SMS Ostfriesland and Billy Mitchell

[The Basket]

One point missing here that the Ostfriesland didn't have any magazines. So it may have been possible she would have gone boom so again it wasn't real world for that reason alone.

Arizona would have survived or perhaps controlled sunk into the shallows if the bomb had been a dud or had exploded in a non vital area.

Had the Washington Naval Treaty not happend then we would have the G3 and N3, South Dakota battleships, Lexington Battlecruisers, Tosa battleships and Amagi Battlecruisers.

So what effect would Mitchell had based on this alternate history? Nothing. However, Lexington, Saratoga, Kaga and Akagi became aircraft carriers as there was tonnage available for this cause.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

So what effect would Mitchell had based on this alternate history?

The backing of the press to eventually get more funding for aviation and to hold military leaders responsible for peacetime use (or misuse) of military assets.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I think you forget that Mitchell went further than the 1921 tests. He clashed with his superiors over equipment and operations. His boss wasn't even a rated pilot! Mitchell wasn't an angel either - he was brash and arrogant but in the end was a visionary and was fighting for a separate air force at a time when it was very unpopular to talk about military defence spending.

 

[MIflyer]

By the way, one thing that no doubt really P.Oed the USN was that they also tried bombing the target ships, using some of their most capable aircraft, the Curtiss F5 flying boats. They hit it - but their bombs failed to explode. Then Mitchell comes along with his special bombs and sinks them.

 

[Peter Gunn]

Depends if it a mk14 torpedo coz you can shoot them all day and not sink a thing.

How will hitting a stationary battleship with a torpedo prove anything?

Part of the difficulty of the torpedo run is that the ship is moving at speed and can be turning away and shooting back at you. Also in some cases the speed of the torpedo was roughly same as the ship so you could even out run it or out range it.

*SNIP*

For starters the Mark 14 wasn't around in 1921, it would have been some aerial version of probably the Mark 10.

Because hitting any ship with a torpedo does what the old adage says, "If you want to let air into the ship, bomb it, if you want to let in water, torpedo it" or something along those lines.

One might review the Oklahoma and West Virginia for starters vis a vis hitting a stationary battleship with a torpedo.

Besides, Mitchell was attempting to prove that dreadnoughts were vulnerable to air attack, that doesn't mean just bombs. As I recall, did they not also strafe and drop gas bombs on the decks of some of the old American pre-dreadnoughts during the tests to simulate disabling the crew and hence what would have been AAA on an active ship?

 

[MIflyer]

Well, if it was 1921 the torpedoes probably would have worked.

In WWI the US probably had the best torpedoes in the world. But with the end of the War to End All Wars the USN assumed that there would not enough of a requirement for torpedoes to keep a private firm in business. So they created the USN Torpedo Factory, located on an island in Rhode Island, that would be staffed with Federal Government civilians with a USN officer in charge to not only build but design torpedoes. It deteriorated into not much more than a guaranteed job for the civilians, protected from competition and the consequences of poor performance by the RI Congressional Delegation. Thorough testing of the product was discouraged because it cost money that could be better used to hire more civilians. When WWII came the torpedoes built there were found to perform very poorly, both the contact and magnetic detonators failed to work most of the time. Mass production techniques were not used; each one was a custom made job. By really putting their noses to the grindstone they could build 50 torpedoes a month. The actual wartime requirement turned out to be 1500 a month. When German electric torpedoes were captured the RI Torpedo Factory was told to copy them; this request went nowhere.

The USN assembled a team of academics at Harvard as well as private firms such as GE and Westinghouse to build an air-dropped acoustic homing torpedo. They succeeded magnificently; on its first combat use the new torpedo sank a U-boat. The USN then put that same team to work on fixing the problems with the junk the RI Torpedo Factory was building. Employment at the RI Torpedo Factory actually decreased by the end of the war and the place was shut down and sold.

Nonetheless, the idea of a Federal Government run program with no competition allowed was viewed with such favor in DC that decades later the same idea was recreated for something called the Space Shuttle.

 

[The Basket]

There was plenty of torpedoes fired in ww1.

All the data needed is there.

Battleships in refit had a more extensive underwater protection from mines and torpedo and so if Ostfriesland didn't have that then you are learning nothing.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

There was plenty of torpedoes fired in ww1.

All the data needed is there.

Battleships in refit had a more extensive underwater protection from mines and torpedo and so if Ostfriesland didn't have that then you are learning nothing.

How many torpedoes were "fired" from an airplane in WW1 and actually hit a ship?

 

[Shortround6]

Battleships in refit had a more extensive underwater protection from mines and torpedo and so if Ostfriesland didn't have that then you are learning nothing.

Uh, few, if any, of the battleships received refits before the Ostfriesland test. At least American ones, Some British battleships got better anti-torpedo protection during WW I.

Unless you have diagrams of the protection of the Ostfriesland and other battleships of her era it is really hard to make comparisons or sweeping statements.
The Ostfriesland was the 2nd class of German Dreadnoughts and was almost 10 years old when she was sunk.
She was 7-8 feet wider than contemporary British battleships and some of that width could be devoted to torpedo protection.

Torpedoes were also evolving during this time period.

 

[The Basket]

I still don't understand at all here.

Ok....let's do a test of a torpedo against a stationary ship.

What is the learning here? That a torpedo can hit a stationary ship? I would hope it would.otherwise it wouldn't be a torpedo. Why not on a nice sunny day with very calm seas? Ok. Perfect.

There is something called the scientific method and it's not been used here.

So therefore the results are invalid and it's a three ring circus instead.

When magnetic torpedoes were first fired in anger they didn't work. Should have but didn't. Because the magnetic fields are different around the world so what would work here won't work there. So a single one off test proves absolutely nothing.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I still don't understand at all here.

Ok....let's do a test of a torpedo against a stationary ship.

What is the learning here? That a torpedo can hit a stationary ship? I would hope it would.otherwise it wouldn't be a torpedo. Why not on a nice sunny day with very calm seas? Ok. Perfect.

There is something called the scientific method and it's not been used here.

So therefore the results are invalid and it's a three ring circus instead.

When magnetic torpedoes were first fired in anger they didn't work. Should have but didn't. Because the magnetic fields are different around the world so what would work here won't work there. So a single one off test proves absolutely nothing.

Prior to WW1 the UK and Germany conducted tests with aerial torpedoes. During the War started there were actually successful torpedo strikes from aircraft conducted by the RN. Despite this, the science of using aerial torpedoes was at its infancy and there was still plenty to learn.

If you read some of the data I posted, the Navy agreed to these tests to see how much damage a battleship can take. Prior to these tests I don't believe an aerial torpedo was ever fired against a battleship, let alone hit one.

It seem you are fixaticated on the false pretense that Mitchell made all the decisions with regards to Project B testing!

From Wiki:

"The United States bought its first 10 torpedo bombers in 1921, variants of the Martin MB-1. The squadron of U.S. Navy and Marine fliers was based at Naval Weapons Station Yorktown. General Billy Mitchell suggested arming the torpedo bombers with live warheads as part of Project B (the anti-ship bombing demonstration) but the Navy was only curious about aerial bomb damage effects. Instead, a trial using dummy heads on the torpedoes was carried out against a foursome of battleships steaming at 17 knots. The torpedo bombers scored well." (Johnson, Vice Admiral Alfred W., Retired. (1959) The Naval Bombing Experiments, Off the Virginia Capes, June and July 1921).

Had Mitchell been allowed to use armed aerial torpedoes, the Navy would have set the rules.

 

[Shortround6]

You set up your test/s to test as few things as possible at one time.

If you are trying to test for damage resistance you try to put the warhead next to the target area most representative of of the type of construction you are interested in. Hitting th ebow or stern of a moving ship when you are interested in protecting the boiler/engine rooms tells you next to nothing.

Besides, they already knew the Osfriesland could survive a torpedo hit.

It was hit during the Battle of Jutland and made it home. Granted it took some good damage control.
Of course destroyer torpedoes were different than aerial torpedoes

 

[FLYBOYJ]

You set up your test/s to test as few things as possible at one time.

BINGO!

 

[Peter Gunn]

I'd have to dig up my Garsky & Dulin <sp?> or Friedman's "U. S. Battleships", but post WWI, the U.S.S. Michigan was demilitarized and had different caisson type structures attached to her side. The Navy then either detonated a charge against it or fired a torpedo at it (can't remember which or if it was both) to help develop the underwater protection systems that were going to be needed in the new generation of Super Dreadnoughts as well as retro fitting to existing ships. If I recall correctly, this was for not only torpedo's but for large caliber near misses as well.

That's what you learn from torpedoing a stationary battleship.

I forget who, but someone up thread said a miss is a miss, not so. A near miss can be as deadly (perhaps more so) than a direct hit as it has the water hammer effect and can do as much damage as a torpedo hit. In Shattered Sword, a near miss on Akagi tore up the rudders and supports for the propeller shafts. This was something all navies were aware of and indeed, the IJN developed special shells for just that purpose. They were supposed to travel a distance underwater and detonate near or under the enemy ship, gun layers practiced shooting short for the shell to work effectively. I only know of one instance however where it may actually have worked off the Solomon's in 1942.

 

[The Basket]

Again this is testing nothing.

Mitchell is wanting to sink a Battleship.

So it's a little difficult to test the effects of torpedoes when the ship is sunk in deep water and not recoverable.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Again this is testing nothing.

Mitchell is wanting to sink a Battleship.

So it's a little difficult to test the effects of torpedoes when the ship is sunk in deep water and not recoverable.

I think we clearly showed that this just wasn't about "Mitchell is wanting to sink a Battleship". You have a very biased view of this, but that's ok everyone is entitled to an opinion even if they choose to ignore historical facts!

 

[stona]

What the 'Ostfriedland' experiment showed was that aircraft struggled to hit ships. Navy aircraft had achieved an accuracy of less that 30% flying at 2,500 feet against a stationary target 546 feet long and 93 feet wide. Mitchell's Air Corps aircraft did little better, I posted their results way back in this thread.

The outcome was the realisation that the WW1 era Michelin sights and the Navy Mk III-A bombsights were not up to the job. This ultimately led to the development by the Navy of the famous Norden sights which in turn drove a doctrine of precision bombing, promoted by a clique of young officers in the Air Corps. It was a classic example of technology driving doctrine in a direction which would ultimately be shown for the sham it was only when a shooting war started. A Norden sight was used to drop both the atomic bombs, surely the ultimate area weapons.

 

[The Basket]

What historical context?

The battle ship is obsolete.

So let build battleships!

The Americans build 10 new battleships in 1930-1940s. Why build obsolete weapons?

And was going to build the Montanas so what context? Total failure? And why am I biased? Because there were plenty of all types of ships in ww2 which got home after taking damage. That's not bias but a fact. I can list various ships if you wish.

Proof is in the pudding and so plenty of battleship steel to chow down on.

So the atomic and jet age saw the end of the battleship. Not Mitchell.

I am not biased. Mitchell was as he was using the tests to further his own agenda and so was biased towards the result that he wanted.

And bias has no place in a true science as you can either tweak the result of even falsify results to suit.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

What historical context?

The battle ship is obsolete.

So let build battleships!

The Battleship was obsolete as a primary weapon, that was Mitchell's argument

The Americans build 10 new battleships in 1930-1940s. Why build obsolete weapons?

And was going to build the Montanas so what context? Total failure? And why am I biased? Because there were plenty of all types of ships in ww2 which got home after taking damage. That's not bias but a fact. I can list various ships if you wish.

Proof is in the pudding and so plenty of battleship steel to chow down on.

So the atomic and jet age saw the end of the battleship. Not Mitchell.

So 10 battleships were built? I don't see your point

I am not biased. Mitchell was as he was using the tests to further his own agenda and so was biased towards the result that he wanted.

1. So what do you think Mitchell's agenda was???
2. It seems you're ignoring the fact that Mitchell DID NOT set the rules for these tests, if anything some in the Navy did everything they could to ensure he would fail!

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

What historical context?

The battle ship is obsolete.

So let build battleships!

The Americans build 10 new battleships in 1930-1940s. Why build obsolete weapons?

And was going to build the Montanas so what context? Total failure? And why am I biased? Because there were plenty of all types of ships in ww2 which got home after taking damage. That's not bias but a fact. I can list various ships if you wish.

Proof is in the pudding and so plenty of battleship steel to chow down on.

So the atomic and jet age saw the end of the battleship. Not Mitchell.

I am not biased. Mitchell was as he was using the tests to further his own agenda and so was biased towards the result that he wanted.

And bias has no place in a true science as you can either tweak the result of even falsify results to suit.

No bias?