smilingassassin

Tirpitz's "fleet in being" assets are really over rated, the main reason that Britain arrayed so many BB's against her is simply because she could. Including the elderly pre-dreads still in service Germany had 7 BB's, 4 of which were modern dreadnoughts while Britain had 17 at the time of Bismarcks sortie. Other theatres demanded the presence of a BB (far east, Med ect.) but Britain could still feild enough BB's to outnumber the Germans.

It comes down to sheer numbers, eliminate Tirpitz and you've eliminated 25% of Germany's overall BB fleet strength. A counter arguement could be made that the superior numbers of UK ships forced Tirpitz into a "fleet in being" role.

While Yamato has tons of armor shells can still strike barbettes and damage them, effectively a soft kill hit, if the turret can no longer train 160 degrees.
Hits to optics and machinery can also make things miserable. Iowa's quicker ROF and better optics/radar would likely make a big diference.

I know the Iowa's get trumpeted quite alot but there is no denying that they were very impressive beasts.

cape_royds

Hi, smiling assassin (and Merry Christmas):

The Germans built their surface navy knowing that for the foreseeable future, they had to go with a "fleet in being." I think even the abortive Z Plan for a much bigger fleet was still made with that "fleet in being" strategy in mind.

The Bismarck class were important for that fleet-in-being, since the Scharnhorsts bore only 11-in. guns and would be driven away from a convoy even by an unmodernized R-class or a Nelson. Of course the German battlecruisers couldn't be pursued by such slow vessels, but they would be warded off.

However, a Bismarck outclasses any British dreadnought except a KGV.

So I wouldn't agree with you that the British had any embarrassment of riches, dreadnought-wise. The Tirpitz definitely forced the British to make deployments in home waters which they didn't want to make, and which cost them elsewhere. e.g. they could have forced conclusions earlier with the Italian Navy, rather than just fencing them in with a few Queen Elizabeths. And then of course, there's the question of Malaya and the ABDA command, if the British could have contributed more than a token force to the East in 1942. Tirpitz is part of all that reckoning--probably the best money spent on any battleship by any belligerent in WWII.


Good point about the non-penetrating but still crippling hits, and I agree a higher ROF multiplies the chances of scoring such hits.

But those 18-inch Japanese shells, while not superior in penetration to the US 16-inch, are still making a bigger concussion when they hit their target because of the heavier shell weight. Would that not also contribute to extra non-penetrative damage on board the target vessel?

When I said I liked the protection on the Yamatos, I wasn't just thinking of armour thickness. Look at just how much damage those Yamatos actually did absorb before going down--and the worst sort of hits, too (i.e. to the deck, and below the waterline, rather than on the belt which would be more often the case in a gunnery duel).

That was a pretty well-engineered protection scheme: more to it, I think, than just laying on a lot of steel.

smilingassassin

Merry Christmas to you as well, and happy new year!

Idealy the Scharnhorst and Bismarck classes were to operate in the Baltic, comerce raiding really was an after thought. Scharnhorst performed poorly in Atlantic seas being suseptable to weather damage, she also had that nasty boiler hump in her deck armor which meant that if a shell entered at the righ tragectory it would strike above the side armor and penatrate first the inner 1.75" splinter bulkhead and then the short 2" hump, a far cry from the 12" side armor. Bismarck was a drastic improvement in this reguard though her torpedo protection suffered because of it dispite having a larger beam.

That said there is much discussion on German tactics during the war. Their orders were to avoid toe to toe battles with British units. The Nelsons while slower still packed a more potent punch than the Bismarck class as did the elderly QE's and R class ships which posessed obviously inferiour armor.

This strategy reared its ugly head when both Scharnhorst and Gniesenau breifly engaged the battlecruiser Renown, Gneisenau suffering three hits and Scharnhorst sustaining weather damage.


Oh I won't deny the British would have liked more flexibility in reguards to battleship deployment but in war one has to make due with available assets and the home front certainly was the most important theatre. That said the QE's that sortied in the Med still made a good showing, the real force multiplier for the British in the Med was thier Carriers.

More displacent does wonders, Yamato due to her sheer size should be able to take more punishment because of her extra reserve boyancy and mass. Yamato by rights could have performed even better if her torpedo bulkhead wasn't prone to detaching itself from its backing plates, as happened with past torpedo hits and likely would have suffered similar problems on her death ride to Okinawa.

As for shell weight it really depends on the explosive charge, figures for which I don't recall off hand.

Elbmek

As a newbie, I have arrived at many posts too late, as many have been closed or date expired, as this one has, but there seems to be a bias towards battleships of American origin. I suppose this is natural as many of you seem to be of that nationality. In my own humble opinion, the best battleship was the Bismarck. She was a masterpiece of engineering, her achilles heel was obviously her "heel"- her external directional devices - the rudder!

We (the Royal Navy) succeeded in destroying her, but it was mainly down to pure luck. If that torpedo had been 2 seconds later in being fired, history could have been very different.

Yes, Bismarck for me - nothing matched her.

smilingassassin

Bismarck is waaaay over rated. Anytime 1 shell takes out two turrets something is seriously wrong with your design. Fate has a funny way with ships of this type too, Bismarck could not steer adequately with her rudder turned and using screws only, something other ships could get away with, and were did she get hit? Ditto for the Hood, hit in her most vulnerable spot.

Quite frankly she should have been a dead duck in her encounter with Hood and Prince of Wales, which by the way if you want to talk about luck, 2 minutes (seconds realy mater little with torpedo's near rudders) likely could have saved Hood from her disasterous Magazine hit.

To be honest the British were sloppy, surprizing considering they should have got things right in naval warfare following the first world war. The didn't upgrade Hood in the years when should could have recieved it, instead parading her round like a show piece. POW should never have gone out in her "green" condition, she had too little shake down time to work the major bugs out of her guns.

Then when they finally had the Bismarck they closed the range to near point blank firing shells accross her decks in a straight trajectory over the side armor or bouncing off it instead of standing off and getting critical deck hits from afar at distances (22-25,000 yards) they were quite comfortable shooting at. As it was the progressive flooding from all the hits above the armor and torpedo hits below was enough to doom Bismarck anyway, having suffered terrible loss of life, saving the ship was a near impossible task, most certainly impossible for her crew.

The reality is KGV was as good as Bismarck dispite having 5,000 less tons of mass and a slight speed disadvantage. Most treaty BB's were about equal in leathality, Bismarck gained little for her size advantage. This doesn't say much, KGV had her own problems, particularily her torpedo defence having no armor to stop the upward blast of a torpedo detonation within her bulges. Her torpedo bulkhead and the bottom half of her side armor would simply channel this energy straight up.

Dreadnought

IMO In order to pick them apart and see who is the best all things must be considered. Ouside of Weaponry,FCR Radar,Armor other things as well should be considered. I.E. Handling/Stability Seakeeping is a major concern because if it is not a steady gun platform at speed or in heavy seas then it has failed from its inception. Also length of service should be considered as well when we look at all of these various features.

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Elbmek

Hood was due a for major refit in 1939, including the removal of the 600-ton conning tower and improvements to her deck armour, but with too few capital ships available she could not be spared. This would be the reason that she was sunk later on.

On the outbreak of war HMS Hood was at Scapa Flow with the Home Fleet. In June 1940 she was allocated to Force H, in the Mediterranean. Force H’s first task was its most distasteful, to neutralise the French squadron at Oran in Algeria. At 1755hrs on 3rd July 1940 Hood and her compatriots opened fire; the battleship Bretagne was blown up and the Provence and Dunkerque badly damaged. Hood returned to the Home Fleet and on 19th May 1941 she sailed with the brand new battleship Prince of Wales to intercept the German battleship Bismarck that was attempting to break out into the North Atlantic.

Bismarck, accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, was shadowed on radar by the Norfolk and Suffolk which reported their position to HMS Hood. In the Denmark Strait on the morning of 24th May Admiral Holland ordered his ships to close the range and shortly before 0600hrs both sides opened fire. The Bismarck’s fifth salvo hit the Hood amidships penetrating the secondary armament magazine. The detonation spread to the main magazine resulting in a catastrophic explosion which tore the ship in half. Only three of her 1418 crew survived.

smilingassassin

True but Hood could have recieved her refit much earlier when she wouldn't have been missed as much.

Elbmek

Absolutely. But in hindsight, lets not forget that 50% of the powers that be did not expect war; 45% had their heads in the sand pretending war was not coming and the other 5%, like Churchill, were shouting We must Arm from the rooftops and Commons.

smilingassassin

Sounds oddly familiar, kinda like present times.

Anyway, like I said take any two of the treaty BB's and they could hurt each other in their own brutal way. North Carolina could have bested Bismarck, theres a matchup I wouldn't have minded seeing, or KGV vs. Littorio.

gunnut

The reason there were so many votes for the Iowa is partly because she was the last and the finest battleship built. She had no treaties to worry about. She had the latest in electronics. She incorporated the most extensive anti air armament ever in a battleship, something that earlier designs hadn't had to worry about.

WW2 saw technology make light year leaps unimaginable a few years prior. Being late to the party has its perks.

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Shipwreck

She was largely designed within the constraints defined in the escalator clause of the LNT though.

gunnut

Really? I did not know that. I thought by 1938/9 the USN had abandoned the treaty on the Iowa's design because the word was IJN had abandoned the treaty. The only limitation (I thought) for the Iowa was that she should fit in the Panama Canal.

Dreadnought

Yes, In brief.. After realizing that both Germany and Japan were shrouding the real displacement of their new Capital ships as well as refiiting other ships to upgrade their armament, the U.S. invoked the escalator clause of the contract and produced the Iowa class battleship designs.There is a more detailed story I have read about the displacement clause.

RustyBattleship

That is correct. Studying the drawings of all four ships of the Iowa class you can see where extreme attempts were made to keep the Iowa's within the 45,000 standard tonne Treaty limitation.

But remember, the keels were laid for all four Iowa's BEFORE Pearl Harbor.

While inspecting the ships, as you go higher up in their construction after Pearl Harbor you can identify some hurried installations. Also we found some plans with extreme changes. Some plans that should have had changes done were skipped over as being too minor to delay launching. One such plan was the one on Bhd 36 that was originally issued on Friday, December 5, 1941. It wasn't until years later a weakness was found in the upper outboard corners.

Changes were then made on Missouri and Wisconsin that thickened the Class A armor on bulkheads 50 and 166. It also increased light armor (splinter deck, gun shields, etc.) from 5/8" to 3/4".

That was another thing I found fascinating about those ships when I worked on them. I was re-living WW II again but in much greater detail than when I walked Block Warden duty with my Grandmother during air raid drills.

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