Rn vs IJN

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

I think the question was why blow them up with nukes in the first place instead of just sailing to the scrap yards.

My answer is that that was indeed what was done to the majority of surplus military hardware after WWII (after a time in reserve in many cases, but still). Those used for nuke tests were, in the end, relatively few, and I guess the navy had a legitimate reason to see how warships would react to the newfangled nuclear weapons.

It seems like an awful lot of them were used in various kinds of tests or just sunk, though I'm not sure what the percentage is.

 

[z42]

Sometimes I wonder whether there would have been alternative ways to structure the interwar naval treaties instead of via tonnage limits for different classes of ships, and how that would have affected ship design.

For a modern example, one motivation for the Queen Elizabeth class carriers being so big was apparently that "air is free and steel is cheap". Evidently only about 20% of the cost was the steel. A bigger ship has more space for stores, less cramped working spaces, more damage resiliency due to sheer size, etc etc. Though I'm sure back in the interwar era steel was a much higher fraction of the total cost, and thus tonnage limits in a way were a useful tool to avoid a ruinious naval arms race, which after all was the goal of the treaties.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Sometimes I wonder whether there would have been alternative ways to structure the interwar naval treaties instead of via tonnage limits for different classes of ships, and how that would have affected ship design.

For a modern example, one motivation for the Queen Elizabeth class carriers being so big was apparently that "air is free and steel is cheap". Evidently only about 20% of the cost was the steel. A bigger ship has more space for stores, less cramped working spaces, more damage resiliency due to sheer size, etc etc. Though I'm sure back in the interwar era steel was a much higher fraction of the total cost, and thus tonnage limits in a way were a useful tool to avoid a ruinious naval arms race, which after all was the goal of the treaties.

The tradeoff with a bigger ship, aside from fuel of course, is often a deeper draft, which limits where it can make port, what channels it can pass through etc.

 

[z42]

The tradeoff with a bigger ship, aside from fuel of course, is often a deeper draft, which limits where it can make port, what channels it can pass through etc.

Sure, and available drydocks, as we read a few posts above.

As for fuel consumption, to a point. Bigger ships tend to be much more efficient in terms of engine power per displacement required to reach some particular speed. If you compare a cruiser to a fast battleship, say, Cleveland to Iowa, the BB needs only twice the engine power to push four times the displacement to very similar top speed.

(though at normal cruise speed the fuel consumption is much closer to corresponding to the difference in displacement.)

 

[SaparotRob]

Oh yeah for sure, once you nuke them all bets are off. I'm just a bit shocked at the number of warships which were destroyed this way, given the huge cost, time and amount of labor that went into them, and the investment in raw materials. The latter seems like it could have payed off pretty well, though I'm sure the price of scrap iron etc. went way down in the commodities markets right after the war. Maybe tie them up on a dock as a museum for 5 or 10 years and then scrap them.

Once the nuke has gone off though, it ain't good. Radiation lingers in metal. Scrapping a ship is dangerous work regardless, I wouldn't want that job if it was radioactive!

You inspired a tin foil hat conspiracy thought. U.S. Steel, Kaiser and the rest conspired to get rid of many of those warships as possible to prevent the price of metals from crashing as what happened when the Admiralty scrapped a load of obsolete warships in the Dreadnaught era.
For my next trick, I will prove the platypus is a hoax.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

It seems though from articles I've read, the battleships used up fuel resources on a strategic scale, which was a major impediment to their deployment for both the Japanese and the USN.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

You inspired a tin foil hat conspiracy thought. U.S. Steel, Kaiser and the rest conspired to get rid of much of those warships as possible to prevent the price of metals from crashing as what happened when Admiralty scrapped a load of obsolete warships in the Dreadnaught era.
For my next trick, I will prove the platypus is a hoax.

I wouldn't rule it out!

 

[EwenS]

I think the question was why blow them up with nukes in the first place instead of just sailing to the scrap yards.

My answer is that that was indeed what was done to the majority of surplus military hardware after WWII (after a time in reserve in many cases, but still). Those used for nuke tests were, in the end, relatively few, and I guess the navy had a legitimate reason to see how warships would react to the newfangled nuclear weapons.

Well at its heart the tests at Bikini were a continuation of the pre-war Army-Navy rivalry with each needing to prove the need for its continued existence and funding from Congress.

Senator Edwin C Johnston told Vice Adm Blandy at a hearing in Dec 1945 at the Senate Special Committee on Atomic Energy:-
"However it does seem to me... that atomic energy has driven ships off the surface of the sea. I don't see how a ship can resist the atomic bomb."

It was an argument that had been circulating since 6 Aug 1945 in some circles in Washington. So in that there is a gauntlet thrown down for the Navy to defend itself and prove it still could survive in the atomic era.

As for the Army, while it had controlled the Manhatten Project, it was worried that if one B-29 bomber was able to flatten a city, it needed to be able to justify the continued existence of the bomber fleet it had and the need for the new aircraft it had in the pipeline (B-36 and the new jet bombers). And at the time the Navy had no means of delivering an atomic bomb.

There was a huge debate in Congress about whether the tests should be carried out, with all sorts of arguments put forward for & against. The Sec of the Navy Carl Vinson put the book value of the ships to be used at Bikini at $450m but their scrap value was a lot less (he put it at $1m! Blandy assessed it at $4m). But even at the time a lot of questions were asked in Congress about the use of the ships in that way. And money was only part of the issue. There was also the whole question of who, both in the world at large and within the USA, should control not just nuclear weapons but nuclear energy generally. This was in the period leading up to the MacMahon Act (passed in Aug 1946 and effective 1 Jan 1947) So there was a huge amount of politicing going on from all sides.

 

[Shortround6]

Sure, and available drydocks, as we read a few posts above.

As for fuel consumption, to a point. Bigger ships tend to be much more efficient in terms of engine power per displacement required to reach some particular speed. If you compare a cruiser to a fast battleship, say, Cleveland to Iowa, the BB needs only twice the engine power to push four times the displacement to very similar top speed.

(though at normal cruise speed the fuel consumption is much closer to corresponding to the difference in displacement.)

we are getting into hull speed and the Iowa is a bad example.
860ft = 29.3 X 1.34 = 39.2 kts.

Baltimore class
664 = 25.7 X 1.34 = 34.4 kts

Fletcher
369 = 19.2 X 1.34 = 25.7 kts

Which is why the Fletcher needed 60,000hp to go 36kts. at about 1/22 the weight.

 

[SaparotRob]

It seems though from articles I've read, the battleships used up fuel resources on a strategic scale, which was a major impediment to their deployment for both the Japanese and the USN.

There is a YouTube video by Drachinifel where he interviews a former skipper of U.S.S. New Jersey. This very point is brought up in the context of underway fleet replenishment. The Admiral brought up some interesting facts about how useful BB 62 was in providing underway refueling of her escorts and how important her machine shops were to them. Granted this was in the area of the Red Sea and not the Pacific. I think the show is "What's it like to actually command a battleship?"

 

[Shortround6]

It seems though from articles I've read, the battleships used up fuel resources on a strategic scale, which was a major impediment to their deployment for both the Japanese and the USN.

An un-modernized QE needed 3425 tons of fuel to go 8400 miles at 10kts.
At full speed (25kts) assuming the machinery would do it, that 3425 tons of fuel would last 83.5 hours and the ship could make 2088 miles.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

An un-modernized QE needed 3425 tons of fuel to go 8400 miles at 10kts.
At full speed (25kts) assuming the machinery would do it, that 3425 tons of fuel would last 83.5 hours and the ship could make 2088 miles.

I don't remember the exact ratios but I read a couple of articles which got into basically that the battleships required as much fuel as dozens of other warships. This was allegedly one of the reasons why most of the US battleships were kept out of the Solomons area, until Lee's exploits. And part of why the Japanese were not doing much with the Yamato and Musashi.

 

[SaparotRob]

A big issue that kept the BBs from being used was the confined area and shallows. It was an act of desperation by Admiral Nimitz to send in the big boys. He had nothing else left.

 

[EwenS]

Here is the breakdown of the Bikini fleet:-
5 BB - Arkansas, New York, Nevada, Pennsylvania (4 out of 5 of the oldest USN BB. Pennsylvania was only patched up after being torpedoed and nearly sinking in Aug 1945) + IJN Nagato
2 CV/CVL - Saratoga & Independence (Saratoga had been reduced to a training carrier in mid-1945 with only 1 lift and a hangar part full of classrooms)
4 CA/CL - Pensacola. Salt Lake City (oldest 2 USN 8" cruisers), Prinz Eugen & Sakawa (enemy ships already thoroughly inspected)
13 DD - all from the pre-war classes. How many Fletchers/Sumners/Gearings did the USN have?
8 SS - 3 pre-war boats. Other 5 were Gato & Balao class. The USN was still commissioning the later Tench class in early 1946
19 APA - the USN built 239 APA of various classes with few losses
6 LST - over 1,000 built less some losses and transfers to other nations
1 LSM - over 500 built
16 LCT
3 Auxiliaries
6 LCI
6 LCM
6 LCVP
Total 95

Given the numbers that the USN had of each type in 1945, I think that they could spare what was sunk at Bikini.

 

[EwenS]

I don't remember the exact ratios but I read a couple of articles which got into basically that the battleships required as much fuel as dozens of other warships. This was allegedly one of the reasons why most of the US battleships were kept out of the Solomons area, until Lee's exploits. And part of why the Japanese were not doing much with the Yamato and Musashi.

The real problem was the lack of replenishment oilers to keep them supplied. That was 1942 not 1944/45. The Pacific Fleet started the Pacific War with but 4 oilers capable of replenishment at sea. Before the huge USN Service Squadrons were built up to keep the whole fleet at sea.

Japan had a similar issue. At one point in late 1942 Yamato filled up a replenishment oiler to take fuel forward from Truk for other ships.

 

[Shortround6]

One source says the North Carolina could hold 7167 tons of fuel.
A Fletcher class destroyer held just about 500 tons, earlier destroyers held somewhat less.

They did sometimes use the BBs to top off some of the destroyers escorting the big ships.
the NC had 121,000hp engines, she could only burn about twice the amount of oil per hour as a Destroyer running at full speed (or maybe 3-4 times the amount of destroyers running at 27-28kts)

 

[SaparotRob]

Here is the breakdown of the Bikini fleet:-
5 BB - Arkansas, New York, Nevada, Pennsylvania (4 out of 5 of the oldest USN BB. Pennsylvania was only patched up after being torpedoed and nearly sinking in Aug 1945) + IJN Nagato
2 CV/CVL - Saratoga & Independence (Saratoga had been reduced to a training carrier in mid-1945 with only 1 lift and a hangar part full of classrooms)
4 CA/CL - Pensacola. Salt Lake City (oldest 2 USN 8" cruisers), Prinz Eugen & Sakawa (enemy ships already thoroughly inspected)
13 DD - all from the pre-war classes. How many Fletchers/Sumners/Gearings did the USN have?
8 SS - 3 pre-war boats. Other 5 were Gato & Balao class. The USN was still commissioning the later Tench class in early 1946
19 APA - the USN built 239 APA of various classes with few losses
6 LST - over 1,000 built less some losses and transfers to other nations
1 LSM - over 500 built
16 LCT
3 Auxiliaries
6 LCI
6 LCM
6 LCVP
Total 95

Given the numbers that the USN had of each type in 1945, I think that they could spare what was sunk at Bikini.

I wonder if U.S.S. Reluctant AK-601 was there.

 

[EwenS]

In the early post-war years all sorts of tests were carried out for all sorts of purposes.

The RN ran an extensive series of trials against various types of warship, with a view to improving the damage resistance of future classes. From MTBs to X-craft and other submarines (up to and including the incomplete A class Ace already cancelled in a crush test), to destroyers (old A class to ex KM ships to part complete Battle class hulls that had been cancelled), to cruisers (Emerald & Orion) and on to the batteship Nelson in 1948 which was on its way to the scrapyard.

In the case of the RN however, the orders were that ships should not be sunk. Scrap metal was a very precious commodity in Britain at the time.

 

[RCAFson]

There is a YouTube video by Drachinifel where he interviews a former skipper of U.S.S. New Jersey. This very point is brought up in the context of underway fleet replenishment. The Admiral brought up some interesting facts about how useful BB 62 was in providing underway refueling of her escorts and how important her machine shops were to them. Granted this was in the area of the Red Sea and not the Pacific. I think the show is "What's it like to actually command a battleship?"

RN QE class battleships were refueling destroyers during operations off Crete in May 1941.

 

[Admiral Beez]

The KGVs were considered good enough to fight the KM.

In practice, there was nothing wrong with the KGV's 14" guns, once they were properly sorted. PoW achieved two 14" penetrating hits to mission kill Bismarck, with her sister KGV scoring multiple crippling hits on the same. DoY hit Scharnhorst with multiple penetrating 14" shells that led to her destruction.

The only Axis ships with heavier guns were 2xBismarcks, 2xYamatos, 2xNagatos and 2xLittorio (3 if we add Roma). Everything else fielded by the Axis (2xScharnhorst, 3xDeutschland, 4xCavour/Doria, 4xKongo, 4xFuso/Ise) had lesser guns. All fielded fewer main guns, and only the Yamatos had a notable firepower advantage. In hindsight the RN would have been better off with the Nelson AND the KGV class being armed with the same 15"/L42 as the rest of the interwar battlefleet, but with the Nelsons being faster than the QEs. And while we're at in, let's consider if bulges were useful on the QEs and Rs? If I had all five KGV class (with guns and FC radar well sorted) in a line against all seven KM heavies listed above or IJNS Nagato and all four Kongos I would give myself good odds of victory.

As for Vanguard, I always thought she looked wrong. Her main armament is too small and narrow for her beam, reminding me of USS Wyoming after her conversion to training ship.