Who would Win early 1942

[Werner]

The influence device was defective and the torpedoes tended to run deep.

By 1944 it was fixed, but too late to stop captains from refusing to rely on it.

Look at the number of sinkings for each year and you can see when the USN repaired it's defective exploder.

W

[chuck]

Four torpedos will not sink Yamato instantly, but history implies strongly any Japanese warship with four hits would sink from progressive flooding some time later.

W

History shows only one modern Japanese battleship hull that sank after 4 hits.

That would the incomplete hull of Shinano. Her fate came under the following situations:

1. a green partial crew, heavily dilluted with civilians, that deserted their posts immediately after the hit to defy the assumption of universality of Bushedo mentality amongst Japanese military. The milled around, looking for a way to escape, adding insult to injury by hampering the few damage control personal still at their duty stations.
2. a damage control system that is missing most of the pumps because they are sitting on dockside at her destination, thus turning most of the major route through which a finished warship would have pumped herself out, into routes thorught which flooding can spread uncheckably though the ship.
3. a standard of water-tight integrity afforded by most water tight doors not yet having been installed, making even a pretense of isolating the flooding impossible.
4. a increase in progressive flooding potential afforded by the fact that no compartment has yet been judged ready to receive the standard pressure test, which all major compartments of all battleships must undergo and pass to be accepted into service.
5. a post damage history which includes immdiate run up to full speed after the hits, thus worsening the effect of flood perimeter breach.

Still, she remained controllable, navigable for many hours, and only sinking nearly a day later.

In otherwords, short of opening the seacocks, nothing more could have been done to weaken Shinano's damage tolerance. Only then could Werner's characteristically polemic position be very barely fulfilled. But still he takes that position anyway, and extends it to "all Japanese battleship", as if it were the only natural one to take.

[Werner]

WRONG, Grasshopper
Hiei: evidently succumbed to only one torpedo and several other bombs.
Kongo: sank from at most three torpedo hits.
Fuso: two torpedo hits from USS Melvin
Shinano: the ship you obliquely reference

Chuck it would help your arguments if you bothered to read the official accounts and the later analyses

[chuck]

Chuck it would help your arguments if you bothered to read the official accounts and the later analyses

W

It would help if you do not confuse Hiei, Fuso and Kongo with the concept of a "modern" battleship. You might go back to Russo-Japanese war and find Japanese battleship that blew up after hitting a single small mine.

[Werner]

You can slice history anyway you want to get the conclusion you wish.

Maybe the Japanese didn't have any modern ships in WW.II.

A ship reduced to a shell, lengthened and rebuilt in 1938 doesn't qualify? The Hieis were more thoroughly modern than Queen Elizabeth or any similar ship.

W

[chuck]

You can slice history anyway you want to get the conclusion you wish.

Maybe the Japanese didn't have any modern ships in WW.II.

A ship reduced to a shell, lengthened and rebuilt in 1938 doesn't qualify? {I}Hiei[/i] was more thoroughly modern than Queen Elizabeth or any similar ship.

W

How many torpedos did any modernized "Queen Elizabeth or any similar ship." withstand without sinking? How many of more of them would have been sunk by trivial number of underwater explosions of moderate power had the bottom of the harbors they were in not been there to prop them up?

By standard of converted old battleships, Especially since they are rather old even for converted old battleships, Fuso, Hiei and Kongo didn't seem to do outstandingly poorly, did they?

If the Japanese were up to making old battleships competitive to their peers in damage resistence, what is the cause of this flippant assumption that their new monster battleship would succumb to fewer torpedo than their much lesser peers?

[Werner]

How many torpedos did any modernized "Queen Elizabeth or any similar ship." withstand without sinking? How many of more of them would have been sunk by trivial number of underwater explosions of moderate power had the bottom of the harbors they were in not been there to prop them up?

Warspite, at least, suffered guided bomb damage on a scale that sank Roma without delay.

Your absurd defence of these Japanese ships is entirely without merit, logic or any reflection of history.

W

[chuck]

Warspite, at least, suffered guided bomb damage on a scale that sank Roma without delay.

W

After the glid bomb hit, Roma did indeed delay her final demise by a substantial lapse of time despite the fact that her main magazine blew up and tossed her B turret over the side. She stayed afloat for better part of an hour afterwards.

Warspit's bomb hit went into her engine rooms. Roma's went into her magazine.
Perhaps a shot in the leg is not quite comparable to a shot in the head?

In any case, Roma is the sistership of the 3-hit sinker Littorio. Perhaps Roma and her sister's underwater defense ought not to be held up as an inspiring bench mark for older battleships to aspire towards? However, Kongo at least matched Littorio's performance, her more violent end being explained by much more powerful warheads of American torpedos?



P.S.

[Werner]

Chuck, it's Warspite.

These ships and the Italian ships are proof that the mechanisms and features of a ship which protect it from sinking are not available to those of us who study them not in wave tanks and engineering models but in basic books which copy mistakes and uncertainty from generation to generation.

The only emperical data available to us are found in the crucible of history.

The story of the Pacific war shows these Japanese ships to be less resilient than you would like. Maybe it's the lack of attention to damage control. Maybe there are other factors.

Who would have thought such a tiny force of Greeks could obtain a victory at Thermoplyae? Certainly on paper it doesn't work out....

W

[chuck]

Who would have thought such a tiny force of Greeks could obtain a victory at Thermoplyae? Certainly on paper it doesn't work out....

W

No one thought the tiny force of Greeks could obtain a victory at Thermoplyae. And most certainly on paper it doesn't work out. Perhaps that explains why they lost and was wiped out to the last man.

[JWintjes]

No one thought the tiny force of Greeks could obtain a victory at Thermoplyae. And most certainly on paper it doesn't work out. Perhaps that explains why they lost and was wiped out to the last man.

Bah. That's a distortion of history. Of course Leonidas won - being cheated by a traitor doesn't count, and in any case being wiped out to the last man isn't of any relevance - for a Spartan - for the question of victory or defeat.



Jorit

[Werner]

Damn modern history...

[Anonymous]

The "chuck vs werner" show aside, my vote goes to the Bismarck. Clearly the better shot in her two fights, straddled the Hood on second or third salvo and straddled the Rodney on her third shot, right before Bis had his MFD blown overboard. Yamato couldnt hit a damn thing at long range. Did the SoDak ever shoot at anything long range (20K+) before she had Radar FC? If not, is there any evidence that SoDak's gunnery was any better than Bis?

WW2 battleship doctrine was, in anything I have ever read, to close the range. Every discussion about 'who would win' is biased by our knowledge of the ships in question when those combatants could not benefit from that and would always fall back on doctrine, closing range for better accuracy.

Ultimately, it all comes down to luck, first damaging hit wins. The real question is who has the best chance of getting that lucky hit.

[Werner]

South Dakota and the rest of the US line had second-generation FC RADAR by late 1942. The problem was operational (ask Scott & Callahan). The people simply had not caught up to the hardware.

By September 1943, they would have had the suite that won at Suriago. By 1945 they would have had the next-generation blind-fire systems which make FC optics obsolete.

Look at the surface fire systems of Worcester. Although not her primary function, she is fitted with fire control RADAR, but absolutely no optics. She still has an armored conning tower and belt armor. For BuShips to propose and the General Board to adopt such an arrangement is a stunning vote of confidence in these elements of the system. Optics were no longer necessary for accurate surface shooting at the time Worcester was designed. Not even for backup in this particular class. The CNO considered Worcester a vital new design worth repeating in 1945.

W

[ddp]

doesn't warspite hold the record or at least the british record for hitting a ship at about 25,000 yds at the battle of mantapan(sp?) in the med against the italian fleet that cost them at least 3 cruisers??

[Werner]

The three modified QEs would have had the same fire control gear as King George V.

W

[Filipe Ramires]

doesn't warspite hold the record or at least the british record for hitting a ship at about 25,000 yds at the battle of mantapan(sp?) in the med against the italian fleet that cost them at least 3 cruisers??

Warspite was a winner, in other words, the most medaled battleship of the war. She got, for starters, the german destroyers at Narvik and a submarine(yes, her Walrus got a german U-boat when entering Narvik fjord); 3 Zara class Italian cruisers; and in fact, like you said, the longest hit of the war on the Caio Dulio (I think it's that one). Lucky shot or good firing controls I don't know who got it...she got a hit and that's the important thing. Like Bryan said above, it's alll a matter of who draws first blood!

[Anonymous]

Your absurd defence of these Japanese ships is entirely without merit, logic or any reflection of history.

W

No more absurd than your bizarre and baseless notion that a single 8" cruiser could sink the Yamato.

[Gone Asiatic]

Reading Chuck and Werner`s exchanges remind me of the movie "Sink the Bismark" with that battle scene when the British and Germans are exchanging broadsides: "FIRE!!!" "SHOOT!!!" "FIRE!!!" "SHOOT!!!"



So, if Chuck and Werner were warships, which type and class would you assess each to be?

[Filipe Ramires]

Chuck: Yamato
Werner: Des Moines!!!!