Nelson, North Carolina, and Russian battleships

How well would these units do against the toughest of foes? And what was the best battleship ever built by the Russians and how good is it?

 

soviets bb : the only ones during ww2 were the gangut class: gangut, sevastapol, petropavlovsk, poltava
23,360 tones
12 12" guns
max speed 23 knots
laid down , all of them on june 3 1909,
so as you can see there are not match for any other bb

 

North Carolina had excellent range, not a whole lot of speed, merely adequate armor, good torpedo protection, and magnificent firepower.
The Soviets initiated some dreadnought projects in the 1930's, but their industrial limitations prevented any completions before the Germans came to visit.
The Sevastopols were well designed to face the weaponry of the Russo-Japanese War. Unfortunately, weaponry changed a lot in the years right after that. Armor covered almost the entire hull; being so spread out, the thickness was inadequate against the new AP shells. In addition, the deck protection was simply awful, probably the worst of any dreadnought's. On the plus side, the 12in guns were superb for their caliber.

 

Call me a twisted devant but I quiet like the appearance of the Nelsons. Its a sorts of 'I am a warship and make no claim to the contra'. Much better than those pretty boy Iowas

 

Nelsol and Rodnol

A lot of folks at the time felt that Nelson's appearance represented a claim to oiler status.

 

I understand Nelson and Rodney were underpowered, leading to bad rolling characteristics and a slow response to the helm, plus a mediocre speed of around 23 knots.

 

At the time when the Nelsons were completed, the only battleships with notably higher speed were the Nagatos. Speed has nothing to do with roll behavior.
Nelson's maneuverability quickly got a poor reputation, but that was because of her unusual characteristics. Personnel familiar with the ship's peculiarities had little trouble, and maneuverability was superior in some ways to that of the QEs.

 

All ships have their little quirks, even the best of them.

 

If you look at Nelson's bridge, you'll see that the conning station was nearer the stern than the bow. That must've taken some getting used to.

 

In the Royal Navy at the time, the Nelson and Rodney were only marginally slower than the 5 QE class BBs (designed for 25 kts, actually managed about 24) and well suited to operate with the QEs or the slightly slower R's. Of course the BCs were around 30 kts, but they were a separate squadron. Given the extra punch of 9x16" over 8x15", they were a good bet at the time. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight (always 20/20 vision), they should have been 5 kts faster....

As far as maneuverability goes, I understand (source Radford, J "Pilot Aboard") that they were fine at reasonable speeds, but when very slow e.g. mooring, the superstructure (well off the mid-point of the hull) acted as a sail in moderate winds.

Then there is always the fact that they could scare off many opponents by their appearance alone :lol: (do I hear anyone mention FUSO at this point )

 

Ah, yeah. I don't think Yamashiro or Fuso would have sacred any good battleship with an overly tall Pagoda tower. Take Leyte Gulf for example. USS Mississippi didn't have any trouble putting the hurt on Fuso with her 14-inch guns.

 

Re: Nelsol and Rodnol

More like oil tanker with an attitude problem (okay greenpeace take your best shot )

 

IIRC, FUSO was sunk by a torpedo hit, wasn't she?

 

Yes, Fuso was sunk by torpedo damage before the big guns opened up. Yamashiro was crushed by gunfire from West Virginia, Tennessee, and California primarily.

 

Battleship Row's chance to take revenge on the country that sank 'em. Even though airplanes did the job (sinking Battleship Row).

 

IIRC, it took only one torpedo to kill FUSO. She doesn't seem to have been much of a battlewagon, to go down so easily.

 

I'd have to agree that Fuso was not the most impressive of battleships, either in her original state or as modernized. Since we don't have any survivor testimony, we dn't know exactly what happened on board. Presumably the flash from the torpedo explosion caused a fire in or near a magazine. In the same battle, her sister Yamashiro took four torpedo hits (and innumerable shell hits) without exploding.

 

No, she just burned and capsized.

But it's true, YAMASHIRO did take a real beating before she sank. Interestingly enough, according to the book "Sea of Thunder" by Evan Thomas, both YAMASHIRO and FUSO had been withdrawn from first-line service and were being used as training ships prior to Leyte Gulf.

 

They operated on training exercises, but I can't verify that they were ever withdrawn from frontline service. Fuso's schedule in 1944 was quite busy.

 

If they were withdrawn from frontline service, it would mean that the IJN literally scraped up every ship it could for the Leyte operation. What were the figures for their armor protection, armament, and performance? This information might well indicate whether or not they had been relegated to the training rle.