Super Battleships We Will Never See

The proposed Montana was a follow-on class to the Iowa class;


Montana class battleship - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I got a chance to tour the USS Iowa. It's here in the Mothball Fleet in the Suisun (pronounced sue-soon) Bay. The USS Iowa is one hell of a ship.

 

This might be an opportunity to ask a question that has puzzled me for some time.

How did the makers of battleships create super-thick armour with such precision? I've seen a photo of the Yamato under construction, with a number of Japanese builders standing on top of a near-perfect cylinder of 18-inch or thicker armour that was to support one of the main turrets. How did they make that apparently seamless steel cylinder of huge size?

I've also seen a photo of an armoured door leading into the redoubt of an American battleship. It was snugly carved into at least 16 inches of tough steel armour, fitting smoothly and perfectly.

Unfortunately I didn't keep the photos. But I'm simply amazed by the way that very thick slabs of hard steel were worked in those days. How did they do it?

 

The barbette armor does not support the turret. There is a roller track spaced a foot or two inside the barbette, and most of the weight sits on that. That way, if the barbette armor is distorted by a hit, the turret can remain in action. Some American and Soviet cruisers had the roller (or bearing) track right on the barbette armor, and perhaps some other thinly protected ships did, but it wasn't the best solution.

 

Barbettes for turrets are not one piece of steel but rather a series of curved plates rivetted or welded together to form the ring. Turret armor and belt armor likewise was made up of individual plates joined to form the final shape.
In most cases these plates were of a single thickness. But, there are cases where several thinner plates are stacked to make the desired thickness. This method had the disadvantage of being weaker than a single thick plate would be.
As for making these plates:
The usual method was to first cast the plate in its rough thickness. The plate was then placed on a truck bottom and rolled into a furnace where it was heated under controlled conditions and allowed to undergo various processes that removed excess carbon, hardened the plate, changed its crystalization pattern and size, was face hardened by adding carbon, etc.
This plate could then be machined or ground using very large machinery to the exact finished surface, thickness and, shape necessary for production.

 

The recent Warship International articles on the South Dakota class show the armor scheme with its individual plates labeled.

 

Thank you for the answers!

 

the iowa class BBs were designed to be escort battleships (the speed requirement makes this obvious.) the montanas, on the other hand, were intended to really fight other BBs in-line.

 

Does it? If you look at when they were designed and ordered I'm not at all sure that there is much of a case for the Iowa's being designed to be escort BBs.

 

We'd be under a misconception if we thought that the Iowa requirements distinguished her from battleships intended to "really fight other battleships in-line." The speed requirement was there to ensure that Iowas could counter Kongos, but that doesn't mean they weren't supposed to act as traditional ships of the battle line.

 

I was under the impression that the Alaska Class 9 x 12inch guns were meant to be escort battleships (overlarge cruisers), hence the same weight and machinery of the Essex class.

Steve

 

The story I know is that the Alaska class was created in response to faulty intelligence of japanese plans to built "pocket battleships" for commerce raiding. This in turn prompted the japanes to design the Type B-64 class ( 32.000 tonns, 33 knots and 9 x 12.2 inch guns ) that suffered the same fate as the majority of the ships quoted in this thread. Before the fact that planes could sink capital ships was accepted the only way to destroy a fast battleship was believed to be a faster battleship, having a superior slower squadron is not going to help you unless you can create a situation where your faster opponent has to fight.

 

Alaska emerged from perceptions of a couple threats. One was the German pocket battleships. One was the Japanese pocket battleships...which didn't exist. And one was the powerful Japanese corps of heavy cruisers. There doesn't appear to have been consideration given to the Kongos, but the perceived threat was similar--fast Japanese units catching an exposed carrier.
B-64 was the Amagi class. B-65 was the Alaska-like unit. It began as a ship to provide a spearhead for the torpedo attack by heavy cruisers that was to precede the decisive battle line action, a mission that had also motivated the second Kongo modernization. This came before the announcement of the Alaskas, but the Alaskas provided an increased impetus to the project and inspired an escalation to larger guns and heavier armor.

 

the iowa's high speed was meant to keep up with fleet carriers that can run in excess of 30 knots. the montanas were designed to do 27 kts.

i suppose speed in excess of 30kts will give you some tactical advantages in a BB-BB fights but i think TA gardner already explained the crucials to BB fighting with regard to speed, radar fire detection, visual sighting, and fire control.

 

speaking of the thread title,i can't see any more superbattleships at all in the furture.
at the end of ww2,battleships were overtaken by aircraft-carriers as being more supreme therefore making battle ships opseltete. these days it super aircraft -carriers,battleships are not build to be super surpreme unlike pre ww1 and ww2.
we'll never see a super surpeme navy english/american /german battle ship ever again.

 

land attack ships? large cruisers and destroyers have difficulty operating close to shore and frigates/corvettes lack firepower.

 

The problem with that theory is that the US was looking at Iowa class speeds from well before the Essex class was designed. Indeed Iowa was ordered a year before the Essex. Furthermore it wasn't clear how important CVs were until 42 or arguably Dec of 41.

 

if so, why design a 12-gun version that goes much slower?

 

Essex wasn't the first carrier to exceed 30 knots.
The "Two-Ocean" construction bill included more carriers than battleships as of Sept 1940.

 

Different role. Note that the Monatana's couldn't transit the Panama canal either.

But earlier it was said that the Iowa's were specifically designed to escort the Essex class CVs. I'm not sure that at that point in time the US even planned for BBs and CVs to be in the same formation. I think it was already clear that you didn't want anyone shooting at your CVs.

At that point we had significantly more BBs than CVs and it was clear that the importance of CVs was increasing.