Most accurate divebomber

[J.A.W.]

Arizona was an old ship, at her berth, in peacetime..

 

[Shortround6]

Yes it was a converted 16 in AP shell. It also had a burster weight of 2.8% or about 50lbs of HE. While it could certainly do a lot of damage without the "help" of the target ships own ammunition it may not have the ability to "crack open" the ship with a single hit. A 12,000lb Tallboy carried 5,200lb of explosive. I don't believe ANY actually exploded inside a ship???

The Fritz X carried over 700lbs of explosive, depends on which source as to how much over 700lbs?

 

[tyrodtom]

Arizona was an old ship, at her berth, in peacetime..

At her berth and in peacetime is immaterial when it comes to bomb penetration.
The Arizona was of the same generation as most of the US Navy's WW2 battleships fleet, most were WW1 era modernized ships.
It deck armor was thicker than the Bismarck's.

 

[J.A.W.]

Ju 87D could loft a 1800kg/3968lb bomb, [diabolical Nazi weapon personified] H-U. Rudel dropped a 'special 1000kg' bomb in a dive-attack from 300m [flying a Ju 87B] to destroy the Soviet battleship [at berth in Kronstadt naval base] Marat, on Sept 23 `41..

 

[J.A.W.]

Irrelevant? Don't think so, its much harder to hit a moving ship, different dynamics are involved.. WW1 battleships took a real hiding in WW2,- not being designed to the same protection levels as modern ships,'modernisation' notwithstanding, wartime damage control protocols are much more stringent..As for Bismarck comparison, see the previous posts which show the effects of carrier plane bombing attacks on her sister, Tirpitz..

 

[silence]

A few things to remember about Arizona's armor is that the steel at best was of WWI grade, which was significantly less "tough" than that used in WW2.

Her horizontal armor was mainly three laminated plates totaling 3" thickness backed by a splinter deck 1.5 - 2" thick. As a WWI design, this armor is designed to defeat capital ship shells coming in at a relatively shallow angle rather than the almost perpendicular hit resulting from level bombing.

And her armor was not thicker than Bismarck's. Bismarck had an upper deck 50-80mm thick, a splinter deck below that of 20mm structural steel, then a main armor deck of 80-120mm, for an aggregate of 130-200mm (175mm over the magazines) plus the 20mm battery deck depending on location. This armor was also WW2 grade homogenous armor rather than WWI and cast in single plates rather than laminated layers.

All that said, no battleship floated - not even Yamato - had enough armor to keep out Arizona's fateful hit. Prob your best bet is to take the hit in open water and hope the shell exits out your bottom a good way before it explodes.

 

[J.A.W.]

Yamato was... quite likely... designed to handle US 16" AP shells plunging in at high ballistic angles from long range shots...it was torpedo hits that sealed her fate [put her under], like most every other modern BB sunk at sea in WW2 - 'cept maybe Roma..

 

[Shortround6]

Ju 87D could loft a 1800kg/3968lb bomb, [diabolical Nazi weapon personified] H-U. Rudel dropped a 'special 1000kg' bomb in a dive-attack from 300m [flying a Ju 87B] to destroy the Soviet battleship [at berth in Kronstadt naval base] Marat, on Sept 23 `41..

And here you have the contradiction. The Germans had 5 different 1000kg bombs. AP bombs have to be dropped from medium altitude (6000-12,000ft) to reach the velocities needed to get max penetration. They can be dropped from dive bombers a bit lower but dive bombers usually drop from much lower heights to ensure accuracy.

The Marat was laid down in 1909 and had about 2in of deck armor. She ( and her sisters) were sort of a hybrid battleship/battlecruiser. Faster than normal battleships but not quite as fast as battlecruisers. Their armor was also sort of in between.

 

[tyrodtom]

Irrelevant? Don't think so, its much harder to hit a moving ship, different dynamics are involved.. WW1 battleships took a real hiding in WW2,- not being designed to the same protection levels as modern ships,'modernisation' notwithstanding, wartime damage control protocols are much more stringent..As for Bismarck comparison, see the previous posts which show the effects of carrier plane bombing attacks on her sister, Tirpitz..

You asked the question , could carrier born aircraft carry a weapon with enough critical mass to penetrate a battleship's armor. The Arizona's loss to a carrier aircraft's bomb answers that. You never asked how likely the same hit would be on a manuvering ship at sea.

 

[Tante Ju]

And here you have the contradiction. The Germans had 5 different 1000kg bombs. AP bombs have to be dropped from medium altitude (6000-12,000ft) to reach the velocities needed to get max penetration. They can be dropped from dive bombers a bit lower but dive bombers usually drop from much lower heights to ensure accuracy.

The Marat was laid down in 1909 and had about 2in of deck armor. She ( and her sisters) were sort of a hybrid battleship/battlecruiser. Faster than normal battleships but not quite as fast as battlecruisers. Their armor was also sort of in between.

AFAIK/IIRC Rudel used rocket assisted AP bombs against Marat (RS series PC 1000)

 

[fastmongrel]

They were dropped from 3000 meters, these very streamlined bombs probably were supersonic, and going straight down, instead of a angle like a artillery shell.

Is it possible for a free falling object to break the speed of sound. I have read claims that Tallboys went supersonic but never come across any conclusive proof.

 

[Shortround6]

They were designed to go supersonic but since the only supersonic objects were bullets/shells and some rockets the body of knowledge on supersonic shapes was rather limited.
It also required them to dropped from VERY high altitudes which could not be reached by the planes that wound up carrying them.

 

[barney]

You can list the fine steel, the thickness of the belt, the plating on the decks, how well the magazines or the barbettes were protected but what I reiterate is that as you add this protection you are removing reserve buoyancy. There is no way around it, it is the other side of the coin. So, while a battleship may be more difficult to damage, once that damage occurs to the point of flooding, the vessel is immediately in more danger than a lessor armored vessel. Cruisers were able to steam to port with bows missing and keels broken. Then consider all the upper hamper battleships acquired during WWII and an already serious vulnerability increases.

This is just from memory but I think the South Dakota had seven bulkheads between machine spaces and outer hull. The designers knew there was a problem.

 

[Shortround6]

The ships were DESIGNED with reserve buoyancy. That is one reason Battleships have more beam than cruisers. It is one reason they have as much or more draft. They also have a lot more water tight compartments. South Dakota had seven Bulkheads as part of the torpedo protection. They hoped to limit the the damage of the torpedo. The cruiser would have a flooded engine/boiler room and might have to be towed home, if it survived. The Cruiser has no more reserve buoyancy than the battleship.

 

[barney]

The ships were DESIGNED with reserve buoyancy. That is one reason Battleships have more beam than cruisers. It is one reason they have as much or more draft. They also have a lot more water tight compartments. South Dakota had seven Bulkheads as part of the torpedo protection. They hoped to limit the the damage of the torpedo. The cruiser would have a flooded engine/boiler room and might have to be towed home, if it survived. The Cruiser has no more reserve buoyancy than the battleship.

Reserve bouyancy is the difference between the volume of a hull below the designed waterline and the volume of the hull below the lowest opening incapable of being made watertight. Battleships had a lot of submerged hull because they were heavy. They had to have a wide beam in order to not sit so deep as to preclude entering harbor or, in the case of U. S. Battleships, transiting the Panama Canal. Designing a vessel to be wider increases the underwater volume in proportion to the above water volume and the reserve buoyancy is unchanged.

 

[cherry blossom]

Battleships built in the Thirties and Forties tended to have enough volume in the armoured citadel to keep the ship afloat, even if the ends were flooded. Some of the earlier ships had been bulged to improve their ability to survive torpedo hits and to increase the volume of the lower hull to compensate for extra weight, such as armour and anti-aircraft guns. Those ships were vulnerable to dive bombers because a bomb might end up in a bulge if it either landed just short of the ship or deflected off the waterline belt downwards. If a bomb exploded inside a bulge, it could be more damaging than a torpedo as the explosion was nearer the centre of the ship and would also blow the bulge outwards.

ps. The Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-torpedo_bulge shows pictures and discusses bulge history.

 

[Shortround6]

The British were building enough reserve buoyancy into their battleships to keep them afloat with with certain percentages of their ends riddled in the 1880s and 1890s. I doubt they got sloppier with design after that. Granted some of the calculations were a bit unrealistic ( roughly equal flooding fore and aft and settling on an even keel, little or no listing). There was a lot of arguing at the time over what the percentage should be. Some of these old ships used iron or plain steel "armor" and had belts up to 24 in thick on 10,000 ton ships.
Obviously there was a continuing race between both torpedoes and guns vs armor and flotation. Torpedoes went from a few dozen pounds of wet gun cotton to over 600lbs of torpex. Guns went from solid shot or small black powder bursters to HE.
At one point some designers of cruisers favored boiler rooms split on the center line while others favored boiler rooms that went across the the ship. The split boiler room helped preserve buoyancy but the one big room, while allowing the ship to settle more, did so on an even keel and helped prevent capsizing. Pick the way the ship sinks?

Any metal ship will sink if you let enough water in. The trick was limiting the amount of water that could get inside. A lot of that was done using lots of water tight compartments. And warships didn't have 16 like the Titanic, battleships had hundreds, the Yamato had just over 1,000.

 

[Readie]

And warships didn't have 16 like the Titanic, battleships had hundreds, the Yamato had just over 1,000.

Having the water tight bulkheads go from keel to deck also helped !
Cheers
John

 

[Denniss]

In a russian book I found this speed profile of various Ju 87 with typical loadouts, may be of interest.
Is anybody able to translate what's written under Ju 87 R-1 on the left and the (unloaded?) Ju 87 B-2 and D-1 on the right?

 

[tomo pauk]

Ju-87R-1 with drop tanks and SC250;
Ju-87B-2 without bombs;
Ju-87D-1 without bombs.

Now if you could point me to that book...