Were 20th century battleships pointless?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

The post-"Dreadnought" battleships were supposed to be the ultimate knockout blow in naval combat, but what did they actually amount to?

A brief, indecisive exchange at Jutland.

The big guns like the Yamato and Prince of Wales being casually blown to pieces buy planes.

Tirpitz spending most of the war skulking in a fjord, constantly harassed by the British.

In short, was there any point to them?

[BeBMan]

They look cool. Much cooler than carriers IMO.

At paradoxplaza, this thread could get easily some 100 replies with all the "Bismarck was teh greatest battleship evar, unsinkable, if just British aggressors hadn't unfairly used Swordfish planes!!!-- Nono, Iowa class was the best!" fanboys.

[Cyclotron]

Battleships were the logical extrapolation of an obsolete concept into the modern era. Few people realized the extent to which air warfare would totally change the battlefield, and battleships were perfectly suited to a world without air power, where naval supremacy depends on bigger guns and thicker armor instead of long-range strikes and air raids. It took the Pacific campaign in WWII for people to fully realize that this fantasy world was not, in fact, the real world.

This is not to say that post-WWI battleships didn't have their uses (shore bombardment and such), but all in all it seems like their primary role was to siphon away resources that could have been better utilized elsewhere.

[Kuciwalker]

They look cool.

QFT.

[Lonestar]

Re: Were 20th century battleships pointless?

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
The post-"Dreadnought" battleships were supposed to be the ultimate knockout blow in naval combat, but what did they actually amount to?

A brief, indecisive exchange at Jutland.

Read Castles of Steel. There were any number of times the High Seas Fleet could have engaged the RN, but the Kaiser refused to allow the fleet to do so. The "decisive battle" doctrine was never put to the test. So, I guess you could say there was a point, because the Kaiser's fear fot he Grand Fleet's Line kept the German Navy in...which meant there was no way to break the blockade.

The big guns like the Yamato and Prince of Wales being casually blown to pieces buy planes.

Tirpitz spending most of the war skulking in a fjord, constantly harassed by the British.

In short, was there any point to them?

By the time of WW2 Battleships had, obviously, lost much of their utility. They got a second life as floating gunfire support platforms, and nailing smaller vessels, but with the widespread application of Aircraft Carriers the era of line battles was done. But in the first 20 years or so? Battleships were the way to go.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Nah, I'm not convinced. The fact was that it would have been too politically-sensitive to place a Dreadnought in a position where it could be lost- which is why they didn't go in for heavyweight slug-fests.

I think it would have been far more pragmatic to go with Graf Spee-style pocket battleships.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
Nah, I'm not convinced. The fact was that it would have been too politically-sensitive to place a Dreadnought in a position where it could be lost- which is why they didn't go in for heavyweight slug-fests.

I, uh, believe that's what I said/implied when I mentioned that the High Seas Fleet was repeatably forbidden to sortie our and fight the Brits in WW1 by the Kaiser. By the time the fleet managed to weasel out of the restriction(due to the Kaiser putting the kibosh on U-boat warfare following the Lusitania blowback) the RN had insurmountable numbers for one decisive battle...I'll leave you to argue amongst yourselves if the clear German superiority in quality and gunnery would have been enough to break the Grand Fleet after a few Jutlands.

I think it would have been far more pragmatic to go with Graf Spee-style pocket battleships.

Then a "real" Battlecrusier or Battleship would show up and kill ya.

[Dr Strangelove]

Battleships I think actually saw their best service in the pacific theater in WW2. There were numerous clashes between surface ships during the fighting for Gaudalcanal because the limited range of the available aircraft allowed combatant fleets to dart in at night, land a few blows then dart right back out. Both the Americans and the Japanese used battleships in these night battles.

Battleships also played a major role in the reconquest of the Phillipines. While the allies were establishing a beachead the IJN split into 3 seperate assault forces. In night action an American battle group met the southern Japanese battle group and destroyed it. The norhtern Japanese task forces was chased off by an American carrier group. The central group managed to get within firing range of the American landing convoys, but was scared off by planes from American Jeep carriers and also by reports that the southern task group had been easily destroyed, raising the specter that the American battleship group might be headed back towards the landing zones.

Finally American battleships also played a major role supplying heavy artillery support for American forces landing on enemy held islands. High explosive shells fired from 16 inch guns were much more efficient at destroying concrete air strips than were 500 pound bombs typically used by Army and Navy bombers.

[BeBMan]

To post something in defense of the BB:

In early 20th century context BBs made perfectly sense. There was the experience of the Mahan-style shootout at Tsushima - slightly pre-dreadnought era of course, but it seemed to confirm Mahan's ideas of the importance of decisive naval battles, and of course everybody thought they'd need to prepare for that. These ideas remained influential throughout WWI and until WWII.

Early on, air power was of no use in naval engagements, only since WWI torpedo bombers have been used with some success, but not on a big scale, and not against armoured warships. Let's remember that even in early WWII torpedo attacks did fail often since the torpedoes were crap.

The interwar period had various countries experimenting with dive bombers to make air power even more deadly, esp. against ships. But by then there only were a handfull of new BBs built for every major power (though the major factor here was probably costs, not necessarily awareness that their days were numbered), most others were old WWI style BBs which had been kept in service for decades, often modernized. Shortly before and during WWII the RN got five King George V class builds plus at the end of the war one Vanguard, Italy got three new Littorios, Germany the two Bismarcks and two Scharnhorsts, France two Richelieus, Japan two Yamatos etc. the rest were all old ships. Only the US built quite a lot of new BBs during that time. OTOH they also built lots of CVs, so they could form big surface battle groups incl. carriers which did provide enough air cover.

So in short, in hindsight BBs became indeed pointless from the time when (esp. carrier based) airpower was deadly enough to take them out, but IMO that simply had to be demonstrated (at Taranto and Pearl Harbour) in praxis before someone would change his way of thinking.

[Patroklos]

The post-"Dreadnought" battleships were supposed to be the ultimate knockout blow in naval combat, but what did they actually amount to?

We haven't used nukes since their inception. Most would say they are not nearly as useful now as they used to be in our none polar world. But were they never useful at all during the 40 years of the Cold War just because we never actually used one in anger?

Large fleet carriers did not exist until just prior to WWII. Proper BB began to replace Dreadnaughts prior to WWI. That means there was 30+ years where BBs were the balls. Just because there happened to not be a major war during their era doesn't mean we should assume they were not useful.

And as stated airpower was useless in night actions until the 60's/70's. The Solomon campaign is a good example of their usefulness as Japan could have reinforced the islands at will during the night (they tried to). The annihilation of the southern IJN pincer at Leyte was done with nothing but surface ships, including a dozen odd BBs in a night action.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Patroklos
And as stated airpower was useless in night actions until the 60's/70's.

Not to forget weather issues like rain and storms. Ask a Brit how many such days per year they have to endure on their wet rock.

[LordShiva]

Battleship

[Kuciwalker]

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Aeroplanes weren't the only weak point on battleships. Take the fate of the first Japanese battleship lost in WW2- the Hiei.

In the battle for Guadalcanal, the Hiei got charged by US destroyers. Four of them got so close that they were under the Hiei's line of fire- it couldn't bring its guns down far enough to hit the smaller ships. They just sat around the Hiei and battered the crap out of it- it limped away and was scuttled.

Battleships are vulnerable to much smaller, cheaper ships if they're used right.

[Tattila the Hun]

Battleships were at their prime in the interwar years. Fortunately, those were indeed peacefull times, BB's never got to shine.