Most dominating Battleship

[steelehc]

I know we've had a plethora of "dominating" threads, but the've only covered the land and the air. Nothing has covered the Queens of the Sea, so here we are. Please don't get mad.

PS: Answer based on WW2 statistics, as only the Iowas have been updated and refitted to more modern standards.

Steele

[KrazyHorse]

Bismarck. It sunk the Hood in just under 7 minutes.

[faded glory]

The hood was a piece of krap KH. It had weak decks.


Yamato or I would say 2nd would be the HMS Repulse.

[Dr Strangelove]

Of the entire group only (select members of) the Iowa class, have been upgraded to incorporate post WW2 technology, so obviously they would have an advantage. Their missles alone would give them a commanding range advantage over any other battlewagon.

[Asher]

What's that Italian ship doing there?
Look at its history, every single mission says "blahblahblah, but was unsuccessful".

[steelehc]

DP

[Asher]

My favorite ship of all time is the HMS Rodney.

Now that's fore firepower. Rawr!!

[steelehc]

The Bismark got a lucky hit on the magazine of a WW1 ship (Hood). I say the Iowas-
Best fire control
Best guns (longer range, better penetration)
Best AA
Fastest
Best Damage Control

All four Iowas were updated, but only two are still on Reserve. The others have been mothballed and are now muesems.

Steele

[Tuberski]

You do know that ming said no more "Most Dominating" threads don't you?



But, the Iowa, plain and simple.

[KrazyHorse]

The Bismarck had some of the most accurate fire control of any surface vessel in WWII. If the British hadn't had all the ships in the world she would have been able to wreck some serious ass.

[KrazyHorse]

And this breaks my long-running commitment to the avoidance of military history threads.

[Chris 62]

Based on effectivness, the South dakota class combined the best Firepower, speed, armor, and unit cost.

FG, Repluse was a Battlecruiser, smaller then Hood, and not as effective.

The Yamato class were expensive white elephants that accomplished little, and the Iowas are somewhat over-rated, their armor and speed has been over stated for years.

The British KGV class were undergunned, and the Bismarks were also bad buys for the money spent.

The best battle record belongs to HMS Warspite, a WWI era vessal that collected 11 battlestars in WWII.

[Simon Darkshade]

The Hood was a very good early 1920s battlecruiser, and was badly in need of an upgrade. However, in its time, it made a much larger contribution than the brief foray of the Bismarck, which in the end did not achieve its primary mission.

Warspite and the other WWI veteran battleships that were upgraded made a good contribution. The Queen Elizabeth class was an overall good ship.

The KGVs were good fighting ships, whose bulky appearence belied their ability and qualities. They were basically treaty battleships, and their gun combination of 10 X 14 inch in a 2 x 4 1 x 2 turret pattern did not make for an optimum broadside.

The Iowas had the best guns in the 16"/50 cal (Mk 7), and were overall a very good package. In terms of performance in WW2, the South Dakota's were quite comparable, though. The Iowas have proved long lived and valuable years beyond any competitors, being still quite useful for many tasks.

In the overall, they are the best battleship.

The 120 000 tone H Project battleships planned by Germany with 30 inch guns were quite amusing, even though they were only an academic exercise.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

The moment planes entered the equation, "Battleship" became a euphemism for "sitting duck". On that basis, I'm going for the "Graf Spee". It wasn't the biggest. It wasn't the most powerful. It wasn't the fastest.

However it could out-gun anything that was faster than it, and out-run anything that could outgun it. That's what's called great design. So what if it got cornered and scuttled? It was a brilliant raider.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

The Hood tends to get ridiculed these days because of the way it was sunk by the Bismark. That doesn't really do it justice, however.

First off, the captain of the Hood knew the decks were insufficiently armoured. However, that's only a concern at extremely long ranges when shells are descending near vertically off their parabolic flights. In other words, only a concern for a very short time in the early stages of any encounter. In the early stages, the chances of getting hit, whilst the enemy gunners are still trying the guage the range on a moving target (at extreme long range and on a swelling sea) are very remote.

Once the ranges are closed, the weak decks weren't any concern at all. Shells can't turn corners in flight, and the Hood was massively armoured around the belt. It was a real brawler of a ship. I watched a TV interview with one of the Hood survivors and his account demonstrated that the Hood's captain hadn't put a foot wrong. As soon as the Bismark was sighted, he charged it at full speed to close the ranges. The fatal shell that hit the Hood was only the 5th salvo fired by the Bismark- to find the range that quickly was a complete fluke. At that point, the Hood had already begun the turn to bring it alongside the Bismark to launch a broadside- it was a real last-gasp lucky shot shell that blew it up.

Had that not happened, it would been an incredibly brutal slugging match between two immensely powerful ships. In a 1-on-1 encounter I'd still back the Bismark to win, but it would have suffered tremendous damage in the process and would probably have been crippled. The Hood was also backed up by the Prince of Wales, which wasn't as powerful but in theory should have helped send the Bismark to the bottom.