Battleships

a reply to: Asktheanimals

Iowa, in a walk.

Faster, larger, more heavily armed and armored. It could have picked it's moment and essentially decided where and when to engage.

The Iowa's were the pinnacle of battleship development.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Regarding the armor. I was talking about when you pass into the battlebridge.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

The citadel is 17" at the con.

The only place on the ship that had thicker armor than the citadel were the turrets.

The conning tower and the turret barbettes armor is up to 17.3 inches (439 mm) thick Class A and Class B respectively. Source

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Wow youre right. They seem thicker when youre actually passing through them.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Someone had to right a book report on this in junior high. I believe the facing of the main guns are over 20".

Another interesting feature is that the turrets are resting on rollers on the tops of the barbettes. In the event the ship listed to far to one side they were designed to fall off and into the water to help prevent the ship from capsizing.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Im not sure but i think the Bismarck had a similar design. She rolled while making her accent i think and the turrets fell out.

Even wilder with the Bismarck she crashed into an underwater volcano and then slid down to its base coming to rest 15000 feet down. Her impact created a mile long landslide.

Why does everyone seem to forget the Yamato and the Musashi? 72,000 tones with nine 18.1 inch guns, 16 inch thick armor at the waterline. 7.9 to 8.9 inches at the deck and 25.6 inches of armor in the gun turrets. There was even plans for a Super Yamato class, design A-150, with six 20 inch guns. That's about as close as you will get to a super battle ship.
The Yamato and the Musashi were still sunk by plain old dive bombers and Torpedoes.

The problem with white elephant weapons designs are they become a huge resource suck in time and money. And they have so much national prestige tied into them that politicians become afraid to use them out of fear of losing them.

With the advent of drones and cheap missiles the future of Aircraft carrier battle groups are in doubt. When your using a nuke against a battle group close may be just be good enough.

a reply to: mash3d

What about them?

They were wonderful examples of the technology of the "last war".

There would have been a third, IJN Shinano, but it was converted on the ways to an aircraft carrier--the largest until the Midways came on line after the wars end.

In a comparison with other battleships of the time, they would have been a match for the South Dakota's, and North Carolina's. The superior firepower of the Yamato's offset by the firecontrol and rapidity of the two American battleship classes. The newer British battleships of the time were handicapped by 14" main batteries.

The Iowa's were in a class by themselves at the end of WW2.

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: eriktheawful

I loved this show!!

This was the version I remembered in the early 80's KTVU showed it and I can remember racing home from school to make sure we caught the latest episode

originally posted by: mash3d
Why does everyone seem to forget the Yamato and the Musashi? 72,000 tones with nine 18.1 inch guns, 16 inch thick armor at the waterline. 7.9 to 8.9 inches at the deck and 25.6 inches of armor in the gun turrets.
.

Not forgotten and in fact the Montana class was a direct response to counter them (later deemed unnecessary and the Montana's would not have been able to fit the Panama Canal hindering their utility.

As Seagull points out the Yamato versus the Iowa would have been an interesting battle to say the least, but the fire control, slightly higher rate of fire and, speed would have put the Iowas at a significant advantage. Also despite being lighter the Mark 8 Shell had the same penetrating power as the 18" on the Yamato

a reply to: mash3d

The thing about Battleships is: They never really had their chance to shine like they could of.

The whole idea behind a battleship is to have a platform that is afloat that can move a large variety of guns (from small to huge) all over the world, and have some of those guns quite big that can shoot quite far.

The first of the "modern day" battleships did their first (and only) engagement against each other in the Battle of Jutland between Great Britain and Germany during World War one. That battle pretty much ended in a draw, though both sides claim victory.

As in most cases: being at war and doing battle shows you the issues and problems you have, and what to fix. This battle did just that.

The English ships were blowing up.....literally, blowing themselves to nothing. This was because they were carrying much more ammo and powder than they had room for, and the magazines were quite vulnerable. German ships didn't carry that much ammo as their gunnery was much more accurate....and because they were hitting the English battleship's powder magazines (boom). They lost 151 ships compared to the Germans 99 that they lost.

But: the Royal Navy was able to contain the German ships which ended up pulling back.

So you can see why both sides sort of claimed victory. England succeeded in keep the German ships from breaking out.....but the Germans sunk a hell of a lot more ships.

From that point on, there was a lot of improvements of the ships and their weapon systems from the lessons learned from that battle.

BUT! There was this new thing......airplanes......which were getting bigger, faster and could carry large bombs. Better yet: you could put them on a flat top ship and launch them while at sea.

One of the weakest points of a battleship is the deck. It's not armored like the hull. A few well placed bombs, and that's all for the battleship.

So by the time WW2 came about, there had been a LOT of improvements made to battleships compared to the ones from WW1. But....air power showed that not only was it able to catch up, but could pass what the battleship had to offer.

Hell, a old biplane carrying a single bomb is what doomed the Bizmark. It didn't sink it of course....but it damaged the rudder so they could only steer the ship in circles......until the rest of the royal navy caught up with her.

But: you are right. Prestige. That was the thing. And it was a very, very big thing back then.

Like here in the US now....people love their football teams. Their basketball teams, etc. Back then, people loved their huge ships. The bigger, the better. The bigger the guns it carried, the better. Each ship gave that country a sense of national pride. Even when the ships became out dated.

Even in today's world with all our missiles, bombers, etc. Ask anyone to picture a Naval Warship, and the most often first image that comes to mind is a big ship bristling with big guns.

Never mind how outdated those guns are compared to cruise missiles and fighter jets........it's that huge floating platform with big guns that people think of.

I've sometimes wonder what naval battles of WW2 would have been like if for some reason air power had not advanced so fast.

a reply to: FredT

Actually, in the case of the "Montana's", there was money budgeted to widen the locks in the Panama Canal, I suppose dredging them deeper, too...

Ran across that little tidbit a couple of years ago in one of my collection of books on Battleships. I'd have been such a battleship admiral--"aircraft carriers? We don need no stinkin' aircraft carriers!"

originally posted by: eriktheawful
The first of the "modern day" battleships did their first (and only) engagement against each other in the Battle of Jutland between Great Britain and Germany during World War one. That battle pretty much ended in a draw, though both sides claim victory.

What about Surigao or Gudalcanal?