Were 20th century battleships pointless?

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
has anyone done a decent commercial Alt History about a world war in the 1920s, in which BBs do all they were capable of?

Sure, how about Harry Turtledove's The Gre-


*Lonestar is ambushed and beaten to a bloody pulp by the History forum denizens.*



*raises arm* help....meeeeee

[Kuciwalker]

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Lonestar


Sure, how about Harry Turtledove's The Gre-


*Lonestar is ambushed and beaten to a bloody pulp by the History forum denizens.*



*raises arm* help....meeeeee

I was thinking of something with a POD later than, you know, 1862.

And NOT by Turtledove, of course.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Patroklos

You would be very wrong. There is no weapon on a destroyer (even today) that could penetrate a BBs armor. You could try and skip in with torps, but a DDs guns are not going to get you a kill.

Torpedos were prcisely the weapon I was thinking of. IIRC during the actions at Guadalcanal Japanese destroyers did indeed destroy American heavy cruisers. I believe the US lost one battleship during the night actions too, but I'll hae to check on that. Even if Japanese destroyers did not destroy a US battleships, their reputation was sufficient that the USN was reluctant to keep battleships or carriers around to protect the precious lifeline to the island.

I might also point out that destroyers were the crucial weapon during the Battle of Jutland. It was a sortie by German destroyers which caused the British battle fleet to turn away from closing with the German battle fleet, allowing the Germans to escape.

[GePap]

At the time BB's were initially built, they were the logical extension of Naval fighting doctrine, and evidence from Tsushima Straits gave ample evidence of the superiority of big guns. No one could have forseen the coming age of aircraft carriers.

Even after CV's came on the scene BB's were vital. A signel CV alone is a sitting duck. You could go out an sortie and cause fear with a single BB. A single CV in WW2 certainly did not inspire fear, because if any other ship got into range a CV is toast unless. Heck, all surface warships are threatened by planes, but BBs were the ones who could dish and take the most punishment. How much firepower did it take to sink the Musashi? Or the Yamato?

As for Patrokolos claim that a DD didn't have any weapons that could hurt a BB, that is singularly not true. As Doc. Strangelove said, torpedoes were a mainstay of destroyer tactics in WW2. To say that a DD had nothing that could hurt a BB is like saying that torpedo bombers and submarines had nothing that could hurt a BB, which is not true. Actuall, in the Battle of Surigao Strait, the last time that opposing BB fleets met and fired at each other the IJN Fuso was destroyed by torpedoes launched by USN destroyers. In this same battle the Yamashiro became the last BB to be sunk by gunfire from other BBs.

[Dis]

I wonder (I'm no engineer, so bear with me), wouldn't it be possible to build a ship with armour below the waterline and on the top surface of the deck?

seems like bb's main weakess were bombs landing on the top, and torps.

I don't know how feasible that is. The weight would be enormous, and I can't see putting thick armour on the guns. The ship would have to be huge to get a good enough displacement to float, and that would require even more armour...

And then the enemy could just build bigger bombs that could penetrate it...

[GePap]

Originally posted by Dis
I wonder (I'm no engineer, so bear with me), wouldn't it be possible to build a ship with armour below the waterline and on the top surface of the deck?

seems like bb's main weakess were bombs landing on the top, and torps.

I don't know how feasible that is. The weight would be enormous, and I can't see putting thick armour on the guns. The ship would have to be huge to get a good enough displacement to float, and that would require even more armour...

And then the enemy could just build bigger bombs that could penetrate it...

Battleships did have thick bands of armor bellow the waterline against torpedoes. No armor is impenetrable though. As for the guns, they did have thick armor, to protect shells from going into the magazine, which was the most dangerous possible blow, as the Arizona shows (I would mentioned the Hood and several other ships during Jutland, but they were just Battlecruisers).

[lord of the mark]

Of course a BB alone would be vulnerable to DD torpedos, just as a Carrier alone (despite its air power) would be. In general BBs were not used alone, IIUC, just as Carriers were not. Both needed escorts.

The question, I suppose is how much they were needed. The problem in WW2, was that a IF BBs could close range, esp at night, they could in theory destroy the Carriers. Like someone with knife, against someone with a gun. That was the theory at the beginning of the war, and why both the IJN and USN built lots of BOTH Carriers and BBs. But during the war, as naval air proved more effective than expected, the opportunities for the knife to get within range of the gun (so to speak) diminished. Clearly, ISTM, both Japan and the US bought disproportionately too many BB's, and would have been better off building fewer, and building more carriers, cruisers, and DDs, instead.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by lord of the mark





I was thinking of something with a POD later than, you know, 1862.

And NOT by Turtledove, of course.

Yeah, it's a bit of a bummer there are not any good ones out there.

Someone needs to go back in time and convince the Kaiser to allow the High Seas fleet to sortie out more often.

[BeBMan]

As for DD vs. BB - of couse DDs could hurt BBs in certain situations. BBs, like any other warships weren't invincible. That doesn't make them pointless though. IIRC in some cases mentioned here, for example US DDs vs. Japanese big guns the problem was not so much that capital ships sucked in general, but that crew training and leadership on the Japanese side was insufficient.

[Patroklos]

As for Patrokolos claim that a DD didn't have any weapons that could hurt a BB, that is singularly not true. As Doc. Strangelove said, torpedoes were a mainstay of destroyer tactics in WW2.

Gepap, I specifically said with the exception of torpedoes.

There is no weapon on a destroyer (even today) that could penetrate a BBs armor. You could try and skip in with torps, but a DDs guns are not going to get you a kill.

But I would further point out that the range of a torpedeo is short, even today let alone in the 20's/30's. How many main battery rounds could I shoot at a DD before a DD could shoot back with its ineffectual guns let alone get close enough to use torps.

Looking at WWII a BB could absorb a dozen plus torps and still be combat effective. How many 14" rounds can a DD take?

And has been mentioned, DDs are even more vulnderable to aircraft than BBs. You don't even need bombs/torps, you 30cal machine guns can reach the boilers just fine.

Well rounded fleets, as I and others have stated, are what were needed.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Lonestar


Yeah, it's a bit of a bummer there are not any good ones out there.

Someone needs to go back in time and convince the Kaiser to allow the High Seas fleet to sortie out more often.

Im thinking more along the lines of US vs Japan, during the 20's or early 30's. Hardly seems that far fetched.

[Agathon]

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

?

The Germans stated strategy was to attempt to isolate and destroy a portion of the Grand Fleet, and then keep doing the same until virtual parity was reached. Their strategy at Jutland was just this, and they immediately disengaged once it was evident that the entire Grand Fleet was out.

The Germans knew that the British could not afford to take as many losses as they did, since Britain was wholly dependent on its fleet to sustain its power, whereas the Germans had a decent land based army.

What's interesting is that it might have been different if the Germans had really known how much better their ship designs were than those of the British. British shells (up until the end of the war) were hopeless, their gunnery was nowhere near as good as the German gunnery, and their ships (especially the battlecruisers) were nowhere near as hardy. This was still true in WWII as the Bismarck demonstrated by sinking the Hood and severely damaging the Prince of Wales.

As for the main point, capital ships were obsolete by the second world war, but they were still cutting edge in WWI due to the relative state of aircraft at the time.

[PLATO]

I think Obsolete might be a bit to harsh. Certainly their effectiveness for their original mission was degraded drastically, but I feel that not enough credit is given to their effectiveness in their secondary missions. Airpower came a long way in WWII, but IMHO, it was the missle that was the end of the Battleship era and not the airplane.

[TheStinger]

It is now thought that Hood was sunk by the Price Eugen and that a shell went down the funnel. It wasn't a Jutland type destruction.

IIRC Hood had its upper deck armanent improved to BB standards