From the first steel cruisers of the 1880s, two distinct functional types emerged in the 1890s: the protected cruiser and the armored cruiser. While the two types corresponded in some degree to later light and heavy cruisers, the distinction lies in their armor protection schemes.
Protected cruisers were designed for either scouting for the fleet or commerce raiding. They generally mounted 5"-6" main guns along with an assortment of smaller weapons and torpedo tubes. Armored cruisers were used for scouting, raiding, and in a pinch, fleet action; mounted a few 8-10" guns; were protected by belt armor on their hulls. See lower schematic at right; full discussion elsewhere.
When battleship aficionados discuss "deck armor," they are talking about the special angled, armored deck at or near the waterline as seen in our diagrams here. There was no armor protection on the weather deck of a battleship or cruiser; it was expected that plunging shells could penetrate into the ship in action, but that the armored deck would keep magazines and engineering spaces inviolate, and the armored barbettes would do the same for ammo hoists. Many pre-dreadnoughts also included in their protection an additional splinter deck a few feet below the armored deck. The theory was that only splinters of shrapnel could penetrate the armored deck, and they would then be foiled by this second layer.
Our diagrams at right delineate these schemes of armor protection. Below we explore two protected cruisers from the period which have survived to this day as museum ships; and the sole armored cruiser still existing. | 
Plan of a Montgomery class protected cruiser, really more of a gunboat, the USS Marblehead, named for the great Massachusetts seaport, prominent in the Revolutionary War. The ship's protection was limited to a 5/8" armored deck (the shaded curved line that arcs just above the waterline) protecting the ship's engines, boilers, and magazines; and 1" armor on the main gun shields. |
In section, a protected cruiser such as the Aurora or the USS Olympia. Marked in red here, the armored deck and shields stand out. This provided beefier protection (in the Olympia's case, 4.75" on the slope and 2" on the flat) than the Montgomery class gunboats could boast; Olympia also had minimal armor on the conning tower, 5" casemates, and turrets, making her a far more survivable vessel than the Marblehead. With ten 5" and four 8" guns, she packed more of a punch too. Owing to the unsatisfactory training scheme for her 8" turrets (later remedied), Olympia did most of her fighting with her 5" guns, as explained below.
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Here is the armor plan for a full-fledged armored cruiser, SMS Scharnhorst, commissioned 1907. Armored cruisers had vertical belt armor on the hull in addition to the armored deck, and thicker armor on turrets and vitals, making them in effect miniature battleships. In Scharnhorst's case, 7" armor on main armament turrets and barbettes, 6"-3" belt, 8" on conning tower, 6" on the secondary armament pyramid amidships, plus 1.4"-2.5" deck. Stem-to-stern waterline armor gave a greater measure of protection than the protected cruisers, even comparing somewhat favorably to pre-dreadnought battleships with their 9-10" armor on their belt and turrets. However, naval technology was moving by bounds just as the Scharnhorst class were being turned out at Blohm & Voss; their armor and speed proved completely unequal to 12" shells launched from 27-kt. battlecruisers some 6 years later. Other armored cruisers having run-ins with dreadnoughts had similar experiences and the type was discontinued after the War.
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U.S. Protected Cruiser Olympia, 1893 |
USS Olympia, a protected cruiser built 1891-93 at the Union Iron Works in San Francisco, now lies at her permanent berth in Philadelphia. The 6,600-ton Olympia was part of the "New Navy" of modern warships which rejuvenated the U.S. fleet following a post-Civil War era of corruption, inattention and decay. Denoted C-6 (Cruiser #6), she came right at the beginning of this resurgence, along with the Maine and the 1895 Texas. She is one of the very few early steel warships preserved in the world today.
Olympia is a graceful, balanced vessel, as evident in her plans and a vintage 1898 shot. As the flagship of Commodore George Dewey at the Battle of Manila Bay, in which the U.S. laid its claim to the Philippines within days of declaring war on Spain in 1898, Olympia iced her own claim to fame: Dewey's footsteps, cast in bronze, stand on her bridge to this day. The cruiser carried four 8-inch guns in twin turrets fore and aft, a mixed armament (ten 5" and smaller calibres) in casemate mountings and sponsons on the hull, and 2 torpedo tubes. Olympia had a 40-year career in the Navy and coast defense before becoming a museum ship in Philadelphia. The ship's charter from Congress was to be built entirely by American industry and in general she was a credit to her makers. However, there were a few awkward features. As originally built, Olympia used a steam-operated training gear for her 8" turrets (as did the Oregon and other American contemporaries). This system lacked fine control, making it very difficult to train the 8" guns accurately. In target practice the gunners would send the turrets around in a wide arc and fire as the guns bore. At Manila Bay, the ship did most of her fighting with her 5" battery. Post-1898 a more satisfactory electrical training system was installed, copying the successful installation on the USS Brooklyn. Another design note was the experimental use of cofferdams in the sides of the hull, packed with cellulose; this was meant to provide lightweight anti-flooding protection. Also, coal bunkers were sited along the ship's sides to absorb enemy shot; this proved potentially dangerous as coal was prone to spontaneous combustion; it is thought that a bunker fire next to a magazine may have caused the destruction of the battleship Maine. Neither the cellulose nor the coal proved to be much use as protection, though fortunately the ship survived her bouts of battle without serious damage. No matter: Dewey was inflated into a first-class American hero by the "Yellow Press" and politicos, and the Olympia and her Captain Gridley shared the limelight. Coming only days after the declaration of war, the Manila Bay victory etched itself on the national consciousness in vivid colors. Consequently the ship has been quite well cared for by the Cruiser Olympia Foundation and Independence Seaport Museum.
Specifications: 344'1" x 53' x 21'6"; std. displacement 5,870 tons. Armament: (4) 8" Mark III; (10) 5"/50 Mark II; (14) 6-pounders; (6) 1-pounders; 2 Colt machine guns; (1) 63mm field piece for landing parties; (6) 18" torpedo tubes. Boilers: (4) double-ended and (2) single-ended Scotch boilers. Bunkerage: 1,085.6 tons of coal. Engines: Two 17,313 HP vertical inverted triple-expansion steam engines; twin screw. Speed: 21.7 kts. Crew: 33 officers and 378 enlisted men. Endurance: 6,105 nm @ 10 kts. Cost: $1,796,000.
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Russian Protected Cruiser Aurora, 1903 |
 Aurora reflects French styling in her high sides, tall funnels, and pronounced tumble-home (turning inwards of the hull sides as they climb upwards). This is a marked contrast to straight-sided Olympia, although other large ships in the American fleet (notably the Brooklyn) were indebted to these same French stylings (carried to a grotesque extreme in 1890s French battleships). Aurora initially carried eight 6-inch guns (all in single mounts), smaller calibre weapons and torpedoes (plan). During the Russo-Japanese war, the recently completed cruiser was part of the ill-fated fleet that steamed from the Baltic all the way around Africa to meet annihilation at Tsushima. She was one of the few Russian vessels to elude capture or sinking, running all out to claim asylum at Manila. Released after the Treaty of Portsmouth in fall 1905, Aurora rejoined the remnants of the Russian Imperial fleet; was stationed in the Baltic as a cadet training ship through World War I. In port at Petersburg for repairs, her crew became red-hot revolutionaries, refusing orders to put to sea. Aurora became a pivotal weapon in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, when her guns shot blanks at the Winter Palace from the Neva, signaling the assault on the palace and helping persuade Kerensky's Provisional Government to flee.
Over the years the ship has received many honors from the Communist government for her impeccable Bolshevist credentials. In WWII -- Russia's "Great Patriotic War" -- both Moscow and Leningrad were surrounded and besieged; the sieges' brutality and hardship are legendary to this day. Aurora's fourteen 6" guns were removed and used in the front-line defense of Leningrad. The ship herself was transformed into a mobile antiaircraft gun platform at the port of Oranienbaum nearby, where was sunk by Nazi air raids in September 1941. But in gratitude (and recognizing a potent patriotic symbol), the Soviet government resurrected her and made her a museum of the October Revolution, first opening in 1957. And so she remains, beautifully preserved, moored at the Petrovskaya Embankment, near the handsome baroque buildings of the Nakhimov Naval Academy in St. Petersburg.
Specifications for the Aurora: 416' x 55.1' x 24' (126.8m x 16.8 m x 7.3 m). Displacement: 6,731 tons. Armament (as built, 1896-1903): (8) 6", (24) 75 mm; (9) 37 mm; 3 torpedo tubes. Armor: 2"-3" protective deck. Fuel bunkerage: 960 tons of coal. Engines: (3) vertical triple expansion steam engines; triple screw. Speed: 19 kts. Crew: 578.
By the time of her star turn in the October Revolution, the ship's armament had been augmented to 14 - 6" (152 mm) guns, four 76 mm AA guns, and assorted machine guns.
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Armored Cruisers, 1900 - 1910 |
In the years just prior to WWI, armored cruisers (larger and better protected than "protected" cruisers) grew to a size and complexity rivaling small battleships, and with commensurately larger crews. However, these large ships afforded their large crews far less protection than a genuine battleship. This had tragic consequences at the Falkland Islands, at the Battle of Jutland, and preceding these in the case of the "Live Bait Squadron," 3 older armored cruisers sunk in rapid succession by U-9 on Sept. 22, 1914, with the loss of more than 1450 British lives (837 survived). At left, HMS Hogue, commissioned 1902, was one of the Live Bait Squadron, lost patroling the Broad Fourteens in 1914. 472' long x 69.5' wide x 26' deep, she displaced 12,000 tons and carried two 9.2" guns in single turrets, (12) 6" QF, and (3) 3-pdrs; could steam at 22 kts when new, but could barely make 12 when brought out of reserve at the start of WWI. Most British armored cruisers followed a similar layout, but the largest ones (Minotaur class) had twin turrets fore and aft doubling their 9" firepower, and secondary battery upgraded to ten 7.5" guns. Old salts in the Royal Navy grumbled that these ships were over-gunned and that the weight would have been better spent on more protection. Despite their speed, armored cruisers were no match for the Dreadnought battlecruisers which superseded them increasingly after 1908. The battlecruisers completely outclassed the armored cruisers in both speed and firepower. When the two came to blows, the results could be tragic: A number of armored cruisers were blown to atoms at the Battle of Jutland: HMS Black Prince, HMS Defence, HMS Warrior, and SMS Wiesbaden. And in each instance, 850-900 men lost their lives.
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Greek Armored Cruiser G. Averof, 1910 |
The armored cruiser Georgios Averof, former flagship of the Hellenic Navy, on her way to her permanent berth near Athens, at right. Averof, built at Livorno, Italy in 1910-11, was a close cousin to the Italian Pisa class with improved protection and different masts. She joined the Greek fleet just before the First Balkan War of 1912-13, in which the Greeks repulsed a bid by the Ottoman Navy to capture and secure territory in the Aegean. Averof (known as "Uncle Georgi" to her crew) played a leading role in this campaign. Armed with four 9.2" guns and eight 7.5" guns in twin turrets (in a disposition similar to that of USS Connecticut), Averof made the opposite tradeoff from the British battlecruisers, sacrificing speed for heavier armor: She had a top speed of 23.5 kts. Her design (tripod masts, 6 twin turrets) reflects the Dreadnought/battlecruiser arms race raging while she was being designed and built. A distinctively Greek feature of the ship is her Orthodox chapel, complete with ornate silver candelabra and beautiful ikon paintings. Her heavy armament made her Greece's "enforcer" and deterrant in the region. The ship's silhouette is a familiar patriotic symbol.
Though more than a match for the antiquated Ottoman fleet of 1912, Averof would have been lucky to last 10 minutes in a duel with a genuine battlecruiser such as Sultan Yavuz Selim, as the Turks renamed the German Goeben when she arrived at Constantinople in August 1914. Shortly afterwards, the Sublime Porte issued a declaration of war on the side of the Central Powers, events historians feel may be linked. In a real match-up, Goeben/Yavuz's superior speed would have allowed her commander to choose the time and place of engagement. Then her ten 11-inch guns would have opened up and pummeled "Uncle Georgi" to a pulp. But happily, skillful handling and good fortune kept Averof intact as she fought doggedly through two World Wars. In WWII she defied the Luftwaffe, making a hairbreadth escape to Crete and thence to Egypt; spent much of the war as an escort ship based in Bombay (Mumbai). In late 1944 she had the honor of transporting the Greek government-in-exile back from Cyprus to Athens after the Nazi occupiers fled. (Yavuz herself survived to be scrapped in the 1970s, leaving the USS Texas as the lone survivor of the WWI dreadnought fleets.) After a postwar period of neglect, Averof was lovingly restored and became a national museum ship in 1986. Now open to the public at Faliron, near Athens, she remains a commissioned warship of the Hellenic Navy and flies a rear admiral's flag. She is the only remaining armored cruiser in the world.
Specifications for the Averof: 459'9" x 68'10" x 23'6' (140.13m x 21m x 7.18m). Displacement: 9,956 tons std; 10,200 tons deep laden. Armament: Four 9.2" (2x2), eight 7.5" (4x2), (16) 3", four 47mm (1.85"), three 17" torpedo tubes (as built.) Armor: 7.9"-3.15" belt; 7.9" main turrets, 6.9" secondary turrets; 7.1" barbettes & conning tower; 1.6" deck. Propulsion: 22 Belleville water-tube boilers; (2) 19,000-SHP vertical inverted 4-cyl triple-expansion reciprocating steam engines; twin screw. Speed: 23.5 kts. Endurance: 2,480 nm at 17.5 kts. Complement: 670. In a refit during the 1930s she was equipped with additional 76mm and 36mm AA guns.
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