well if i plan on slugging it out, I wouldn't mind either a Yamato or Montana. If i'm expecting carrier cooperation, you can't do much better than an Iowa which balances decently between the two duties.
At ranges of 15-20000m Bismarck can blew of the water ANY ship of her time,and actually did that.
What she did? She blowed old tincan and heavy damaged ship which technically speaking still was under construction....
Admitedly, Bismarck's gunnery and acomplishment were impressive and shouldn't be discounted. Her adversary wasn't what i would classify a "tin can", true her horizontal protection was out of date but her side protection was at the time of her completion, quite advanced. I kind of view this battle in the same lens as with Midway. Just as the USN hasn't been able to duplicate the sheer lopsideness of that famous victory in their annual wargames....i have yet been able to duplicate Bismarck's one shot knockout in several wargames including Action Stations (though i did once detonate Bismarck....lol)
PoW i'd agree was hardly a fair representation of a the KGV in full workup.
< Message edited by Nikademus -- 3/7/2007 5:32:02 AM >
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" you goofs how could you not want the Montana Class!!!!!!!!!!!! Not only is she a total brute but a beauty as well"
Simple, they were slower than the fleet carriers, and that limits their usefulness in my book. They might have been great line of battle ships, but they were not great Pacific theatre battleships, where they may be asked to protect the fleet carriers.
The bismark was indeed a very good ship but in some respects her design was out of date. She was mainly designed on a WWI class though german WWI ships were very far ahead of their times.
However the bismark is better than the hood but if she fights her 100 times she gets that lopsided result only once.
I admit I'm a huge fan of the Montanas, but with all due respect that 5 knots loss was more than worth it, since CV TFs rarely operated for more than 25 knots continously, only perhaps in air actions. Would there have been a surface attack against the US fleet CVs then the Montanas' task would have been to fend off the attack, not to run away with the CVs...
IMHO burst speed is nice to have, even in a gunnery engagement, but if you do have 10 inches of deck armour plus 16" of sides, married with 12 of those extremely powerful 16"/50 Mark 7s there really is no need to dictate the range, not to mention that the very long and narrow bow required for the high speed might easily be damaged, cutting the speed advantage. Cruising speed and radius is much more important, especially in the Pacific.
So to put it in an other way, would you like to be on a Montana or an Iowa in a hypothetical battle between them? I sure would like to be on that 60kton+ monster
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Again..., the problem is that while the Montana's had a lot of interesting things going for them there was just no way they were going to be completed in time to participate in the WITP. Might as well talk about Aegis Class Cruisers being nice to have...., they won't be available either.
I admit I'm a huge fan of the Montanas, but with all due respect that 5 knots loss was more than worth it, since CV TFs rarely operated for more than 25 knots continously, only perhaps in air actions.
But isn't that exactly when they would be needed most? To provide AA for the carriers?
BBs were called upon to do this many, many, times - and only called on to repel enemy BBs in battle how many times? Twice?
I have to disagree with this to a certain level. The second pair of Iowa class ships were suspended or at least went through a slower construction, that is why they were entered service several month later... Had BB construction remained top priority (as the General Board's view was to build the BBs first with higher priority) 1-2 Montana class ship could have been ready by 1945. It is not like an AEGIS cruiser, as it was absolutely contemporary technology, the design dating back to 1938-39 originally, but even the final version was ready by 1941.
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quote:
ORIGINAL: csatahajos
I have to disagree with this to a certain level. The second pair of Iowa class ships were suspended or at least went through a slower construction, that is why they were entered service several month later... Had BB construction remained top priority (as the General Board's view was to build the BBs first with higher priority) 1-2 Montana class ship could have been ready by 1945. It is not like an AEGIS cruiser, as it was absolutely contemporary technology, the design dating back to 1938-39 originally, but even the final version was ready by 1941.
The two Iowa were shelved to make room for CVs. If the priority had been on BBs over CVs, the US would not have had enough carriers. One thing the US lacked were capital ship construction yards. I believe there were only two of them.
BTW, the engines from the Kentucky are still running. I read somewhere they they were put into other ships that are still in service when her unfinished hulk was scrapped.
Bismarck is often accused of being a WWI design but I think it was more that she was designed for the same type of fight as were her WWI predecessors....a shorter ranged type fight as one might expect to find in the North Sea (where local condtions would often preclude a long range fight) As such her horizontal protection was designed as much to reinforce the vertical protection as it was to protect against bombs and plunging shellfire. Given that shorter ranged fights were expected, i think the designers were more worred about bombs than plunging shells hence the thicker bomb deck at the expense of a single thick layer of deck armor, carried higher up in the hull (which would have increased her protected boyancy capacity.)
While a powerful (if not THE most powerful) ship, all that makes her less suitiable for the theoretical warfare envisioned for the Pacific. Then again......every BB fight there was at night and at shorter ranges than what was envisioned so a number of these points would not have been as relevent.
Again..., the problem is that while the Montana's had a lot of interesting things going for them there was just no way they were going to be completed in time to participate in the WITP. Might as well talk about Aegis Class Cruisers being nice to have...., they won't be available either.
I don't see Montana as being disqualified...the question posed by the thread was "if you could design your own BB and ready it by 41." Iowa's were in reality a detour when the history of US battleships are considered. (Protection and firepower were always preferred over speed) If one is allowed to dispense with Treaty restrictions, then a Montana might also be built over either a NC or SoDak class vessel.
It all comes down to what kind of fight one evisions.
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I love how Bismark fanbois always focus on the 'she was scuttled' bit. Ignoring the fact that big-B was cornered, essentially immobilized and turned into debris by the English Navy. It's akin to saying, "The Yamato wasn't sunk by US airplanes, it was destroyed by fire reaching her secondary ammo magazine.". Which are in both cases cop outs IMHO.
Give me something like this for a Japanese BB/BC:
3 x 2 18.1"/45 16 x 3.9"/66 A bunch of x 25mm AA
Give it a 35 kt speed, which will cost in armor but I like making mincemeat out of CAs at range and then running away.
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"One thing the US lacked were capital ship construction yards. I believe there were only two of them. "
There were several yards that built capital ships in the US during WW2 (in this list I am not including heavy cruisers, just battleships and CVs).
New York ShipBuilding Co New York Navy Yard Bethlehem Steel, Quincy, Mass Philadelphia Navy Yard Norfolk Navy Yard Newport News ShipBuilding and Drydock Co
The California was built at Mare Island Navy Yard, but that wasn't in WW2.
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quote:
ORIGINAL: bradfordkay
"One thing the US lacked were capital ship construction yards. I believe there were only two of them. "
There were several yards that built capital ships in the US during WW2 (in this list I am not including heavy cruisers, just battleships and CVs).
New York ShipBuilding Co New York Navy Yard Bethlehem Steel, Quincy, Mass Philadelphia Navy Yard Norfolk Navy Yard Newport News ShipBuilding and Drydock Co
And virtually all of the above had more than one large slipway/building dock...
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Iridium
I love how Bismark fanbois always focus on the 'she was scuttled' bit. Ignoring the fact that big-B was cornered, essentially immobilized and turned into debris by the English Navy. It's akin to saying, "The Yamato wasn't sunk by US airplanes, it was destroyed by fire reaching her secondary ammo magazine.". Which are in both cases cop outs IMHO.
The Bismark is a good example of my argument that ships that get to 99% Sys damage and receive more should sink/scuttle. Whether she was scuttled or sank on her own, the Royal Navy turned her into a hulk. In game terms she was at 99% Sys damage with some severe fire damage too. Even if her flotation damage was not critical, the crew saw her as a write off and scuttled her. The game should do that too. One of the most frustrating aspects are ships that become invincible after taking 99% Sys damage.
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quote:
ORIGINAL: bradfordkay
"One thing the US lacked were capital ship construction yards. I believe there were only two of them. "
There were several yards that built capital ships in the US during WW2 (in this list I am not including heavy cruisers, just battleships and CVs).
New York ShipBuilding Co New York Navy Yard Bethlehem Steel, Quincy, Mass Philadelphia Navy Yard Norfolk Navy Yard Newport News ShipBuilding and Drydock Co
The California was built at Mare Island Navy Yard, but that wasn't in WW2.
The Kentucky was launched incomplete to make room for Essex carrier construction and the both the Illinois and the Montana class were delayed to a point where they were canceled. The Illinois was started in January 1945. The US did not have the ship yard capacity to run both the Essex and Iowa building programs at full capacity at the same time. It became apparent that the Essex program was more important, so the battleships took second priority in the queue.
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That's still more than two capitol ship construction yards. I never made any claim that the US had unlimited construction capability, just that there were substantially more than two yards capable of producing them.
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quote:
ORIGINAL: bradfordkay
That's still more than two capitol ship construction yards. I never made any claim that the US had unlimited construction capability, just that there were substantially more than two yards capable of producing them.
Agreed. wdolson's statement was just silly. The US launched more Capital Ships during the War than the rest of the world combined..., which would have made those the two most efficient slipways in all of History.
I'm sorry but I'm with brad on this. The slipwasys weren't a limiting factor (just check Norman Friedman's CV book, the Essex chapter) on the other hand for the BBs heavy armour manufacturing and gun casting was the real bottleneck. The Kentucky was cancelled because it seemed it could not be completed until the end of the war due to delays in the above mentioned items, so there was no point in vacating a valuable slipway. The same is partly true for Illinois, but she was not even laid down in 1942.
According to Mr. Friedman, just as the Essex program started all major yards were expanding so they could easily take the required numbers with a bit of a management.
Also other than the yards listed by Brad there were quite a few other ones for cruiser and destroyer/sub production so these yards could concentrate on the larger ships.
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RE: Design your BB for Pacific War... - 
Make mine Iowa.
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