Last edited:
-
Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?
Go here:
Edit Account Details and Profile
Ship Photo of the Day
- Thread starter Randy Daytona
- Start date
Pocket Battleship!!
Ya, they rotate like turrets. I believe we had a similar design on our Fletcher class DDs.
Very odd from a contemporaneous USN perspective as the USN considered torps and BBs to be mutually exclusive (mostly).
The tonnage and armament of the Graf Spee would have made her a heavy cruiser in the USN. Also, DKM capital ships were lone hunters (for the most part). No screening ships.
Last edited:
I'm less familiar with USN CAs but a quick review of Wikipedia showed me that very few USN CAs had torp tubes (which would make sense vis a vis USN doctrine).
The 'pocket battleships' were largely built with commerce raiding in mind so a variety of weapons to battle whatever they encountered was useful, especially when they were out mainly on their own as jmcquate mentions. A single torpedo could usually do a lot more damage than a shell and provided them with another option against whatever they encountered, whether it be a merchant or warship.
Kind of what my answer was going to be: doctrine. A quick survey of WWII CAs from RN, USN, DKM, and IJN showed a mixed bag when it came to whether the CAs had torps or not. I'm guessing this was largely driven by each individual Navy's doctrine (ie IJN lsaw torps as the main weapon) or lack of doctrine (ie jack of all trades).
Also, DKM search aircraft were launched amidships. Not at the stern or off of a gun turrets and craned back adored astern like ours. The space was there............just a theory.
Pensacola, Northampton*, Portland, and New Orleans class CAs all had amidship aviation facilities.
*just learned that Northampton class CAs were the first USN ships to have bunks. I had read before that Lex and Sara had hammocks and in lieu of showers Sailors had tin buckets that they'd fill with cold water and then take to a steam fitting to warm up to bathe with the water. The "heads" were basically just bar troughs that went directly overboard which I guess saved on CHT headaches. Not sure if/when these ships were rehabbed or if they went to war with hammocks. If not I find it fascinating to think of WWII Sailors using hammocks (when not sleeping on deck in the South Pacific).
Too lazy to look it up. Did they have amidship recovery cranes?
Yep. And a hangar in some classes.
"Neptune's Inferno" also mentions a well deck; not sure what that was.
Edit: apparently prior to modern L-class ships "well deck" meant a deck that was lower than the fore and aft decks; i.e. Not flush. Here's a pic of the well deck region of USS Indianapolis; note the ladders going down.
Last edited:
As long as we are on the subject of Teutonic craftsmanship
DKM Admiral Graf Spee
I was thinking of the same ship. Battle on the River Plate was one of the first naval engagements of WW2 which ended up with the Graf Spee, despite inflicting serious damage on 1 British heavy cruiser (HMS Exeter) as well as more damage on 2 light cruisers (HMS Ajax and HMS Achilles), scuttling itself. The German captain made the error of heading into port (low on ammo and a broken desalination plant) in Uruguay instead of heading south 200 miles to more friendly Argentina. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_River_Plate There was even a movie made of this battle.
Very interesting design. The pocket battleship mounted 6 x 11" cannons and 8 x 5.9" cannons yet was smaller than the USS Baltimore and USS Des Moines class heavy cruisers. Would have liked to see the USS with a similar design mounting the 12" rifles of the Alaska class on a Baltimore hull. Although the 12" turrets weighed 900 tons vs the 325 tons of the 8" guns of the Baltimore class, those new 12" cannons had more armor penetrating power than the older 14" rifles on the Pennsylvania battleship class.