Ship Photo of the Day

[Randy Daytona]

Just finished watching a battleship tournament on YouTube. Almost all of these tournaments end with Yamato vs Iowa, but in this playoff. Britain’s HMS Vanguard beat Tirpitz, Yamato and Iowa in successive fights to claim the championship. Hard to believe with only 8 x 15” cannons, but strange things happen when you start throwing 1 ton shells around.

Edit: looks like 1 of the big factors was the Iowa captain (who should be court martialed for incompetence in this battle) closed the range and then secondary armament became a significant factor. The British quick firing 5.25 throws an 80 armor piercing shell which has a significant advantage over the US 5” 55 lb shell.

 

[Lawman]

Just finished watching a battleship tournament on YouTube. Almost all of these tournaments end with Yamato vs Iowa, but in this playoff. Britain’s HMS Vanguard beat Tirpitz, Yamato and Iowa in successive fights to claim the championship. Hard to believe with only 8 x 15” cannons, but strange things happen when you start throwing 1 ton shells around.

Edit: looks like 1 of the big factors was the Iowa captain (who should be court martialed for incompetence in this battle) closed the range and then secondary armament became a significant factor. The British quick firing 5.25 throws an 80 armor piercing shell which has a significant advantage over the US 5” 55 lb shell.

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Im gonna call BS that a main battery of WWI era guns bolted to a similar era ship built in fits and start would be equal the ones we had even if Iowa wasn’t what the Navy actually wanted and was in reality just the North Carolina/South Dakota we would have designed outside treaty limits if allowed. Furthermore it’s not the armor thickness or gun caliber that makes those ships actually effective. The Brit’s were adopting the US developed fire directors for both AA and rifled guns across their fleet towards the end of the war. We were allies afterall….

The 3 inch prox fused AA and fire directors is well known but of the secondary armament was what made vanguard so lethal in these tests, the Navy Mk37 fire directors is the reason it worked.

 

[Randy Daytona]

Im gonna call BS that a main battery of WWI era guns bolted to a similar era ship built in fits and start would be equal the ones we had even if Iowa wasn’t what the Navy actually wanted and was in reality just the North Carolina/South Dakota we would have designed outside treaty limits if allowed. Furthermore it’s not the armor thickness or gun caliber that makes those ships actually effective. The Brit’s were adopting the US developed fire directors for both AA and rifled guns across their fleet towards the end of the war. We were allies afterall….

The 3 inch prox fused AA and fire directors is well known but of the secondary armament was what made vanguard so lethal in these tests, the Navy Mk37 fire directors is the reason it worked.

Thought you might like this book from the incomparable Norman Freidman.

Battleship Design and Development 1905-1945

Book by Friedman, Norman

www.goodreads.com

Interesting that most navies chose 6” secondaries for their dreadnoughts which were much more effective in an anti-ship role while the US went with 5” guns which, although technically dual purpose, lack stopping power against cruisers and destroyers but were phenomenal against aircraft.

In a battleship 1v1, it would make sense for a US ship to fight at a long distance outside of the range of secondaries.

(a 6” super heavy shell weighed 130 lbs, the 5” / 38 shell weighed 55 lbs although the 5” / 54 for the Montanas was a 69 lb shell)