# Most powerful ship



## renrich (May 26, 2009)

The Great War, WW1, began in August 1914. In 1906, HMS Dreadnought was completed and immediately made every other battleship in the world obsolete. Many nations then began to build or have built ships to rival or surpass Dreadnought and the word dreadnought was adopted to describe this new type of ship. The revolutionary design of Dreadnought included turbine engines which gave her a dependable speed well above existing BBs, all of her guns were 12 inch guns (except for a number of anti torpedo boat small guns) which simplified gunnery immensely and she was very well armored. The aircraft carrier, the type which superseded the battleship as the most important and powerful ship in navies in WW2 was not in service. At the outset of the war, August, 1914, which dreadnought in all the world's navies was the most powerful, taking into account guns, speed and protection? Remember, the ship chosen must have been completed no later than August, 1914!


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## Thorlifter (May 26, 2009)

I'll pick the three ship England had, the Lion, the Queen Mary, and the Princess Royal. All had 13.5" guns and were completed in 1912.


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## Glider (May 26, 2009)

HMS Erin gets my vote. Basically a modified Iron Duke with a better 6in battery and a wider beam.


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## renrich (May 26, 2009)

Thorlifter, they were beautiful ships but Queen Mary blew up at Jutland and Lion was lucky not to. They were victims of German BC guns of no more than 11 or 12 inch calibre. They seem to have been lacking in armor. They may have been hard pressed against a dreadnought battleship.


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## Waynos (May 26, 2009)

It wasn't lack of armour, it was a design fault where the turrets were fed from a common central arms store. It seemed a good idea at the time as it would mean all the ammo could still be used if a turret was knocked out. An unforseen knock on was that a lucky hit could, and did, ignite the entire stckpile and blow the ship up. This gave rise to the phrase, repeated at the time that HMS Sheffield burned out in 1982, "there's something wrong with our bloody ships!"


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## BombTaxi (May 26, 2009)

The BCs were definitely not good contenders for most powerful ship of the age. As well as faulty design, they suffered from faulty deployment - Fisher had intended them to hunt down and destory enemy armoured cruisers - something which they did exceptionally well in the Falklands (1914, of course!) and at Dogger Bank. They were never intended to got head-to-head with battleships, or even with other battlecruisers, as thier light protection would inevitably fail to survive such an engagement. 

My vote, like Glider's, goes with HMS Erin, with HMS Agincourt a close second. Ironically, neither ship was ordered by the RN (Erin was a Turkish order, and Agincourt a Brazilian one, IIRC), but both were confiscated in 1914 to bolster the RN.

ren, while on this topic, can I recommend to you _Dreadnought_ and _Castles of Steel_, both by Paul Massie, if you haven't already read them. I would rank them amongst the best researched and written, most accesible military history ever published. Well worth the time to read 8)


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## vikingBerserker (May 26, 2009)

There was the USS Texes, it had 10 x 14" guns. 

My favorite British up until the Queen Elizabeths (IMHO the best of WWI) was the HMS Agincourt, 14 x 12" guns in 7 turrets.


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## Von Frag (May 26, 2009)

vikingBerserker said:


> There was the USS Texes, it had 10 x 14" guns.
> 
> My favorite British up until the Queen Elizabeths (IMHO the best of WWI) was the HMS Agincourt, 14 x 12" guns in 7 turrets.



The Texas was not ready in August of 1914 was she? She had good armament and armor for the day, but she had reciprocating engines instead of turbines which was a liability.


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## vikingBerserker (May 26, 2009)

She was commissioned March 12, 1914 according to her website Ship's History

I agree about the reciprocating engines, but her top speed was listed at 21knots, the same speed as the Erin and almost as fast as the Agincourt.


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## Thorlifter (May 26, 2009)

Good point about the three British ships. I knew about the Queen Mary, but not the others so thanks for pointing that out. However, the reason I listed those was the title of this thread is the most powerful. I took that as the ship with the most hitting power. I'd say the 13.5" guns gave them the most powerful broadside pre 1914.

Now, as Viking pointed out, 10x14" guns on the Texas was even better and she was better armored, but she was also post 1914, albeit just a couple months.


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## Vassili Zaitzev (May 27, 2009)

Might not be the most poweful, but the SMS Seydlitz gets me vote. 






Still managed to make it back home after all the damage she suffered in Jutland.


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## Glider (May 27, 2009)

vikingBerserker said:


> There was the USS Texes, it had 10 x 14" guns.
> 
> My favorite British up until the Queen Elizabeths (IMHO the best of WWI) was the HMS Agincourt, 14 x 12" guns in 7 turrets.



The Agincourt certainly had some punch but her armour was thin for a BB, being about midway between a BC and a BB.

Slightly amusing aside. Agincourt was not supposed to fire a full broadside as there were concerns about her ability to take the forces involved. At Jutland she did fire a full broadside (without damage) but the ship behind her initially thought that she had blown up.

The Texs is a good choise and when compared to the Erin the differences are down to the Secondary Guns, 5in instead of 6in, protection was similar with the edge against torpedos going to the Erin, but this was propoably such a small edge it probably wouldn't have made a huge difference and of course the engines.
Interestingly the guns fired the same sized shell about 1,400lb despite the difference in calibre.


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## BombTaxi (May 27, 2009)

Thorlifter said:


> Good point about the three British ships. I knew about the Queen Mary, but not the others so thanks for pointing that out. However, the reason I listed those was the title of this thread is the most powerful. I took that as the ship with the most hitting power. I'd say the 13.5" guns gave them the most powerful broadside pre 1914.
> 
> Now, as Viking pointed out, 10x14" guns on the Texas was even better and she was better armored, but she was also post 1914, albeit just a couple months.



The _King George V_ class, completed by December 1913, also carried 13.5" guns, but were much more heavily armoured and much slower than the BCs, being a true battleship design. The BCs such as _Quenn Mary_ and _Lion_ were, IIRC, based on the _KGV_ design, with much armour removed to improve speed.


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## renrich (May 27, 2009)

BT, thanks for the thoughtful suggestion about the books. I have read "Dreadnought" and "Castles of Steel" is in my personal library. I am currently rereading COS, which action, prompted me to start this thread. I also own a copy (not an original) of Janes 1914. I don't believe that Erin or Agincourt were completed in August, 1914. Texas would be a good choice possibly, especially if she did not have the dratted recip engines. However in Janes it is said that her best recent speed was 22 knots which gave her one knot advantage over the designed speed of Iron Duke, Jellicoe's flagship. Another point for Texas was that she had no turrets amidships like other of her contemporaries. Those amidships turrets were problems. Another candidate might be Viribus Unitas or her sisters. They only mounted 12 inch guns but they were all in triple turrets superimposed. 12-12 inchers.


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## Glider (May 27, 2009)

renrich said:


> BT, thanks for the thoughtful suggestion about the books. I have read "Dreadnought" and "Castles of Steel" is in my personal library. I am currently rereading COS, which action, prompted me to start this thread. I also own a copy (not an original) of Janes 1914. I don't believe that Erin or Agincourt were completed in August, 1914. Texas would be a good choice possibly, especially if she did not have the dratted recip engines. However in Janes it is said that her best recent speed was 22 knots which gave her one knot advantage over the designed speed of Iron Duke, Jellicoe's flagship. Another point for Texas was that she had no turrets amidships like other of her contemporaries. Those amidships turrets were problems. Another candidate might be Viribus Unitas or her sisters. They only mounted 12 inch guns but they were all in triple turrets superimposed. 12-12 inchers.



Erin was taken over by the RN on the 4th August 1914. She was I believe complete as the Turkish Crew had arrived to take her over and sail her home. So she may well qualify but only by the narrowest of margins.


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## renrich (May 27, 2009)

I have a book about HMS Agincourt but it is somewhere buried in a box. If I remember correctly she had originally been intended for Brazil, but then was bought by Turkey and when GB requisitioned her, they had to change a lot of stuff that was intended for a Muslim nation. Anyway, I don't believe either Erin or Agincourt were that powerful. If memory serves, the RN was not fond of them either. The British 12 inch gun was not nearly as effective as the 14 inchers the Texas mounted either. The RN BCs at Falklands made many hits on the German armored cruisers and it took forever to sink them.


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## renrich (May 27, 2009)

Agincourt in Janes 1914 is in the Turkish section as Sultan Osman I. She was somewhat narrow in the beam at 90 feet and carried armor similar to a BC, 9 inch belt with only 9 inches on the main battery turrets. Texas had 12 inch belt with 14 inches on the face of the turrets. She was 95 feet in the beam. The QEs were 94 feet in the beam.


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## BombTaxi (May 27, 2009)

ren,

Had a feeling you had read them both, I seem to recall now that we have discussed them at some point in the past 

The 12 inch guns on _Dreadnought_ and the early BCs were not particularly powerful - I believe they were not substantially different from the pieces mounted on the _Lord Nelson_ and _King Edward_ class OBs. The 13.5 inch gun was more potent, but of course did not enter service until the advent of the _Orions_ and their BC analogues. The real difference between the BBs and the OBs in terms of firepower was in the concentration of a large number of heavy pieces in one battery, and also by the widespread adoption of director firing to maximise the destructive potential of these batteries. Had gun or turret captains still been aiming guns individually, as they did in the 1890s, Jutland would probably have been fought at 1000 yards, and might have been substantially less bloody...


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## fly boy (May 27, 2009)

sorry don't know much about the WW1's but i know a bit about some twos


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## vikingBerserker (May 27, 2009)

Erin was launched on Sept 3, 1913. Commissioned Aug 1914.
Agincourt was launched on Jan 22,1913. Commissioned Aug 25, 1914.

They would both just barely squeak by.


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## Glider (May 28, 2009)

renrich said:


> . Anyway, I don't believe either Erin or Agincourt were that powerful. If memory serves, the RN was not fond of them either. The British 12 inch gun was not nearly as effective as the 14 inchers the Texas mounted either. The RN BCs at Falklands made many hits on the German armored cruisers and it took forever to sink them.



The two problems that the RN had with the Erin were :-

1) Her beam was wider than any other RN vessel and as a result she had to private docks as she wouldn't fit inside Naval docks. Often she used a floating dock for repairs which was expensive and at times inconvenient.
2) Despite her wider beam her interior was cramped by RN standards, sometimes compared to German standards. This in turn gave her more extensive torpedo protection but how effective this is we don't know as it was never tested.


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## Freebird (May 28, 2009)

renrich said:


> Remember, the ship chosen must have been completed no later than August, 1914!



Are you talking about "completed" date or "commisioned date?"

The Queen Elizabeth was launched in Oct 1913 and commissioned in Dec 1914, so may have missed your cutoff by a few months {and would be a hands-down winner IMO} 


The British Iron Duke German König class was the most recent battleships, but both were slightly inferior to the USS Texas I believe.


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## renrich (May 28, 2009)

FB, I specifically meant completed or commisioned because I wanted ships ready to go to sea when the war broke out. According to Janes, Queen Elisabeth and Warspite were not completed until October, 1914. I wanted to exclude them because, like you, I believe they would be, hands down, the most powerful of any ships that fought in WW1.


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## Freebird (May 29, 2009)

renrich said:


> FB, I specifically meant completed or commisioned because I wanted ships ready to go to sea when the war broke out. According to Janes, Queen Elisabeth and Warspite were not completed until October, 1914. I wanted to exclude them because, like you, I believe they would be, hands down, the most powerful of any ships that fought in WW1.



8)

Yes true. And the 3 most recent, Texas, Iron Duke König were fairly evenly matched, it would probably depend on the quality layout of armor


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## HerrKaleut (May 29, 2009)

Erin was smaller than the "Iron Dukes" and "Agincourt" was the longest battleship yet built. 
With a August 1914 cut off, I would like to nominate the Japanese battlecruiser "Hiei"..27,500 tons, 28 knots and 14 inch guns (


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## renrich (May 29, 2009)

HK, I don't believe that Hiei was ready in August 1914. Her sister, Kongo, built in Britain by Vickers, I think, was but she was a BC like the Magnificent Cats and her protection was not up to that of the standard of the true battleships.


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## HerrKaleut (May 29, 2009)

I didn't think the thread specified battleships. Be assured "Hiei" was completed by august 4th 1914.
(Kongo was the first,launched May 1912 and delivered in 1913 followed by Hiei, Kirishima and Haruna, the last being completed in 1915. The Kongo was the last major warship built outside Japan and the 14 inch guns of the Haruna were the last gun mounts to be imported) They were theoretically superior to anything the U.S. pacific squadron could muster and they were superior to the "Lions".


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## vikingBerserker (May 29, 2009)

The only thing the Kongo's had on the Texas was speed. Japan really did not have a ship that could out gun the Texas class until the Fuso which were completed in 1915


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## BombTaxi (May 30, 2009)

The big issue with Kongo was that her armour was not up to the required standard to fight BBS - she was, after all, a battle cruiser. Fighting BBs or other BCs would put her in server danger of being destroyed by heavy guns.


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## HerrKaleut (May 30, 2009)

The armour of the Kongo/Hiei..Side belt-6-8 inches (Texas 6-12 inches ) Maindeck 1.5 in. (Texas 1.5 -2.5 )

Turrets 3-9in. (8-14) 
Barbattes 10 in. (12 in.) 
Casemates 6 in. (7 in.) 


So "Texas" was not well enough armoured to resist a 14 inch shell hit and being the slower of the two would be at a distinct dissadvantage.


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## HerrKaleut (May 30, 2009)

By the way,someone was saying that "Erin" was bigger than the "iron Dukes" so just out of interest;

Erin Iron duke

Length (p.p.) 559ft 6in 580 ft.


Beam 91ft. 90ft


Draught 28ft 29ft


Weight (normal) 27,500 tons 25,820 tons


Weight (full load) 30,250 tons 30,380 tons


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## BombTaxi (May 30, 2009)

HerrKaleut said:


> The armour of the Kongo/Hiei..Side belt-6-8 inches (Texas 6-12 inches ) Maindeck 1.5 in. (Texas 1.5 -2.5 )
> 
> Turrets 3-9in. (8-14)
> Barbattes 10 in. (12 in.)
> ...



By the same logic, the Kongos weren't well enough armoured to stop a 14in round either. I admit speed would give them an advantage, but the fact still remains that a BCs only sure chance of surviving an encounter with a BB was to run away. After all, BCs were essentially overgrown and over-gunned ACs. If you wanted a vessel that could dominate the sea and win decisive victories over enemy fleets, you needed BBs. They could do the job, while BCs could not. Jutland proved that beyond any shadow of a doubt.


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## HerrKaleut (May 30, 2009)

I never suggested that the Kongos could stand up to a 14 inch hit but as I understood it we are talking power and as both of our ships are armed with the same guns and neither ship had armour protection to take a hit of that calibre very well, it can be argued that neither was more powerfull than the other.

As for Jutland, I thought the German BCs faired rather well. It is never mentioned that German cordite was a lot more stable than the british. Nor is it ever mentioned that on the british BCs, in order to meet instructions re; higher rates of fire demanded by the admirals, bundles of cordite were stowed a' la "ready use" in the corridors .(in contrast to regulations).


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## Glider (May 30, 2009)

HerrKaleut said:


> I never suggested that the Kongos could stand up to a 14 inch hit but as I understood it we are talking power and as both of our ships are armed with the same guns and neither ship had armour protection to take a hit of that calibre very well, it can be argued that neither was more powerfull than the other.
> 
> As for Jutland, I thought the German BCs faired rather well. It is never mentioned that German cordite was a lot more stable than the british. Nor is it ever mentioned that on the british BCs, in order to meet instructions re; higher rates of fire demanded by the admirals, bundles of cordite were stowed a' la "ready use" in the corridors .(in contrast to regulations).



If a BB goes up against a BC the money will be on the BB every time, its not a guarantee as in a naval battle where you hit on a ship is in the lap of the gods and anyone can get lucky.
However all things being equal the BB will have a much better chance. Speed is of little help once battle is joined unless the BC wants to run away and even then the BC has to hope that her speed is unchanged. If it is, she is finished. Its worth remembering that the BC's had a speed advantage of about 3-5 kts (depending on type) over comparable BB's, walking speed, a speed easily lost in case of damage.

The Kongo/Texas debate could equally apply to any comparable BC/BB engagement. The BB Texas in this case has thicker armour and is better protected against damage. Even if the shell penetrates the supporting structure is stronger and more able to resist damage. The Texas has more guns and has an increased chance of a hit. 
The engine spaces in a BC are a much larger percentage of the volume of the hull and these are vulnerable spaces. Any hit is almost certain to do damage that will impact the ships speed something that is death to a BC. So the BC is far more vulnerable than a BB in this area. 

The German BC's did do exceptionally well at Jutland but when they came up against the BB's all bets were off. They only escaped because the RN lacked the flexibility/will to follow them up. As you have pointed out if the RN had obayed their own rules then the Germans would not have done as well and the difference less marked.
Indeed the Germans ability to do what they did was largely down to their armour which was equall to almost any BB of the time. This shows that having 12in armour was a major advantage in withstanding 13.5 or 14in shells. Note here the Erins 13.5 guns fired a shell comparable to the 14in, both of which weighed approx 1,400lb.


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## vikingBerserker (May 30, 2009)

HerrKaleut said:


> The armour of the Kongo/Hiei..Side belt-6-8 inches (Texas 6-12 inches ) Maindeck 1.5 in. (Texas 1.5 -2.5 )
> 
> Turrets 3-9in. (8-14)
> Barbattes 10 in. (12 in.)
> ...



The Kongo armour you quote was from the 1927-40 period where length was increased by 8m and armour rose by 50%. When launched her belt was actually only 3"-8" thick.


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## renrich (May 30, 2009)

HK, the thread did not specify BBs, rather just most powerful ship. Kongo is a reasonable choice. Janes gives Texas protection as 12 inch belt amidships, same bow, same aft, same deck. 14 inches to 8 inches turrets, 14 to 8 inches battery. Kongo: 10 inch belt amidships, 4 inch, ends, 2.5 inch deck, 10 inch turrets, 7 inches battery and conning tower. I read that as the Texas having much better protection. Another point, Texas carried 10- 14 inch guns. Kongo-8- 14 inchers. In hindsight, the British BCs showed at Jutland and later with Hood that they could not stand up to heavy shellfire as well as BBs. The German BCs did better at Jutland than the British because they sacrifised a little speed for better protection and a little habitibility for better compartmentation. I think what you are talking about in stable explosive is that the British shell contained lyddite whereas the German's contained trotyl. The lyddite was not as stable and sometimes exploded on impact rather than after penetration of the armor. That may explain the difficulty the BCs had sinking Spee at Falklands. Another point, Kongo's sister, Kirishima, after her protection was increased between wars, did not stand up well to shellfire at Guadalcanal.


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## Matt308 (May 30, 2009)

fly boy said:


> sorry don't know much about the WW1's but i know a bit about some twos


.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 31, 2009)

Matt you are going to wear that shovel!!


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## HerrKaleut (May 31, 2009)

The ref.book that I used gave the following for the Kongo in 1912, 1931 and 1937 (in that order)

Side belt..............6-8 in.(152-203 mm).......same.........same
.... ends.............3in.(76mm)..................same.........same
deck upper............1.5in.(38mm)..............same..........same
deck lower............0.75in.(19mm)............0.75-4.75in.(19-120mm).........same
main turrets..........3-9in(76-229mm).........6-9in.(152-229mm)................same
barbettes.............10in(254mm)..............11in(280mm).......................same
casemates............6in(152mm).................same...............................same



And yes, I was refering to lyddite content in British charges.


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## vikingBerserker (May 31, 2009)

HerrKaleut said:


> The ref.book that I used gave the following for the Kongo in 1912, 1931 and 1937 (in that order)
> 
> Side belt..............6-8 in.(152-203 mm).......same.........same
> .... ends.............3in.(76mm)..................same.........same
> ...



Interesting. The sources I used were _Battleships_ by Crescent and _Conways All The World's Fighting Ships 1922-1946_


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## renrich (May 31, 2009)

HK, I have an original 1942 Janes(which is getting fragile so I am almost afraid to open it) and the armor they show for Kongo after reconstruction almost exactly agrees with your numbers. Bottom line: Kongo would be faster, Texas would be better protected and have heavier weight of broadside. Apparently the major weakness of the Britsh designed BCs was their resistance to plunging fire. Another note is that Hiei, in the first night at Guadalcanal was heavily damaged by 5 inch and 8 inch fire.


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## BombTaxi (May 31, 2009)

The British BCs lost at Jutland were immolated by a combination of poor armour protection and dangerous ammunition handling procedures designed to increase rate of fire. Hood, on the other hand, was lost primarily because her armour did not offer adequate protection from plunging fire - a fault she shared with many WWI era ships still in service during WWII.


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## Freebird (May 31, 2009)

BombTaxi said:


> The British BCs lost at Jutland were immolated by a combination of poor armour protection and dangerous ammunition handling procedures designed to increase rate of fire. Hood, on the other hand, was lost primarily because her armour did not offer adequate protection from plunging fire - a fault she shared with many WWI era ships still in service during WWII.



Or you could say that the main reason the BC's were lost in WWI is that they were never designed to fight alongside Battleships. The hit on the Hood was also unlucky, as was the later rudder hit on the Bismarck


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## BombTaxi (May 31, 2009)

Point is, the German BCs used the same guns as the German BBs, so it really is just sheer luck that no British BCs blew up at Dogger Bank as they did at Jutland - and we could also say that British BCs should never have engaged other BCs, never mind BBs. Although, coincidentally, the Germans thought they had put Lion out of action at Dogger Bank, due to the scale of the fires aboard her...


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## Freebird (Jun 1, 2009)

BombTaxi said:


> Point is, the German BCs used the same guns as the German BBs, so it really is just sheer luck that no British BCs blew up at Dogger Bank as they did at Jutland - and we could also say that British BCs should never have engaged other BCs, never mind BBs.



Largely correct, the BC's should have been used for what they were most suited for - as Cruiser-killers hunting down surface raiders.

The British had a big worry in both wars, with raiders that could out-run anything big enough to hurt them. 

Ultimately though, it was seen that the BC's were not as viable as originally planned, and the "Hood" was in the process of conversion to a fast battleship, by increasing the deck armour substantially, among other things. Sadly events economics interrupted the upgrades

The trend was going in that way from the mid 30's, with the new design BB's capable of 28 - 30 knots, thus eliminating the need for 30 knot BC's with weak armour


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## renrich (Jun 1, 2009)

Yes, one could almost say that the Iowas were a sort of hybrid BC-BB with big guns, high speed and slightly diminished protection. One thing for sure, it is hard to imagine what the armor on a BB looks like without actually seeing it. I visited Alabama and looked at the hatch to the CT. Imagine a door that is 14 inches of steel thick. Aside from the procedure with the flash proof doors between the magazines and handling rooms, the factor that hurt the Beatty BCs was that they had a range advantage over Hipper with their bigger guns but at long range there was more plunging fire which exploited the weaker horizontal armor of the British. I think that I read that the Admiral commanding Hood recognised this vulnerability and was trying to close the range so as to have more direct fire but while closing only the forward turrets could bear so he was between the Devil and the deep blue sea.


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## Glider (Jun 1, 2009)

Its fair to say that the Warspite by WW1 standards, was designed along similar lines to the Iowa in that her speed matched that of the first british BC's but she had the armour and weapons of a BB. The problem was of course cost. The Royal Soveriegn class which had a slower max speed were built after the Warspite but were meant to stay in the line of battle. As a result they did not have such a long life. Ideally they woulld have been a copy of the Warspite.


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## BombTaxi (Jun 1, 2009)

The QE class were almost certainly the first class of 'fast battleships'. It is interesting to note that despite the pounding the 5th Battle Squadron took (especially Warspite) took, all of the vessels survived the engagement. Had more energy and money been expended in that direction rather tan on Fisher's pet project, the RN might have been a much deadlier force from the outset of the Great War...


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## renrich (Jun 5, 2009)

I believe that Churchill should get a lot of the credit for the QEs by holding out for 15 inch guns and oil fired boilers.


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## Freebird (Jun 5, 2009)

BombTaxi said:


> . Had more energy and money been expended in that direction rather tan on Fisher's pet project, the RN might have been a much deadlier force from the outset of the Great War...





renrich said:


> I believe that Churchill should get a lot of the credit for the QEs by holding out for 15 inch guns and oil fired boilers.



Actually Fisher came out of retirement to help build the QE's, and did a damn fine job on them. 



Wiki said:


> Warspite, and the rest of the class, was the brainchild of two men. One was Admiral Sir John 'Jackie' Fisher, who was First Sea Lord when the first all big-gun battleship, HMS Dreadnought, came into existence. The other was Winston S. Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, who was paramount in getting the Queen Elizabeths off the drawing board and into the water; but he was also influenced in a number of decisions about the Queen Elizabeths by Lord Fisher, who had been persuaded to come out of retirement by Churchill.


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## BombTaxi (Jun 5, 2009)

Freebird, no doubt that Fisher was instrumental in building the QEs, I was merely making the point that had fast battleships been built instead of the battlecruisers (which were very much Fisher's toys), the loss of 3000 men and three major surface units at Jutland might have been avoided. Even while the QEs were building, Fisher was continuing to plot the construction of more BCs, and succeeded with the 'large light cruisers' _Furious_, _Courageous_ and _Glorious_ - better known to the fleet as _Spurious_, _Outrageous_ and _Uproarious_ due to thier catastrophic combination of 15-inch guns with light cruiser armour. Fortunately, none of them saw action as BCs, and they were eventually converted into carriers, in which role _Courageous and Glorious_ were lost in WWII...


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## Amsel (Jun 5, 2009)

Another great role for the Battle Cruisers is convoy raiding. Their speed also allows them to keep out of reach of enemy fleets.


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## BombTaxi (Jun 6, 2009)

It would have been interesting to see how that panned out - AFAIK, no BC was ever actually used as a commerce raider. It's true that high speed would allow BCs to stay out of reach of the enemy, but they would require significant amounts of fuel to keep running for very long, so bases and/or supply ships would have been essentail. Cut those off and your raider is essentially useless. 

Escorted convoys could be a problem for BCs as well, don't forget the guns of an AC or OB could easily penetrate a BCs armour, and it will have to close with the escort in order to get at the convoy. Under those circumstances, you run the risk of a Jutland-style conflagration.


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## renrich (Jun 6, 2009)

BT, Invincible was hit a number of times at Falklands by the 8 inch guns of the German Armored Cruisers. Her armor kept most( or maybe all) of the projectiles out. It would depend on where the hits occurred. The AC was the type of ship that I always had doubts about. All of those I have seen photos of were ugly and seemed kind of useless to me as far as where they fit in. I have a book,(somewhere) that is all about cruisers. When I find it, I will reread to find out the rationale for that type.


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## vikingBerserker (Jun 6, 2009)

I know it's a different era, but _Scharnhort_ and _Gneisenau_ were employed as commerce raiders during WWII with some luck.


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## renrich (Jun 6, 2009)

Check signals. I just went back to Massie and both BCs at Falklands had their armor, especially deck armor, penetrated by shell fire. I know that Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were used as commerce raiders in WW1 but light cruisers could be more cost effective. Where I don't see ACs being a fit in WW1 is that they were too slow to catch modern light cruisers and too lightly armed and armored to fight warships they could catch. Those handicaps signaled the end of that class. I am prejudiced against them, I guess, because, IMO, they were ugly and because they seemed a waste of money. In many cases they were as large as pre dreadnoughts, so must have cost as much and they could not survive in the battle line.


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## BombTaxi (Jun 6, 2009)

The original impetus for the AC design came from France, which wanted to build a ship faster and more lightly armed than a battle ship but more powerful than a light cruiser. These would be unleashed on British commercial shipping and would outrun what they couldn't outfight - much like the BCs in fact. The British built bigger ACs to counter them, then BCs to finish them off altogether. The AC was a very short lived design - it was inly built for about 20 years before the dreadnought BCs rendered them useless. As originall designed, they were not intended to serve in the line of battle - much like the BC again.


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## HerrKaleut (Jun 6, 2009)

Furious was,in fact,origianaly armed with 2 18inch-40cal .


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## BombTaxi (Jun 6, 2009)

HerrKaleut said:


> Furious was,in fact,origianaly armed with 2 18inch-40cal .



Good point. I knew that, but for some reason didn't post it :/


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## vikingBerserker (Jun 6, 2009)

THere is a pic of her with a single 18" in the front, with the carrier deck on the back. Actually looked pretty handsome.


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## Freebird (Jun 6, 2009)

BombTaxi said:


> It would have been interesting to see how that panned out - AFAIK, no BC was ever actually used as a commerce raider .





vikingBerserker said:


> I know it's a different era, but _Scharnhort_ and _Gneisenau_ were employed as commerce raiders during WWII with some luck.



Viking beat me to it, the German BC's did commerce raiding...
Also the "PocketBB's" could be seen as a sort of cut-down BC, very effective for commerce raiding. They were listed as 28 knts, same as the older BC's, and the 11" guns could overpower the light cruisers that usually defended a convoy.

The raid in the South Atlantic by Scheer was quite profitable, IIRC it sunk 19 ships



BombTaxi said:


> As originally designed, they were not intended to serve in the line of battle - much like the BC again.



And the BC did make sense when it was originally designed, as the British were much more worried about commerce raiders pre-WWI, so having some BC "cruiser killers" was a good idea, especially in the era before AircraftCarriers. The effectivness of the BC's was demonstrated in the Falklands.

It was just the folly of the admiralty in putting them in the battle line for Jutland that caused the problem, something they were not designed for.


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## diddyriddick (Jun 8, 2009)

renrich said:


> When I find it, I will reread to find out the rationale for that type.



If you mean the rationale for BCs, then it was relatively simple. They could outfight anything that could catch them, and out run anything that could hurt them. Remember that Jackie Fisher was the big spur for the development of BCs, and Fisher loved fast ships.


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## renrich (Jun 8, 2009)

ACs not BCs, they could not catch modern light cruisers and they could not out gun BBs. They were in many cases as large as BBS and cost as much but could not survive in the battle line. Actually Fisher envisioned BCs as scouts for the Battle Line. They could find the enemy fleet, report them and stay out of reach while shadowing and out gun all but dreadnoughts.


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## Amsel (Jun 8, 2009)

Maybe even shoot off a salvo of fish and hightail it.


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## delcyros (Jul 5, 2009)

BombTaxi said:


> Escorted convoys could be a problem for BCs as well, don't forget the guns of an AC or OB could easily penetrate a BCs armour, and it will have to close with the escort in order to get at the convoy. Under those circumstances, you run the risk of a Jutland-style conflagration.



The Battlecruiser GOEBEN / YAVUZ was used as a raiding BC in the med and several times in the Black Seas region with success.
This Armour problem is likely overestated in 1914. By this time, only three Navies in the world had reliable, delay fuzed APC projectiles, which could be expected to defeat half calibre sized armour plates in a condition fit to burst:
The High Seas Fleet, the Austro-Hungarian Navy and the russian imperial Navy.
Unless the raiding BC get´s into contact with an russian pre-Dreadnough (which Yavuz got twice!), it may feel safe in 1914. The AC´s by then had no guns powerful enough to defeat full scale armour and inflict decisive damage behind. This makes DERFFLINGER probably the most dangerous ship in 1914.
Otherwise the austro hungarian TEGETTHOFF class of dreadnoughts is very dangerous (moreso than TEXAS!). It features the best quality armour (Witkovitz armour was the only manufacturer to make plates able to reliably defeat all soft capped projectiles, regardless of impact condition, which gave these battleships the highest degree of gunfire protection), excellent guns and projectiles (hard capped, delay fuzed super heavy projectiles, talk about advanced in 1914!) and decent firecontroll.
It suffers from poor subdividion, a general lack of watertightness and low metacentric stability, which makes it vulnarable against underwater damage.


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## BombTaxi (Jul 5, 2009)

All very good points del, I was thinking more in terms of the British-style BC, which was essentially a big light cruiser with BB guns strapped to it. The German BCs were designed on a much more sensible scheme, which gave them a chance of surviving an encounter with another big-gun ship. As we have already seen in this thread, German 8.3in shells were more than capable of penetrating the armour of a British 'I' type BC - the Falklands demonstrated this beyond doubt.


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## delcyros (Jul 6, 2009)

They would be hard pressed to defeat the "I"´s armour scheme with only 8.3 in guns. The british battlecruisers fall into two generations: The older one, INVINCIBLE and INDEFATIGABLE classes were what You probably have in mind and originally they were classified as dreadnought cruiser (only to be reclassified as battlecruiser in 1912) but the successive LION and TIGER classes were much more ambitous attempts in battlecruiser design with staying power. I don´t think that it´s justified to say that they were basically light cruisers with big guns strapped on them.


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## Glider (Jul 6, 2009)

delcyros said:


> They would be hard pressed to defeat the "I"´s armour scheme with only 8.3 in guns. The british battlecruisers fall into two generations: The older one, INVINCIBLE and INDEFATIGABLE classes were what You probably have in mind and originally they were classified as dreadnought cruiser (only to be reclassified as battlecruiser in 1912) but the successive LION and TIGER classes were much more ambitous attempts in battlecruiser design with staying power. I don´t think that it´s justified to say that they were basically light cruisers with big guns strapped on them.



I am not so sure. Had Spee closed the island as soon as he arrived he would have been able to shell the British BC's whilst they were loading and concentrated on the RN ships one at a time as they left the harbour. The Two large germans ships are unlikely to have survived as the British wouldn't have just sat there but the German Light Cruisers may well have been able to make their escape.


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## delcyros (Jul 6, 2009)

A big what-if. Based on knowledge on how the battle evolved it might appear to be the better option. But Spee had some time advantage (the british ships needed to raise steam before making power) and the weather would perhaps permitted him to disappear in a rain squall. Spee had already used up a good contingent of his ammunition in the earlier battle and would soon run short on ammo. This maneuver at least offered a small window to escape. On the other hand, it was exactly what the I´s were designed for. To hunt and fight down enemy armoured cruisers.


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## Glider (Jul 6, 2009)

delcyros said:


> A big what-if. Based on knowledge on how the battle evolved it might appear to be the better option. But Spee had some time advantage (the british ships needed to raise steam before making power) and the weather would perhaps permitted him to disappear in a rain squall. Spee had already used up a good contingent of his ammunition in the earlier battle and would soon run short on ammo. This maneuver at least offered a small window to escape. On the other hand, it was exactly what the I´s were designed for. To hunt and fight down enemy armoured cruisers.



Its not as big a what if as it first seems. The British ships weretotally unprepared and were actually coaling without steam when the Germans arrived, but there was an old pre dreadnaught which had been beached to act as a guard ship. She saw the Germans first and fired a salvo from behind a hill using a land based spotter. 
This salvo had two important impacts, 
a) It warned the RN Battlecruisers that something was coming
b) It made the Germans slow down as they couldn't see the what was firing at them. 

When the Germans closed they saw the Battlecruisers still in the harbour they turned to run. The British crews went to breakfast as there was time before steam could be raised and they finally left port at 10.00.

Had the Germans attacked they had almost the entire British Fleet at their mercy as the only vessel with steam up was HMS Kent an old 6in armoured Cruiser. The Germans would have used up the last of their ammunition but its pretty certain that they would have caused a lot of damage to the British ships and then had the chance to make their escape. The German Light Cruisers would have been able to escape by leaving the larger ships to fight and leaving the battle from the start.


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## delcyros (Jul 7, 2009)

This is probably what we could see in a resim of the situation on the board.
And I agree that´s a plausible development of events. But such information were not aviable to Count v. Spee. He had to cope with the limits in communication, observation and controlling of the time. His actions lead to the demise of his small fleet but really, do You think in an opposite event (they all break free with minor damage) the cruisers could make it all the way through the south, central and north Atlantik back to Germany or Turkey?


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## Glider (Jul 7, 2009)

Count V Spee didn't have the information about coaling, but he did know that the British ships were in harbour and they would have had to come out one at a time at slow speed. He also would have known that the British ships out ranged him and were faster so getting closer would have been his best chance, finally he knew that his guns had a faster rate of fire.

Re the light cruisers The Emden, Konigsberg and Karlsruhe did a fair amount of damage and his three cruisers could have caused a fair amount of distruption.

I know that hindsight is a wonderful thing but it was a good chance.


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## renrich (Jul 8, 2009)

Canopus opened fire at 12000 yards on Nurnberg and Gneisenau at 9:20 AM. The remainder of V Spee's ships were about 12 miles further away than the 6 miles of Maerker's ships. That meant that Spee would take almost an hour to assemble all his ships off the harbor mouth. More importantly, Spee did not want to engage an old BB with 12 inch guns along with some British ACs. The gunnery officer on Gneisenau thought he saw tripod masts but Captain Maerker dismissed this since he knew no British BCs were in the South Atlantic. At 9:50 the British squadron weighed anchor and began to steam out of the harbor. That was only 30 minutes after Canopus had opened fire and the Germans still did not realise that they were facing BCs until the chase was well under way.


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## Seawitch (Jul 9, 2009)

renrich said:


> Thorlifter, they were beautiful ships but Queen Mary blew up at Jutland and Lion was lucky not to. They were victims of German BC guns of no more than 11 or 12 inch calibre. They seem to have been lacking in armor. They may have been hard pressed against a dreadnought battleship.



I once argued in these forums that a ships strength had to include their ability to withstand penetration, you can't really produce dimensions or statistics for that, especially since it could be seriously effected by the way the ship is being operated.
No amount of armour will prevent penetration when Battleships are exchanging salvo's!
It is the reason why I see two types of warship at Jutland, those commanded by the cautious Admiral Jellicoe, a technocrat who knew how vulnerable his Dreadnoughts were, and the more aggressive Beatty, the youngest Admiral since Nelson by the way.
Beatty was obsessed with rates of fire and many internal hatches on the ammunitions journey between the magazine and the gun turrets were left open to meet this demand, a lot of the ships strength was compromised and ammunition fires did there worst.
Given a (wrong) report that another ship had exploded at Jutland Beatty said 'there seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!'
His own ship the Lion was saved from this fate by a Captain of marines ordering the turret he was in to be flooded , he died of the wounds he had at the time and got a posthumous VC.
Well...that lot was from memory, I hope it's all correct!8)
Whatever, I swear it takes more dimensions to rate a ship fully.


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## renrich (Jul 10, 2009)

Seawitch, your recollections are right on essentially. However, I would invite you to get your hands on "Castles of Steel" by Massie. For one thing, you may have a different perspective on Beatty and Jellicoe after reading that book. Jellicoe, as was said, was truly the only man on either side who could lose the war in one afternoon.


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## BombTaxi (Jul 10, 2009)

Beatty's leadership abilities are also open to some question. Why he took Ralph Seymour back to sea as 'Flags' after the debacle at Dogger Bank is beyond human comprehension - only arrogance or stupidity seem to furnish an answer. 

It is true that there are more than just statistics to the arguments here, but it remains a fairly safe assertion that British BCs were not fit to stand in the line of battle due to their lack of armour. Nor were they fit to face the German BCs, for the same reason. The evidence of Dogger and Jutland shows that German BCs were capable of taking hits from their British conterparts, while the reverse was not true. The effect of a German 11in shell on a British BC was far greater than that of a British 12in shrll hitting a German BC.

It is also true that sloppy ammuntition handling procedures contributed to the loss of the three BCs at Jutland - IIRC, the same thing had nearly happened to the Germans at Dogger and they changed their ways accordingly. But, IMHO, the bottom line is that the BCs were the wrong ships, in the wrong place, fighting the wrong battle. They should have been away from the fleet engagement gobbling up light cruisers, not in an environment where their lack of protection was somewhat akin to bringing a knife to a gunfight.


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## renrich (Jul 10, 2009)

BT, I agree with you, on your conclusions. If Beatty had been in Jellicoe's place there may have been more fireworks but Britain might have lost the war. It was interesting in Massie's book to learn that Beatty may have had an affair with Lily Langtry early in his career. There is a town in Texas named after Lily Langtry, where Judge Roy Bean used to practise "law." Some of the British BCs did take a lot of punishment at Jutland. I believe that Lion was hit at least ten times. I have a book, (packed) that enumerates all the hits, but the German BCs were highly resistant to shell fire. The British had to build their ships with habitibility in mind whereas the Germans did not. Consequently the German's were more compartmented than the British.


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## delcyros (Jul 15, 2009)

The building superiority of german capital ships in the early half of ww1 had several causes. The most important were technical in nature. Massive investment into propulsion plants (lightweighted turbines, small pipe and higher pressure boiler designs, finally marine Diesel engines), projectile design (reliable delay fused and hard capped projectiles which could defeat >half calibre thick plates at obliquity impacts and reliably burst behind the plate), ammo handling procedures (improving rate of fire) and chemicals (cooler burning and blast resistent RP/C) paid off. There were many aspects (also ship controll, damage controll and communication), where the RMA was working on the very bleeding edge of technology.
The only area where they were clearly lackiong behind the british was firecontroll (Dumaresq clocks, director pointer, range and bearing plotter) and the adoption of all oil firing, altough the former was by a large margin counterbalanced by more extensive gunnery training and better gunlaying procedures (ladder firing) while the latter was not possible to sustain logistically for Germany.
Organizational aspects also benefitted the design environment:
The naval designers inside RMA were able to think in a different direction. The evolution process step by step was stopped after end of ww1, were the RMA and the Navy were downsized by the allies.

HMS LION showed a remarkable ability to withstand major calibre hits (16 at Doggerbank, after which LION was dead in the water without power and steam and 13 at Jutland, after which she still stayed in reduced but good fighting condition).
Five of the hits at Doggerbank and five of the hits at Jutland were on relatively unimportant, non hull related locations (through the funnel or mainmast without exploding) and consequently of low imprtance but this shouldn´t detract fromt he relatively good survivability. There are some cases where german 11 in and 12in SAP&APC projectiles failed to penetrate LION´s thickest armour.


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## BombTaxi (Jul 15, 2009)

I think Betty leading the battleline at Jutland would have lead to a spectacular confrontation, but I'm not sure it would have been decisive - the British BBs seem fairly evenly matched with the Germans, going on the few salvos that were exchanged historically. 

British fire control was fairly advanced - but they had only just made it. Director firing was adopted only a few years before the war, and the choice of computer equipment still causes fierce debate to this day. Massie tends to favour the Admiralty design adopted, while authors such as Peter Padfield in _Battleship_ argue that Polen's system was in fact far superior. Either way, British gunnery at most of the major engagements of the war was less than spectacular, and continued to be a weak point right up until the missile age rendered the issue largely moot.


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## renrich (Oct 10, 2009)

Am reading about Jutland for the umpteenth time. Rereading Massie," Castles of Steel" One point struck me that shows how fickle fate is. Neither New Zealand or Moltke suffered much damage. Yet they were in the thick of things from beginning to end and the other BCs on both sides, right in the same kill zone suffered numerous hits. We know that the CO of New Zealand had on his Maori lucky skirt but what did the Moltke's skipper have. It seems incongruous that one BC on either side was spared much damage at all. Another point about fate is that while Queen Mary blew up spectacularly. The other Cats, of the same design, while sustaining many hits, especially Lion, remained in operation. We know that Lion's Q turret was hit and a fire started and the magazine below was flooded but it almost appears miraculous that Princess Royal, Lion and Tiger escaped the fate of the British BCs that blew up.


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## stuka1940 (Nov 18, 2009)

Have to pick the USS New york BB34. Good ship, big guns 10x14" good range etc.


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## delcyros (Dec 21, 2009)

NEW YORK is a good pick. Unfortunately, the USN in ww1 does not use proper ammunition for any of its major calibre guns. Soft capped projectiles were in service all through ww1 and thus the AP-caps are not likely to work properly at anything other than point blanc range and without any allowances in angles to target. The Midvale unbreakable projectiles are tough bodies but the fuze is still defective. I would not expect BB34 to penetrate any other nations bb thick armour parts in a condition fit to burst.
And the wrecking effect from non penetrating damage is much less pronounced than for heavier 15in projectiles. Altough this problem is shared with many other combattants, it puts BB34 on a serious disadvantage against the latest RN and all IGN battleships, which were using hard capped and reliable delay fuzed APC in within ww1.
In top of this, US BB´s had a dispersion problem until fixed in the mid 20´s...


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## skeeter (Aug 17, 2010)

The best way to have handled an engagement with any heavy units going mano y mano during WWI without any other fleet considerations to be dealt with is to do bow on and close the distance as quickly as possible to optimum range for plunging shell fire, turning ninety degrees to bring full broadsides to bear, and hope for good accuracy. Am I correct in this assumption? Were not the decks the least heavily armored? Especially in battle cruisers? I would think this would have been the best advice during WW2 as well. Certainly the Hood, which I understand that beautiful beast was just an overgrown battle cruiser and the Bismark was a full on BB, seems to demonstrate the outcome of a BB versus a BC in battle, slugging it out. Albeit, let's face it, it was a lucky hit, methinks, that the Hood was struck so quickly and in such a vulnerable area.


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## delcyros (Dec 1, 2010)

There is no"plunging fire" in ww1.
The technology didn´t existed to make it work.
Even in ww2 only base fuses with a special grace function allowed fuse action at impact conditions of as much as 70 degrees (=a 20 deg. angle of fall).
Most major naval guns in ww1 couldn´t even elevate to 20 deg.
The reason why the decks are thin in ww1 period designs is explainable by the need to provide protection against lateral, sideways directed fragmentation from projectiles rather than ballistic impact.


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