,000 tons dwarfed the newly built s (28,000 tons). No British battleship or battlecruiser would be built of that displacement until , which was completed after World War II.〔Breyer, pp. 172, 110–2〕〔The planned s and s were both planned at 48,000〕〔Note: Garzke and Dulin give the full load displacement of the , launched 8 August 1940 and commissioned for service in the Imperial Japanese Navy 16 Dececember 1941, as 69,988 tons (mt ); other references, including the article on ''Yamato'', give the full load displacement as 72,800 tons (Garzke, William H., Jr., and Robert O. Dulin, Jr., ''Battleships: Axis and Neutral Battleships in World War II'', Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD, 1985 )〕 This large hull was intended to accommodate engines capable of immense speed and sufficient fuel to give a prodigious range, coupled with armament and ammunition greater than anything before sent to sea. The 20-inch guns which were planned for ''Incomparable''〔 were bigger than the largest guns ever installed on a warship (the 18.1-inch guns of ): 20-inch guns were ultimately only ever to be used on paper. The 18 inch gun tested on ''Furious'' was used on monitors during the war, from which complaints were occasionally voiced that it 'caused a shower of sheared off rivet heads' whenever fired. Just as remarkable as the firepower intended was the speed of the ship: if ''Incomparable'' had been capable of the 35 knots intended, she would have been faster than almost any battleship or battlecruiser built historically, and indeed faster than many cruisers or destroyers. She was expected to have a life span of no more than 10 years; Fisher expected her design to be quickly surpassed. The tactical value of ''Incomparable'' was dubious. Her construction would have been a very great expense, and her armour relatively weak. The Royal Navy's experience at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, where three of Fisher's battlecruisers were destroyed, resulted in a decisive turn away from the 'large light cruiser' concept and towards the 'fast battleship'. The subsequent design of battlecruiser, the , ended up incorporating much heavier armour but retained the proven 15-inch guns. The following class intended (but also never built), based on the G3 design, was a battlecruiser only in relation to the paired N3 battleship. It is therefore untrue to say that ''Incomparable'', or a ship like her, would have been built had Britain not signed the Washington Naval Treaty. ==See also== *Admiral class battlecruiser * *HMS Hood 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「HMS Incomparable」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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