That guy has got a great website - lots and lots of history there. I mentioned it earlier, but he had a fascinating “what if” at the Battle of Samar if the main Japanese fleet had met the shore bombardment battleships of 7th Fleet instead of Taffy-3
-
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
That guy has got a great website - lots and lots of history there. I mentioned it earlier, but he had a fascinating “what if” at the Battle of Samar if the main Japanese fleet had met the shore bombardment battleships of 7th Fleet instead of Taffy-3
I didn't think about the key concept at the end of the guns matching their contemporary battleship guns at the time.
The USS Hornet was so severely severely damaged in the typhoon of 1945 that aircraft couldn’t take off...but she was able to keep up with her strike package by launching aircraft over the stern by going full-back into the wind!
The damage...
Notice all the guys on the superstructure watching history being made!
This begs the question...Why did typhoons hate Halsey so much?
The damage...
Notice all the guys on the superstructure watching history being made!
This begs the question...Why did typhoons hate Halsey so much?
USS Illinois (BB-65). Along with her sistership USS Kentucky (BB-66), these were the last 2 Iowa class battleships that were laid down but never completed. Just as Missouri and Wisconsin had slight improvements over Iowa and New Jersey, the last 2 ships had further improvements to include an all-welded construction that would be save weight and increase the effectiveness of the armor by an estimated 5%.
After the war, there was a Nimitz Board improvement plan for the Iowas that included adding 6 ft torpedo blisters on each side for a beam of 120 ft., moving 2 of the twin 5"/38 calibre secondaries to superfiring positions over the main turrets, replacing the 20mm and 40mm with twin 3" automatic cannons, eliminating the conning tower and consolidating the twin stacks into a single stack.
For those interested in the multiple conversion projects proposed for the Iowa class, I recommend Wayne Scarpaci's books that are on Amazon:
The keel of the fifth ship of the Iowa class (BB-61 / 66), the Illinois (BB-65), was laid down on 15 January 1945 at Philadelphia Navy Yard. By 7 July the construction had progressed this far and the ship was officially cancelled a month later, on 11 August 1945, only about 22 % complete.
While the Illinois (BB-65) itself was never completed, her bell was cast. It currently resides at Memorial Stadium at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and is rung by members of the ROTC after the Fighting Illini football team scores. It reads "Illinois 1946".
Artist conception of the Illinois after the Nimitz Board Improvement Plan.
After the war, there was a Nimitz Board improvement plan for the Iowas that included adding 6 ft torpedo blisters on each side for a beam of 120 ft., moving 2 of the twin 5"/38 calibre secondaries to superfiring positions over the main turrets, replacing the 20mm and 40mm with twin 3" automatic cannons, eliminating the conning tower and consolidating the twin stacks into a single stack.
For those interested in the multiple conversion projects proposed for the Iowa class, I recommend Wayne Scarpaci's books that are on Amazon:
The keel of the fifth ship of the Iowa class (BB-61 / 66), the Illinois (BB-65), was laid down on 15 January 1945 at Philadelphia Navy Yard. By 7 July the construction had progressed this far and the ship was officially cancelled a month later, on 11 August 1945, only about 22 % complete.
While the Illinois (BB-65) itself was never completed, her bell was cast. It currently resides at Memorial Stadium at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and is rung by members of the ROTC after the Fighting Illini football team scores. It reads "Illinois 1946".
Artist conception of the Illinois after the Nimitz Board Improvement Plan.
That's how I've always understood the traditional definition of the concept- the firepower of a battleship but minus the battleship's armor; a cruiser's armor and a cruiser's speed.
I think the Russian Kirov class have got to be the last warships to be built with this concept. Their anti ship missile battery was frightening on paper but the concept has gotten outdated in the modern missile age. Compare them with a Ticonderoga class cruiser with a heavy loadout of Tomahawk anti ship missiles (when those were in the arsenal and they may yet make a comeback) and Harpoons, or compare them with the anti ship capabilities of the latest Standard missiles on the Burke class destroyers (which are arguably cruisers) as the Ticos decommission and fade away, modern cruisers and destroyers carry a lot of offensive firepower in each hull—possibly almost as much as the Kirovs did when those were brand new 40+ years ago—but it's better to distribute that firepower instead of concentrating so much of it on a single capital ship.
Maybe.
Kentucky's bow eventually got to go to sea as part of USS Wisconsin following Wisconsin's collision with the USS Eaton.
Edit: Kentucky's plant also went to sea onboard the first two AOEs.
Last edited:
One other characteristic of battleships was armor plating of sufficient strength to match their main armament- here US all fast battleships were lacking. The North Carolina class was originally designed to have 14” main guns and equivalent armor - but when the escalator clause to 16” main guns was adopted, the ships were too far along to redesign the armor. The South Dakota and Iowa classes had more armor but at the same time a new superheavy (20% heavier) shell skewed the balance again, only the projected Montana class was to have armor of sufficient thickness. As a side note, one of the projected conversions for the Iowa class was to remove the aft 16” turret and fill the area with a battery of 400+ missiles. I’ll see if I can find it although Pags and/or Griz may have a link to it.
There was a good article on www.navygeneralboard.com that detailed how the Iowa’s were a departure from traditional US battleship design as they had significantly greater speed than any other battleships- or battlecruisers for that matter. The New Jersey was clocked at 35 knots in 1968 (not at full load).
Was it really 'insufficient' though? The USS South Dakota got hit pretty hard during the Second Naval Battle of Guadacanal and though she suffered some damage none of it was critical, to include "the only time in US Naval History that a US battleship was struck by a foreign battleship's main-caliber AP projectile" that struck the ship near the aft main turret.
Was it really worth it though? I read critical comments on the Iowa-class that in an article about US fast battleships some time ago and could agree with some of the reasoning, that the tousands of tons of extra steel to make them go a few knots faster compared to the South Dakota and North Carolina classes wasn't really worth it given that they were mainly utilized as AAA escorts for carriers and flagships, both of which could have easily been done by other ships.
I don't know if I'd call armor=armament was necessarily a trait as it was a design consideration. The amount of armor was always a heavily contested design consideration and that went through numerous iterations as designers traded off armor, armament, and speed within the capabilities of the available power plant. The US for a long time preferred a "standard ship" that allowed different ships to operate effectively together as they all had the same speed, turning radius, etc. This all changed when the USN decided to adopt fast battleships once the washington treaty expired. In general the American design ethos was to show up with a bigger gun and as fast as the planned competition. So the Fast BBs were generally designed to be able to defeat other nations 12-16" guns but not defeat the superior capabilities of own ship weapons. Also they were designed when no one in the USN knew that 18.1" guns existed (I don't think this was confirmed until 1945 well after the design of the Fast BBs).
I wish I could remember where I read this but I remember reading that getting the Iowas to go that fast was an amazing engineering feat that would was really only overshadowed by projects on the level of the manhattan project. Took all the know how of naval hull and powerplant design to achieve 35kts.
I actually agree on both counts. It was insufficient from the definition of having the ship’s armor match its guns. It was sufficient on the South Dakota and Iowa classes to match the threats.
I have read the same, that the extra expense of 6 knots of the Iowas over the South Dakotas was not worth the money at the time. That said, it was quite an engineering feat.
Given that there were so few battleship vs battleship duels in WWII I do find the one example where a US battleship took significant punishment from an enemy battleship, along with a few others, interesting as she actually came out of it in okay shape with her hull and machinery intact and with relatively 'light' casualties compared to what she had been hit with.
Made even more clear by their long service. In the words of one SWO in my reserve unit who served on one in the 80's when we asked him how it was to serve on one, "It was awesome".
Or why did he keep driving into them. Was that the reason for the post was hurricane bows on CVs?
Great question and I don’t know. The Midway Class did not initially have a hurricane bow I imagine because forward AA fire was considered important. Changes in air defense technology may have had more to do with it than anything else... it I’m just spit-balling.