Battleship Top Ten

From the Washington Naval Treaty to the end of the Second World War.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Battleship Top Ten

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

As you see the BB59, when at "moderate seas" stunned their own officers as a wet ship. Of special interest is that the "circuits" were in danger when the water started to pour inside the engine rooms via the air intakes. It seems that the electrical design of these vessels was somehow problematic (I will not use the "flaw" word because that applies only to Axis ships, American ones do not have flaws according to the political vocabulary corrections from one of the USN fans here and no body wants this to turn into a semanthic or rethoric thread, just a BattleshipTop Ten one).

It seems, so, that the circuits didn't even need to be severed by enemy action, just a little of moderate seas accomplish that. Going into the hypothetical, what could have happened at North Cape being a South Dakota Class vessel there (intead of DoY), revolving it's turrets not in order to fire against the Schanhorst but in order to avoid water comming into them and the ship?

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Re: Battleship Top Ten

Post by yellowtail3 »

Karl Heidenreich wrote:(I will not use the "flaw" word because that applies only to Axis ships, American ones do not have flaws according to the political vocabulary corrections from one of the USN fans here and no body wants this to turn into a semanthic or rethoric thread, just a BattleshipTop Ten one).
I'm giggling as I read this, Karl, but... you're [Edited by Moderator], in your one-man crusade against the political vocabulary corrections gang (where are they?)
It seems, so, that the circuits didn't even need to be severed by enemy action, just a little of moderate seas accomplish that. Going into the hypothetical, what could have happened at North Cape being a South Dakota Class vessel there (intead of DoY), revolving it's turrets not in order to fire against the Schanhorst but in order to avoid water comming into them and the ship?
Geez, I dunno... the narrow (108') treaty-limited bathtub would have been impotent against the (98' wide) German dreadnought, which would have escaped? Or maybe the bathtub would have foundered?
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Battleship Top Ten

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

yellowtail3:

Thanks for your post, it really demostrates the weight and quality of your argumenting capabilities.

Regards and have a nice day,
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Sir Winston Churchill
yellowtail3
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Re: Battleship Top Ten

Post by yellowtail3 »

Karl Heidenreich wrote:yellowtail3:
Thanks for your post, it really demostrates the weight and quality of your argumenting capabilities.
Regards and have a nice day,
argumenting capabilities? I've not yet begun to argue!

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boredatwork
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Re: Battleship Top Ten

Post by boredatwork »

Bgile wrote:
boredatwork wrote: AA Ships: They didn't need 16" guns or 12" armor to shoot down aircraft. And their AA batteries were hardly optimaly placed for the job. A 14,000 ton AA cruiser (as opposed to the far undersized Atlanta class) with 8x2 5"/38 and proper directors could have been as effective an escort at a fraction of the cost and manpower as a fast BB.
You are completely ignoring the huge 40mm battery, which accounted for a lot more aircraft than the 5" battery. I'm not saying they were great at sea control, but your argument that you could build an AA ship just as good on 14,000 tons is IMO rather silly. There just wouldn't be enough deck space for all those guns. And yes, you could purpose build bombardment ships, fast oilers, and AA ships, but all in one ship? Well, yes. It was called a fast battleship.
I don't see evidence that I'm ignoring the 40mm battery. The Iowa had 10x2 5", and 19-20x4 40mm. All of Iowa's 5" weapons were broadside meaning targets in front or behind could not be engaged as effectively as targets on the sides.

On 14,000 tons the Baltimore class already had 6x2 5"/38, 2 AA directors, plus 12 quad 40mm. Remove the 2 surface directors and weight and space have been found for an additional pair of Mk37s. Replacing the 3 8" turrets with a 5" turret fore and aft will save considerable deckspace. The superfiring pairs of 5" guns can then be pushed further towards the ends of the ship and resulting gaps filled with 2 pairs of quad 40mm. Of course without big guns spotting aircraft become superfluous freeing up the quarter deck for an additional pair.

8x2 5", 4 directors and 16-18 40mm quads doesn't sound far off the AA capabilities of a battleship.

And yes you could build it all in one but then you get to the jack of all traits, master of none debate. Sure the battleships could do it all but, once sufficient carrier power became available, how often did the fast battleships get to use their big guns? Only rarely towards the end of the war because no carrier is going to approach within 20 miles of the enemy coast and detaching the battleships to bombard places your oilers in harms way while depriving you of your AA support and diluting your CAP.
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Re: Battleship Top Ten

Post by Serg »

Karl Heidenreich wrote:I will copy the text for easy reading and the link.

http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/ ... amage.html

Well well well, the report also mentioned about maximum 13 degrees of roll at 4 (!!!) sea state. As a rule the training of main turrets is very difficult because of jamming if the roll exceed 8-10 degrees and impossible at roll 15* and above. It's hard to believe that the Massachusetts will beat Bismarck in such weather.

P.S. Many thanks Karl, somehow I missed such important document...
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Re: Battleship Top Ten

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Serq:
Well well well, the report also mentioned about maximum 13 degrees of roll at 4 (!!!) sea state. As a rule the training of main turrets is very difficult because of jamming if the roll exceed 8-10 degrees and impossible at roll 15* and above. It's hard to believe that the Massachusetts will beat Bismarck in such weather.
Yes, true indeed. If you add this document to the various elements that Friedman, Raven and G&D have brought up on this Class the conclusions are not that far away.
P.S. Many thanks Karl, somehow I missed such important document...
You are welcome and I also thank to my friend that sent me this.

Regards,
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
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lwd
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Re: Battleship Top Ten

Post by lwd »

boredatwork wrote:
lwd wrote:
The development of progressively longer range Dreadnought gunnery afterall had less to do with the desirability of plunging fire than it did with the desire to stay out of Torpedo range.
I don't see that at all. Indeed it's pretty clear that he longer range gunnery dues were invisioned to be vs capital ships and not torpedo boats, destroyers, and their ilk. For one thing the P(H) of a tropedo drops off even more rapidly with range than a guns does.
I didn't say the battleships would be shooting at torpedo craft - but rather to engage the opposing battleline outside of effective range of a torpedo attack.
Early on this may indeed have been a factor I'd like to see documentation stating that it was the primary one however.
The P(H) of a single torpedo attack against a single target is slim at long range - the chance of success of a mass torpedo attack against a fleet worth of targets remains resonably good at compatively longer range.
Some of the massive long range torpedo barrages the Japanese used seem to indicate otherwise.
Because that range comes at considerable cost. Certainly it's worth doing but again a single carrier isn't guaranteed to be able to take out even a single battleship and carriers are by their verry nature rather fragil.
I don't see the logic here... true a single carrier isn't guaranteed to take out a single battleship... but neither is a single battleship... in a BB fight both ships have a chance to take out each other.
In a carrier vs. BB fight I'd gladly choose "no guarantee of victory" over "no possibility of victory."
But the situation isn't one of "no possiblity of victory". For instance at the canal if the Japanese hadn't had any BBs and the US had a single BB there along with some air cover from Henerson there would be little the IJN could do without several carriers. That constitutes a victory for the battleship force. A single carrier might be forced to withdraw or be put out of action by a single Japanese carrier however. More types of ships give one more alternatives which tends to increase the probability of victory.
..Dreadnaughts have higher individual operating costs then pre-dreadnaught battleships and yet everyone switched to the former - The higher operating costs of the later were matched by increase in capabilities.
But Dreadnaughts were supperior in almsot every way to pre Dreadnaughts. The Carrier isn't when compared to the Battleship. It has some characteristics that the Battleship simply doesn't have but it also has some weaknesses and lacks some capabilities that the latter also has.
Arguably with more Carriers the US would have come out on top in the carrier battles and would have retained enough strength to engage the Japanese ships in daylight closer to the Japanese bases as they were eventually able to do.
And risked the losses that doing so might have generated. CVs especially WWII ones were quite vulnerable to damage. While they might not get sunk a single bomb could put them out of action until they reached a major repair facility.
Again for the equivalent effort why not just field another carrier to give you additional CAP and shoot down the planes and destroy the enemy air power before it gets to you?
Because you are not guaranteed to intercept the planes before they reach you.
And aside from the ones lost due to Asymetrical flooding of a wing compartment how many cruisers were disabled by one bomb hit?
How many were sunk or disabled by multiple bomb hits or even a single torpedo hit.
edit - Out of curiosity out of all of the US aircraft at Midway how many went after Hiei and Kirishima or the 2 cruisers instead of the carriers in the formation? - /edit
Unfortunatly my coppy of Shattered Sword has dissapeared. But of course that's only a single data point. I think I've read that on a number of occasions US battleships accompanying carriers were attacked and in some of the latter engagments Japanese escorts accompanying their carriers were also attacked.
How many shells hit battleships (or cruisers for that matter) while bombarding? The protection of the monitors was entirely adequate for the task.
Texas was hit as was hit by a number of 240mm shells off France. Mass. was also hit off Cassablanca and at least one of the cruisers their stradled by 15" fire.
... Why do you need to build "several additional ships?" You're already building ships to escort the convoy, why can they not protect the monitor as well?
Well if you want the same fire power as a battleship then you need several to carry the guns. But because you've lost flexabilty due to the slow speed you need a few more in case you need them somewhere else. Then you need the AA cruisers. Probablly need more tankers as well.
It's far from clear that airpower was as dominant as you seem to suggest during WWII particualry at the end of it. Futhermore there is the effect of combined arms. Vessels with different capabilities can act as force multipliers for each other. Air cover became important for all surface ships in WWII if the oppostion had attack planes around but no one is suggesting that buildinga fleet wholly of carriers would have been a good idea.
By the end of the war few people were suggesting building battleships at the expense of carriers was a good idea either. Given that 13 of 15 fleet carriers under construction were completed but neither of the Iowas I would speculate is indicative of the relative value the bulk of the USN brass placed on their respective capabilities.
That's due to a number of factors. One is that while the BB may have gained some advantages in 44 and 45 it was clear that they wouldn't last. Jets and guided weapons were going to erase them in the near future. It was also pretty clear that there simply wouldn't be any signficant opposition for allied battleships in the post war world. In addition the sheer mass of existing US CVs and planes would allow overwhelming just about any foe invisioned in 44 or 45 for the next few decades (at least at sea). Clearly the days of the battleship were numbered by mid war. However that doesn't mean that they or their mission were obsolete at that time.
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Re: Battleship Top Ten

Post by boredatwork »

alecsandros wrote:Hi Michael,

How long did it take you to write all this stuff ? :D
Too long!

Hence I will be doing my best to avoid responding to you and lwd, at least until after the long weekend. =P

In the meantime can you suggest a good source on Santa Cruz? Prefferably one with a break down on exatly how the US lost 81 aircraft in total but only 26 aircrew?
Byron Angel

Re: Battleship Top Ten

Post by Byron Angel »

Re USS MASSACHUSETTS February 1943 passage of Cape Hatteras, it should be kept in mind that this area is rather notorious for unusually short, steep seas in heavy weather. It differs materially from open sea conditions under similar Beaufort levels and is more akin perhaps to the upper reaches of the North Sea.

For what it's worth.

Byron
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Re: Battleship Top Ten

Post by brisgooner »

Hi Everyone

This is my first ever post, so be nice to me.

Thoughts on most beautiful BB/BC ever - to me HMS Tiger pre 1918 refit, is the epitome of an elegant design. Not necessarily the most effective capital ship, but certainly a most beautiful one.
Paul Tavatgis
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Battleship Top Ten

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

Hi brisgooner! Welcome to the forum.

I also have this thing for dreadnoughts and pre dreadnoughts. Last year I built my 1 350 Koenig and have to build Mikasa. Also I am about to buy USS Maine and SMS Emden. Have been reading Friedman's book on US Battleships and the photos and drawings of the turn of the century vessels are awesome!

Welcome again!
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Sir Winston Churchill
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