Best World war two warships?

You can see why it was in bits on the bottom of the sea. There were a couple of Battleships who went up like that in the war, the Hood being one, another being the Barham in the med.

Some pics of the Barham:

I think there is a video of that BB blowing up.

Yep, here is 3:

HMS Barham - Rest In Peace - Google Video
1945 Newsreel shown after 4 years of secrecy - Google Video
HMS Barham 1914 - 1941 - Google Video

1st two are similar.

Cool thanks for the video and pics guys.

It's amazing anybody got out of those ships. The Barnham lost 800, Yamato I think was in the range of 2k and everybody but 3 (something like 1500) went down on the Hood.

Considering the violence of the explosions, especially the Yamato, survivial seems to be more a factor of happenstance.

I agree, it truely is amazing.

it's difficult to decide on the best without considering relevant force multipliers.

Japanese night fighting techniques and long lance torpedos were far superior in the PTO. American patrol boats and destroyers were hamstrung by criminally inferior torpedos. The US Navy had unparelleled damage control. The Germans and Brits had some great long range eyes in the sky.

It doesnt matter how "good": a ship is if it is engaged at night and the crew is not trained in night fighting and has worthless torpedos.

franklinj said:

it's difficult to decide on the best without considering relevant force multipliers.

Japanese night fighting techniques and long lance torpedos were far superior in the PTO. American patrol boats and destroyers were hamstrung by criminally inferior torpedos. The US Navy had unparelleled damage control. The Germans and Brits had some great long range eyes in the sky.

It doesnt matter how "good": a ship is if it is engaged at night and the crew is not trained in night fighting and has worthless torpedos.

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Franklin
Can I suggest that you think it through and make some choices. For instance the Long Lance was an exceptional torpedo and the Japs were very well trained in night fighting. No one will disagree with that. However, they had poor radar which to a degree makes up the difference and the allies had gained experience as the war went on.
So make a selection and explain the assumptions you based it on then the debate can continue.

The Musashi fired her main battery at aircraft before she was sunk. The Yamato fired her main battery at the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The Japanese gunnery left a lot to be desired at Leyte Gulf. The strong point of the IJN in WW2 was night fighting and torpedos. I believe the Iowa class would have been more than a match for for the Yamatos.

Interestingly the Barham was not sunk by enemy ship or aircraft action but by Italian frogmen.

The Bismark was a formidable ship but her protection was not up to modern standards.

My vote for the best CA is the Salt Lake City. She fought in many of the actions in the Pacific and fought the last naval battle ever fought between major units where aircraft were not used except in spotting roles. Battle of the Kormondorskis.

The Prinz Eugen and the Hipper were handsome ships and on paper were formidable but I believe they had unreliable engines.

renrich said:

Interestingly the Barham was not sunk by enemy ship or aircraft action but by Italian frogmen.

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I think your getting confused with the Queen Elizabeth and the Valient which were holed by Italian human torpedo's in Gibraltar but were repaired.

And renrich why cant you put all these posts into into one post. You dont need to pad your post count.

I think you are mistaken by the Bismarcks protection though, she had a very formidable armoured belt. When she came out, she was extremely modern by standards.

renrich said:

My vote for the best CA is the Salt Lake City. She fought in many of the actions in the Pacific and fought the last naval battle ever fought between major units where aircraft were not used except in spotting roles. Battle of the Kormondorskis.

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The Baltimore class of heavy cruisers were far superior to the Pensacola class cruisers. You can even make a case that the Cleveland class light cruisers were even superior.

And the Battle of the Komodorski's was not the last surface battle where aircraft were not in the primary role.

Hi guys.


first, I would have to say the best all round battleship ever made. IMO was Vanguard, made by the country that made more battleships then anyone else.

She was fast at 31 knots, she had superior armour protection then the Iowa's. She was the best "battleship sea boat" ever made, (During post-war NATO exercises, the Vanguard remained a stable and effective gun platform in seas so rough the Iowas could not fight.) Her fire control was comparable with iowa's.

Her downfall was her 15" guns. The guns Vanguard used were the same guns used on most Royal navy ships, the same guns that so many experts have commented, that they were the most accurate and reliable naval guns ever made.


But as she never took any part in WW2 I guess she cant be apart of this thread. So….


For me there is only one Ship that stands out beyond the rest. She may not have been the most heavily armoured ship ever made, she may not have had radar guided guns, she may not have been faster then 30 knots but she was with out a doubt the greatest warship ever made…….


When built she was ahead of her time. The class of ships when completed out done anything that had gone before. At Jutland They took on the whole of the German Fleet and survived (even causing heavy damage to the German ships.)

She was of course HMS Warspite.

She is credited with 25 battle honours; she currently holds the longest ranged gunnery shot from a moving ship to a moving target.

Warspite was hit many times from shells, mines, bombs and even a guided missile. Every time she came back fighting.

She sunk many ships including the Italian Heavy cruiser's Fiume, pola and Zara.
At the start of the war Warspite was one of the most beautiful ships you could ever see. She came home in 1945 war scared and batted.

So why is she the greatest ship of them all…

Simple: She went to hell and survived to bring her crew home safely.

Many people who served on her say she had a mind of her own, I find this true when you hear about her end.

On her way to the breakers, in 1947, she managed to break free of her anchor and run aground, she had to be broken up on the spot for the next 3 years.– a final act of defiance for such a great ship.



"Any community, whether its roots draw life from the ocean, or whether it only has a promenade facing the high water, would be honoured to lay claim to such a ship whose destiny was to be at the pivotal point of ideology clashes throughout the world, thereby being in action and an influence on world changing events, emerging with a singularly impressive history, aura and dogged determination to survive. Having engaged in deadly battle in many spheres of operation, suffering damage on several occasions, she ended her working life surviving seemingly against all odds, and despite her enemies' best endeavours to end her career early by any means at their disposal, would choose to lay up on the foreshore hauling down her colours for the last time, entrusting her spirit and those of her fallen crew and shipmates into safekeeping for all time. A true Icon for all time."

RIP old lady.


HMS Warspite (1913 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

What was the last surface battle w/o aircraft except as spotters? I quote from FIGHTING SHIPS OF WW2 by J.N Westwood, Follett Pub. Co. Re the Bismarck, "In several respects the armor distribution was old-fashioned. Horizontal protection was insufficent and moreover ( unlike the new British battleships) vital communication lines were placed above the armored belt. Also the secondary armament could hardly be used against aircraft with only a 35 degree elevation." I stand corrected on the Barham, she was sunk by 3 submarine torpedoes. I only chose CA 25 Salt Lake City because of her distinguished war record and because my uncle served on her from before Dec. 7 until sometime in 1943. He told many interesting stories about the Pacific war. One of his brothers was on the Chicago at the Battle of Savo Island. I would like to see the case for a WW2 CL being superior to the Pensacola class.

Hi Renrich, nice to have You here around.

renrich said:

The Bismark was a formidable ship but her protection was not up to modern standards.

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Considering it´s expected fighting environment, they did a heck of a job to put the best possible armour protection scheme into her. Her protection was different to other ships but not worse. She actually enjoied the largest immune zone for the vital engeneering and magazine spaces of all battleships ever made.

The Prinz Eugen and the Hipper were handsome ships and on paper were formidable but I believe they had unreliable engines.

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That´s not entirely the case. It is true, indeed, that Hipper had a by then new propulsion (super heated high pressure turbines) technology and suffered from shortages typical for new units. Altough neither on hers nor on Prinz Eugen´s Atlantic cruise did this had any effect. Effect was in harbour times, meaning that these powerplants required more meintenance and were less tolerable to overload or other out of order conditions (Prinz Eugen beeing the later ship had somehow more reliable engines than Hipper).

My vote for the best CA is the Salt Lake City. She fought in many of the actions in the Pacific and fought the last naval battle ever fought between major units where aircraft were not used except in spotting roles. Battle of the Kormondorskis.

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As pointed out above by Syscom3, the ww2 Baltimore was technically much better and the post ww2 Des Moines-class CA´s were the best ever CA´s.
Some japanese CA should also deserve beeing mentioned.

I quote from FIGHTING SHIPS OF WW2 by J.N Westwood, Follett Pub. Co. Re the Bismarck, "In several respects the armor distribution was old-fashioned. Horizontal protection was insufficent and moreover ( unlike the new British battleships) vital communication lines were placed above the armored belt. Also the secondary armament could hardly be used against aircraft with only a 35 degree elevation." I stand corrected on the Barham, she was sunk by 3 submarine torpedoes.

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I know that and many other articles and can assure You that things are presented very selective.
1.) Horizontal protection was insufficent:
Well, in comparison to other BB´s, Bismarck´s layared armoured decks get penetrated pretty soon. She is safe against her own guns until distance is larger than 29.000-32.000 yards (the latter beeing for magazines). However, note that the longest gunfire hit ever on a freely moving target was at 26.450 yards!!! (Scharnhorst vs Glorious)
The second largest was at around 26.200 yards (Warspite vs Giulio Cesare).
Typical battle distances (denmark street,Bismarck´s final battle, Renown vs Scharnhorst, North Cape, Guadacanal, Surigano Street) did not exceed 24.000 yards, a range at which only NC´s and SD´s 16"/45 with 2700 lbs super heavy Yamatos 18.1"ers have a reasonable chance to defeat Bismarck´s decks... No reason to speak of insufficiant deck protection, if You ask me.
2.) vital communication lines were placed above the armored belt.
That´s wrong. vital communication lines were above the low placed main armour deck, not above the main belt. These lines were covered by
A) the main belt B) the upper citadel belt C) the weather deck D) the longitudinal splinter bulkheads and E) the communication tube side walls
That´s as much protection as is possible. To lay down these lines BELOW the main armour deck would compromise the watertight integrity of the spaces below the main armour deck (the very reason why the Vanguard class also had communications lines from one space below armour deck going above the armour deck and then back to the level below again instead of penetrating and weakening the principal transverse bulkheads. Altough Vanguard had none of the additional protection mentioned above)
3.) Also the secondary armament could hardly be used against aircraft with only a 35 degree elevation:
And despite this it was used against aircrafts on both, Bismarck (1941) Tirpitz (1942). Bismarck also did not depend on full effectiveness of her sec. as Dual purpose guns, they had the excellent 4.1"/65 AAA with 85 deg. elevation and triaxially stabilized mountings as tertiary gun. The problem with Dual purpose guns in ww2 is that neither worked properly in both areas. The british 5.25" DP gun was to slow in tracking and performed unstatisfactorly against airplanes, the US 5"/38 is the only DP gun of valuable use against aircrafts (with the help of VT-fuzes) but this gun particularely is weaker against ships than even was the 4.1"/65 tertiary of Bismarck in terms of range.

renrich said:

What was the last surface battle w/o aircraft except as spotters? I quote from FIGHTING SHIPS OF WW2 by J.N Westwood, Follett Pub. Co. Re the Bismarck, "In several respects the armor distribution was old-fashioned. Horizontal protection was insufficent and moreover ( unlike the new British battleships) vital communication lines were placed above the armored belt. Also the secondary armament could hardly be used against aircraft with only a 35 degree elevation." I stand corrected on the Barham, she was sunk by 3 submarine torpedoes. I only chose CA 25 Salt Lake City because of her distinguished war record and because my uncle served on her from before Dec. 7 until sometime in 1943. He told many interesting stories about the Pacific war. One of his brothers was on the Chicago at the Battle of Savo Island. I would like to see the case for a WW2 CL being superior to the Pensacola class.

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I could respond but delycros did it for me just fine. Besides from everything I have ever seen of him on this site, he seems way more knowledgable about ships than myself.

Thanks delycros!