Best Battleship

[Mowgli1647545497]

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?

[Devils Advocate]

USS Who Gives a Fuck.

[OGRE]

Originally posted by Republicant:

USS Who Gives a Fuck.

werd

[Dr. Pomade]

Old Ironsides.

[stealthmonkey]

Originally posted by Republicant:

USS Who Gives a Fuck.

http://www.ohio3si.org/sig/pictures/threadhijack.jpg

[black00ws6]

Mighty Mo or The Bismarck

 

I took this pic while we were at Pearl Harbor a few weeks ago. smile.gifhttp://cimellc.org/pics/ship.jpg

 

[ 28. September 2004, 10:41 AM: Message edited by: Blowzilla ]

[stealthmonkey]

http://www.ohio3si.org/sig/host/PICT0060.jpg

The USS wisconsin. nice picture huh? I took it myself.

[1Quik7]

USS New Jersey

[Akula]

USS NEBRASKA, SSBN 739. 18000 tons submerged displacement, some serious firepower. And I am a commisioning crew member.

[Science Abuse]

The Bismark was a good idea "at the time". SOB had a fat ass, though, would get owned by a few smaller, more manuverable vessels...in fact, it did.

 

this = the win

http://www.synapse.ne.jp/~save/mechanic/starship/ssd1.jpg

[Guest Bottlefed70]

The Black Pearl.

[Jimmy Notchback]

Originally posted by Bottlefed70:

The Black Pearl.

The Bang Boat is sweet.

[Guest 00Smurf]

+1 to the ssd. but i'd have to go with the millenium falcon as the ultimate shp.

[Mowgli1647545497]

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

 

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

[Mowgli1647545497]

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.

[Mowgli1647545497]

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 ]

[Mowgli1647545497]

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.

[Mowgli1647545497]

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.

[Mowgli1647545497]

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

[Guest Crankshaft]

<font color ="midnightblue"> It's probably a close call, but Mowgli has a pretty good list goin.

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/battleships/iowa/ia-1984guns.jpg

 

Now that's a pretty badass ship right there. IMO, I think the US has always made the prettiest ships. Britain's have been down-right ugly, and I guess that's fitting. And the Bismarck was always impressive from its sheer might, rather than its efficient, hard, German design. The Yamato is probably a close 2nd in looks; but power? It had the most, though its potential was wasted by Kurita.

 

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/g320000/g325953.jpg

[Mowgli1647545497]

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

[Mowgli1647545497]

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.

[Mowgli1647545497]

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.

[Mowgli1647545497]

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.

[Mowgli1647545497]

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.