Your Favourite class of battleship.

[Rubiconic Crossings V2 rev 1f]

The Bismarck is the worst example ever, just above Pearl Harbour, a lone battleship facing pretty much an entire fleet, of course it is going to die, if it somehow survived it would have gone down in history as one of the greatest naval actions in human history, managing to escape an entire fleet. As for Pearl Harbour, a fleet of battleships, packed together (far closer than they would be if they were out in the ocean), and completely taken by surprise. Had the carriers not been out they could have fared even worse.

It's not really a fair comparison, Bismarck, Repulse and Prince of Wales had weak AA armament when compared to the Iowa, South Dakota and North Carolina classes. The American ships could fire 2.5 times the weight of Bismarck's AA suite in one minute and 33% more than Prince of Wales. As shown during kamikaze attacks, the battleships' AA fire was almost impenetrable. And lets not get into how Bismarck's armor was of WWI design and vulnerable to plunging fire/bombs.

I'm not saying that the American ships would 100% have survived an aerial attack without support, but if any battleship would have a chance of survival it would be them.

Iowa's AAA during WWII -

20 × 5-inch (127 mm)/38 cal. Mark 12 guns
80 × 40 mm/56 cal. Bofors
49 × 20 mm/70 cal. Oerlikon

Yeah I think I would agree with your statement that out of any of the battleship the Iowa class would have been it...

[Takaram]

The Bismarck is the worst example ever, just above Pearl Harbour, a lone battleship facing pretty much an entire fleet, of course it is going to die, if it somehow survived it would have gone down in history as one of the greatest naval actions in human history, managing to escape an entire fleet. As for Pearl Harbour, a fleet of battleships, packed together (far closer than they would be if they were out in the ocean), and completely taken by surprise. Had the carriers not been out they could have fared even worse.

It's not really a fair comparison, Bismarck, Repulse and Prince of Wales had weak AA armament when compared to the Iowa, South Dakota and North Carolina classes. The American ships could fire 2.5 times the weight of Bismarck's AA suite in one minute and 33% more than Prince of Wales. As shown during kamikaze attacks, the battleships' AA fire was almost impenetrable. And lets not get into how Bismarck's armor was of WWI design and vulnerable to plunging fire/bombs.

I'm not saying that the American ships would 100% have survived an aerial attack without support, but if any battleship would have a chance of survival it would be them.

If I recall correctly, when you combine all of the weapons on the ship, a WWII-era Iowa class could pump out the most firepower per minute in human history.

[Andaluciae]

The Iowas always win out in any comparison. Superb speed, unparalleled modern computer controlled FCS, advanced radar and communications...there's no competition. As a part of the wider fleet they were even more formidable.

[L Ron Cupboard]

Middle - better wine cellar, no pigeon loft or whippets.

[Tekania]

Of the large targets with guns, my favorite was the Yamato and Musashi.

[Tahar Joblis]

The Bismarck is the worst example ever, just above Pearl Harbour, a lone battleship facing pretty much an entire fleet, of course it is going to die, if it somehow survived it would have gone down in history as one of the greatest naval actions in human history, managing to escape an entire fleet. As for Pearl Harbour, a fleet of battleships, packed together (far closer than they would be if they were out in the ocean), and completely taken by surprise. Had the carriers not been out they could have fared even worse.

It's not really a fair comparison, Bismarck, Repulse and Prince of Wales had weak AA armament when compared to the Iowa, South Dakota and North Carolina classes. The American ships could fire 2.5 times the weight of Bismarck's AA suite in one minute and 33% more than Prince of Wales. As shown during kamikaze attacks, the battleships' AA fire was almost impenetrable. And lets not get into how Bismarck's armor was of WWI design and vulnerable to plunging fire/bombs.

I'm not saying that the American ships would 100% have survived an aerial attack without support, but if any battleship would have a chance of survival it would be them.

To be totally fair to the Bismarck, its AA probably would have been substantially upgraded as the war went on - the anti-aircraft battery of pretty much every surviving battleship was substantially uprated. And the Germans did know how to build pretty good flak guns - they just hadn't wedged nearly enough on the Bismarck.

The North Carolina class originally was designed to carry twenty eight light AA guns, a mix of fifty caliber and 1.1" guns - a lighter battery than the Bismarck had, astonishingly enough - but this eventually ballooned to 116 guns, evenly split between forty millimeter and twenty millimeter. Similar story with the South Dakota class - significant upgrades of its AA firepower happened over the course of service.

If you may remember, I picked the Richelieu class as my personal favorite; you can see here the dramatic difference in AA throw weight before and after its refit in New York.

[The Two Jerseys]

It's not really a fair comparison, Bismarck, Repulse and Prince of Wales had weak AA armament when compared to the Iowa, South Dakota and North Carolina classes. The American ships could fire 2.5 times the weight of Bismarck's AA suite in one minute and 33% more than Prince of Wales. As shown during kamikaze attacks, the battleships' AA fire was almost impenetrable. And lets not get into how Bismarck's armor was of WWI design and vulnerable to plunging fire/bombs.

I'm not saying that the American ships would 100% have survived an aerial attack without support, but if any battleship would have a chance of survival it would be them.

To be totally fair to the Bismarck, its AA probably would have been substantially upgraded as the war went on - the anti-aircraft battery of pretty much every surviving battleship was substantially uprated. And the Germans did know how to build pretty good flak guns - they just hadn't wedged nearly enough on the Bismarck.

The North Carolina class originally was designed to carry twenty eight light AA guns, a mix of fifty caliber and 1.1" guns - a lighter battery than the Bismarck had, astonishingly enough - but this eventually ballooned to 116 guns, evenly split between forty millimeter and twenty millimeter. Similar story with the South Dakota class - significant upgrades of its AA firepower happened over the course of service.

If you may remember, I picked the Richelieu class as my personal favorite; you can see here the dramatic difference in AA throw weight before and after its refit in New York.

I see we're getting our stats from the same place. I was honestly surprised the first time I read that comparison at how good of a performer the Richelieu was. The only reason I never really liked the Richelieu was that I personally don't like the idea of placing the entire main battery forward.

As for upgrading the Bismarck, do you know if there's any info out there on the Tirpitz's late-war AA armament? I'm curious as to whether they did upgrade it or if they pretty much just didn't bother at that point.

[Rubiconic Crossings V2 rev 1f]

To be totally fair to the Bismarck, its AA probably would have been substantially upgraded as the war went on - the anti-aircraft battery of pretty much every surviving battleship was substantially uprated. And the Germans did know how to build pretty good flak guns - they just hadn't wedged nearly enough on the Bismarck.

The North Carolina class originally was designed to carry twenty eight light AA guns, a mix of fifty caliber and 1.1" guns - a lighter battery than the Bismarck had, astonishingly enough - but this eventually ballooned to 116 guns, evenly split between forty millimeter and twenty millimeter. Similar story with the South Dakota class - significant upgrades of its AA firepower happened over the course of service.

If you may remember, I picked the Richelieu class as my personal favorite; you can see here the dramatic difference in AA throw weight before and after its refit in New York.

I see we're getting our stats from the same place. I was honestly surprised the first time I read that comparison at how good of a performer the Richelieu was. The only reason I never really liked the Richelieu was that I personally don't like the idea of placing the entire main battery forward.

As for upgrading the Bismarck, do you know if there's any info out there on the Tirpitz's late-war AA armament? I'm curious as to whether they did upgrade it or if they pretty much just didn't bother at that point.

Most likely Jane's Fighting Ships of World War II ...

[Trotskylvania]

No, not true, unless you envisage 1939-1942 era technology (modern torpedo bomber, scout, aircraft control/plotting, radios, command structure & air dropped torpedos) in 1920, as well as designs for the carriers large enough to take the aircraft (and enough of them for a comprehensive force.

Not to mention that the focus for the larger ships was either getting them to be faster (either to protect a carrier, or if the carrier was protecting, to take advantage of the speed the carrier), or to make larger versions of their small assets (such as the Alaska class, who were supposed to be heavy fleet AA platforms). I'd agree that they were obsolescent by ~1925-1930, but they weren't obsolete until maybe 1940 (technologically) and 1943 (industrially, as sufficient carriers & planes were ready).

Also, watch out who you call gun-armed - most (if not all, other than some training or developmental hulls) carriers were armed with large bore cannon (4-10 inch), sure, it was to keep away light cruisers and destroyers (and then aircraft as well later on), but that means I can (incorrectly) call them aircraft battlecruisers.

Army bombers had already demonstrated how utterly fucked capital ships were by air-dropped bombs in 1921. The only thing that remained was demonstrating that a carrier could successfully coordinate attacks on ships at sea, which had been demonstrated in exercises by the Lexington and Saratoga not long after their commissioning.

My choice in timing is very deliberate. After the launching of the Hood, no capital ships were completed by any country until after carriers had demonstrated their maturity as weapons.

The simple problem is that the expense of capital ship development and production could no longer be justified after carriers matured in the interwar period. New battleships were ordered only due to the conservatism of the various naval establishments. I think it's rather telling that there were so few engagements between capital ships in gun range in WW2, and most of them occurred due to the quite frankly quixotic and suicidal tactics of the Japanese. Far more ships were sunk by aircraft than by capital ship guns.

Battleships were amazing pieces of engineering, but they simply were white elephants. They cost just as much as aircraft carriers, and had staggeringly lower capabilities. There ability to do shore bombardment, or to provide AA screens could have been done more cheaply by cruisers.

[Tahar Joblis]

No, not true, unless you envisage 1939-1942 era technology (modern torpedo bomber, scout, aircraft control/plotting, radios, command structure & air dropped torpedos) in 1920, as well as designs for the carriers large enough to take the aircraft (and enough of them for a comprehensive force.

Not to mention that the focus for the larger ships was either getting them to be faster (either to protect a carrier, or if the carrier was protecting, to take advantage of the speed the carrier), or to make larger versions of their small assets (such as the Alaska class, who were supposed to be heavy fleet AA platforms). I'd agree that they were obsolescent by ~1925-1930, but they weren't obsolete until maybe 1940 (technologically) and 1943 (industrially, as sufficient carriers & planes were ready).

Also, watch out who you call gun-armed - most (if not all, other than some training or developmental hulls) carriers were armed with large bore cannon (4-10 inch), sure, it was to keep away light cruisers and destroyers (and then aircraft as well later on), but that means I can (incorrectly) call them aircraft battlecruisers.

Army bombers had already demonstrated how utterly fucked capital ships were by air-dropped bombs in 1921. The only thing that remained was demonstrating that a carrier could successfully coordinate attacks on ships at sea, which had been demonstrated in exercises by the Lexington and Saratoga not long after their commissioning.

My choice in timing is very deliberate. After the launching of the Hood, no capital ships were completed by any country until after carriers had demonstrated their maturity as weapons.

The simple problem is that the expense of capital ship development and production could no longer be justified after carriers matured in the interwar period. New battleships were ordered only due to the conservatism of the various naval establishments. I think it's rather telling that there were so few engagements between capital ships in gun range in WW2, and most of them occurred due to the quite frankly quixotic and suicidal tactics of the Japanese. Far more ships were sunk by aircraft than by capital ship guns.

Battleships were amazing pieces of engineering, but they simply were white elephants. They cost just as much as aircraft carriers, and had staggeringly lower capabilities. There ability to do shore bombardment, or to provide AA screens could have been done more cheaply by cruisers.

Let's weigh some numbers.

The North Carolina class - the USN's first "treaty" battleship class - cost $60M per unit. The New Orleans class heavy cruiser apparently hit about $12M each.

So you get five cruisers for the cost of one battleship - in manufacturing. But you only need three times as many crew members on the battleship, and it only spends about two and a half times as much fuel cruising at the same speed - drag is proportionate to surface area.

What's the throw weight difference?

9 16"/45s put 1900 pound HE shells downrange for bombardment, 2 rounds per minute each.
9 8"/55s put 260 pound HE shells downrange for bombardment, 3-4 rounds per minute each.

Basically, the main battery of the battleship puts out 4-5 times as much heavy metal downrange - the range is longer and the penetration is superior, and the shells are about eight times as powerful each.

20 5"/38s vs 8 5"/25s. Two and a half times as many 5" rounds - at 20% higher muzzle velocity.

The New Orleans class, in its final configuration, carried 8 40mm and 8 28mm AA guns, vs the North Carolina's 60 40mm and 56 20mm AA guns, and was "dangerously overweight" due to the overload of added weapons.

Total AA throw weight - 35,000 pounds per minute for the USS North Carolina, 9,000 pounds per minute for the New Orleans class. About four times as much for the battleship, in other words.

I'm not convinced that's a white elephant.

[The Two Jerseys]

Army bombers had already demonstrated how utterly fucked capital ships were by air-dropped bombs in 1921. The only thing that remained was demonstrating that a carrier could successfully coordinate attacks on ships at sea, which had been demonstrated in exercises by the Lexington and Saratoga not long after their commissioning.

My choice in timing is very deliberate. After the launching of the Hood, no capital ships were completed by any country until after carriers had demonstrated their maturity as weapons.

The simple problem is that the expense of capital ship development and production could no longer be justified after carriers matured in the interwar period. New battleships were ordered only due to the conservatism of the various naval establishments. I think it's rather telling that there were so few engagements between capital ships in gun range in WW2, and most of them occurred due to the quite frankly quixotic and suicidal tactics of the Japanese. Far more ships were sunk by aircraft than by capital ship guns.

Battleships were amazing pieces of engineering, but they simply were white elephants. They cost just as much as aircraft carriers, and had staggeringly lower capabilities. There ability to do shore bombardment, or to provide AA screens could have been done more cheaply by cruisers.

Let's weigh some numbers.

The North Carolina class - the USN's first "treaty" battleship class - cost $60M per unit. The New Orleans class heavy cruiser apparently hit about $12M each.

So you get five cruisers for the cost of one battleship - in manufacturing. But you only need three times as many crew members on the battleship, and it only spends about two and a half times as much fuel cruising at the same speed - drag is proportionate to surface area.

What's the throw weight difference?

9 16"/45s put 1900 pound HE shells downrange for bombardment, 2 rounds per minute each.
9 8"/55s put 260 pound HE shells downrange for bombardment, 3-4 rounds per minute each.

Basically, the main battery of the battleship puts out 4-5 times as much heavy metal downrange - the range is longer and the penetration is superior, and the shells are about eight times as powerful each.

20 5"/38s vs 8 5"/25s. Two and a half times as many 5" rounds - at 20% higher muzzle velocity.

The New Orleans class, in its final configuration, carried 8 40mm and 8 28mm AA guns, vs the North Carolina's 60 40mm and 56 20mm AA guns, and was "dangerously overweight" due to the overload of added weapons.

Total AA throw weight - 35,000 pounds per minute for the USS North Carolina, 9,000 pounds per minute for the New Orleans class. About four times as much for the battleship, in other words.

I'm not convinced that's a white elephant.

For providing fire support a cruiser is probably good enough, as we saw in WWII even battleships had difficulty suppressing hardened defenses. But as you can see by these AA firepower numbers, one battlewagon equals four cruisers, and on top of that is harder to sink. So while the battleship is more expensive and takes longer to build, it's also less likely that your expenditure will end up on the seabed. Plus by building one battleship instead of five cruisers, you can equal the firepower of those cruisers and still have four empty slipways where you can build whatever ship you please.

And I, for one, will always believe in the usefulness of naval rifles. Shells are cheap and accurate, pack a hell of a punch, and you can't shoot them down.

[Soleichunn]

No, not true, unless you envisage 1939-1942 era technology (modern torpedo bomber, scout, aircraft control/plotting, radios, command structure & air dropped torpedos) in 1920, as well as designs for the carriers large enough to take the aircraft (and enough of them for a comprehensive force.

Not to mention that the focus for the larger ships was either getting them to be faster (either to protect a carrier, or if the carrier was protecting, to take advantage of the speed the carrier), or to make larger versions of their small assets (such as the Alaska class, who were supposed to be heavy fleet AA platforms). I'd agree that they were obsolescent by ~1925-1930, but they weren't obsolete until maybe 1940 (technologically) and 1943 (industrially, as sufficient carriers & planes were ready).

Also, watch out who you call gun-armed - most (if not all, other than some training or developmental hulls) carriers were armed with large bore cannon (4-10 inch), sure, it was to keep away light cruisers and destroyers (and then aircraft as well later on), but that means I can (incorrectly) call them aircraft battlecruisers.

Army bombers had already demonstrated how utterly fucked capital ships were by air-dropped bombs in 1921. The only thing that remained was demonstrating that a carrier could successfully coordinate attacks on ships at sea, which had been demonstrated in exercises by the Lexington and Saratoga not long after their commissioning.

If you're using the Billy Mitchel's 'test', I'd be wary of extrapolating from these completely unrealistic settings of his test:
A) All hatches were open (so no watertight compartments, and lots of material flying through halls.
B) The ship were stationary (so targeting was much, much, much easier).
C) The ship used had an armour scheme that focused on direct horizontal fire (belt & waterline armour), not plunging (deck armour).
D) No flak was flying to the planes (no evasive actions were needed, so they could just amble to it in a straight line).
E) It still took ages, and repeated bombing runs, to sink it.
F) A number of other reasons I can't remember.

Also, proper coordination of strike teams (beyond visual range of the carrier) took many years to build the proper institutional knowledge and capabilties. The development of a good divebomber, capably of carrying a large SAP bomb was also necessary - level bombers are way too inaccurate.

Lastly, most of the ships sunk by aircraft in WW2 were sunk by air dropped torpedos. Bombs were effective, but for non-critical (maybe even mission kill) damage (HE for lighter AA guns and some targeting equipment, maybe starting fires, and SAPHE [which was much better than HE for anti-battleship work] for limit piercing into non-vital areas).

My choice in timing is very deliberate. After the launching of the Hood, no capital ships were completed by any country until after carriers had demonstrated their maturity as weapons.

At which point the much more limited capabilities of the aircraft, bombs, torpedoes, communications equipment, carriers and institutional experience are not enough to act as replacement capital ships. A 1920 era carrier battlefleet (with escort) would be at extreme risk to a fleet made up of the same tonnage in destroyers and cruisers, as the aircraft/weapons aren't as effective (the planes especially, as low range & low ability to navigate away from the ship would mean the planes would have to be in visual sight of it, meaning enemy ships would be a LOT closer than in the 1940's). Battleships provided the standoff opportunity against such ships (with a small scout craft kept on board for finding the enemy), whilst the enemy aircraft would be hampered by a fast, mobile fleet of ships that were zig-zagging and shooting their AA guns (though since this is the 1920's, there would likely be little direct damage to the aircraft).

The simple problem is that the expense of capital ship development and production could no longer be justified after carriers matured in the interwar period. New battleships were ordered only due to the conservatism of the various naval establishments. I think it's rather telling that there were so few engagements between capital ships in gun range in WW2, and most of them occurred due to the quite frankly quixotic and suicidal tactics of the Japanese. Far more ships were sunk by aircraft than by capital ship guns.

Interwar carriers were still not effective to justify effectively switching to a single system (as this large number of carriers would also need rather expensive aircraft numbers, which would need to be replaced regularly as the tech updates), and only carriers from 1937 onwards would be suitable (as they'd be large enough and with enough experience to design it properly). Not to mention, there was a lot of construction (it was small craft and ships larger than the battleship drydocks that were the problem). The writing was on the wall, but it was too risky skip to the end without considering the middle portion of the text.

Battleships were amazing pieces of engineering, but they simply were white elephants. They cost just as much as aircraft carriers, and had staggeringly lower capabilities. There ability to do shore bombardment, or to provide AA screens could have been done more cheaply by cruisers.

I'm not disagreeing that carriers were better in the end, but they weren't clearly superior until after WW2 started (both for lack of use and the technological developments that went from the mid 1930's onwards), and definitely not for enough people to predict at the time, especially when it was just as easy to build both (well, except for the Japanese, but they had a lot of industrial shortcomings & used their surface fleet quite a lot anyway [well, except for the most modern battleships]).

I do however think that the battleships would have been extremely useful in any attack on heavily fortified (well, a specifically designed monitor would likely be a little better, but not enough to not use existing warships). If the a navy needed to attack a location as well protected from surface ships as Pearl Habour was (lots of well protected & hidden gun emplacements), then they'd realistically need both to do so.


* * * * * *

It's not really a fair comparison, Bismarck, Repulse and Prince of Wales had weak AA armament when compared to the Iowa, South Dakota and North Carolina classes. The American ships could fire 2.5 times the weight of Bismarck's AA suite in one minute and 33% more than Prince of Wales. As shown during kamikaze attacks, the battleships' AA fire was almost impenetrable. And lets not get into how Bismarck's armor was of WWI design and vulnerable to plunging fire/bombs.

I'm not saying that the American ships would 100% have survived an aerial attack without support, but if any battleship would have a chance of survival it would be them.

To be totally fair to the Bismarck, its AA probably would have been substantially upgraded as the war went on - the anti-aircraft battery of pretty much every surviving battleship was substantially uprated. And the Germans did know how to build pretty good flak guns - they just hadn't wedged nearly enough on the Bismarck.

The North Carolina class originally was designed to carry twenty eight light AA guns, a mix of fifty caliber and 1.1" guns - a lighter battery than the Bismarck had, astonishingly enough - but this eventually ballooned to 116 guns, evenly split between forty millimeter and twenty millimeter. Similar story with the South Dakota class - significant upgrades of its AA firepower happened over the course of service.

If you may remember, I picked the Richelieu class as my personal favorite; you can see here the dramatic difference in AA throw weight before and after its refit in New York.

[Warning: Going completely off memory here] The problem with German AA, apart from quantity (you're right, everyone beefed up the AA numbers) was twofold:
1) Mounts: Germany had problems getting properly working mounts for their larger cannon (naval 88mm was fine afaik, but the larger ones tended to fail more often than intended if it swung too high or too fast). AFAIK the earlier designs of the heavier AA had a much lower top angle (5 or 10 degrees) which really meant the whole mount had to be redesigned.

I) Lack of stabilisation: AFAIK, only cannon 88mm+ in battleships had some sort of gyroscopic stabilisation (and I'm fairly sure the 88 was stabilised during the war wears) - everything smaller had no stabilisation whatsoever - which meant that any local control of the cannon (just the individual cannon team) had very little accuracy when *trying* to get their cannon to point at something.

II) Lack of Director Control - this was a serious problem for all parties (and one that was only solved satisfactorily by the USA and UK). The largest German naval AA guns (more than 88mm) had director control (a centralised plotting system, to help predict where you should shoot) of some sort, but only the more advanced/later ships had central director (operated like the central director for the main guns; the rest had local control (the team with the gun does all the aiming) or turret directors. Without the more sophisticated & powerful equipment, your gun is much less accurate (as the information you get is more patchy & less specific). Computer wise the German mechanical computer for warships was servicable enough for warship use, though (afaik) the post-1939 versions were better for AA use (though I can't remember why; probably the ability to do both operations from one system, or maybe it allowed ranging information from the observer to be used). The electro-mechanical computers used by the USA and UK were generally better, being able to undertake more calculations, and passing the information straight to the individual cannon or battery commands (where they acted as a guidance system, or were directly slaved to the plotting/ranging coordinates). The late war USA version was supposed to be very good (after some years of difficulty with it breaking down), as it allowed air and navy targets to be done in one setting, could transmit more data, and accept data directly from radar & radar operators.

2) Germany was slightly behind in search radars until 1942-3 (where they dropped off), and air search range did drop off quite a bit. The real problem was the lower development and integration of radar targeting (not surprising, given the electronics industry was much more limited) - the USA had most of it's moderate-large (40mm+) that had some method of slaving (either complete, or just ranging/direction); the UK had automatic radar/observer plotting & ranging guidance (not sure about a slave system) and the German one just had the plotting system (as the targeting radar was primarily developed for ranging of main gun shot, and wasn't able to properly track targets - even the late war system that was being developed for naval AA use couldn't track more than a couple of aircraft at a time, and not sufficient enough for the full array of information the USA navy used).

Lower electricity production and transfer would also be problems for the Germans to upgrade their ships to use the latest radar, computer systems (electro-mechanical) and AA mounts, even if they had access to them.

Overall though, that's to be expected - they were a navy with much more limited naval and industrial experience (not to mention starting with a lower naval research and development programme) compared to the USA and UK, and were hoping that advancements in technology would help even the playing field (similar how the rapid advancements of aircraft in the 1930's constantly reduced the technological gap to any major country moving into serious preparation for war).



* * * * * *

For providing fire support a cruiser is probably good enough, as we saw in WWII even battleships had difficulty suppressing hardened defenses. But as you can see by these AA firepower numbers, one battlewagon equals four cruisers, and on top of that is harder to sink. So while the battleship is more expensive and takes longer to build, it's also less likely that your expenditure will end up on the seabed. Plus by building one battleship instead of five cruisers, you can equal the firepower of those cruisers and still have four empty slipways where you can build whatever ship you please.

And I, for one, will always believe in the usefulness of naval rifles. Shells are cheap and accurate, pack a hell of a punch, and you can't shoot them down.

On the same token though, they are much more suitable to the initial 'crust' defences than an aircraft is. Also, that drydock situation probably wouldn't be helped as much, as you'd have to use a large dock for the battleship, and those take a lot of effort to expand.

Just trying to give the context.

[Risottia]

Littorio-class. Damn beautiful ships.

[Soleichunn]

Littorio-class. Damn beautiful ships.

Not just that, but a new series of Soviet battleships were to be based on it's design.

... I don't think that was the best country to go for the best battleship, but they were the most willing.

[Lietuvos]

No...

It wasn't....

Lietuvos is right, four double turret, two fore, two aft has been one of the most common configurations for post-dreadnought battleships. So if you were to find the "most generic" or "most average" battleship one with that configuration would fit the bill best.

Before you two go off argueing: I merely wanted to present the König-Class as my favourite here, no general opinions intended. Also the König-class ships were classical dreadnoughts. Of course the whole terminus changes over time, or would you want me to go ahead and post pictures of "La Gloire" or HMS Warrior, proclaiming them to be the epitome of their class? No, what yolu think off when the term "Battleship" falls (other than that ridiculously stupid movie) is this:


(The Grand Fleet at Sea, 1916)

and that:


(coincidentally that's a König-Class Dreadnought)

A mountain of steel, driven by a cathedral-sized mess of brass and iron, brute-force in every aspect of it. This may be presumptious, but for me the term "Battleship" finds its eclipse in the Dreadnought of WWI.

Bonus-pic:


"Fuck off, water, here I come!" - the French Battleship "Paris" on speed-trial

[Risottia]

...

Nice pics.

Still...

[Rubiconic Crossings V2 rev 1f]

I quite like this aerial pic of USS Iowa...I'm sure a fair few here have already seen this...but what the hell...

[The Two Jerseys]

Lietuvos is right, four double turret, two fore, two aft has been one of the most common configurations for post-dreadnought battleships. So if you were to find the "most generic" or "most average" battleship one with that configuration would fit the bill best.

Before you two go off argueing: I merely wanted to present the König-Class as my favourite here, no general opinions intended. Also the König-class ships were classical dreadnoughts. Of course the whole terminus changes over time, or would you want me to go ahead and post pictures of "La Gloire" or HMS Warrior, proclaiming them to be the epitome of their class? No, what yolu think off when the term "Battleship" falls (other than that ridiculously stupid movie) is this:

(The Grand Fleet at Sea, 1916)

and that:


(coincidentally that's a König-Class Dreadnought)

A mountain of steel, driven by a cathedral-sized mess of brass and iron, brute-force in every aspect of it. This may be presumptious, but for me the term "Battleship" finds its eclipse in the Dreadnought of WWI.

Bonus-pic:

"Fuck off, water, here I come!" - the French Battleship "Paris" on speed-trial

Dreadnought porn!

My elementary school library had a copy of Richard Hough's "Dreadnought", needless to say I borrowed it virtually every week. I'm probably the only person who checked it out in the last 30 years.

[Kreanoltha]

For some more porn of the Iowa-class, check this out. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... de_USN.jpg You can see the ship being driven back by the recoil of the guns.

[Rubiconic Crossings V2 rev 1f]

For some more porn of the Iowa-class, check this out. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... de_USN.jpg You can see the ship being driven back by the recoil of the guns.

Yeah....no not really...not to any significant degree anyway....

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-022.htm

[Czechanada]

Stealth frigates. The SSV Normandy SR-1 is a prime example.

[Kreanoltha]

For some more porn of the Iowa-class, check this out. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... de_USN.jpg You can see the ship being driven back by the recoil of the guns.

Yeah....no not really...not to any significant degree anyway....

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-022.htm

Cool article. Thanks. Sure looked like she moved though..

[Rubiconic Crossings V2 rev 1f]

Yeah....no not really...not to any significant degree anyway....

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-022.htm

Cool article. Thanks. Sure looked like she moved though..

No worries...it is sorta counter intuitive coz it does look like that beast is moving...

[AETEN II]

Who needs a battleship when you have a Nimitz Carrier supported by Zumwalt-Class Destroyers?

[Kreanoltha]

Who needs a battleship when you have a Nimitz Carrier supported by Zumwalt-Class Destroyers?

...because by the time the Zumwalt-class is deployed it will be escorting the Gerald R. Ford-class? Also becuase we wanted to talk about battleships, not carriers.