Naval History Forums

It is my understnding that the wire guided ones can do so but I may well be wrong on this. I remember reading it some time ago but I'm pretty sure the source was less than authorative. In any case most modern torpedos for use against surface ships are designed to detonate under the ship producing a ...

But we are hardly talking about a confused night battle in restrictive waters. If we were then the odds become pretty even. If we are talking open waters then SoDaks radar fire control give her a big advantage. If this is combined with a good search radar and stable center she has a huge advantage a...

If you want to destroy a ship use a gun. If you want to sink it use a torpedo. BBs might not sink quickly if hit by modern missiles but they would be rendered combat ineffective pretty quickly. Even that consideration becomes problematic if you are discussing some of the big Soviet/Russian anit-ship...

This is an hypothetical naval scenario so we can "warp" history a little bit. ... I agree to some extent however, once you have determined a point of departure it's not unreasonable to assume both sides react to it. For instance if Tirpitz is ready earlier would the British (or Americans)...

Let's take a look at what might happen based on the historical battle if the two Bismark classes fought to fully worked up KGVs and Hood. Per what has been described as German doctrine the Bismarks would engage Hood. If the latter doesn't recieve a catastrophic hit even if you double the historical ...

I disagree. The SoDaks radar will give her a fire control advantage (as long as the circuit breaker problem is corrected). Also US doctrine is to fight at long range where this will make the most difference. At range the Bismark will not have a significant rate of fire advantage. However the SoDak d...

...,IF the germans do make it out into the atlantic,and the Americans did actively hunt the BS + TP + PE.they would not be able to engage the german ships on a even terms.the Bismarck,,,Tirpitz,outclassed any US battleship at that time.... At what time? Tirpitz becomes operational in early 42 so ma...

Except you are looking at only one side of the battle. You have the Germans teaming up a small and a large BB vs each of the KGV class. What would the British do? Probably either team up a KGV and a Nelson vs each of the Bismarks or more likely 2 KGVs vs one and the 2 Nelsons vs the other. In either...

Sinking POW is very unlikely. Best that can probably be hoped for is to damage her more severly but the likely result would be that Bismark would recieve enough damage in return that retring to port would be the optimum solution. I can see Nelson continueing with the raiding cruise and if radio sile...

...it took TWO ATOMIC WEAPONS to put the Prinz Eugen on the Bottom.if thats not a TOUGH enough BLOODY heavy cruiser. That's hardly what happened. The Eugen was some distance from the bomb blasts and it's hardly surprisng she survied them. Note that she sunk some time after the last test when she st...

On the otherhand Bismark would be unlikely to survie the escorts of a US CVN even if for some reason the planes didn't take her out.

I don't see anything guaranteeing 100% casualty rates to convoys. But lets take a look at this. When would this sorty occur? From: http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/ships/battleships/tirpitz/operations.html Tirpitz isn't ready until 42. Not sure the twins are ever at full health after 41 but do...

I on the other hand think Hood would have a very good chance of surviving. However she would have a pretty poor chance of winning. Most likely outcome would be Hood a floating wreck and Bismark sustaining significant damage. I suspect Hood would have her best chances in a long range engagment as vs ...

For a clearer picture of what happened at Midway I strongly recomend reading Shattered Sword. The emphasis on the Japanese side of things is very enlightening.

One of the reasons I linked was that there was a lot of discussion and some good points made. I think there was a fair amount of rebuttal. Some of it comes down to semantics. I'm not sure that I would say that, at least compared to the European powers, the US supplied either huge numbers or took tre...