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

[timshatz]

Wasn't the Nagoto of an older class of BB? Along the lines of the Colorado in age and technology?

 

[delcyros]

The Nagato is very much like an improved Queen Elizabeth from a design point of view. It is, however, hardly the best ship by 1940. Very competetive and worth beeing mentioned but not the best in a straight out battle.
Her punch is excellent but her protection lacks.
The Nagato had one of the strangest armour layouts ever to be implemented into a dreadnought. In her 1940 stage she is very much like a paper tiger. Large, unprotected blisters helped her buoyancy but would become very troublesome in combat (offering huge unprotected off center flooding spaces) and reduced her speed to 25 Kts.
Her vintage Vickers FH 11.8" main belt was not inclined and likely to be penetrated by the comparably weak "belt" penetrating UK 15"/42 with average gunwear in excess of 20.000 yards (even the 11"/54, the lightest major calibre gun has reasonable chances to defeat the belt at 20.000 yards). There was kind of a slope behind, improving protection but mainly against splinters. The 3" slope was neither thick enough (effectively 2.3" since a 50mm were ww1 homogenious armour laminated over 25mm made from construction grade material) nor steep enough to deflect penetrating APC´s. This approach is correct for ww1 style protection against instantious delayed APC´s which would detonate while penetrating but once advanced and reliable delay fuzed, hard capped APC become avaiable it was defective. In order to demonstrate how poor this side protection is I use the italian 15"/50 against this belt. Using Nathan Okuns Facehd v. 5.8 returns that the belt and slope behind are likely to be penetrated from 0 to 36.000 yards (impact velocity is 1585 fps after loosing windscreen first remaining velocity post belt is 612 fps in effective bursting condition but decapped, which is enough to defeat the slope behind)
Her multi layered deck protection is excellent against bombs and HC major calibre impacts but against modern APC it was of questionable use, too. At 25.000 yards latest, the UK 15"/42, beeing an excellent deck penetrator, will start to defeat her deck protection. Finally, the compact arrangement of her secondary guns in weakly protected casematte mounts with unprotected hoists is asking for fluke hits bypassing the whole protection system.
All in all, the Maryland, Hood, Nelson and even the Dunkerque beside others have superior protection of the embedded vitals and even the exposed are not much worse. Nagato is only little better off in armour protection of the embedded vitals than ww1 german BC´s, altough much better in turret and deck protection. With her unbalanced armour protection and huge offensive capabilities in mind, she reminds me very much of an improved Battlecruiser rather than a battleship.

 

[renrich]

In a gunfight I would pick Bismarck because of overall superior armor, firepower and I don't think you can ignore speed. However, and this is a major factor, in a night battle Nagato might be a victor because of the Japanese proficiency in night fighting. Another factor which might favor the Nagato was that she carried torpedoes and the IJN torpedoes were the most capable in the world. Torpedoes let water in, bombs and shells let air in. As far as AA armament was concerned very few ships in 1941 had very capable AA suites both because of fire control problems and because of number of weapons especially automatic ones.

 

[timshatz]

I dunno Renich, if you're in a Battleship and close enough to fire torpedoes (even the Japanese Long Lance), you're probably too close. Should be a couple of divisions of Destroyers and Cruisers between you and the target to make sure things never get that tight (Battle of Guadalcanal, Nov 13 14th notwithstanding).

 

[delcyros]

In a gunfight I would pick Bismarck because of overall superior armor, firepower and I don't think you can ignore speed. However, and this is a major factor, in a night battle Nagato might be a victor because of the Japanese proficiency in night fighting. Another factor which might favor the Nagato was that she carried torpedoes and the IJN torpedoes were the most capable in the world. Torpedoes let water in, bombs and shells let air in. As far as AA armament was concerned very few ships in 1941 had very capable AA suites both because of fire control problems and because of number of weapons especially automatic ones.

But we should keep in mind, Renrich, that the Long Lances are a serious thread to Nagato itself. The IJN lost a number of CA´s due to secondary explosion of their Long Lance batteries. The Long Lances with their do have a very volatile propulsion system, allowing great performances but in turn make them more suspect of premature explosion than steam and / or electrically driven torpedoes. This is even more important as the batteries are only protected with a thin deck above (which is not thick enough to stop heaviest fragmentation of major cal. impacts) and an armoured deck below with lot´s of soft areas for the sec. gun hoists. A hit with a 4" gun on them may turn into a very serious event with IJN damage controll in mind. There are no armoured vertical bulkheads. I know only of one excusion for carrying large donates of torpedoes in a capital ship: in order to hasten the sinking of other ships which do not shoot back, in other words, of merchants. The Nagato class, however, is no raider and never was used in this capacity.

regarding AAA:
The German naval FLAK was of a relatively high order exceded only by the US naval systems of the later stage when VT-fuzes were broadly avaiable: the twin 105mm mounts were gyro stabilized on a triaxial mount which ompensated fully for ships motion, the elevation of the gun was controlled directly via what in USN jargon is called RPC (remote power control) from the director computer and an automatic fuse setter mechanism were provided for to time the FLAK burst. The FLAK predictor was full tachimetric (probably a second order system) capable of producing continuous firing and fuse setting solutions for targets firing a variety of trajectories (eg taking into account range, speed, acceleration. Although elevation control was automatic the Traverse of the gun was still by semiautomatic. Other limitations were that the mount was open, leaving its crew exposed and creating serious maintenance problems caused by sea water ingress. For comparison at this time the Royal Navy High Altitude system was only able to deal with targets flying a level flight path (e.g. torpedoe attacks but not dive bombers) and lacked any remote power control.
However, no battleship in ww2 could provide self protection in a sense to deny enemy planes to drop their ordenance on them, on their own. AAA is a numbers game and statistically even late war radar directed AAA required to much shots to down a plane to justify beeing "self protective". Out of 12 attacking planes with the time exposure in mind, late war AAA could knock out 3 to four of them, while the remaining 8 will end up unengaged. Things change if You factor in AAA-support by nearby ships and a clear target, which tend to benefit the defender over proportionally.
The US 5" mounts were excellent AAA guns, allowing a high degree of reliability, a decent shell size and an outstanding rate of fire. The british 5.25" mounts were questionable in high angle operation and more an augmented anti-surface weapon, italian 100mm mounts were equally in performance than german 105mm mounts (fully triaxially stabilized mountings) but much more unreliable. The japanese late war 100mm mounts were probably the best AA-weapons but these have only been used in a number of destroyers. I do not know of french mounts but remember that the DP gun was a failure, too and some post war french destroyers used german 4.1" mounts instead.
I do also believe that the belt fed 40mm Bofors was regarded as the best (by far) medium AAA weapon by all combattants.

 

[renrich]

Del, my reference shows Nagato with 21 inch torpedo tubes. I believe the long lance was 24 inch. There may have been problems with long lance mounts but the IJN sank a lot of US ships and killed a lot of sailors with their torpedos. In a night action or bad weather with poor visibility torpedoes fired by BBs could be very dangerous. The Germans may have had sophisticated director systems for their AA but the facts are that they did not do much against a bunch of Stringbags. Later in the war with proximity fuses and improved director systems and with many automatic and reliable 20 and 40 mm weapons, the US BBs were formidable AA batteries for the fast carriers and they were pretty much invulnerable to bombs carried by carrier borne AC. All the 40 mm Bofors I have seen were fed by magazines not belts.

 

[Glider]

One problem with the AA guns on the Bismark were that they tended to be overcomplicated. My understanding was that the tri axis stabalisation of the 4.1 and the 37mm was that they tended to break down and on the 37mm this was abandoned on later models. The British had a similar problem with the Hazellmere twin 40 mounting fitted on later destroyers.
The 37mm was also disappointing in that is was a semi automatic with each shell loaded individually giving a ROF of about 30 shells a minute which is very slow for an AA gun.

 

[renrich]

Glider, what piece of equipment did the Germans ever build which wasn't overcomplicated?

 

[Glider]

The bayonet

 

[Lucky13]

Anyhoo....who which of these lassies could toss their beans the furthest. Obviously the ship with the longest range guns, will be able to pick their fights and stay somewhat safe themself....right?

 

[joy17782]

it was the north carolina class i think lucky, and the shells had a very good penatration , as good as the jap 18 inchers , but i think the range was 23 miles or so

 

[Glider]

Anyhoo....who which of these lassies could toss their beans the furthest. Obviously the ship with the longest range guns, will be able to pick their fights and stay somewhat safe themself....right?

Tempting to think so but in reality it isn't the case. The longest range hit on a moving target was by the Warspite at around 26,000 yards. You are just wasting ammunition trying to hit anything beyond that.

 

[renrich]

Don't I remember that some BB made a hit during WW2 at 38000 yards?

 

[joy17782]

yeah i read that somewhere , but i do belive the nc class had the best range of there guns and very accurate too

 

[timshatz]

I think the trick is not only the gun but the fire control. That's where it all comes together. I am impressed by the Bismark's Fire Control and speed of salvos. I read somewhere she could get off 3 salvos a minute. That is very fast. And as Delc's post noted, she got straddles almost right away (if not right away). That is incredible shooting.

The question I would wonder about is between a North Carolina and Bismark class, which has the superior:

-Fire Control
-Rate of Fire
-Grouping (rounds landing closest together at great distance)
-Penetration
-Armor

Going with the perspective we have time and again with aircraft of WW2, the most recently completed tends to be the most technologically advanced. I think both of those ships were Commissioned within months of each other.

It would be an interesting question.

Further, what about the Guam class vs Scharnhorst class? Both BCs.

 

[Kurfürst]

The 37mm was also disappointing in that is was a semi automatic with each shell loaded individually giving a ROF of about 30 shells a minute which is very slow for an AA gun.

OTOH, it had extremely high muzzle velocity of something like 1000 m/sec IIRC. It was clearly designed to be a sort of 'sniper' gun, bringing down the danged things before they get close.

Considering when the weapon was designed, it was perhaps not a faulty approach. Later it become obsolent because of the limited RoF aspects you`ve mentioned, though at the start of the war I can hardly recall the other guns being better than it... The French iirc used 25mm (too small), the British Pom-Poms havig just too low muzzle velocity.

The classic 40mm Bofors, or the very high RoF 3.7cm autocannons taken from the LW would be a far better choice than any of these. I am not sure though when the Bofors appeared on US BBs..?

 

[delcyros]

Del, my reference shows Nagato with 21 inch torpedo tubes. I believe the long lance was 24 inch. There may have been problems with long lance mounts but the IJN sank a lot of US ships and killed a lot of sailors with their torpedos. In a night action or bad weather with poor visibility torpedoes fired by BBs could be very dangerous. The Germans may have had sophisticated director systems for their AA but the facts are that they did not do much against a bunch of Stringbags. Later in the war with proximity fuses and improved director systems and with many automatic and reliable 20 and 40 mm weapons, the US BBs were formidable AA batteries for the fast carriers and they were pretty much invulnerable to bombs carried by carrier borne AC. All the 40 mm Bofors I have seen were fed by magazines not belts.

I have rerad my ressources regarding Nagato and Mutsu. Both were originally designed to carry two submerged 21" torpedoe tubes each at the bow and stern but owing to their dangerous installation outside the vitals and the blisters, all were removed during their rebuild in 1936. By 1941, Nagato does not appear to carry any torpedoes. I believe this improves her survivability, moreso because the japanese navy in ww2 used Long Lance torpedoes exclusively for surface ships and 21" torpedoes mainly for submarines, respectively.
Bismarck´s AAA setup was actually semi optimal. By the standarts of early 1941 it is on of the finest but as executed, the 4.1" twin batteries were in an incorrect setup. Half of the mounts were the older C31 mounts, which were slower traversing and designed for 88mm guns instead. Commentaries regarding unreliabance of the mounts do refer to the C31 mounts whenever they can be traced back to the two different mount types. The other half of the mounts were C33 mounts, fully optimized for 105mm guns (Bismarck should get her four C31 mounts replaced by C33 mounts in France after Rheinübung, Tirpitz was completed with C33 mounts). The AVKS report mentions that this setup caused a half of her AA battery consistantly failing to follow RPC inputs contemporary under some conditions, notably rapid traversing actions. The higher than necessary AA fuze setting system also made deploy the AAA curtain behind the slower Stringbags. Shortcomings in AA system operations can be found in almost every nation (including the US) by 1941. However, the whole system was not worse and it´s defects appear to have been adressed subsequently.
Tirpitz was able to down two Fairy Albacore torpedoe bombers and damage several others in a comparable situation during under average weather and average seastate in march 1942 off Norway and her ammo expensure figures for this action are excellent for these results. Tirpitz used up 345 rounds 4.1" and 4.269 rounds 37mm 20mm light AAA for downing two planes. Compare these figures with figures from the Special Defense Operations Research Group (SpecORG) study, "AA Defense of the Fast Carrier Task Force - 24 October 1944 To 21 March 1945", Anti-Aircraft Study No. 8, revised 11 September 1945. They address only carrier task groups, for which the best data were available in the timeframe of the USN´s best AAA conditions (radar, RPC, VT-fuzes, task forces, tactical doctrines).
The figures for 41 downed planes in non-kamikaze action represent that in average 550 VT-fuzed 5"/38, or 4.500 40mm or 30.100 20mm rounds are necessary to down a single plane. If anything, the statistical comparisons shows that Tirpitz relative AAA combat performance in early 1942 was not much different from the mean "effective" combat AAA performance of USN task forced ships during 1944/45, despite missing the VT-shells (around 1000 5"/38 MT-fuzed shells were necessary to down a plane). I am aware of the problem that conclusions shouldn´t be drawn from such a thin statistical base but I found this worth mentioning for this purpose: Assuming You replace Tirpitz with 1945 Iowa, it wouldn´t have changed anything. A number of torpedoe planes would still be unengaged and able to drop their torpedoes... On their own, no BB could effectively defend herself against agressive air opposition in a sense to deny them dropping their ordenance.

The 37mm was also disappointing in that is was a semi automatic with each shell loaded individually giving a ROF of about 30 shells a minute which is very slow for an AA gun.

Very true. But there is still a reason to keep the 37mm: According to Navweaps, the 900 gramms heavy 40mm US HE mark 2 round contained 67 gramms of high explosive. The 742 gramms 37mm HE-T projectile, actually a mine round, contained 365 gramms of high explosive. To put this number into prospect: That´s more than five times the 40mm´s blast effects and on par with the late war US 3"/50 AA round!

Don't I remember that some BB made a hit during WW2 at 38000 yards?

Probably not my friend. This is often confused with the after action report and the press report of Surigao Street. At 38.000 to 35.000 distance, the battle begun - but without the BB´s firing a shot. The IJN BB´s were attacked by prepositioned PT-boats and DD´s with torpedoes with the Big ships staying in the background, the gun action finally commenced at about 22.000 yards (which I regard still very long range for a night action).

 

[delcyros]

I am impressed by the Bismark's Fire Control and speed of salvos. I read somewhere she could get off 3 salvos a minute. That is very fast.

It is very high indeed for a major calibre gun. But this figure shouldn´t be overstressed. Typically, average rates of fire were much lower. The peak rate of firing was to be established once repeated straddles have been achieved. It is furthely limited by the range in question (time to elevate the barrels) and thus barely ever achieved. There is photographic evidence from the Schmalenbach movie that Bismarck achieved a cyclic rate of fire of 8 to 9 sec. between main gun half salvos (= peak rate of fire 16 to 18 sec.) for the latter part of a single but decisive minute against Hood, the average rate of fire was at about 1 salvo pm for the whole engagement. Crew performance was decisisve.

The question I would wonder about is between a North Carolina and Bismark class, which has the superior:
-Fire Control
-Rate of Fire
-Grouping (rounds landing closest together at great distance)
-Penetration
-Armor

By 1941 both ships have top edge firecontroll as a system. The rate of fire would help Bismarck, as both the initial rate of fire would be slightly higher (shorter time of flight figures allows shorter salvo intervals in the rangefinding period) as would be the peak rate during effective "full" shooting.
With regards to Grouping, I believe that NC is at an advantage. The US 16"/45 firing a 2700lbs projectile at low velocity is a very good combination and NC went through her gunnery trials, unlike Bismarck, which missed her gunnery trials safe two operational training shootings. Bismarck´s gunnery crew couldn´t be sure of her low salvo dispersion (this actually was testified at Tirpitz gunnery trials later) altough they appeared to have a reasonable idea of it.

NC´s secondary guns are not much of a thread to Bismarck. At first they do lack the range to be of much consequence (17 Kyards), and second, they do lack the punch against Bismarck´s protective scheme. Her non vital ship ends, the zitadell protected hull, the armoured weather deck, the exposed vitals and even her secondary turrets are close to immune vs. 5"/38 for all except point blanc ranges. NC is quite in an opposite condition, her RF´s, 2nd guns and upper zitadell hull do only have splinter protection against 6" rounds and their comm tubes are unprotected. Her ship ends are soft and only her armoured weatherdeck allows a degree of protection at ranges below 19.000 yards. The 5.9"/55 has a range of 25 Kyards, the tertiary 4.1"/65 has a range of 19 Kyards).

Penetration and armour would require some extra thoughts but basically, both ships do reflect their navies thread scenarios well and are optimized for different operational conditions.

 

[Freebird]

The question I would wonder about is between a North Carolina and Bismark class, which has the superior:

-Fire Control
-Rate of Fire
-Grouping (rounds landing closest together at great distance)
-Penetration
-Armor

And how would you compare Bismarck vs. Nelson {or Rodney} in those?

 

[renrich]

Del, it sticks in my mind that the 38000 yard shot took place in the Med. It may have been one of the Queen Elisabeths. The 40 mm Bofors were beginning to show up on US ships in 1942-43. They replaced the 1.1 quads. Interesting side note. One of my uncle's cruisers, CA 25, Salt Lake City, went into Pearl Harbor in 1943 for extensive repairs. Without authorisation from BuShips, her officers talked the navy yard in Pearl Harbor into giving her a quad 40 mm mount amidships and she left two of her four scout planes ashore to offset the weight and balance problem. It would have been interesting to have had an encounter between Alaska and Scharnhorst. The German ship was somewhat larger than the US ship at 32000 tons versus 27500 tons. The Alaska would have a two knot speed edge while Scharnhorst had a high proportion of her weight devoted to armor. Her side armor was actually thicker than that of Bismarck at 14 inches. Side armor of Alaska was 9 inches while turrets had almost 13 inches. Scharnhorst would have needed heavier armor as the Alaska had heavier guns with very modern 12 inch rifles. My guess is that unless the Scharnhorst was lucky like Bismarck was she would have succumbed to Alaska. Exeter took several hits from 11 inchers in her battle with Graf Spee and kept going. Actually Alaska was armored very much like the British battle cruisers in WW1 and they handled hits from 11 inchers quite well except for the turret and handling room problems. Presumably that would not be a problem with Alaska. Probably the fire control of Alaska would give it an edge with it's longer range guns.