Naval History Forums

Well, I am quite confident about Iowa's AAA gunnery... 80 Bofors and 49 Oerlikons with 20 radar guided heavy AA guns was a lot... And if 2 IOwa's woudl be operating together, they would put up an umbrella of fire from nearly 300 AA guns... Not enough to stop a massed air attack (with, say, 40-50 bo...

Gentlemen, Many years ago I read an article by a former captain of an 'Iowa' class ship in an old 'Guns and Ammo' magazine, he was obviously very proud of his ship and he said "Man, when an enemy sees us coming over the horizon he really ought to start considering his options" but in today...

Just an example, one that is not of "allied" liking. The overall best most succesfull pilot of WWII is Eric Hartmann with 352 kills. The following 111 (one hundred eleven) top aces below Hartmann are all German (not a single American, British, Polish, Japanese nor Soviet). Just Germans. G...

Thanks for your reply Dave, I agree that at first it was a high speed chase in very bad weather, but surely when DoY closed to about 4000 yards Scharnhorst was almost stationary (as was Bismarck) after being torpedoed and should have been an easy a target as Bismarck even allowing for the rough seas...

Gentlemen, Regarding performance of various aircraft I recommend two more books, 1) Wings of the Luftwaffe (Flying captured German aircraft of WW2) and 2) Duels in the Sky, both by Captain Eric (Winkle) Brown, the latter compares most of the WW2 fighter aircraft against one another. He has flown an ...

Gentlemen, A very interesting situation although I doubt very much that Hitler would have allowed all of them to go to sea at once. If they did then the RN has a serious problem, not enough aircraft carriers and the ones that the did have had obselesant aircraft, ( I know they hit Bismarck but if al...

Gentlemen, Personally I would put my money on the German ship because I think their fighting capabilities and crew training would be far better than the Italians. I realy don't think the Italian ship could have lived with either Bismarck or Tirpitz, particularly if they started getting hit at regul...

Gentlemen, Having read a couple of books on the sinking of Pow & Repulse I cannot help but to think that the whole set up was a monumental mistake. To send one of your latest Battleships and an elderly Battlecruiser out to the far east in the vain hope that the Japanese would be overawed by thei...

Gentlemen, As usual many thanks for all your informed replies, although I am still puzzled about the lack of hits at that range compared with Rodney v Bismarck at a similar range, so the questions are these,1) Was the sea that much rougher at North Cape and 2) Were the most number of hits actually m...

One book that may shed some light on the defeat of the Luftwaffe is JG 26, Top guns of the Luftwaffe. by Donald L Caldwell, it has a forward by Adolf Galland and is taken from the German point of view. It starts with the all conquering Luftwaffe with their 109 E and F's and goes on to the FW 190's a...

Gentlemen, I was watching a program on President Kennedy which featured part of the Cuban crisis and showed the US fleet sailing to intecept the Russian convoy carrying missiles to Cuba. In the film I thought that I caught a glimpse of what looked like an 'Iowa' class battleship sailing with the fle...

Gentlemen,
Its Warspite for me, I know she was old and did'nt compare with the newer WW2 ships, but what a battle history - in both World Wars!

Gentlemen,
Was watching a repeat of the TV series 'World at War' and it was suggested that the Japanese navy considered beaching Yamoto at OcKinawa (sorry about the spelling), was this a practical solution to repell the invasion or would US aircraft and battleships just pounded her to bits?

]Thanks for that Dave, I think that my point re damage to upperworks range finders ,bridge radar etc. may still be valid. I know we have has this Bismarck v KGv senario played out on this forums before and if I remember correctly the result was both ships badly damaged and making for home as neither...

[quote="Dave Saxton"][quote="RF"][quote="Wordy"] Fighting with the Hood or any of the older battle cruisers presents a conundrum. Fighting at short range against a fully functional Bismarck is almost suicidal, but fighting at long range isn't really an option because of...