Most underrated battleship/battlecruiser?

I think so, in a nutshell a Dreadnought is a Battleship, but a Battleship is not necessarily a Dreadnought?

 

I'd like to add something to Ebar's answer.
There was some 11" gunned dreadnoughts, mainly german.
Generally term "Dreadnought" is used on ship which had all big gun armament, just like Ebar says.
Steam turbines aren't generally thought to be part of "dreadnought" definition, as there were many VTE-engined all big gun battleships after HMS Dreadnought.

HMS Dreadnought had also some other significant features too.
Building time: Mere one year and one day after keel she was doing her sea trials.
Cost: She was priced about same than last RN pre-dreadnoughts.
Also her protection was better than last RN pre-dreadnoughts.
Therefore her combination of speed, armour, firepower and endurance was awesome.

No wonder why all battleships after her are called "Dreadnoughts".

Only things she lacked was all centerline main armament and oilfired boilers. Former were already introduced and latter was on its way.

By the way Ebar, germans used their PD's up to 1945. AFAIK, they escorted convoys, laid mines, shot advancing russians, were floating AA-platforms etc but also were used at training duties.

 

Well, sort of.
We, or should I say, you(r country) had also all big gun armoured cruisers which are sometime called dreadnoughts too. Battlecruisers.

 

Thanks, much appreciated!

 

Was anything done to the ship before the testing, were parts of the ship left open or was eveything closed up tight?

 

Yes I should have said nothing below 11" rather than 12" counted

The term Semi Dreadnought is occasionally applied to those first generation Dreadnoughts that stuck with the inferior but tried and proven triple expansion machinery.

I stand corrected.

 

Yes, "dreadnought" should include battlecruisers, which were occasionally called "dreadnought armored cruisers." The important feature here is All-Big-Gun (whatever big may be: 28cm for some 46cm for others).
Dreadnought was the first all-big-gun battleship to be commissioned, overtaking South Carolina. I think "dreadnought" sounds much better than "south carolina."

"Was anything done to the ship before the testing, were parts of the ship left open or was eveything closed up tight?"
I believe the ship was buttoned up, and I believe it had sustained damage from previous bombings.
Concerning the Arizona quote, it was true that no battleship had been lost to bombing in combat. The vulnerability of an unmanned, motionless ship was too obvious to mention and not relevant to real life. It's interesting that the writer specified bombs; this was a year after Taranto.

 

Really Pearl Harbour did prove anything new. The real mortal blow for the Battleship was the sinking of Force Z. This showed that aircraft could sink battleships that were prepared for action and underway in open water.

 

Pearl Harbour was a re-run of Taranto, on a bigger scale and with dive-bombers added.

Until Force Z went down, the navy (any navy) could still say 'no plane can sink a battleship at sea in combat'. Because obviously a battleship can outmanouver a plane... :-?

 

Dive bombers weren't that important as anti-ship units at Pearl Harbor. I think they wrecked three destroyers, but horizontal bombers (using bombs that weighed almost as much as Mitchell's) were responsible for destroying Arizona.

 

Pearl Harbour was a re-run of Taranto, on a bigger scale and with non-torpedo bombers added.

Is that accurate?

 

Not sure... Didn't the Swordfish at Taranto also level bomb? I guess one big difference would be that Taranto happened at night.

 

Will I ever get this correct?

 

No to the best of my knowledge the Swordfish at Taranto dropped their bombs in a shallow dive. Not really level bombing and not really dive-bombing.

Unfortunately many of the bombs showed a marked reluctance to go off.

 

I don't think we'd find it instructive to call Pearl a "re-run" of anything any more than we can call (for example) Jutland a re-run of a previous fleet action. There is the superficial resemblance of two carrier-based raids against enemy ports, but the two operations as wholes are not closely related beyond that superficial resemblance. Day, night. Combatant, neutral. Mediterranean, trans-oceanic.

 

At Tananto, torpedo equipped Swordfish went for the battleships in the Mar Grande on the seaward side of Taranto harbour while bomb equipped Swordfish attacked crusiers and destroyers in the Mar Piccalo on the shore side of Taranto harbour and at least one attacked oil storage tanks.

Flare equipped Swordfish lit up the scene for the torpedo eqipped aircraft and I think these were the ones armed with bombs.

3 battleships were out of action for varying lengths - Conte de Cavour (never went to sea again), Littorio (4 months) and the Caia Diulio (6 months) and the heavy crusier Trento, some destroyers and the oil storage depot took bomb hits.

As Tiornu says, it couldn't really be called a re-run, just a similar action.

And if you have heard about a possible third wave at Pearl Harbour to attack the oil storage tanks - its wrong, there never were plans, just a rumour that got started.

 

But the hit that killed ARIZONA was, IIRC, the only one the horizontal bombers made at Pearl Harbor. Of course, it *was* a doozy!

 

It wasn't the only such hit, but it was the only one that caused serious damage. In general the Type 80 bombs performed poorly, showing a tendency to break up against thick armor.

 

Too bad that that one hit didn't do the same!

 

Well, let's see...

Taranto -
level bombers + torpedo bombers attack an enemy fleet in harbour at night, achieveing tactical surprise. The torpedoes prove very effective, but most of the bombs are less than satisfactory. A fair bit of shipping is sunk.

Pearl Harbour -
dive bombers + level bombers + torpedo bombers attack an enemy fleet in harbour in daylight, achieveing strategic + tactical surprise. The torpedoes prove very effective, but most of the bombs are less than satisfactory. A fair bit of shipping is sunk.

Differences? Pearl had dive bombers, and the Japanese did not need to attack at night, due to the strategic surprise bit (plus it would have made life bloomin' difficult for them!)

Am I flogging a dead horse to save face?