What was the most powerful battleship in a straight duel, May 1941?

hartmann said:

This ship isn't my favourite (I prefer the "Tirpitz" 8) to the "Bismarck", and as powerful, I only can go for the "Yamato").



I never have claimed such thing.
By the way, It isn't the pure garbage which a lot of people tends to think. It was a very good designed ship.

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I am sorry if I came across wrong. I highly respect your knowledge and I agree that the Bismarck was a great ship. I am beginning to think though that the Littorio had some of the best armor of the Axis naval forces though. What is your take on that?

Njaco said:

I thought you would have said the "Littorio".

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Nah, I like being able to land a hit first, which is something the Bismarck is known for

Hello Hartmann
my point was that Kirishima made only one hit and even if it have used AP shells, that would not have changed that.

Quote: "But If you take in account that the Us Naval report damage states that an AP shell of the heavy cruisers (just only 203 mm) punched trough the hull plate, trough 32 mm of STS steel over the main belt and finally another 207 mm of main belt and finished stuck here, you can see that If It would have been a AP shell of the Kirishima, It would have gone trough the entire belt and finished in the vitals."

I know that but because 8" gun of IJN had clearly higher MV than the 14" gun of Kongo class I'm not so sure on the ability of 14" AP shell to pierce the belt of SD at that range. Possibly but anyway Kirishima didn't hit the belt of SD.

Juha

Hello Amsel

Quote:
Originally Posted by hartmann
This ship isn't my favourite (I prefer the "Tirpitz" to the "Bismarck", and as powerful, I only can go for the "Yamato").



I never have claimed such thing.
By the way, It isn't the pure garbage which a lot of people tends to think. It was a very good designed ship.

I am sorry if I came across wrong.

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No shame. Don't worry by that.
I enjoy speaking about ships.

I highly respect your knowledge

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A lot of Thanks.

I am beginning to think though that the Littorio had some of the best armor of the Axis naval forces though.

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I have seen works of this ship and a report made by British authorities after these ships were interned and all tends to indicate that those three ships Littorio, Vittorio Veneto and Roma, were built with very tight control systems, something strange in Italy, were the finishing of the manufactured products could be in this era very irregular, I think that this control was made by the own chief designer of the ships, Umberto Pugliese, which tended to visit frequently the docks were they were being built.
Regarding to armour, those ships had a very good quality steel plates, both the Vickers Terni cemented plates (very similar to the British Vickers cemented), and the homogeneous rolled steel plates, (AOD), a Chromium- Vanadium-Molybdenum steel, with some similarities to late German armour plates of tanks (not Navy, slightly different, which were Chromium-Molybdenum-Copper-Boron steel).
Also, the concept of armour scheme was spaced array, much like the German thinking.

They both countries played with decapping, yawing and fusing ideas (curiously, the US Navy also thought in this idea, but to fuse aerial bombs, the weather deck of 32-38 mm was put for this reason, but It was too little for heavy or very heavy shells), instead of put very thick plates and after them nothing. It was just another different point of view, different from the common wisdom of "AoN" schemes.

What is your take on that?

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I highly consider these ships. The main problem which I find in them is the bad rough sea qualities and stability. They were very good ships in the Mediterranean (generally a very calm sea).
But If They had been operating in the Atlantic Ocean, or in the Arctic sea, they probably would have been troubles, especially if they took high water by damage. They had a very little metacentric height (but they had a big buoyancy reserve, so it was half compensated). But this is my honest opinion.

Hello Hartmann
my point was that Kirishima made only one hit and even if it have used AP shells, that would not have changed that.

Quote: "But If you take in account that the Us Naval report damage states that an AP shell of the heavy cruisers (just only 203 mm) punched trough the hull plate, trough 32 mm of STS steel over the main belt and finally another 207 mm of main belt and finished stuck here, you can see that If It would have been a AP shell of the Kirishima, It would have gone trough the entire belt and finished in the vitals."

I know that but because 8" gun of IJN had clearly higher MV than the 14" gun of Kongo class I'm not so sure on the ability of 14" AP shell to pierce the belt of SD at that range. Possibly but anyway Kirishima didn't hit the belt of SD.

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Hello Juha

The MV was not very high (It was 775m/s) but they weight a lot more (some 673, 5 Kg according to Campbell book and to the US Navy records), and considering the range of the engagement (some 7000-8000 metres), I personally think that it was more than capable.

We have to consider that the guns of the KGV class had less MV (732 m/s) and that it was capable of punch trough 396 mm of cemented plate at 10000 yards. It was heavier, but it had less MV.

Also, if we take in account the 16 Inches L45 guns of the "NC", we see that in a brand new gun, the MV was of only 701 m/s (average gun, with eroded barrel, some 650-680m/s).
At 10000 metres, the "Kirishima " AP shell, carrying a velocity of 576 m/s it was enough to punch trough a plate of more than its calibre (356 mm) so, it could defeat the main belt. May be not the barbettes, but I think that It could do trough the belt. This was my point.

A lot of thanks and best regards

Hello Hartmann
The belt of SD being 12.2" on 0.875" STS inclined 19 deg and there well might have also been an horizontal component, because SD and Kirishima might well not been exactly abeam each other during the firefight. That's why I don't have any firm opinion on the ability of IJN 14" to penetrate.
According to my info British 14" AP weighted 721kg and had MV of 757m/s.

Juha

Hi VikingBerserker,

Regarding the Russians never having lost a battleship, I thought they lost the Marat to a bombing attack?

- Ivan.

Ivan1GFP said:

Hi VikingBerserker,

Regarding the Russians never having lost a battleship, I thought they lost the Marat to a bombing attack?

- Ivan.

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Russia only had a total of 3 battleships for the entire war and tech speaking you are correct. The Marat was damaged with the bow in the water, but the Russians used the rear part as a gun battery (have to give them credit for that). She was towed to Leningrad after the war and reclassified as an artillary ship Volkhov.

Hi VikingBerserker,

Would you say that the aft end of the Marat was in significantly better shape than the aft end of the Arizona after Pearl Harbor?

- Ivan.

Combat wise? yes. Pissing off an entire country wise? No!

Ivan1GFP said:

Hi VikingBerserker,

Would you say that the aft end of the Marat was in significantly better shape than the aft end of the Arizona after Pearl Harbor?

- Ivan.

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In fact, the damaged BB's guns were of considerable help in defending Leningrad during the Geman attacks 1941 - 1943

Hmmm, a lot of discussion since I have been around.

one quick observation:
A) The USN´s outer belt was never intended to be a decapping belt. This interpretation was born out in the eighties by Nathan Okun. Primary sources imply that the 1.25 in (SOUTH DAKOTA) and 1.5in (IOWA) STS enforced hullplate is just a splinterprotection (decapping is never ever mentioned), barely thick enough to stop large calibre APC, lateral fragmentation.
It actually WORKS against US projectiles in a way we should expect this hullplate to decap US 16in APC and this is very well demonstrated by Nathan Okun. Unfortunately, his assumption that this also works on every other nations APC turned out to be wrong and he admitted this in his decapping revisited article 2003.
The only nation to truly understand decapping and even made a habit out of this phenomen was Italy. Their decapping belt is in fact much thicker (70mm instaed of 38mm) and barely strong enough to ensure decapping of their 15 in APC. Krupp APC fall in the same range but we do not know anything from japanese or french APC.
The bottomline is that the so called decapping belt of later US battleships will fail to decap large calibre german and italian APC altough it likely will successfully decap US and british APC.

However, since no primary documentation suggests decapping functions for the plate in question, we shouldn´t put to much weight into this. It appears to be more important that the waterline protection for SOUTH DAKOTA IOWA (but not NORTH CAROLINA or the planned MONTANA!) is particularely weak against flat trajectory hits, which could bypass the class A belt and strike defeat the lower class B belt extension at almost any range inside 30.000 yard.
The hittable target area is small but not insignificant and points us to the conclusion that every naval design had their hot spots on their own. That beeing said, the US fast battleships were great fighting units. Technically sophisticated and second to none.

Always good to hear from friend Del. Very informative!

Hello Delcyros,

This is something I believe you can answer easily. What level of accuracy is expected of a good battleship gun from an angular dispersion standpoint? What angular dispersion would one expect from a full broadside?

- Ivan.

Thanks Renrich for the kind words.

Ivan, Your question cannot be answered in general. It has to be answered from case to case. Typical broadside conditions would yield less dispersion than cross level firing (via bow or stern) unless the battleship is equipped with a modern cross level firing gear (modern fast BB´s were but older ones (HOOD) typically had no such FC upgrades. I say typically because in the british case rebuilds may have included them. Not always but certainly in some cases like WARSPITE).
The next difference applies to the broadside geometry, turret design and mountings. Some ships had pretty tight dispersion patterns others were good or inconsistent with the french quad turret armed BB´s (DUNKERQUE RICHELIEU) finally beeing the worst of the whole bunch.

To state a common figure from many samples of guntrials in the interwar period gives a longitudinal dispersion of +- 100 yards (1 Sigma or 66.6% probability) and +-150 yards (2 Sigma or 94% probability) for the battleships COLORADO, MARYLAND and WEST VIRGINIA for a broadside target in 12.800 yards distance.
This would translate into an angular dispersion of roughly +-0.36 degrees (2 Sigma) for this case. ut fire controll solutions are usually not simple.

First off the Bismarck was already listing some to port; also it could not steer so that it keep a steady course for shot fall accuracy; and it had enemy ships firing on it from all sides; had the Prinz Eugen stayed with the Bismarck this final battle would have been completely different; the slow Rodney had it taken a hit from a steerable Bismarck would have been punished badly same goes for KGV. Also the Bismarck could have been towed within Luftwaffe cover by the PE.

dahlhorse said:

First off the Bismarck was already listing some to port; also it could not steer so that it keep a steady course for shot fall accuracy; and it had enemy ships firing on it from all sides; had the Prinz Eugen stayed with the Bismarck this final battle would have been completely different; the slow Rodney had it taken a hit from a steerable Bismarck would have been punished badly same goes for KGV. Also the Bismarck could have been towed within Luftwaffe cover by the PE.

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I am sorry but I have to disagree with you. All that would have happened if the PE had stayed with the Bismark is that the PE would have been sunk as well.

To assume that the Rodney would have been punished by one hit from the Bismark is a huge assumption, the Rodney was a tough ship which was well protected, with a well trained and experienced crew. The 16in guns on the Rodney were very effective and its worth remembering that one hit from the Rodney knocked out two of the Bismarks 15in gun turrets.

vikingBerserker said:

I think you misread my post. I stated the USN after Pearl Harbor never lost another BB for ANY reason, not just from BB/BC encounters.

The US was the only major power that could state this - with the exception of Russia due to the lack of BB/BC's.

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No, actually the British could make a similar claim as well.

The US lost Battleships at Pearl Harbour in Dec 1941
The RN lost 3 Battleships in Nov/Dec 1941, and then lost no more from any causes.

Also soviet lost a BB in september '41 and not more in the war (they have only 3 old "Gangut" class BB but non lack completely)

For me, out of that list , and given the extremely biased parameters of the question, I would have to say Bismarck. This is not because I think the Bismarck was the best overall ship, but because of the literal interpretation one has to give the question....what was the most powerful ship in a straight out duel, May 1941?.

I am pretty sure that North Carolina in May 1941 was not operational, and neither was Littorio, the latter having been laid up as aresult of the Taranto attacks. I understand she was still working up after having been repaired.

Richelieu was still not completed at that time.

Nelson and Nagato were older ships, lacking the protection and gunnery refinements generally attributed to Bismarck. So, more by default than any great attribute of the design, the prize has to be awarded to Bismarck

parsifal said:

was not operational, and neither was Littorio, the latter having been laid up as aresult of the Taranto attacks. I understand she was still working up after having been repaired.

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From Volume I (statistical data) of "La marina italiana italiana nella seconda guerra mondiale" at 1st may there were 4 BB with the fleet ("pronte all'impiego") it's easy think that both Littorio and Vittorio Veneto was in this number (like the Cesare and Doria)