Belfast V Zara

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Gary
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Belfast V Zara

Post by Gary »

Hi guys.

Assume that Zara doesnt get sledge-hammered by Warspite and Co at Matapan.
Early 1943 - Belfast against Zara.

Is the Advantage of Radar assisted gunnery enough to swing this in Belfast's favour over the heavier armed Italian?
God created the world in 6 days.........and on the 7th day he built the Scharnhorst
George Gerolimatos
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Belfast vs Zara

Post by George Gerolimatos »

Just a quick response,
Much depends on the weather. In bad weather, with the help of radar and at close range (which might happen at night), the Belfast, with her quick-firing and numerous 6" guns, would probably win over Zara.

On a clear day and with a real desire on the part of Zara's CO to duke it out, I think the match-up would be close.
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Captain Morgan
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Post by Captain Morgan »

The biggest problem facing Zara would be the dispersion problem the class had with the 8" guns The other major problen was she was a 2 shafted ship so any damage to engineering will drop her speed pretty severly down to about 16-18 knots or less.
There are 2 types of vessels out there. One type is called a target. If it isn't capable of silently doing 30+ knots at 2000 ft depth its always considered a target. The vessel that can silently go fast and deep is the one the targets are afraid of.
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RF
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Post by RF »

I don't have much confidence in the Italians.

How about the Haguro instead?
Bgile
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Post by Bgile »

British CL's used bagged powder didn't they? I know Ajax and Achilles did, and a lot of manhandling of ammo. They can't fire much faster than 8" guns.

Against Haguro or maybe Zara it's really one-sided in good visibility.
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Post by Tiornu »

The Italians will perform well unless the battle takes place at night. The RM virtually abandoned night training.
Zara is better-armored than Haguro, whose turrets are vulnerable to anything larger than an 8in splinter. Haguro has Type 93 torpedoes, but in this case, that's not a good thing.
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