Aircraft vs. Battleships. Case Closed!

[WestPhilly]

On December 10th, 1941 Japanese bombers and torpedo planes proved once and for all the superiority of aircraft vs. battleships. Unlike at Taranto and Pearl Harbor, two important precedents were set on this day: Prince of Wales and Repulse were in open water and free to maneuver, and more importantly, P.O.W. was a fully worked-up modern BB with state of the art anti-aircraft batteries.

[lwd]

POW's AA was hardly state of the art. By 45 a case could be made for the resurgence of the BB. A single CV load of planes would have had trouble sinking a US BB with it's normal escort.

[Dave Saxton]

I kind of disagree. Any BB, even late war USN, had better have some fighter plane coverage or it's in big trouble.

POW certainly had state of the art flak by the standards of late 1941. Even by late war standards it's wasn't that bad, having recieved a considerable beefing up since June 1941. I can't think of many other battleships that had a stronger flak batteries in Dec 1941. POW even had radar control for it's flak batteries, with four Type 285 sets for the heavy flak, and four Type 283 sets for the 40mm batteries.

[Gary]

If my memory serves me correctly, the Prince only had a single 40mm BOFORS gun which was on her quarter deck.
It was mentioned in the aftermath that it was far more effective than the POM POM mounts

[lwd]

I kind of disagree. Any BB, even late war USN, had better have some fighter plane coverage or it's in big trouble.

There was a brief period from perhaps sometime in 44 up through the end of the war when radar directed proximaty fused AA guns would have allowed a late war BB especially with escorts to cause pretty impressive disruption and damage to attacking aircraft. A single CV load would probably not be enough to overwhelm them. Damage would be likely but I doubt enough to sink the BB. Especially given the vulnerability of torpedo bombers and the altitude dive bombers would have to release from to have enough penetration.

[Karl Heidenreich]

Well, just see what happened to Yamato. Never in history was such an armoured and AA defended ship as Yamato (OK, maybe the late war US BBs might been better defended) and she went down nonetheless.
The aircraft and the aircraft carrier were the dominant weapon...

Why I say "were"? Because, as Bgile often says, I´m quite sure the new dominant sea weapon (even over the gigantic CVNs) are the SSN and SSBN. Letçs wait for the next high-tech war (China vs. USN at Spratley Islands; USN vs. China over Taiwan; USN vs. Ruskies somewhere in the Persian Gulf) and the predominance of such submerged weapons would be complete...

[Dave Saxton]

Actually the period from mid 1944 to the end was not the zenith of shipboard AAA effectiveness. During this period there was a crisis evolving, as suddenly the shipboad flak became less effective. This was caused by a change in tactics from high and medium attack to mostly low level attack from several directions.

Optical flak direction was almost useless at dealing with this form of attack, and all too often the radars were also failing to get the job done.

It was well known that MK4 radar had problems in dealing with low level attack. The new piggy back 3 cm height finding radars didn't help that much, because the horizontal tracking was still mechanical and too slow, and horizontal tracking was of increased importance in dealing with this type of attack. Moreover, they still had to use crude mechanical predicters. The V/T fuze was of little help unless the projectile could be put with in 20 yards of the target, and that was still a matter of luck in most of these situations. The 33cm Mk12 version was actually not much better, as it also suffered from mechanical tracking for azimuth, and the crude predicters. USN flak was just as ineffective everybody else's without efficient radar control.

Given the decreasing effectiveness of the heavy flak during this period, it was left up more and more to the 20's and 40's, but these didn't have the consistant knock down power required beyond the typical torpedo release range.

[tommy303]

I believe PoW's 283 sets were for the 2pdr PomPoms, which like the Bofors were also 4cm calibre. The fired a lower velocity shell which limited their range, and the Bofors was a more effective weapon.

[Dave Saxton]

There's no question that the Bofers was a superior peice to the PomPom. The PomPom however, still had enough range, theoretically, to reach the Japanese aircraft before they arrived at their torpedo release points (some 1500 meters) in the case of POW. This should have provided enough time to fire on the target. Nonetheless, they could not knock down the aircraft or otherwise thwart the attacks, until after the aircraft had already dropped their torpedos. This was even with some help from Type 273; that could have extended the range that an accurate firing solution could be attained, providing more time to fire upon the target before torpedo release, something that in most cases of the more modern 40mm was not usually provided.

One of the reasons the later wave hugging tactics were more dangerous was because this reduced the effective range of light flak. The max ranges were usually attained at elevations up to 45*.

One of the shocking aspects to the Allies of Japanese torpedo attacks, was greater typical range of the release point, and the much greater running speeds of the torpedos.

[Dave Saxton]

Some excerpts from Lt. Cdr. McMullens report on the attacks on the POW are revealing:

"About 9 torpedo bombers were engaged on the starboard side and then on the port side by the starboard fore group and by both groups of 5.25" and by the close range weapons...(12 salvoes were fired under directer control, then followed by barage fire)...a good barage was developed but this in no way deterred the enemy....Oerlikon tracer appeared effective. Two of these machines crashed on the disengaged side after they had dropped their torpedos"

"The following serious deficiencies in gunnery material, should be put right in all ships fitted with similar equipment to that in Prince of Wales:
....All pompoms suffered from a large number of stoppages due to the shells and cartridge becoming seperated, this defect showed it's self in Operation Halberd but not to the same extent.....The tracer of the Bofers gun and the Oerlikons was definately seen to make some attacking aircraft jink. The pompoms, although they were seen to hit the enemy, did not frighten him, due to lack of tracer.....all close range weapons should have at least 15 degrees of depression.....The Bofers gun on the quarter deck fired without stoppage.....it is considered that a Bofers with tracer ammunition in local control is a more valuable weapon than an 8 barrel pompom without tracer, added to which a Bofers in no way relies on (electrical) power and fires 1/8 the ammunition."

On the Japanese tactics:

" When at extreme range they formed a line astern on the starboard bow and went into a shallow dive on a course at right angles to the ship and crossed from starboard to port. When on the port bow they turned to port losing height the whole time, and flew on the port beam reciprocal to that of the ship. They then appeared to do a series of 'blue turns' and waves of two or three came toward the ship at a time in line abreast. The deflection at all times was great up to the final moment when they turned toward the ship...due to the high speed of the machines, the time between their turn to firing course and the torpedo release was very small...."

Obviously the Pompoms were not having a very good day, but I doubt that had they all been Bofers that it would have altered the eventual outcome. The close range flak scored hits, but the attack was still pressed on. It appears that the 20mm actually shot down planes, but too late. The 5.25's, the 40's and their control were not able to cope with high deflection rates. All the weapons needed greater amounts of depression.

[wadinga]

All,
Nothwithstanding the shortcomings of PoW's own AA (let alone poor old Repulse) it seems to me that the four destroyers acting as screen had hardly any useful AA of their own to contribute. If Japanese attackers had needed to fly through a defence in depth of the kind of barrage provided by escorts for Mediterranean or Arctic convoys (Didos, Converted C class, twin 4" V & Ws) they might not have had such an easy victory.

But as we all know Force Z was a stopgap who bravely tried, but failed, to stop the gap!

All the Best
wadinga

[lwd]

Well, just see what happened to Yamato. Never in history was such an armoured and AA defended ship as Yamato (OK, maybe the late war US BBs might been better defended) and she went down nonetheless....

Japanese AA was distinctly inferior to US AA. However how many CV loads of planes were launched vs the Yamato? Do you really think on CVs planes would have had a good chance of sinking her? Now project one CV worth of planes vs a US BB and its escorts. The US had better AA formations and doctrine, better AA weapons, better AA fire control, and better AA shells.

[JustinT]

I would submit that is because of the fears brought on by the kamikaze, the american military learned the lesson very well, far more so than any of the other sides. this, combined with thier virtually limitless resources, allowed them to come up with highly advanced defenses thru the end of the war.

fast forward to today, and i would think if a government had the resourses and will/reason to build one, i do beleive that a battleship could be constructed to the degree that it could be an exceptionally powerfull standalone unit, highly effective in many if not most circumstances. the drawbacks, naturally, are the high resource and manpower cost to build it, as well as it being one fairly large target. i doubt one could make it paticularly stealthy, not without immense cost anyway - but nuclear power, say 18" triple turrets, Phalanx, SAMS, tomahawks, and torpedoes for submarine defence to make a nicely rounded out ship. theres an idea for another topic tho...

[Bgile]

I really think today's ideal warship is about 10ktons and incorporates at least some stealth technology. The exception is CVs, which incorporate large economies of scale when they are big.

[RF]

The cases used to support the superiority of aircraft over battleships are extreme ones where the telling factor were the large number of planes used, ie. sheer weight of numbers.

The loss of the POW was largely due to a hit on the stern which prevented the ship from being properly conned or steered, the same thing that happened to Bismarck, and which allowed further torpedo hits that doomed the ship.

The fate of the Repulse and that of Musashi and Yamato lends more credibility to the argument but again overwhelming numbers of planes and absolute command of the air were the critical factors.

Compare this with Thunderbolt/Cerebus, where Ciliax had air superiority to get his fleet back to Germany.

Another angle of looking at this is that individual battleships tend not to perform very well either against a force of several opposing battleships - as evidenced in the final action of the Bismarck. The point here is that the battleship, like any other weapon, is disadvantaged by being confronted by a superior enemy, whatever those enemy forces comprise.