Mowgli1647545497

Light Anti-Aircraft Armament

 

As the war progressed, anti-aircraft protection became both a means and an end in itself, as battleships were forced into escort roles with carrier battle groups. We'll take a look at each ship's final medium/light AA suite for comparison. And again, throw weight will be supremely important for these short-range weapons systems.

Yamato - 2.5

Iowa - 10

Bismarck - 3.5

Richelieu - 7

King George V - 8

Vittorio Veneto - 1.5

South Dakota - 10

 

Again, the Iowa and South Dakota come out on top, largely as a result of mounting so many 40mm Bofors, the best medium AA gun of the war. Furthermore, both American BBs made lavish usage of remote power control (RPC) for their Bofors mounts. By the end of the war, the US was also radar-controlling their 40mm mounts. Richelieu initially mounted a breathtakingly inadequate AA outfit, but after her refit in New York she emerged as a strong performer with her own suite of 40mm Bofors and 20mm Oerlikons. The Yamato was limited by having no comparable weapon; her 25mm mounts, while technically faster-firing, actually had a sustained rate lower than the Bofors (the 25mm gun had to cease fire when a new ammo cartridge was fitted). The Bofors also threw a much heavier shell. Japanese high-angle fire-control was inferior, and her triple 25mm mounts lacked good RPC (i.e. they turned and elevated too slowly to track a fast-moving aircraft). Bismarck benefitted from excellent optical fire control for her AA systems, but had a relatively small suite of weapons. King George V suffers slightly for mostly mounting the 2-pounder pom-pom, which lacked the rate-of-fire and muzzle velocity of the Bofors. Additionally, British high-angle fire-control was not up to American standards (as postwar British studies clearly admitted). Vittorio Veneto was simply hopeless: mediocre guns and not enough of 'em, mediocre fire-control, and complicated sky arcs.

Secondary Armament

 

Secondary batteries were an important part of any battleship's armament. I'm going to segregate secondary armament into two categories: anti-ship and anti-aircraft.

Ship - Anti-ship - antiaircraft

Yamato - 9.5 - 4.5

Iowa - 10 - 10

Bismarck - 10 - 4

Richelieu - 8 - 1.5

King George V - 5 - 4.5

Vittorio Veneto - 6 - 1

South Dakota - 10 - 10

 

Rating these I added 1 point to those ship's scores which carried at least some guns of near 6" caliber, because these guns generally have greater range, a more powerful shell, and therefore a greater ability to knock out small vessels such as destroyers. While I personally lean towards the belief that more shells is just a better thing, I can also understand those who argue that battleship secondaries must be able to hit and sink small ships before they can fire their own 4-5" weapons at you. In effect, if the same amount of steel is in the air, 6" steel is better than 5" because its shells carry larger explosive charges, are more effective against light armor, and tend to have flatter trajectories, making it easier to range and hit the target. The net effect is that Iowa's secondary, while very potent, do not dwarf the competition completely. Bismarck and Yamato pull even in the overall rankings. Oh the reason I rate Yamato as highly as I do (despite her lower total throw weight) is because she has the best arcs of fire for her secondaries of any BB, due to her superfiring triple 6.1" turrets. In her final configuration, and in a broadside engagment, she would be able to bring 8,563 lbs of ammunition/minute to bear, some 43% of it being very powerful, high-velocity 6.1" shells. Richelieu also has a very powerful battery for her size. King George V is hampered by the comparatively low rate of fire she experienced with her 5.25" guns. Vittorio Veneto fared slightly better, but also suffered from comparatively low rates of fire.

 

Iowa and SoDak have by far the best heavy AA suite of the seven. The 5"/38, coupled with the Mark 37 fire-control system, was the best heavy AA system of the war. Period. The total throw weight of the American BBs dwarfs the other vessels, and throw weight is really important, because in a very real sense anti-aircraft fire is a numbers game: the more lead you've got in the air, the better off you are. Coupled with proximity-fuzed 5" shells (which at least tripled the effectiveness of a 5" round when it first appeared, and by 1945 had multiplied it's lethality by a factor of six), the American 5" AA battery is incomparable. Of the remainder, King George V also has a very respectable battery. The 5.25" gun carried a nice sized warhead, and when coupled with proximity fuzing made for a very effective weapon, but her fire-control was not as good as the American Mk 37, and the 5.25" was just a tad too heavy for manual handling, which decreased its rate of fire markedly. Richelieu is heavily penalized because her 6" guns were simply not effective in their intended AA role, and I have therefore not included them in the tabulation. This leaves only her relatively light suite of twelve 3.5" guns. Bismarck has a decent battery, but no radar fire-control. Vittorio Veneto suffers from low throw weight and no radar, and the fact that her 90mm guns were notoriously unreliable in service, because of their very complex mountings.

All right, then, now that we have the Heavy- and Middleweight Champion prizes awarded, let's take a look at the other categories that go into the Best All-Around competition.

The Iowas were used as artillery platforms because she was the last ship standing, there was nobody left for her to fight.

 

Victory was a ship of the line, Dreadnaught was a, well a dreadnaught. If you want to split hairs. But as contemporary busters they were awesome ships, just not battleships.

 

 

Funny thing: Britain also screwed herself with building the Dreadnaught.

 

By building the first all big gun ship, they rendered all other ship designs obsolete.

 

Including their own.

 

So literally overnight Britain went from having the largest open water navy in the world by far, to leveling the playing field for everybody. Within a month of HMS Dreadnaught's sea-trials France, Germany, Italy, and America were all laying keels for all-big-gun dreadnaughts.

 

Winston Churchill: "DOH!"

 

As for aircraft - well battleships, like the dreadnaughts before them, always were a pissing contest only. Pretty useless in hindsight, but back then they were percieved as the thermonuclear ICBMs of their day. However, even General Mitchell conceded he wouldn't wantt o tryto take a bomber or fighter wing in against an Iowa... and thats the famous General "Ship Killer" Mitchell. Why? See below:

Let me know if you're interested in my opinions on who's the BEST ALL-AROUND SHIP, and the BEST ALL-AROUND TREATY BATTLESHIP.

And the Heavyweight Champion is...

 

All right, it's time to add up the points and see who comes out on top for both the Heavy and Middleweight categories. Judges, your scorecards please...

 

Ship - COMPOSITE SCORE

Yamato - 148

Iowa - 166

Bismarck - 121

Richelieu - 147.5

King George V - 131.5

Vittorio Veneto - 117.5

South Dakota - 155.5

 

IOWA IS WIN

 

And in the Middleweight Category...

 

Bismarck - 121

Richelieu - 147.5

King George V - 131.5

Vittorio Veneto - 117.5

South Dakota - 155.5

 

South Dakota on top

 

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Ok lemme explain my scoring, first the weights:

Guns - Weight: 4

Armor - Weight: 4

Underwater Protection - Weight: 2

Fire Control - Weight: 4

Tactical Factors - Weight: 3

 

'Composite Score' is the sum of the weighted scores for each category. The individual category scores equal (Overall Rating * Weighting Factor). In other words, a score of '10' in a category with a weight of '4' is worth 40 points towards the composite score.

 

Some more explaination is obviously in order here, because my scoring runs counter to some of the established and accepted 'battleship lore' out there. For instance, my scoring indicates that King George V was a pretty close match for Bismarck in a stand-up fight. So, if this was such an even fight, why did Prince of Wales break off her action with Bismarck, instead of just duking it out in a manly fashion? There are a few things to remember in this regard. First; this comparison shows a King George V-class battleship in a late-war configuration equipped with Type 274 radar; a luxury the Prince of Wales did not enjoy in 1940, but which would have been a huge equalizer later in the war. If one assumes British fire control to be equal or slightly inferior to the Germans in 1940, Bismarck starts looking better again. Second; the British had little idea that Bismarck was as tough a low-angle target as she was, and thus closed the range to come to grips with her (which, had she made it that far, also would have reduced Hood's exposure to high-angle deck hits - a vulnerability the British were acutely aware of, and another reason why they tried to close the range with Bismarck as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, they cut their intercept course too fine, and couldn't run the gauntlet before Hood was fatally hit). In retrospect, a ship like King George V is better off fighting Bismarck at long range, where the German ship's own vulnerability to high-angle fire would be heightened. Third, of course, is the fact that Prince of Wales was suffering from teething problems in her main mounts, to put it mildly, and was not getting nearly the output of shells she might have enjoyed in a late-war engagement when all the bugs with the British 14"/45 mount had been worked out. Late-war, at long range, with blindfire radar fire-control, and turrets working, I believe King George V was a decent match for the Bismarck.

 

Second, I'm saying that South Dakota would have usually whipped the Bismarck. Not only that, but if handled correctly, she ought to have had a better-than-even shot against Yamato, a statement that on the face of it seems absurd! Yamato was fully 27,000+ tons heavier, had much thicker armor, and possessed the largest naval rifles ever mounted afloat. However, the American ship had the world's best fire-control system, a fantastic armor belt, and guns which delivered very large projectiles at high-angle trajectories which could go through thicker deck plates than Yamato's 18.1" shells. Again, fire-control and the ship's fighting instructions become crucial. If the American stays at range (30,000-35,000 yards), she should be able to deliver many more hits to Yamato than she receives in return, because she can both shoot and maneuver (due to her much better stable vertical fire-control system elements). Further, Yamato's internal subdivision is not as good as SoDak's, and American hits are therefore likely to be more damaging than the Japanese. On the other hand, historically the Americans had little idea of Yamato's capabilities, and were likely to have attempted to close the range with her, not knowing the extent of her armoring, or that she was, in fact, armed with truly enormous 18.1" guns, rather than the 16" guns everyone on the American side of the lake assumed was the case. Closing the range with Yamato would likely have resulted in the American ship learning a painful lesson in gunfire supremacy. South Dakota's belt is better than Yamato's (barely), but at close range Yamato's guns have much better penetration. Further, Yamato's secondaries are very powerful, and would have begun to take a possible toll on SoDak's exposed radars and fire-control equipment, which would reduce her advantage in fire-control substantially if disabled. The bottom line is that South Dakota is a boxer, and should maintain her distance from a slugger like Yamato. Under the right circumstances, however, she was perfectly capable of dishing out critical damage to her hulking opponent.

FINALLY PAGE TWO

Fire-Control

 

This is a very interesting topic (for geeks like me), and one which is often overlooked. While not as glamorous (or obvious) as guns, it is crucially important. Here's how I rate things:

Yamato - 5

Iowa - 10

Bismarck - 5

Richelieu - 7.5

King George V - 8

Vittorio Veneto - 5

South Dakota - 10

 

The bottom line is that, after 1943 or so, having the world's best optical fire-control systems was largely irrelevant. The night battle between Washington and Kirishima near Savo pretty much settled the point; good radar usually beats good optics in a stand-up fight. And the radar used by Washington off of Guadalcanal was not as good as the sets fitted aboard Iowa.

 

Then there's the fact that all radar fire-control is not created equal. Radar operating at meter or decimeter wavelengths is useful for ranging, but lacks the angular accuracy necessary for training. In practical terms, this means that a decimetric set can develop a range solution via radar, but must rely on an optical director to supply training information for the battery. This hybrid fire-control solution is, of course, limited by the quality of the optics available, and also by the visual horizon (which is closer than the radar horizon), and weather conditions. Only with the advent of 10cm and (later) 3cm wavelength sets was true 'blindfire' radar fire-control achievable, wherein the firing ship need never come into visual range of the opposing vessel. The Germans, Japanese, and Italians never developed sets of this capability (both the Japanese (despite its 10cm wavelength) and German sets were usable for fire control against a battleship-sized target only out to a range of about 27,000 yards.) The bottom line is, then, that the Allied vessels, and particularly Iowa and South Dakota, would enjoy an enormous advantage in gunfire control over their adversaries. She would have the ability to lob shells over the visual horizon, and would also perform better in complete darkness or adverse weather conditions.

 

The final adjusted rating also reflects the fact that American FC systems employed by far the most advanced stable vertical elements in the world. In practical terms, this meant that American vessels could keep a solution on a target even when performing radical maneuvers. In 1945 test, an American battleship (the North Carolina) was able to maintain a constant solution even when performing back to back high-speed 450-degree turns, followed by back-to-back 100-degree turns. This was a much better performance than other contemporary systems, and gave U.S. battleships a major tactical advantage, in that they could both shoot and maneuver, whereas their opponents could only do one or the other.

Tactical Factors

 

This section is very subjective, but examines such qualities as speed, survivability, damage control, and other factors pertaining to the tactical qualities of the vessel. Here are my ratings:

Yamato - 9.5

Iowa - 10

Bismarck - 9

Richelieu - 8.5

King George V - 8.5

Vittorio Veneto - 8.5

South Dakota - 8.5

 

This category is tremendously subjective. All I am trying to do here is put together at least a rough index of how useful the ship might be tactically (gun platform, speed), and how much raw punishment it could absorb (displacement, damage control). Gun platform is simply a rough index of the beam of the vessel (I'll deal with actual sea-keeping in a later post). In the matter of speed, I am personally feel that a fast ship is a nice thing to have, but that speed in general is not a critical deciding factor in the outcome of battles. For the purposes of the rating, I put Iowa at 33 knots and subtracted .5 point per knot from there on down. Damage control is very hard to quantify. American practice, by the end of the war, was simply superb. How much better than the everybody else (especially the French, about whom I don't even have anecdotal evidence) is impossible to say. So I simply took my best guess. The end result was that these ships all scored very close together in terms of an overall rating, which 'feels' right to me. All seven of these ships were large, steady gun platforms which could absorb an enormous amount of punishment. Iowa barely edges Yamato because of her speed and superb damage control. Yamato, though, has the advantage of an enormous displacement. To my mind, for all practical purposes, they are practically the same in their usefulness -- it's largely a matter of preference. All the others display a good blend of factors, but aren't quite in the same league in their ability to absorb damage, largely because of their displacement. The deciding factor in determining their real usefulness and damage-resistance ability becomes their respective protection schemes.

Next: Underwater Protection

 

You're probably asking yourself, who cares about underwater protection when you're slinging big shells at each other? Answer, sometimes those shells miss, and if they miss short of their intended target, they still stand a very good chance of diving into the side of the target below her waterline. Here, then, are my rankings of who is best able to shrug off the effects of an underwater hit:

Yamato - 9

Iowa - 9

Bismarck - 7

Richelieu - 10

King George V - 5

Vittorio Veneto - 8

South Dakota - 9

 

I did mention all these ratings are on a scale of 1 to 10 right? 10 being best smile.gif

 

The basic rating is a function of the standoff width in the system. I dinged Yamato for her defective joint structure, and for not using liquid-loaded tanks outboard. I dinged Bismarck for having a shallow belt, which directly contributed to a crucial underwater hit she took at the hands of Prince of Wales. I dinged King George V for her shallow belt and the fact that the top of her system was not bounded by deck armor, which directly contributed to the loss of the Prince of Wales. And I dinged Vittorio Veneto for defective seams, inability to take multiple hits in the same location, and being a real pain to repair, due to the curved bulkheads which comprised the system. And last, I upped Iowa's and SoDak' base ratings a point, because of her deep belt, and the very efficient usage of void and liquid-loaded tanks.

ARMOR (cont)

 

This was the most complex category in terms of trying to quantify and simplify a rating. After all, each of these vessels was designed to operate in a different anticipated threat environment than the others. Bismarck, for instance, was designed for combat in the North Atlantic. Germany anticipated weather and visibility conditions like Jutland in WWI. She was optimized for short-range, flat-trajectory combats. Her armor scheme reflects this, with an armor layout that makes it REALLY TOUGH to put a shell into her vitals at short range, but is vulnerable to long-range fire, and which reduces the total amount of protected volume in the vessel. She carried her armor deck lower in the ship than the other contenders. By the same token, Yamato was simply built to stand up to and utterly outclass any conceivable American or British opponent by sheer weight of gunfire, and elephant-like armor. As such, hers is a sort of 'brute force' approach to protection. Her armor layout isn't the most efficient, but she has a lot of armor, so it doesn't really matter. American and French battleships were designed to do less with more, with the South Dakota, for instance, being perhaps the best protected warship, pound for pound, ever built. One reason the Americans in particular came out with such good designs is that they could afford to. America poured tons of money into making the propulsion plants of their vessels more efficient, meaning that the resulting ships were relatively smaller and armor box correspondingly small. This, in turn, led to the ability to use the armor more heavily in the protected region. By the same token, American BBs, alone of contemporary battleship designs, had hull plating and interior works which were constructed entirely of Special Treatment Steel (STS), a very tough light armor steel, whereas contemporary designs usually reserved such steels for important splinter-proofing locales. The United States alone was capabe of affording such extravagances.

 

I really based my ratings alot upon the work of Nathan Okun. From his paper detailing the usage of Bismarck's 15"/47 gun to shoot at all seven of 'The Contenduh's', I extracted a quantification of the total zones of vulnerability, for both deck and belt armor, of each of the seven ships. If you want the really gory details on how I did this, send me a PM or ask me to post here. Suffice it to say that I am surprised as you that Iowa has the most effective belt armor of the lot; I would have bet on Yamato any day. But Iowa's combination of an inclined belt, and a highly effective STS-steel shell plate outboard of the belt (which has just enough resistance to strip the AP cap off of an incoming shell) tips the score in her favor. Richelieu also had this same design, and very good protection as a result. Bismarck, despite the reputation of her side armor, fares very poorly in this category. From a deck armor perspective, Yamato comes out on top, followed closely again by Richelieu and Iowa. Vittorio Veneto is very vulnerable to high-angle fire, and Bismarck is as well. Yamato thus emerges as the best armored of the lot, followed closely by Iowa and Richelieu. This makes perfect sense to me, as Yamato also had the distinction of carrying the only armor plates which were completely impervious to any battleship weapon ever mounted afloat -- her 660mm turret faceplates. She was, indeed, an awesome beast. It makes the American and French feats of achieving protection within a hair as good, on much smaller displacements (particularly the South Dakota, which has the second smallest displacement of the seven warships detailed here), a very impressive feat as well. On the bottom of the heap, Vittorio Veneto and Bismarck were both penalized for their inability to cope with a long-range gun duel. Bismarck also suffered from the poorest belt armor of the lot.

Next up: Armor

 

Ya gotta have it if you're gonna play with the Big Boys. The numbers provided below give some indication of the quality of the armor on these seven ships. Bear in mind that 'calculating' the effectiveness of one ship's protective scheme over another's is a very complex and subjective task. Here are my ratings:

Yamato - 10

Iowa - 9.5

Bismarck - 6.5

Richelieu - 9

King George V - 8.5

Vittorio Veneto - 7

South Dakota - 9.5

 

I Know I'm going to have to explain myself here (I think Silent God's going t argue with me), so let me drag it out to the next post.

Again if folks want to know how I got my ratings just ask - not sure how interesting this stuff is, but I figure anyone that likes cars (the is CR after all) likes power, and anyone who likes guns (this is Ohio after all) would like battleships. smile.gif

geez hoping to get to page 2 where that picture will quit fukking up the format

All right, then. Let's start with: Guns

 

Big Guns. They make every serious battleship fan feel that certain rush of excitement. They're what battleships 'Are All About'. So it is fitting that we start with an examination of main armament. Here are my ratings:

Yamato - 10

Iowa - 10

Bismarck - 9

Richelieu - 9

King George V - 8

Vittorio Veneto - 7.5

South Dakota - 8.5

 

The Japanese 18.1"/45 reigned supreme as the most destructive piece of naval ordnance ever mounted afloat. However, its ballistic performance was not particularly inspiring, and the performance of its Type 91 shells was inferior to the norm, partly because they were optimized for underwater trajectories **. Immediately below it in terms of power is the US 16"/50. Good ballistics, and superb shells, give this gun a tremendous whallop, and in combat terms I rate it as the equal of the Japanese weapon, largely because of its shells. Below that, in an upset, comes Richelieu's 15"/45, as the best all-around 15" gun, and feel the most useful in an actual combat situation. The Italian 15"/50 was an enormously potent weapon from a raw power perspective, but it sacrificed a lot in order to achieve that performance, and had decidedly inferior shells. I should note, though, that I am still investigating this particular gun and her shells in more detail; the information available on her shells is rather spotty. Bismarck's 15"/47 shell is 10% lighter than the French and Italian, although her cyclic rate is attractive, and her guns were very accurate. At the bottom of the spectrum, King George V's 14" gun clearly doesn't have nearly the oomph necessary to compete with the rest of these guys.

 

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**The tradeoffs the Japanese made for these shells don't seem to have been worth it. The only textbook example of an optimal Type-91 hit was an 8" shell that struck the magazine of the U.S. light cruiser Boise during the Battle of Cape Esperance. In this case, rapid flooding prevented a catastrophic detonation of the magazine. Thus, the shell hit, while causing massive damage to Boise, did not achieve the sort of critical damage the Japanese had sacrificed so much for in terms of raw penetrative power in the design of their Type 91 ammunition. Further, it should be noted that the very long fuze delay times in these sorts of shells (necessary for allowing adequate delay if the shell was transiting underwater to the target) had undesirable effects when the shell struck light plating at flat trajectories (such as superstructures). In these cases, Type-91 shells frequently detonated well after the shell had carried through the target ship and was in mid-air on the other side. In a long-range gunnery duel, plunging fire from a Type-91 shell might conceivably pass through the armor deck and then through the bottom of the target ship before detonation -- again, not a trivial hit, but hardly the optimal amount of damage to be expected from a very large caliber shell penetrating to the vitals of the target.

To see the scoring system and I'm going to be using throughout this comparison, I'll post that later if people want. To bug me about my information sources, and other miscellaneous comments, send me a PM.

 

It should be noted right off the bat that just because one ship or another ends up being proclaimed 'Best Whatever' doesn't necessarily mean that it would always win a fight against a lower rated ship.

 

Anyway, we'll start with an examination of three vital areas: who's got the most powerful guns, the best designed protective armor scheme, and the most accurate fire control. First, though, we have to introduce...

 

The Contenduhs: Yamato, Iowa, Bismarck, Richelieu, King George V, Vittorio Veneto, South Dakota.

 

When us naval geeks start arguing battleships we tend to a three-way race between Bismarck, Yamato and Iowa. "Duh", right? But I figure, hey, why stop there? Why not try and foment an 'International Incident' with every possible member of the European Community? So, armed with reference books, back-issues of Warship International, and unpublished source works, I proceed to stick my neck way out by introducing three more players to the game: Richelieu, King George V, Vittorio Veneto, and South Dakota.

So how do we go about ranking these nasties? With any big problem - take it on in bite size chunks. I like to think of them in several categories:

 

Guns

Armor

Underwater Protection

Fire Control

Tactical Factors

Secondary Armament

AntiAircraft Suite

Operational Factors

 

Also,

Just What the Heck Does 'Best' Mean?

That's a really good question. How about I award not one, but four prizes:

 

HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION

MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPION

BEST ALL-AROUND SHIP, and

BEST ALL-AROUND TREATY BATTLESHIP

 

The HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION title goes to the ship who can step into the ring and go toe-to-toe, one-on-one with any other guy, at whatever range, and have the best chance of winning. In other words, anti-aircraft and secondary armament and all that foo-foo stuff will be considered irrelevant. In principle, any ship of the seven presented here are candidates, however, the smart money is on either Yamato or Iowa.

 

MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPION is pretty much the same, except that it goes to a battleship which at least pretended to pay lip service to the provisions of the Washington and London Naval Treaties.

 

BEST ALL-AROUND BATTLESHIP gets awarded to the battleship which has the best blend of speed, firepower, armor, secondary and anti-aircraft armament, fire-control, and the whole ball of wax.

 

BEST ALL-AROUND TREATY BATTLESHIP is awarded to the best all-around vessel which roughly conforms to the naval treaties cited above. This rules out Yamato and Iowa.

 

[ 28. September 2004, 09:07 PM: Message edited by: Mowgli ]

Here's my list of contenders:

 

Yamato - Japan

Iowa - USA (and her sister ships)

Bismarck - Germany

Richelieu - France

King George V - UK

Vittorio Veneto - Italy

South Dakota - USA (and her sister ships)

 

Yeah these are all circa WWII ships, but then thats when battleships reached their zenith really. Not to mention the fact that for each of these contenders, there were other battleships floating around to take these muthas on... ergo, each other.

SSD had a weak bridge Besides, I said Battleship, not Destroyer tongue.gif

 

[ 28. September 2004, 08:24 PM: Message edited by: Mowgli ]

I'll start: The USS Iowa.

 

Best pound for pound battleship ever built? South Dakota

 

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How's that for a fresh topic?

Gayest. Firstpost. Evar.

http://www.richardsimmons.com/images/img/RichardBiofotos2.jpg

Originally posted by RX7dood:

i've seen plenty fords to that too.

Sure you have.

 

 

The Bismarck was sunk because she was outdated by the time she left port. She was designed for ship to ship combat in the North Atlantic. Her designers anticipated weather and visibility conditions such as had prevailed at Jutland in WWI. As a result, she was optimized for short-range, flat-trajectory combats. Her armor scheme reflects this, with an armor layout that makes it fantastically difficult to put a shell into her vitals at short range, but which is vulnerable to long-range fire, and which reduces the total amount of protected volume in the vessel by carrying her armor deck lower in the ship than her contemporaries. But mainly her steel sucked ass.

Originally posted by dewman0012:

they will be the worst boobs in 20 years

Who gives a fuk about that?

the US?!? typo right?

Originally posted by Republicant:

Eh, Proffessional Motorcycles riders have crashed at 200 (wearing full gear though), and they just get some pretty harsh road rash.

The trick is not to start tumbling... then shit starts breaking.