Hi Del
Most of what you have written I agree with, but there are some issues that you raise that I dont
Finally, in late 1943 IOWA was a new ship with a lot of bugs to be worked out (faulty propellent range tables f.e.), while SCHARNHORSTs crew was already experienced and most technical issues hardened out. Some of her problems (boiler room No.1 constantly made problems) remained through her final sortie, however.
I agree that the Scharnhorst had a fully trained and worked up crew, and that early on in 1943 the Iowa had teething troubles whilst working up in European waters. However, her crew was fully worked up and most of the problems with the ship worked out by the time she was transferred to the pacific, which from memory was late '43.
You could argue the same about the Scharnhorsts crew, with long periods in port, no safe training havens, long stretches between proper overhauls. There is no way of telling which ship might suffer catastrophic breakdowns
That beeing said, I just wanted to underline that a surprise one on one engagement at close range in mediocre or poor north atlantic weather is not a simple work over for IOWA as the stats may imply.
I agree, the stats tell only half the story, a committment to battle can always have unknown effects. In naval battles luck is as important a factor as the tactics. However a ship of the calibre of the Iowa has far less reliance on luck than Scharnhorst would as her opponent. Scharnhorst would be relying on not being detected, being able to close to relatively point blank range, and then being able to hit with a lot of shells, and achieve penetrations before the Iowa could react. Thats a tall order
IOWA is the better ship and has lots of advantages but people often underestimate the threat factor created by SCHARNHORST judging on her performance against DUKE OF YORK or the paper statistics. After all, her guns are potentially dangerous and at 16000 yards or less may punch through any modern battleship if the conditions of the fight allow such a distance to happen.
The Iowa went to the Pacific with perhaps the best radar fit of any warship to that point. It was at least equal to that in the DoY Decmber 1943. And the DOYs gunnery at North Cape demonstrates the effectiveness of her systems....are you saying that Iowas radar fit would be leess effective than that? Whilst it is plausibke that the Iowa could be caught napping, it is highly unlikley. In contrast, whilst the Scharnhorst may have a quite good radar fit (I am in debate about that in another thread at the moment) KM operational policy was to keep radar off until battle had commenced. The chances of the Scharnhorst beiung surprised using that policy are relatively high I would think, whilst the active use of radar policy used by the allies tended to lessen that risk, as the DoYs use of Radar at North cape demonstrates
IOWA can easily win this fight with clever tactics on focussing on distance. However, remember that this couldn´t have been known by then.
Why not? The basic characteristics of the skc 34 and the Scharnhorst were known to the allies from prewar, added to which the British had ben gathering mountains of information on the ship throughout the war, and freely passing that technical intellignece onto the Americans.
The same could not be said for the KM concerning such a new ship as the Iowa (i dont think.....
). Given the general lines and appearance of the ship as a battlecruiser, the Scharnhorst may well attempt to engage at range, which would lengthen the odds even further.
Regarding the armouring scheme of the scharnhorst, I agree that she was very heavily protected behind thick armour that was well designed. But it is illogical to argue that she would be substantially immune from 16 inch fire (in the sense of being knocked out as an effective unit), when as a battle worthy unit she was first disabled, and then sunk by fire from a 14 inch armed ship, albeit with a lot of assistance.
It took an enormous effort to sink the bismarck as well, yet I would just point out that the effort needed to remove that ship as an effective fighting unit took only a relatively short space of time. I acknowledge that the bismarck was labouring under enormous difficulties, but German defensive schemes, whilst very good, and certainly able to keep ships afloat long after they had ceased to be viable fighting units, could not prevent those same ships from being knocked out as such.