Yamatos Type 94 46cm/45 guns

but the carrier was Queen, not BBs....

 

The US had concluded that a point of diminishing returns had been reached with 16" guns. That's why, even though the US had experimented with 18" guns, 16's were chosen for the Montana class. The performance of the US 16" super heavies in either the 16/45 or 16/50 weren't that much worse than the IJN's 18" guns either. Indeed both look to be better deck penetrators and at at least some ranges the 16/50 was a better belt penetrator.

 

Bigger is not always better, all the more so if it reduces the number of guns too far. Eight guns were generally considered the minimum for effective gunfire control. The only six-gun capital ships of the 20th century were Renown and Repulse, which were designed around what was available in the unrealistically short construction time demanded by Fisher.

Fisher seems to have had a change of heart in his second term at the Admiralty. His great innovation had been the Dreadnought, which increased main battery guns from four to ten. By WWI he had a new obsession with gun caliber. R&R were followed by the "large light cruisers" Courageous and Glorious with four 15" and Furious designed with just two 18".

Fisher's pets picked up typically humorous Royal Navy nicknames: Refit, Repair, Outrageous, Curious, and Spurious.

 

Good points although there is an argument for the panzershiffe being capital ships and they also only carried 6 main guns but clearly were constructed under some pretty severe restraints.

 

yeah, but leyte gulf confirmed what some people feared: 10 carriers can stop a couple battleships but not 7 coming from different directions. and if most of the 7 had 18.1 inchers and maybe a couple had 20-inchers, you'd want comparable BB's on your side, just in case.

 

10 CV carriers can stop more than a couple of BBs.....7 different directions?? ? .....most would not have 18 inchers...did you not read post 21? they are not building the super BBs....you said 'if the war dragged on".....no super BBs
3rd Fleet CVs much more powerful than the Taffys at Samar....more recon, more planes, more power....did not the CVs have more AP bombs than the Taffys?? Taffys were more for ground support?
the BBs do not want to tangle with CVs....that's why they lured them away at Leyte......Kurita thought the Taffy's were CVs, that's one of the reasons he broke contact.....and you've got CV power and 'standard' BBs coming at you--complete destruction of IJN
the subs are murdering Japan's lifelines, and Japan is going to build a bunch of super BBs ???even in peace, you can't just 'build' a ship just like that....with bigger guns, there has to be testing, engineering, planning, etc.....takes a looong time to plan and build 'different' technology...then, after launching, it takes time to train the crew and the final shakedown of the ship to test seaworthiness....it's not like you put a crew on and the ship works like an ''old salt'' [pro, veteran]
I guess what you mean is if the war was totally different.....much thanks all replies

 

I believe he meant to say...7 battleships coming from three different directions: Ise & Hyuga heading south, Yamato, Musashi, & Nagato heading east, and Yamashiro & Fuso heading north. The carriers only managed to sink Musashi, while the American OBBs sank Yamashiro & Fuso.

Don't be fooled. The CVEs had plenty of torpedoes(IIRC, 15 per CVE) in their magazines, and could have dealt Kurita's fleet several heavy blows. But they made a butch of the morning's air recon missions - launched some 2 hours late. Not to mention the fact that, they either had or were preparing to launch an anti-shipping strike at retreating Japanese warships(Nishimura's I believe). However this does not play into the Taffy "myth" so it is conveniently buried and forgotten.

AP bombs don't usually sink battleships, torpedoes do.

In the beginning, I believe he did. However, he did realize that his targets were not the American fleet carriers and that the American fleet carriers that had struck his fleet earlier had to still be within striking distance...That is one of the reasons he broke off.

 

roger that Takao....I'll have to post in the Samar thread.......how many BB vs BB battles were there in the Pacific? how many CV or CVE vs BB battles?--because the CVs usually will not want enemy BBs 'nearby' !....so they usually stay away from them......
Surigao Strait was more of a massacre than a battle...PT boats banging first...crossing the T ....a captain's 'dream' battle.....and a lot of the Canal battles were 'point blank range'.....so, would the bigger guns have mattered?? I think not.....just not worth it to make the bigger BBs.....
I thought Yamato's fire control was not as good as the US ships?

 

Yamato's optical fire control was probably better than that of the US. Her radar fire control wasn't as good though. She did apparently have radar rangeing but I seam to recall that it wasn't fed directly into the fire control computers but had to be manually transferred.

 

Conversely, we might consider the impact if Halsey's six BBs were six (or more) additional Essex class carriers. But overall it probably was best to have some BBs, and of course a mix of BBs and CVs seemed appropriate a few years earlier when the ships were being designed and programmed.

It is a bit curious that Halsey's idea of a carrier battle included closing to gun range, taking his forces a couple of hundred miles further from Leyte/Samar than if they had just launched air attacks. I wonder if he might have been influenced by himself being on New Jersey.

 

One can claim that battleships became obsolete before pearl harbor --after 1945 perhaps. Put yourself in a commander's shoes, not an historian's. Assume the above premise was true and the war's still on, AND your carrier force is all but destroyed, just like at leyte gulf. All you have left are battlesips. What will you do, surrender? You'll keep fighting. And along with the prayer that your carrier force will recover, you'd also want a couple new and better battleships in the package.

 

...Samar was not typical......they were not--not building super BBs...takes a long time to build a BB......USS Missouri took over 3 years..Iowa 2 years....etc etc
the enemy has carriers and you have BBs?? war over.....
both sides no carriers?? US industrial power overwhelming.......?????? the US sub force is ordered to disengage?
claim to be obsolete?? Prince of Wales and Repulse

how is it going to drag on when the Jap carrier force was destroyed and TF 38 intact?