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Tiornu -> RE: Baddest Battleship (7/17/2004 12:26:41 PM)
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Oyez, oyez, thus begins Rant #1!
All's fair in BB competitions. Some ships are bigger than others, some are newer, but they all play the same game. Me, I'd like to see the Baddest page expanded to include Vanguard and North Carolina.
"...for sheer sex appeal HMS Rodney and HMS Nelson wipe the floor with anything else. "
Indeed, there is nothing sexier than a giant, floating pimple.
"Had the Yamato been designed later, I'm sure it would have been equiped with a lot more AA as well."
Fukui mentioned a Yamato study for rearming the ship with something like 40 5in twins. Ugh. And yes, Yamato was taken out by air attack; she and her escorts managed to shoot down about ten planes--not much of a trade for a battleship, a cruiser, and four destroyers, not to mention the 3600 men.
"Those 16" guns might have served KGV better."
The 16in gun that would have been used for KGV, had the RN gone that route, looks a lot better than the Mk I. The only question is how plagued with bugs it would have been. Basically it was scaled up from the 15in example.
"the Tiger class as well..."
I think you mean Lion. She would have carried those 16in guns.
"It isn't fair to compare the Iowa, and say the King George V class, as both are generations apart, with one class facing severe size restrictions, while the other doesn't and was built with modern war experience."
Iowa and KGV were both built to treaty-restricted tonnages, but KGV's restriction was stricter. Iowa began construction in 1940--not a lot of war experience went into her. If you want a ship with distinct war-inspired upgrades, Vanguard is the best bet.
"South Dakotas are actually a bit worse than their near-sisters the Washingtons since the attempt to compact the design resulted in a less habitable ship."
I found a statement along these lines in D&N's Victory in the Pacific, or whatever it's called, and it's extremely incorrect. SoDak represented a great advance over NC, and my talks with a SoDak class crewmen indicate that habitability was fine.
"Vittorio Venetos had that wonderful merger of a great gun and horrible fire control."
Italian fire control was not bad, within the limits of radarlessness. (Gufo wasn't much of a gunnery enhancer.) Italian gunnery problems had to do mostly with poor ammo QC.
"The Bismarck is always a sore spot for me. Preston calls them something like the most over-rated ship of all time."
With all due respect to Mr Preston (who, by the way, is apparently in very poor health), I don't believe he knows very much about Bismarck. He has been repeating the same incorrect comments about her for years now; that "vulnerable cables" assertion is a good example. My best guess is that he assumed she inherited the flaw from her WWI forebears, which makes sense if you buy the equally invalid assertion that she's just a warmed-over Baden. The thing that left Bismarck toothless in her last fight was getting gang-tackled by the RN and the fact that her main battery protection was just plain bad.
"The U.S. fleet had the iron and oil to put any ship wherever it wanted in top condition, and keep it there for as long as required."
The most probable reason why American battleships played a relatively minor role at Guadalcanal is the fact that the logistical base in the SWPac could not support both carriers and battleships in any sustained way until the end of 1942. That's when Batdiv 1 moved into to the area, and they would have provided heavy support from Dec on, if it had been needed.
"I love how Preston put the Bismarck on the cover of his 'worst ships' book."
I can't help thinking that Bismarck is the most over-rated battleship ever, and the most under-rated, depending on whom you're talking to. She was a mediocre ship, a bit over-weight for the capability, I think.
"It was supposed to be a heavily armed and fast Commerce raider."
Can anyone actually document this. If Bismarck was intended as a commerce raider--whose commerce? France? French ships had numerous influences in German thinking, but I can't find much reference to British ships. If Bismarck had broken out into the Indian Ocean, the French would not have needed to stop her; she would have stopped herself. As effective as German at-sea supply was, it wasn't THAT good! But were the Germans crazy enough to design a 42,000-ton ship to do the job of a 10,000-ton cruiser...?
"I do not think it was the baddest ship for the purpose of commerce raiding. IMO the 'Pocket BBs' seem to me to better fit that description."
Bismarck's designed range: 8410nm at 15 knots
Deutschland's designed range: 18,650nm at 15 knots
Cost of Bismarck's demise: 41,700 tons of metal and 2100 men
Cost of Deutschland's demise: 11,700 tons of metal and 1150 men
Is there any doubt about which ship is the better choice for high-seas raiding? What a shocker--the cruiser is a better choice to do a cruiser's job.
"the poor thing was a CL with BB guns stuck on top."
At the time of her completion, Hood was the best-armored ship in the Royal Navy.
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