Naval History Forums

The Soviet atrocities that Bgile refers to went unpunished. After all the Soviets were on the winning side. The defeated enemy were considered fair game. And they weren't picking only "German" either. When the red army entered Romania, in late august 1944, the young girls used to hide in ...

Thanks for the detailed assesment of Hiei's damage. It's the first time I see this. Thanks!

So, it seems like the belt armor held, after all... From what I've read, all the other shells failed to to critical damage. So it was only the dud 8" shell sealed the fate of the ship! Interesting...

lwd wrote:

alecsandros wrote: We must bear in mind that Kongo, Haruna, Kirishima, Hiei, Ise, Hyuga, Fuso and Yamashiro were very poor ships (and behaved as such),

Compared to what? Other ships of their generation or WWII era BBs?

Compared to their most probable foes, including the refitted WW1 era American battleships.

It's not clear to me if Hiei switched to AP rounds. From http://www.combinedfleet.com/hiei2.htm, it apears that the order was given, but, as you said, we don't know of ships being hit by AP rounds, so maybe they didn't have the time to execute it. Abe wasn't killed, but wounded in the crossfire, as ...

It's not clear how many times Bismarck's belt was penetrated. I thought the penetrating hits that have been identified were thought to be a mix of 14 and 16 inch hits. Also while her machinery may have been in good order her armament and fire control were out. But the point of bringing it up was th...

Let's take a closer look at this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battleship_Bismarck gives Bismarck's belt as Belt: 145 to 320 mm http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_8-55_mk12-15.htm indicates that at 10,800 yards the US 8"/55 can penetrate 254mm of armor so much of Bismarck's belt could...

There's no question about the ferocity of the Ist battle of Guadalcanal. However, IMO the Japanese had a significant firepower advantage, fielding 2 battleships, 1 CL and 14DD against 2CA, 3CL and 8DD. And we have to think about the overall result of the Japanese mission: a failure, because they did...

What you say is true, and the same thing could happen to the British battle cruisers if they got involved in a confused melee at night. Still, in daylight they are cruiser killers. At one time they could outrun anything they couldn't out fight. The USN was worried enough about them that they design...

Let's not get to eager about this though: 1)Kirishima fired on a defenseless South Dakota, and the damage incured on the american BB, even if we accept the "multiple 14" shells hit" theory, was minor (SD left the battle scene on its own, and was back in action by February). 2)Hiei had...

Yes, and besides the oil embargo, the Roosevelt administration also froze the Japanese bank accounts located in American banks in June or July 1941. Anyway, given their situation, I don't know what they hoped to accomplish by striking Pearl Harbour - they were going for the Sumatran oil field with o...

Given Asia's imense resources and population, I guess the bloodiest battle must have taken place somewhere around here. My candidates are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Changping (260BC - 700.000 dead) Battle of Talikota http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Talikota (1565 AD, over 200.000...

The evidence is that Kirishima was not scuttled. Furthermore recent evidence is that she took at least 20 main caliber hits from Washington. I believe that's in part due to analysis of her wreck but also more detailed analysis of Japanese records. There's also some evidence that she got another 14&...

I stumbled upon Leonce Peillard's "Sink the Tirpitz!" in my father's library when I was 13 or 14.. Got realy fascinated by battleships since..

Actually I wasn't contesting the numers at least in general rankinig of number of kills at all. The main thrust of my argument was that it was not enought to prove who was "best" I understand. For me, especialy after reading Clostermann's ("Clostermann, Pierre. The Big Show. London: ...

I fully agree on that. What I'm saying though, that might contradict your opinion, is that a German combat ace with hundreds of kills was most likely to win in a one-on-one confrontation with an Allied ace, simply because of his greater experince. Then why were you arguing so hard against exactly t...