feasibility of keeping WW I battleships around for WW II.

[The Basket]

Hiei was always planned to be reactivated from what I read.

Which as soon as the treaties were over, then she was.

 

[msxyz]

Imho a better question would have been "why would anybody want to stick with a battleship after ww1".

Even if the threat of an attack from the air was not well understood till the beginning of ww2 (and Britain sending Repulse and Prince of Wales without an air escort in 1941 really shows how 'out of the world' certain strategists were), the modern steam powered torpedo which was perfected during ww1, the advent of lightweight motor boats powered by 1000hp+ engines that could attack in swarms at 40+ knots while being small and nimble enough to evade most gun fire, should have shown that the markings were on the wall for such big ships. Not to mention submarines, though these were slow moving, so they were really useful to ambush or stalk battle groups.

Keeping battleships around for shore bombardment also seems wasteful, since being at guns range means that also the enemy can fire on your ship from bunkers and emplacements; there are minefields near the shores, big rail guns that can be easily moved out of the harm's way after a few well placed shots and of course there's the enemy aviation. So, unless you achieve complete control of the sea and skies around the target (i.e. Iwo JIma) sending battleships to support land operations would be a dangerous move.

 

[EwenS]

Imho a better question would have been "why would anybody want to stick with a battleship after ww1".

Even if the threat of an attack from the air was not well understood till the beginning of ww2 (and Britain sending Repulse and Prince of Wales without an air escort in 1941 really shows how 'out of the world' certain strategists were), the modern steam powered torpedo which was perfected during ww1, the advent of lightweight motor boats powered by 1000hp+ engines that could attack in swarms at 40+ knots while being small and nimble enough to evade most gun fire, should have shown that the markings were on the wall for such big ships. Not to mention submarines, though these were slow moving, so they were really useful to ambush or stalk battle groups.

Keeping battleships around for shore bombardment also seems wasteful, since being at guns range means that also the enemy can fire on your ship from bunkers and emplacements; there are minefields near the shores, big rail guns that can be easily moved out of the harm's way after a few well placed shots and of course there's the enemy aviation. So, unless you achieve complete control of the sea and skies around the target (i.e. Iwo JIma) sending battleships to support land operations would be a dangerous move.

Well firstly no aircraft sank a battleship in WW1. The RN was only planning its first airborne torpedo strike when WW1 ended. The results from exercises between the wars satisfied, quite falsely as it turned out, the Admirals that Battleships could not only survive multiple torpedo hits but remain operational despite them. The torpedo was held in such low regard in the USN that in 1931, late in the design process, CV-4 Ranger had all her torpedo stowage deleted. She didn't begin to operate torpedo bombers again until 1941. Organising effective torpedo strikes in daylight in WW2 proved extremely difficult.

While an MTB/PT type vessel managed to sink an Austrian dreadnought in 1918, I think that is the only occasion such a feat was achieved. From memory the largest RN warship sunk that way in WW2 was the cruiser Manchester. They did sink many lesser vessels. PT boat performance in the Battle of Surigao Strait in 1944 against a Japanese fleet including several Battleships, produced no torpedo hits at all from 39 boats (enough to qualify as a swarm?) which would have been carrying up to 4 torpedos each. And anyway such craft would not be encountered far out to sea where everyone was expecting to fight the next Jutland/decisive battle.

As for the loss of PoW and Repulse, the surprise by that stage of the war wasn't so much in them being sunk by air power, than in them being sunk by land based air power so far out to sea. No one seems to have appreciated the range of the Japanese torpedo bombers.

Torpedo bombers in general suffered terrible losses in WW2 to achieve the successes they did whether against Battleships or other vessels. It is worthy of note that in mid 1945 when the USN was reorganising it's carrier Air Groups, they chopped the TBF/TBM torpedo bombers from the CVL altogether, and intended to increase the dive bomber complement on the CV, reducing the number of fighters and leaving the torpedo bombers at 15 (out of about 105 aircraft). The larger Midways would only have carried fighters and dive bombers.

Battleships don't go into action themselves. They are accompanied by escorting cruisers, destroyers etc which are supposed to keep enemy destroyers, submarines, MTBs etc clear of them. When approaching enemy shores minesweepers are brought in as required. Shore batteries didn't prove very effective, even against ships of all size sitting anchored within their range. Single rail guns are unlikely to be able to fire fast enough to hit any ship (how successful were the Channel guns on both sides in WW2).

Despite the rise of the aircraft, Battleship design went on into the post WW2 period. Nations continued to believe they had some use for carrier escort (due to their very heavy AA armament) and shore bombardment. Britain completed Vanguard in 1946. The French completed Jean Bart in the 1950s. The US recommenced construction of the fifth and sixth Iowa class ships in late 1944, only to cancel them at wars end. The Iowas were brought out of mothballs to provide gunfire support in Korea and Vietnam. And it was thought worthwhile reactivating, and modernising them, one final time in the 1980s.

So I think you are a bit quick to dismiss their utility after WW1. You certainly overestimate the various threats against them.

 

[msxyz]

Well firstly no aircraft sank a battleship in WW1. The RN was only planning its first airborne torpedo strike when WW1 ended. The results from exercises between the wars satisfied, quite falsely as it turned out, the Admirals that Battleships could not only survive multiple torpedo hits but remain operational despite them. The torpedo was held in such low regard in the USN that in 1931, late in the design process, CV-4 Ranger had all her torpedo stowage deleted. She didn't begin to operate torpedo bombers again until 1941. Organising effective torpedo strikes in daylight in WW2 proved extremely difficult.

While an MTB/PT type vessel managed to sink an Austrian dreadnought in 1918, I think that is the only occasion such a feat was achieved. From memory the largest RN warship sunk that way in WW2 was the cruiser Manchester. They did sink many lesser vessels. PT boat performance in the Battle of Surigao Strait in 1944 against a Japanese fleet including several Battleships, produced no torpedo hits at all from 39 boats (enough to qualify as a swarm?) which would have been carrying up to 4 torpedos each. And anyway such craft would not be encountered far out to sea where everyone was expecting to fight the next Jutland/decisive battle.

As for the loss of PoW and Repulse, the surprise by that stage of the war wasn't so much in them being sunk by air power, than in them being sunk by land based air power so far out to sea. No one seems to have appreciated the range of the Japanese torpedo bombers.

Torpedo bombers in general suffered terrible losses in WW2 to achieve the successes they did whether against Battleships or other vessels. It is worthy of note that in mid 1945 when the USN was reorganising it's carrier Air Groups, they chopped the TBF/TBM torpedo bombers from the CVL altogether, and intended to increase the dive bomber complement on the CV, reducing the number of fighters and leaving the torpedo bombers at 15 (out of about 105 aircraft). The larger Midways would only have carried fighters and dive bombers.

Battleships don't go into action themselves. They are accompanied by escorting cruisers, destroyers etc which are supposed to keep enemy destroyers, submarines, MTBs etc clear of them. When approaching enemy shores minesweepers are brought in as required. Shore batteries didn't prove very effective, even against ships of all size sitting anchored within their range. Single rail guns are unlikely to be able to fire fast enough to hit any ship (how successful were the Channel guns on both sides in WW2).

Despite the rise of the aircraft, Battleship design went on into the post WW2 period. Nations continued to believe they had some use for carrier escort (due to their very heavy AA armament) and shore bombardment. Britain completed Vanguard in 1946. The French completed Jean Bart in the 1950s. The US recommenced construction of the fifth and sixth Iowa class ships in late 1944, only to cancel them at wars end. The Iowas were brought out of mothballs to provide gunfire support in Korea and Vietnam. And it was thought worthwhile reactivating, and modernising them, one final time in the 1980s.

So I think you are a bit quick to dismiss their utility after WW1. You certainly overestimate the various threats against them.

True, no battleship was sunk by aircraft in ww1, but I was referring to the threat of the modern fuelled torpedo which saw in increase in speed (from 20-30Kts to 35-40kts) and in rage (from 2000-3000m to >10000m). Such a torpedo can be used by plane, motorboat, submarine or even a larger ship (ie. cruiser, destroyer) and meant that attackers could stay at a relative safe distance and send dozen of torpedoes downrange against formation of ships. The probability to hit something was quite high and it possibly changed the way sea battles were fought even before the advent of attacks from the air.

It's also true that there is only one recorded instance in WW1 of a battleship sunk by torpedoes launched by a motorboat, but I think it was because only Italy in ww1 fielded purpose built fast attack motorboats that could sneak in harbours or make hit and run attacks against passing ships, and it was a successful gamble. In ww2 many nation followed suit with the PT boats, E-boats or the Schnellboot but, this time the conditions on the battlefield were different, since even a lightly armed plane could by a danger to them.

As for the value of the battleship post ww2, the examples mentioned (Korea, Vietnam) happened in a situation in which the user has almost complete control of the surrounding and the enemy cannot field the necessary countermeasures. For the contribution they gave to ww2, I think battleships were an egregious waste of resources for all nations that used them.

 

[Shortround6]

EwenS has made a number of good points.

The small boat navy (MTBs) was tried several times in history. It failed. The US in the early 1800s the the Jeffersonian gunboat navy and the French in the 1890s/early 1900s? using steam powered torpedo boats. The small boats have limited range/endurance (like food/water for crew) and limited sea keeping ability.
Larger steam powered vessels were built to counter the small steam torpedo boats, they were called torpedo boat destroyers (TBDs) and later the the name was shortened to just destroyers.
Some of the successes against battleships were due to mismatches. The Repulse had about the worst AA gun suite of any RN capitol ship at that point in WWII. The Prince of Wales AA suite was not as good in practice as it looked on paper, being too heavily biased for surface action (stopping enemy destroyers/torpedo craft.)

The MTB took a while to develop, the early ones could only carry one or two 18in torpedoes due to weight vs low powered engines. The British used a number of 55ft boats against the Russians in 1919-1920 with success. However we are back to the early boats having an endurance measured in hours, not days. No bunks for the crew, no galley. British were building 40ft boats in 1916 and the Germans built several dozen (?) but had no opportunity to use them.

Naval tactics were heavily influenced by the torpedo. At Jutland more than one battle fleet turn away was either to avoid torpedo attack or torpedo attack was used to screen a battle fleet turn away. Hundreds of torpedoes were fired at Jutland, few hit.

However, much like the advance in warship propulsion, anti torpedo protection was advancing quite rapidly. Early dreadnaughts may have been designed to survive a single 220lb (100kg) warhead. by the end of WW I the anticipated war head weight had at least doubled. By the late 30s they were planning on 500-600lb war head hits of TNT and not wet gun cotton. WW II saw new explosives' being used, increasing warhead effectiveness by 40-50%.
Anticipating some of these changes would have been rather hard. Some yes, which is why keeping WW I ships (especially early WW I ships) around was a poor bargain.

Please remember that the Washington treaty allowed up to 3000 tons of "improvements" to be made to refitted/rebuilt ships for improved "protection" including anti-torpedo protection. Some ships never got the improvements.

 

[The Basket]

Fam is using the The Jeune École theory my guys.

Please use the search engine of your choice to find out the pros and cons of such a theory.

A torpedo boat and the torpedo has advantages and disadvantages. Problem is the destroyer was designed to defend against the torpedo boat.

A torpedo is short ranged and so naval gunfire is longer ranged so you having to enter the kill zone of a Destoryer to launch a torpedo. And the torpedo can still miss or malfunction.

A torpedo boat is very short ranged and can only operate within enclosed water like the English Channel. So heavy seas and in the middle of the Atlantic is no place for a torpedo boat.

I don't mind torpedo boats but only as part of a calorie controlled diet. I like ice cream but can't eat ice cream all day. So everything has to be balanced cos if you put all your eggs in one basket and then the fox steals the basket then you gonna look a proper Charlie.

 

[GrauGeist]

Just imagine any major landing assault conducted in WWII without benefit of Battleship support.
Normandy would be one of many examples: the German shore defenses, even after being bombed, laid down dangerous fire from their batteries.

Without the benefit of Battleship bombardment prior to and during the assault, Allied landing craft would have been decimated.
Even days after the Allies had secured the beachhead and moved inland, the Battleships continued to provide valuable and accurate support many miles inland, as the Allies pushed the Germans back.

Each 15 and 16 inch shell was comparable to a bomber's load, very accuarate, could be called in on demand with little wait and could not be intercepted by fighters or flak.

 

[The Basket]

Before ww1 there was a concept of mines and torpedo boats.

That the enemy fleet will literally park themselves off a port to do a blockade. Similar to age of sail.

So that's where coastal batteries and mines and coastal submarines and torpedo boats would have target rich environment going at this blockade fleet like a woodpecker at an oak tree.

Problem was the British didn't do that. And the blockade was in the North Sea. So to challenge you would like for like battleships and Battlecruisers.

So depending on coastal defences only works if they are attacking your coast. So the limitations of torpedo boats are obvious. Especially if you have to fight on the open seas.

 

[The Basket]

Does Rodney count as a torpedo boat?

USN didn't have torpedo boats at the beginning of the war.

They had things they launched but didn't explode boats.

Were German U Boats torpedo boats? I would say yes indeed.

 

[nuuumannn]

Imho a better question would have been "why would anybody want to stick with a battleship after ww1".

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. At the time aircraft carrier operations were very much in their infancy, the British still had not figured how to restrain an aircraft landing on a carrier deck by the time the war had ended. A lot of Sopwith Deck Pups and Beardmore WB.IIIs sacrificed themselves aboard Furious and Argus' decks before a successful means of stopping an aeroplane aboard a carrier had been conceived. By the end of the Great War, the battleship was still the undisputed king of the sea and remained as such for some years afterwards. Aircraft carriers had potential in the between the war years, but much of the theory had not been realised and was not to be so until during World War Two, when the theories were put to the real test.

Keeping battleships around for shore bombardment also seems wasteful, since being at guns range means that also the enemy can fire on your ship from bunkers and emplacements; there are minefields near the shores, big rail guns that can be easily moved out of the harm's way after a few well placed shots and of course there's the enemy aviation. So, unless you achieve complete control of the sea and skies around the target (i.e. Iwo JIma) sending battleships to support land operations would be a dangerous move.

Ironically, using big guns at sea for shore bombardment was considered fruitless before the Great War and it was the rise of aviation that progressed the idea since the fall of shot was difficult to predict on land as there was no splash, whereas aeroplanes could spot impacts from the air. This was the rationale for the British/French/Russian assault on the forts in the Dardanelles; send in the old battleships and offer fire support in the form of naval aviation; the seaplane tender Ark Royal was sent to provide spotting aircraft and a class of monitors was designed specifically with the capability to operate aircraft for gunnery spotting. This was the Abercrombie Class monitors, the very first naval vessels designed from the drawing board to be fitted with aircraft.

The results from exercises between the wars satisfied, quite falsely as it turned out, the Admirals that Battleships could not only survive multiple torpedo hits but remain operational despite them.

Very true, but the concept of the "Fleet-in-Being" troubled certain admirals, namely Beatty, who was an advocate for the air strike using Sopwith Cuckoo torpedo aeroplanes. Despite the logistical and operational realities of what was being planned however, if even one battleship or battlecruiser was damaged during the raid against the High Seas Fleet, the psychological value would have been enormous on the Germans. One admiral referred to the raid's potential as a German Copenhagen. The term "to Copenhagen an enemy fleet" was applied to such an action where enemy ships were attacked in their home port after Admiral Nelson's action against the Danish fleet in 1801.

 

[swampyankee]

Well, since WW1 battleships were kept, the question is rather moot. Whether they would have been kept had there been no disarmament structure in place is also moot, but I suspect the answer would be "yes," simply because most of the tasks for battleships involve peacetime prestige and providing flagships for distant stations. Consider that all navies kept their quite thoroughly outdated pre-dreadnoughts throughout WW1.

 

[The Basket]

Pre Dreads did get some action.

Canopus at the Falklands. The German Pre Dreads at Jutland and the Gallipoli campaign.

So they got some combat.

 

[Shortround6]

The problem post WW I was cost. Even during WW I many of the pre dreadnoughts were taken out of fleet service and used as auxiliaries.
By early 1918 the Canopus was being used as a barracks ship and had been taken out of service in April of 1916, two months before Jutland.

The cost of manning and maintaining old ships in relation to their actual fighting value was often considered too high.

British and French often used Pre-dreadnoughts as shore bombardment ships because they were expendable. The loss of several pre-dreadnoughts would not affect the actual strength of the battle fleet and the construction of actual shore bombardment ships (like WW I Monitors) sometimes was restricted due to shortages of slipways and boiler/engine supply.

Oldest British Pre-dreadought to fire her guns in anger was the HMS Redoubtable (ex- Revenge) used for shore bombardment off Belgium in 1914/15.

One of her blisters being deliberately flooded to give her a list to increase the elevation of her guns for more range.
By Jan 1916 she was an accommodations ship.

Post war the use of such ships even for "showing the Flag" or providing distant station flag ships might be rather expensive. The engines (and boilers) needed much more attention than more modern ships. The very act of refueling (coaling) took 3-4 days and then 3-4 days of cleaning the ship. Cruising speed was 10-12 knots at best without increased risk of breakdown and/or vibration problems. Not to mention harder work for the boiler stokers (coal shovelers).
A Kent class cruiser used a crew not much different than many of the British Pre-dreadnoughts.

Many of the Pre-dreadnoughts in the British navy had seen more time steaming than the Dreadnoughts in Scapa Flow and were rather worn out by the end of the war. So were many of the early Dreadnoughts. War experience had also shown that the Pre and early war layouts of the secondary guns were a lot less than ideal (gun positions washed out in moderate seas), main guns needed higher elevation for more range and other changes needed.

Keeping old ships that needed extensive modifications and repairs (new boilers if not new engines) was not cost effective without the pressure of the naval treaties forcing the retention of the old ships.

 

[PFVA63]

Hi,
The Russians also made use of their Pre-Dreadnought in the 1st World War both in the Baltic and in the Black Sea against the Ottoman/Axis Battlecruiser Goeben. And the Germans used their remaining pre-Dreadnoughts in WWII for shore bombardment with one of them firing in support of the German invasion of Poland at the very start of the war.

 

[Shortround6]

Hi,
The Russians also made use of their Pre-Dreadnought in the 1st World War both in the Baltic and in the Black Sea against the Ottoman/Axis Battlecruiser Goeben. And the Germans used their remaining pre-Dreadnoughts in WWII for shore bombardment with one of them firing in support of the German invasion of Poland at the very start of the war.

The Germans were constrained buy both treaties and economics into keeping the Pre-dreadnought battleships. The Treaty allowed them to keep 6 of the Pre-dreadnoughts.
It also spelled out how old they should be when replaced and specified the max size of the guns and the tonnage of the replacements.
The Treaty also specified the number and size of the cruisers and destroyers (an no submarines or aircraft).
It also limited total naval personnel to 15,000 men. If the Germans had tried to man all six allowable battleships at the same time it would have taken just about 1/3 of their total manpower. They needed over 700 officers and men each.
German economy was a disaster for most of the 20s.
The Deutschland (lead pocket battleship) wasn't laid down until 5 February 1929 and not completed until April of 1933. The Germans didn't have enough time (or money) to replace all the old ships even after Hitler came to power. But the Germans weren't dumb enough to try to use the two remaining old battleships against anything that could fight back.

These old ships in a number of navies were used as depot ships, floating barracks, training ships and other minor duties. Jutland in 1916 had put any ideas of them being 2nd class battleships usable for beefing up the battlefleet or useful for independent operations on the shelf. They were too slow to keep up with the turbine powered dreadnoughts. Top speed didn't matter. Their reciprocating machinery wouldn't stand up to cruising speeds even in the mid teens. Their guns were weak, and short ranged, their protection was poor and they had poor fire control.
Better rangefinders/directors weren't going to solve the problem entirely. 4 guns is the about the minimum needed for salvo firing and ranging. an eight gun ship can fire 4 guns at a time at short intervals and get the range quicker than waiting for the time needed for the shells to travel the full distance.
Most of the Pre Dreadnoughts had crappy placement of 2ndary guns for anything but calm or at best moderate sea conditions. They were also usually wet and pitched more than longer ships. A British King Edward was about 20% longer than a Fletcher class destroyer.

As long as your opponent didn't have anything better you were fine. Once they did pre dreadnoughts had a lot of liabilities.

 

[The Basket]

Interesting theories of why New Zealand and Australia were Indefatigables and not Lions....or even battleships.

Cost was not the issue although giving the colonies 2nd rates rather than the good stuff was certainly on the cards. However.....

They were for the Pacific and Asia squadrons so like China Station and so they would act as super cruisers or flotilla leaders rather than big gun v big gun action and this would be a marked increase in capabilities. Especially against Von Spees East Asia Squadron.

Also 12 inch guns and turrets could be rolled out like sticky buns whereas there was a logjam with the 13.5 and Britain was getting that load.

An Indefatigable could do commerce raiding or protection or cruiser killing or waving the flag as good as an Invincible or Lion. And wouldn't expect to run into a battleship. Emden yes but Derfflinger no.

Since there was no battleship or Battlecruiser threat in the Pacific then you don't need a Death Star just a New Zealand would do.

If Craddock had New Zealand and Australia at Coronel then the ending would have been very different.

 

[SaparotRob]

Just watched today's video on Drachinifel's channel. It's about an hour of HMS New Zealand.

 

[The Basket]

Yes indeed.

That where got info from.

Makes sense.

Shame couldn't be kept as a museum ship.

 

[The Basket]

Japan was an ally at the time. So bring out 2 powerful Billy big balls Lions or Tigers or even an Orion class battleship or two and the Japanese would lose it.

They would feel a pinch and no mistake. So by sending 2 weaker Indefatigable to the Pacific doesn't send the wrong signals to the IJN.

12 inch guns were the best the Germans were doing and so her time line German equivalent was Goeben.

She wouldn't meet a German capital ship so her weakness was not that weak. Unless you end up at Jutland but that wasn't why she was built for.

 

[SaparotRob]

I agree that it is a shame none were preserved. I think the SMS Goeben was around until 1975 or so. At least we have U.S.S. Texas. The last dreadnought.