feasibility of keeping WW I battleships around for WW II.

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SaparotRob said:
Warspite woulda' kicked its stern.
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The way Warspite would have defeated Yamato is by ramming. Clean through and not a scratch.

I should have said a less fortunate more mundane ship like QE or Barham.

The pre dreads in the German fleet were there purely as force majeure. They were certainly not there for effectiveness.

Look at the Lord Nelson Battleships that were launched in 1908. They were obsolete from the moment they hit the water. Even Dreadnought herself was in 2nd roles by Jutland.

In a mad world of arms race then today's hot ticket is tomorrow's scrap iron. Ships like Indefatigable or Invincible were pretty much obsolete within 6 years.
 
Bismarck was not a 1939 ship, it wasn't even a serviceable 1940 ship. Using it as a metric to judge the RN against in 1939 seems a bit much.

The KGVs were just as fast as the US short 16 in gun ships so borrowing battleships from the US gains nothing in speed until 1943 when the Iowa's show up.

The original KGVs weren't really new ships. Battleship technology was changing fast in the 1890s, 1900sand 1910s. and continued on into the 20s and 30s.

Look at the Renown again. Her 1936 refit saved 2800 tons out her machinery weight (propulsion) and allowed the two forward boiler rooms to be taken out.
The new boilers and turbines were more economical. The Renowns original machinery was lighter and more economical than the old KGVs even though they were only a few years apart.

Saving coal fired ships was only viable with the treaty limitations. It made little economic sense other wise.
And after WW I the British had little use for coal fired warships unless forced upon them.
Coal had less BTUs per ton, it required larger crews and it took longer to refuel a large ship. It could take 3-4 days to refill coal bunkers using every member of the crew. And several days cleaning afterwards. Coal meant more costs to run a ship and lower availability.

Protection against mines a torpedoes changed quite often and some of the older dreadnoughts were woefully ill protected against under water explosions.
Most rebuilt/refitted ships got external bulges to add protection. Which slowed the ships down unless they got more powerful machinery.
 
GrauGeist said:
If I remember right, battlecruisers traded armor for speed.
So while Renown was fast, how would she compare to a North Carolina class Battleship, which could make 28 knots?
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Very poorly.
Which, once more, shows that rebuilding old ships was not a wise use of money unless forced by treaties.

See. HMS Renown (1916) - Wikipedia

for details of the Rebuild/s and the changes.
Also note that the rebuild was almost 3 times as much money as the original build, not corrected for inflation.
 
Yamato also became operational in 1941.

The year a ship becomes operational is not necessarily gives the full picture. The Lord Neslons were late and obsolete in 1908 so they cannot be classed as 1908 battleships.

Onto our matchup fight.

It would depend on the scenario.

Closed sea or open sea? Day or night? Good visibility or bad visibility?

Crew abilities or fire control. Monday or Tuesday? All sorts of variables going on.

Renown is faster and that gives the advantage of been able to dictate the range and run away if necessary.

Renown has 6 15 inch guns and 9 inches of armour.

North Carolina has 9 16 inch guns and 12 inches of armour.

So NC has the bigger guns, more guns and more armour.

I don't have the penetration charts to hand but what that roughly means is the NC will go through the thinner armour of Renown well before the 15 inch shells will go through NC armour and that's a big ooooffff. This means that NC will be able to destroy Renown well before Renown can get into range and do the same.

However….maybe Renown will be able to maneuver and get into range without being hit. Maybe Renown has better gunnery and hit NC repeatedly and NC will miss with every hit. Maybe Renown will get a golden BB and destroy NC with a single hit. Or get a Mission kill.

SO if both ships were stationary at a given range and they just knocked lumps out of each other then North Carolina should win.

But a stormy snow blizzard night in the Arctic and all bets are off.
 
Having a competent/experienced Captain also helps - a good case would be the Admiral Hipper during it's engagement with the Gloworm.
I'm aware that a battle between a Heavy Cruiser and a Destroyer seems one-sided, but the Gloworm's speed seems like it would have an advantage.
The Captain of the Hipper, however, knew well enough to keep his bow to the destroyer (which meant moment by moment course corrections) in order to avoid the Destroyer's torpedoes. The Gloworm's Captain also used considerable skill in both bringing the attack and trying to keep his ship in the fight in spite of the situation and odds.

If the Hipper's Captain had not been as aggressive or competent, the Gloworm may have prevailed.
 
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Renown was modernized but Repulse wasn't. So I am going to say Renown didn't get supercharge but Repulse may have.

Renown had the 30 degree gun angle so supercharged ammo was more for range from the 20 degree guns and not for stopping power.

But not sure. That's a guess.
 
The Battle between Kirishima and Washington and South Dakota proved that anything and everything can happen. So it's like a train wreck with extra monkeys.

HMS Acasta got a mission kill against Scharnhorst so it's a box of frogs and take your best shot.
 
As an *****expert*****cough cough on naval warfare.....one must look at all the variables of naval warfare.

Just looking at the stats like a game of top trumps is not how wars are fought.

Good example is South Dakota had electrical failures in the Battle with Kirishima and Hood was one shotted.

A word on super charges.

A Wile E Coyote way of trying to get more power from a gun. Give it to Bubba to add more powder.

See what happens first. The Shell is launched or the breech explodes!

Not a good idea.
 
I believe that the supercharges were only issued to those sips with 20 degree elevation to try and get the most out of the gun. Those modified to the 30 degree were not issued with the supercharge as they didn't need it. The limitation being the fire control to hit the target at extreme range, not the ability of the shell to make the range. In the early part of the war approx 30,000 yards was the practical limit of anyone's fire control. A number of guns could fire further but not with any real hope of hitting the target.

A bigger change was a change to the design of the shell which improved the streamlining and therefore the range, which I think was a common issue to all 15in ships
 
Vanguard had superchargers but only because to hide the fact it was using ww1 guns and was way down on power compared to the Iowas.

Or figures were given for supercharged 15 inch shells.

Super charges were never used as it would pretty much trash the gun.

They were pretty much a proof charge which just went below what was theoretically safely possible. So the possibility of them blowing up the turret was a real fear. Especially on old battleships that could be 30 years old. Super charges were an idea fuelled more by beer than good naval practice.
 

Which is a good point considering all "good" naval practice was fuelled only by rum.
 
Should the US Navy use it's WW1 battleships in WW2?

IJN enters the chat.

Let's think of a naval question.....er..... controversial naval question....err....

Why didn't Austria have battleships in WW2? Errr....that maybe stupid. But they had them in ww1?

Yamato v Iowa? The Yamato will punch through Iowa armour before Iowa can punch through Yamato.

Yamato had armour based on the Kongo which is good old fashioned British ww1 armour so it's thickness is not the full story.

If the Kongos were upgrade in armour it may have played a battleship role. May have saved Hiei but Kirishima is going down regardless.

The Chilean battleship Almirante Latorre was still active in WW2 so was probably a ww1 battleship in WW2 or maybe the closest thing to it.
 
The US had several Battleships of WWI or pre-WWI vintage in service during WWII:
Wyoming class;
USS Wyoming (BB-32) 1912-1947
USS Arkansas (BB-33) 1912-1946

New York class;
USS New York (BB-34) 1914-1946
USS Texas (BB-35) 1914-1948


Nevada class;
USS Nevada (BB-36) 1916-1948
USS Oklahoma (BB-37) 1916-1944

Pennsylvania class;
USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) 1916-1946
USS Arizona (BB-39) 1916-1941

There's a few others that were in service during WWI, but did not have an active role, that did see service in WWII.
 
The Basket said:
Why didn't Austria have battleships in WW2? Errr....that maybe stupid. But they had them in ww1?
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Well, Austria lost their ports/harbors after WW I so there was nowhere to put the battleships (or most of the rest of the navy).


The South American battleships (Brazilian and Argentine and Chilean) were pretty much useless in WW II. This is despite several overhauls or refits.
 
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