Naval History Forums

Thanks Steve,
It must have been pretty impressive all the same with all those big guns belching fire, I'll bet the Japanese commanders nearly wet themselves when confronted with 6 battleships!Even without modern fire control the fire from 48 x14" guns must have hit something.

Gentlemen. iwas watching a documentary on Letye Gulf the other day and it mentioned the battle of Surigao Strait, with 5 (old) US battleships annihilated a Japanese force by crossing their T, as far as i could make out the US forces has something like 18 x16", 48 x14" and 47 x 8" shells to play with...

Admirable synthesis! Thanks! Was there any manual backup for either (I must admit that there would be difficult lifting about a ton 15 m by hand). Regards Hi Marcelo, It would indeed be a job to raise a 16" shell by hand, made even more improbable un the film 'Battleship' where 4 or 5 carried a she...

Thanks Wadinga,
I think your quote that "the 'R's and the Nelsons were too slow to even catch a cold"' has to to go down as one of the most classic statements ever on this Forum!

Thanks for your replies, i believe Scharnhorst actually blew up underwater after he went down, perhaps there were still fires burning new the magazines?

Gentlemen,
This may seem a bit of a daft question given the age of missiles, but do any warships today still carry torpedoes?

Thanks for your reply Francis, i realise that the RN Med fleet was shall we say severely inconvenienced, by the loss of Barham and the attack on QE and Valiant, but i wonder if this had not occurred whether they would have been enough to deal with the French battleships or would they have had to bri...

Gentlemen, Many moons ago I asked why some ships (Barham, Scharnhorst, Yamato) blew up as they rolled over, I believe the answer was because the shells fell out of their racks as the ship capsized. What still puzzles me is that a large calibre shell is designed to absorb a considerably heavier impac...

Gentlemen'
had the french ships been completed and manned either by either French or German crews, would the RN be able to deal with them and if so what sort of gorces would they need besides the existing Mediterranean fleet?

What if the torpedo missed? To be honest so many things could have made a difference to the entire outcome. - What if Bismarck had left with full tanks, and refueled. Bismarck would have been sitting slightly lower in the water and maybe the shell hits from POW may have played out differently Bisma...

Thanks for that Dave, it made very interesting reading, it seems that mistakes were made by both sides. this could possibly be one for the Hypothetical situations colimn, what if both fleets has met up in one massive battle?

Thanks for your replies,
Would the modified Japanese torpedoes been effective in the rougher waters of the open sea as i assume they were designed for the calmer waters of PH

Gentlemen, if the US fleet at Pearl Harbour had prior warning of the Japanese attack and had sailed out to meet them what would have been the result, assuming that the US had their 3 carriers with them, the US were far superior in battleship numbers,(8 v 2) but the Japanese had 4 carriers plus subma...

Oops, yes it certainly would!
Of course I meant 35000 tons, but as i said, I wonder why the RN seemed to have difficulty in putting 12 x14 or 8x16" in the KGv's when the US managed it, was it because the KG's had more and heavier armour and were built to be faster?