Super Battleships We Will Never See

Tiornu can you give me some references for this ??? preferably from primary sources.
In "The Impetal Japanese Navy" by Watts and Gordon the 12" are identified as B-64 and a WEB search turns up B-64 and B-65 as belonging to the same class (Hulls 795 and 796), but the Watts & Gordon book is pretty old, I have nothing more recent (or primary sources come to that) on Japanese ships and the Internet is useless as one bad info may easily propagate to dozens of sites.

Found the the picture below of Alaska and Misssouri, maybe calling Alaska a "large cruiser" is not that far off the mark if you look at a contemporary battleship!!!

 

I didn't see the previous Essex reference, just a reference to escort work. in fact, this idea was also a part of the North Carolina design development, and it was the anticipated 26 knots of the Kongo's that helped cement the American speed requirement at that time.

In this regard, the Japanese heavy cruisers and Kongos loomed large in American thinking. The fact that slow battleships did not figure prominently as offensive or defensive factors indicates that the USN had discounted operating the carriers in formations with them.

 

It should be in the posthumously published collection of Hiraga's papers. More accessible options would be Kaigun Hôjutsu-shi or Lacroix & Wells. Any source giving the design number for Amagi should indicate B-64.

 

Why is that a problem?

The Yorktown class could do 32 knots and the Lexington class could do 33 knots. The USN knew without a doubt, that any future carriers (Essex-class) would be just as fast.

As for the importance of CV's in 1940, the USN not only ordered a dozen Essex class in 1940, but also accorded them absolute top priority in materials, yard space, and labor, which allowed most of them to be finished in 18 months or less. I'd say that meant the USN figured they were pretty damned important to future war-fighting capability.

 

Initially it was claimed that the Iowa class was designed specifically to escort the Essex class. That referance seams to have gone missing.

Indeed but you don't necessarily need a BB that's as fast or faster than the CVs to operate with them even in the same formation. It's not clear to me that it would have been reasonable to require the Iowas be as fast as they were soley or even mostly for that reason when they were designed.

Clearly at that point they were. However the Iowa's were designed well beofre 1940 and CV aircraft had become much more leathal in the late 30s and early 40s.

I believe Tiornu has supplied the real reason that the Iowa's design speed was as high as it was. I was mearly pointing out that the alternative hypothesis was unreasonable. Now if you were designing a BB in say 1943 such factors/criteria would be very reaonsable. Certianly they proved quite useful the way things worked out. It's like saying that human hands evolved so that we could type on keyboards.

 

The most detailed account of the Iowa design history is given by--surprise surprise--Norman Friedman in his book US Battleships.