Battle of the Battleships

Which Battleship would you like to have been on in a battle?

  • Total voters
    41
You're debating which was the best of a bad lot. They all ended up being targets for aircraft. The Bismark's transition to fish farms was facilitated by fabric-covered "Stringbags". Same was true of the Yamoto only the executioner that day were the more robust products of American aviation.
 
I think the discussion is strictly hypothetic, obviously WWII signaled the end of the armored battlewagon.
 
I really think that if the Yamato had a proper escort, with effective air cover and enough fuel and ammunition, she could have made the US admirals wet their collective pants. The only ships they had that could stand up to her and the Musashi were the Iowa class, and I am not sure how well they would have survived one or two hits from the Yamato's 18 inch guns. As it was, the Yamato was virtually defenseless against the aircraft attacking her and it took 18 bombs and 13 torpedoes (or was it 13 bombs and 18 torpedoes) to send her to the bottom. There are very few ships that could take that kind of punishment and still float, and I am not sure if the Iowa class is among them.

Dean.

For those of you who were thinking that Yamato was disadvantaged by her poor fire control, I found this at http://www.combinedfleet.com/yamato.htm .

Both of the YAMATO's forward turrets open fire at a distance of 20 miles. Of her six forward rifles only two are initially loaded with AP shells, the remainder with Type 3s. The YAMATO's F1M2 "Pete" spotter plane confirms that the first salvo is a hit. The carrier starts to smoke. Three six-gun salvos are fired on the same target, then the fire is shifted to the next carrier. It is concealed immediately by a smoke screen made by the American destroyers.

First salvo hit at 20 miles?!!!?!?
 
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I voted Bismarck. I like her looks and it was quite a machine. I don't know what to believe about her descend into the deep blue. One of these little submachines filmed the hull and the hole in the hull looked like scuttling. The hole bent outward and not inward.... but it was am awesome marine, and the entire British fleet didn't go after her because it was a tin cup!
 
Dean I agree

The very fact is this, the IJN Yamato armor was designed to withstand 16" shell hits, there is not a ship aflot in WWII that could have withstood a direct hit from a 18" shell, including the Iowa class. It would be like a hot knife through butter.
 
The original Dreadnought for me. What a grand old ship.
Although if the Warspite was on the list it would have been my choice.
 
This is for those of you who think that Bismarck was all that great. I remembered some of this so I decided to look it up. This is from The History Of The World's Warships (page 114) by Christopher Chant, ISBN 0-7858-1169-9.

The two Gneisenau-class battlecruisers were followed by the two Bismarck-class battleships. These were designed and built with commendable speed on the basis of theoretical work which German naval architects had completed during the period in which Germany was prohibited from the construction of warships displacing more than 10,000 tons, but reflected the fact that Germany was short of practical experience in the design, construction and use of modern battleships. The most important aspect of this limitation was that the basic hull concept of the WWI Baden-class was reused, albeit in a more refined form with a greater length/beam ratio to allow a higher speed. Considerable development of the basic hull allowed the incorporation of much improved underwater protection and a considerably enhanced armament fit, which now comprised a main battery of eight 15 inch (380 mm) main guns in two pairs of superfiring twin turrets, a secondary battery of twelve 5.9 inch (150 mm) guns in six twin turrets, and a tertiary battery of sixteen 4.1 inch (105 mm) anti-aircraft guns in eight twin turrets complemented by large numbers of 37 and 20 mm cannon wherever deck space could be found; but the basic obsolescence of the hull was evident in the poor protection provided for the rudders and associated steering gear, the location of the main armoured deck toward the bottom edge of the armoured belt at a time when other countries, drawing on experience in the destruction of older battleships (including German ships surrendered at the end of World War I), had moved this to a position farther up the belt to provide better protection for communications and data transmission systems. Both of these faults played a decisive part in the eventual loss of the Bismarck. Three other weak points were the provision of of seperate low-angle secondary and high-angle tertiary batteries, making extensive demands on deck area and displacement, as a result of Germany's failure to keep abreast of the latest developments in dual-pupose ship's armament, the indifferent quality of armour that was designed to be proof against penetration by 15 inch (380 mm) fire in its key areas but was in fact penetrated by 8 inch (203 mm) fire, and the poor quality of the 15 inch (380 mm) shells, which often failed to detonate.
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Charge 7, I was about to post an almost identical description of the Bismarck, but you just beat me to it by a matter of hours. Strange since I had not seen this thread before!

All in all the Iowa class is largely regarded having the best all round ability, there is a comparative assessment on this site, although it is a bit theoretical. The distribution of the armour, the AA fire control, equipment redundancy and and damage control are all important factors. The American navy had excellent AAA on their ships in WW2 which was a good thing in view of the Kamakaze attacks.

http://www.battleship.org/html/Articles/Features/BuildBetter.htm

The worst ‘battleships’ after allowing for prractical factors were probably the British WW1 battlecruisers (although their problems were exacerbated by incorrect use), Deutschland class German pocket battleships (eg Graf Spee), Bismark class, and the Japanese Yamato class.

The details of Hoods demise (a ww1 design) is still confused. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hood_%281918%29

The pocket battleships also had inadequate protection, although they were really designed for commerce raiding not trading shots.

Charge 7 has covered most of the Bismarck’s deficiencies. This ship stopped firing after about half an hour of the final battle due to the communication cables being smashed to pieces being above the armoured deck . Despite reports to the contrary, this source suggests there was only limited damage to the lower armoured portion and it may have been scuttled after all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battleship_Bismarck

The Yamato class ships 18" gun blast caused structural damage and ripped off flesh and clothes of those standing to close. The sheer size of the hull meant few ports were big enough to take her. Battleships have to be judged not by their individual ability but also on the resources required to make, fuel, service and protect them, the Yamato class suffered poorly in all these areas, it was way too much for the capacity of the Japanese economy.

Of course all this is academic since the battleship was superseded by the Aircraft carrier by this time.
 
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battleship_Bismarck
The Yamato class ships 18" gun blast caused structural damage and ripped off flesh and clothes of those standing to close. The sheer size of the hull meant few ports were big enough to take her. Battleships have to be judged not by their individual ability but also on the resources required to make, fuel, service and protect them, the Yamato class suffered poorly in all these areas, it was way too much for the capacity of the Japanese economy.

I know about these defects but some of them were resolved. First of all her gun crews were given special type of clothing (including goggles and masks) in order to prevent this from happening. As for the structural Damage this was largly fixed by restrengthing her forward superstructure. As for her size it really wasnt as crucial because for example the Japanese didnt have to worry about crossing the Panama canal. If you look at the map you'll see Japanese Mainland is in range of the area she wished to conquer. Therefore she didnt need to fit into too many ports because she could merely return to Japan without too much bother.

There is no doubt that Yamato, Mushashi and Shinano were a tremendous drain on the Japanese economy. They were resource pigs, a particular problem as Japan was lacking in resources. My favorite fact was there was actually a shortage of fishing nets in Japan, as most of had been requisitioned by the Navy for Camofalage netting during her construction.

One point that you didnt mention as a fault. Yamoto couldnt fire a Full broadside, as the backblast of her 18' guns doing so would have capsized the ship.
 
mmarsh said:
One point that you didnt mention as a fault. Yamoto couldnt fire a Full broadside, as the backblast of her 18' guns doing so would have capsized the ship.
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Actually, none of the BBs cold fire a "full" broadside. Every battleship had to either ripple or stagger fire their guns to avoid what they called "kissing". This was when the shells were too close to each other and they were knocked off course either by the shock wave of a nearby projectile or by touching another projectile. As a result, all of the guns were fired within seconds of each other, but never at the same time. Yamato was no different in that regard.

Dean.
 
I think the Iowa class would mop up any of these other ships, they are all equipped with large guns but the Iowa class is the only one listed that has long range capabilities, I'm talking about AGM-84's, they make Yamato's 20 nm range seem miniscule by comparison. :p
 
i would have liked to have been on one of the iowa's. they saw a lot of action in the pacific, and, correct me if i'm wrong, but they even excepted the japanese surrender. being on the iowa's would be like watching the history channel, but with a front row seat.
 
HMS Nelson

HMS.jpg
 
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