Slitherine

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I think you have chosen two specific ships for emotional attachment rather than best classes.

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ORIGINAL: Tiornu
I don't understand that claim. I agree that the Type XXI was revolutionary, but there's no combat experience to gauge how successful the boats would have been. They may even have been the best subs of the war, but as mdiehl has noted, it's easy to get overly enthusiastic. Isn't anyone concerned about housing the hydraulics outside the pressure hull? What are the results even if the depth charges are not very close?

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ORIGINAL: JWE

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ORIGINAL: Tiornu
I don't understand that claim. I agree that the Type XXI was revolutionary, but there's no combat experience to gauge how successful the boats would have been. They may even have been the best subs of the war, but as mdiehl has noted, it's easy to get overly enthusiastic. Isn't anyone concerned about housing the hydraulics outside the pressure hull? What are the results even if the depth charges are not very close?

The question was, what was the best design. Not what was the best this or that. Don't recall making a claim, I gave my opinion, and the reasons therefor. I think most people will understand where I'm coming from, even if you don't.

If you don't like it, post your own opinion.

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

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I think you have chosen two specific ships for emotional attachment rather than best classes.

It's not my habit to allow emotions to affect critical analysis.

SoDak class over Iowas because in my view the Sodaks were pound for pound better. That's not a knock against Iowas, it's merely acknowledgement that the SoDaks could hold their own in any conceivable engagement, even against ships that displaced substantially more. The Iowas were better BBs still. But the SoDaks were almost as good as the Iowas, and that is a singular design achievement for a treaty-compliant BB.

Enterprise but I suppose could have said Yorktown class. In my view they performed better under heavy damage than the Essex class. Essexes were better designed in re command and control facilities of course.

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ORIGINAL: Terminus

I think a very important aspect of the design of any weapons system is how easily it can be produced in meaningful numbers. On that account, the Type XXI was not particularly impressive.

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ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

Let me make a suggestion, define "best design" in some measurable, testable way?

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ORIGINAL: witpqs

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ORIGINAL: Terminus

I think a very important aspect of the design of any weapons system is how easily it can be produced in meaningful numbers. On that account, the Type XXI was not particularly impressive.

But it was a later design. So the lack of time to make those production refinements has to be looked at in the same light as the lack of time for combat experience and, in the case of other ship designs, outright differences in combat experience due to opportunity.

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ORIGINAL: Terminus

I think a very important aspect of the design of any weapons system is how easily it can be produced in meaningful numbers. On that account, the Type XXI was not particularly impressive.

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ORIGINAL: witpqs

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ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

Let me make a suggestion, define "best design" in some measurable, testable way?

Takes the fun out of it. How can you put a value on sharks with laser beams on their heads? Or measure the combat value of throwing a shoe (because I mean, who throws a shoe anyway, really?).

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ORIGINAL: castor troy

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ORIGINAL: Terminus

I think a very important aspect of the design of any weapons system is how easily it can be produced in meaningful numbers. On that account, the Type XXI was not particularly impressive.

that´s not correct. The German were able to build Type XXI faster in 44 than Type VII in 42. The number of subs reached it´s high point in 44. U-boot production in tonnage was four times higher in 44 than in 41. It wasn´t a problem of not enough production capacity, it was more a problem of getting them into action as it took quite some time to have a sub (the crew even more so) combat ready. All in all there were only some 130 Type XXI produced IIRC but they could produce far more if they wouldn´t have thought they wouldn´t need them in 41. In 44 they planned to produce 30-40 a month and something like that was produced every month at the end of the war which is quite impressive to me as there were also other types produced. Doesn´t sound like a problem to produce them in high numbers.

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ORIGINAL: Terminus

Unless you're trying to tell me that Nazi Germany designed the Type XXI in order to facilitate post-war submarine development for its enemies, I repeat that I don't find it very impressive.

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ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

LOL!

You know what that makes me think of, the concept of "Weapons of Mass Destruction." I don't know if it was an article I read, or one that I should be writing, but it seems to me that the concept of WMDs is _COMPLETE_ balogna.

Biological and chemical weapons, nukes, even big bombs (IIRC) do not account for most deaths in most conflicts in which they have been used, thus the concept of them being weapons of mass destruction is fundamentally flawed. But because they somehow represent an even further step away from a more 'honorable' form of killing (e.g., imagine gallant knight on horseback) they are somehow more 'repugnant.'

I seem to recall that in WWI it was artillery that accounted for a disproportionate amount of casualties . . . well that when combined with infectious disease.

WWII was it small arms fire? Certainly in modern conflicts small arms fire and perhaps small explosive devices seem to account for the largest fraction of casualties. . . . But there I go again totally tangentializing a perfectly good thread with way too much deep analytical thinking

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I just did a search to grab 'any' number, and found "1 in 700,000" chance of being killed by a meteorite during the average persons entire lifetime (as opposed to every year).

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ORIGINAL: witpqs

That's the problem with the estimates versus experience. If you look at once in 60,000,000 years 7,000,000,000 people will be killed, that's an average of 116 people per year right there. Assuming a 70 year lifespan, that's about 1 in 860,000 (round figures) per a person's lifetime. I'm not saying they used those numbers or assumptions. I'm just pointing out that the numbers can be pretty surprising when the rare event is MASSIVE.

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As far as new technologies go, my understanding is that in the near future (dozens of years) we have nothing that could deploy in time to stop a comet (which is what we are talking about) because we would only know about the danger with at most a few months to spare.

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ORIGINAL: Tiornu

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The only vessel that significantly impacted post war warship design was the Type-21.

I don't understand that claim. I agree that the Type XXI was revolutionary, but there's no combat experience to gauge how successful the boats would have been. They may even have been the best subs of the war, but as mdiehl has noted, it's easy to get overly enthusiastic. Isn't anyone concerned about housing the hydraulics outside the pressure hull? What are the results even if the depth charges are not very close?

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

Well, I'm waiting for someone to pipe up that an ELE class bolide would lose in a confrontation with Bismarck. Since we're stepping kind of far afield now I figured the conversation should naturally now take a hard turn into the bizarre.

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

Well, I'm waiting for someone to pipe up that an ELE class bolide would lose in a confrontation with Bismarck. Since we're stepping kind of far afield now I figured the conversation should naturally now take a hard turn into the bizarre.

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ORIGINAL: mikemike

it is inconceivable that the type would have passed service acceptance trials had the hydraulics really been that vulnerable;