[attishina]

They look cool. Much cooler than carriers IMO.

At paradoxplaza, this thread could get easily some 100 replies with all the "Bismarck was teh greatest battleship evar, unsinkable, if just British aggressors hadn't unfairly used Swordfish planes!!!-- Nono, Iowa class was the best!" fanboys.

[BEyng6hj]

They look cool.

QFT.

[wiweimeli]

Nah, I'm not convinced. The fact was that it would have been too politically-sensitive to place a Dreadnought in a position where it could be lost- which is why they didn't go in for heavyweight slug-fests.

I think it would have been far more pragmatic to go with Graf Spee-style pocket battleships.

[Eltabaco]

Battleships I think actually saw their best service in the pacific theater in WW2. There were numerous clashes between surface ships during the fighting for Gaudalcanal because the limited range of the available aircraft allowed combatant fleets to dart in at night, land a few blows then dart right back out. Both the Americans and the Japanese used battleships in these night battles.

Battleships also played a major role in the reconquest of the Phillipines. While the allies were establishing a beachead the IJN split into 3 seperate assault forces. In night action an American battle group met the southern Japanese battle group and destroyed it. The norhtern Japanese task forces was chased off by an American carrier group. The central group managed to get within firing range of the American landing convoys, but was scared off by planes from American Jeep carriers and also by reports that the southern task group had been easily destroyed, raising the specter that the American battleship group might be headed back towards the landing zones.

Finally American battleships also played a major role supplying heavy artillery support for American forces landing on enemy held islands. High explosive shells fired from 16 inch guns were much more efficient at destroying concrete air strips than were 500 pound bombs typically used by Army and Navy bombers.

[diemeareendup]

The post-"Dreadnought" battleships were supposed to be the ultimate knockout blow in naval combat, but what did they actually amount to? We haven't used nukes since their inception. Most would say they are not nearly as useful now as they used to be in our none polar world. But were they never useful at all during the 40 years of the Cold War just because we never actually used one in anger?

Large fleet carriers did not exist until just prior to WWII. Proper BB began to replace Dreadnaughts prior to WWI. That means there was 30+ years where BBs were the balls. Just because there happened to not be a major war during their era doesn't mean we should assume they were not useful.

And as stated airpower was useless in night actions until the 60's/70's. The Solomon campaign is a good example of their usefulness as Japan could have reinforced the islands at will during the night (they tried to). The annihilation of the southern IJN pincer at Leyte was done with nothing but surface ships, including a dozen odd BBs in a night action.

[Scfdglkn]

Battleship

[Svatudjw]

Aeroplanes weren't the only weak point on battleships. Take the fate of the first Japanese battleship lost in WW2- the Hiei.

In the battle for Guadalcanal, the Hiei got charged by US destroyers. Four of them got so close that they were under the Hiei's line of fire- it couldn't bring its guns down far enough to hit the smaller ships. They just sat around the Hiei and battered the crap out of it- it limped away and was scuttled.

Battleships are vulnerable to much smaller, cheaper ships if they're used right.

[Breilopmil]

Originally posted by Patroklos


We haven't used nukes since their inception. Most would say they are not nearly as useful now as they used to be in our none polar world. But were they never useful at all during the 40 years of the Cold War just because we never actually used one in anger? I was thinking something similar. But the analogy of nukes and battleships can't be made on the grounds you state alone. The further question to be asked is whether a nation without battleships (or inferior battleships) were at a disadvantage however you define that to be.

If one side didn't have nukes, you have serious problems on the other side. Is that true of battleships? I don't know. I think it is much more dependent on the nations at hand and their geography.

[KeettyGlots]

One battleship managed to scare the pants out of the whole British Navy. The RN couldn't even sink it. The Germans had to scuttle the Bismark in order for your shipping lanes to be safe.

[Orefsmisits]

That's a long debate, some say the Brits downed it,
some claim it was scuttled by the crew, and refer to evidence from Ballard's and Cameron's underwater expeditions who said they could not find enough damage on the hull to support the claim that it was sunk by gunfire/torpedoes.

[xLQLRcXh]

I disagree. The United States had several fleet carriers prior to Pearl Harbor, but they came into existence by accident. At the time when the Washington Treaty was put into effect the United States was building two battlecruisers. The US got permission to convert the hulls into aircraft carriers, and thus the first two fleet carriers were constructed. Japan eventually built several carriers nearly as large, but Great Britain settled for carriers able to handle fewer planes although sporting armored flight decks. Exactly, both Lexington and Saratoga were commissioned in 1927, almost 10 years after WWI, and were modifications rather than optimized from the keel up aircraft carriers. The first true fleet carrier for the US was the Yorktown, commissioned in 1937, almost 20 years after WWI. And that is just the carriers, what about effective maritime naval aviation? Within most of that time frame BBs would have ruled supreme.

[ambiddetcat]

Originally posted by BeBro


The interwar period had various countries experimenting with dive bombers to make air power even more deadly, esp. against ships. But by then there only were a handfull of new BBs built for every major power (though the major factor here was probably costs, not necessarily awareness that their days were numbered), most others were old WWI style BBs which had been kept in service for decades, often modernized. Shortly before and during WWII the RN got five King George V class builds plus at the end of the war one Vanguard, Italy got three new Littorios, Germany the two Bismarcks and two Scharnhorsts, France two Richelieus, Japan two Yamatos etc. the rest were all old ships. Only the US built quite a lot of new BBs during that time. OTOH they also built lots of CVs, so they could form big surface battle groups incl. carriers which did provide enough air cover.
In the Context of the European War Battleships were pointless(save as bombard ships) during WW2, thr RN started and scrapped several because, frankly, they needed to spend the resources on destroyers and Merchant Tonnage.

The United States, however, was going to be fighting the IJN more or less on it's own(except very early and late in the war ), and in any event had the ability to bury it's opponents through industry anyway.

[Coollabioto]

they saw some decent action in ww2, not enough to justify the price imho.

hell, they saw action in the gulf war, again, not enough to justify the price.

perhaps they were a bit of a deterrent, but I doubt it. I'd say they were pointless after 1941.

[M4tHkBw2]

has anyone done a decent commercial Alt History about a world war in the 1920s, in which BBs do all they were capable of?

[HaremShaih]

Personally, I don't think the usefulness of the BB's as artillery platforms is given enough credit. Airpower could not deliver the sustained fire rates against shore facilities any where near like the BB's could. Nor could airpower deliver the same punch as the big guns could.

Dad used to tell the story about the invasion at Saipan and the thing all the Marines really appreciated was the sustained fire from the 8 Battleships present prior to the landing.

[Kokomoxcv]

[herrdwq]

Originally posted by Patroklos

You would be very wrong. There is no weapon on a destroyer (even today) that could penetrate a BBs armor. You could try and skip in with torps, but a DDs guns are not going to get you a kill. Torpedos were prcisely the weapon I was thinking of. IIRC during the actions at Guadalcanal Japanese destroyers did indeed destroy American heavy cruisers. I believe the US lost one battleship during the night actions too, but I'll hae to check on that. Even if Japanese destroyers did not destroy a US battleships, their reputation was sufficient that the USN was reluctant to keep battleships or carriers around to protect the precious lifeline to the island.

I might also point out that destroyers were the crucial weapon during the Battle of Jutland. It was a sortie by German destroyers which caused the British battle fleet to turn away from closing with the German battle fleet, allowing the Germans to escape.

[GoodLover]

I wonder (I'm no engineer, so bear with me), wouldn't it be possible to build a ship with armour below the waterline and on the top surface of the deck?

seems like bb's main weakess were bombs landing on the top, and torps.

I don't know how feasible that is. The weight would be enormous, and I can't see putting thick armour on the guns. The ship would have to be huge to get a good enough displacement to float, and that would require even more armour...

And then the enemy could just build bigger bombs that could penetrate it...

[peakyesno]

Of course a BB alone would be vulnerable to DD torpedos, just as a Carrier alone (despite its air power) would be. In general BBs were not used alone, IIUC, just as Carriers were not. Both needed escorts.

The question, I suppose is how much they were needed. The problem in WW2, was that a IF BBs could close range, esp at night, they could in theory destroy the Carriers. Like someone with knife, against someone with a gun. That was the theory at the beginning of the war, and why both the IJN and USN built lots of BOTH Carriers and BBs. But during the war, as naval air proved more effective than expected, the opportunities for the knife to get within range of the gun (so to speak) diminished. Clearly, ISTM, both Japan and the US bought disproportionately too many BB's, and would have been better off building fewer, and building more carriers, cruisers, and DDs, instead.

[Rapiddude]

As for DD vs. BB - of couse DDs could hurt BBs in certain situations. BBs, like any other warships weren't invincible. That doesn't make them pointless though. IIRC in some cases mentioned here, for example US DDs vs. Japanese big guns the problem was not so much that capital ships sucked in general, but that crew training and leadership on the Japanese side was insufficient.