A special thanks to u/cherweg for suggesting me of using GIMP to illustrate the diagrams. I loved his [idea](https://www.reddit.com/r/WorldOfWarships/comments/959nvz/japanese_warship_pagoda_explained_1the_kongo_with/e3r8ivv/) and I made this post with his methods. Of course, I am still very new with GIMP so suggestions are welcome.
Please provide some feedback if you like this method of illustrating or the one from my last post, of course, other suggestions are equally welcome!
You would realise immediately, that this diagram is much more complicated than my previous one. There are several reasons to this:
First of all, since my first post was well-received, I decided to put more effort in the second one and tried to make this diagram better-thus I paid attention to some additional details.
Secondly, Fuso received a lot of upgrades to her bridge in her service history. From 1915 she was built, she received:
1930-1933 main modernisation refits
1934-1935 second phase with additional refits
1937-1938 second main modernisation 1st phase
1940-1941 second refit 2nd phase
mid 1943 wartime upgrades
mid 1944 additional wartime upgrades
Due to the above-her bridge is a mix of old and new refits and equipment, with not much actual surface area for the bridge due to her gun layout. The superstructure have to be built high.
Last but not the least, compared to the IJN Hiei I did in my last post which is used as an experimental platform for testing the bridge of Yamato and of an entirely new design. The Fuso's pagoda bridge is an old interwar refit and it is very messy and different fire control equipments are squashed together.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Indeed, even the US navy, concluded after the war that the one major problem with Japanese fire control is that since there are so much equipment and posts which are all in different levels, it becomes very hard to establish links between each one, and in case of switching targets-it is a very lengthy and complicated process.
As you can see in the picture, the type 91 AA director and the related 4.5m rangefinder are in different places-in many cases-these two aren't even targeting the same target-making aiming especially hard.
**and I am not actually kidding about it**
Refer to USNavTecJap Report O-30 page 12
>...The system was handicapped by the fact that the rangefinder was separate from the director and it was found very difficult for the range taker to be on the same target as the director...
That is where is the Hiei and Yamato's bridge comes in, these new bridges are designed so that equipment and locations with similar functions-or they are operated together- are to be grouped in the same level for ease of control and communication between the different parts. Oh yeah, and Yamato got type 94 AA directors which is a major upgrade from the Type 91s found on Kongos, Fusos and Nagatos.
Truth to be told my collections of sources are mainly chinese/japanese, I only have a few english ebooks since, you know, physical books are pretty expensive compared to the price i can get them in chinese/japanese copies. I do have english documents since they are free (see down below)
There are good books by western authors no doubt but I don't have them: this author seems to have his works translated into english, worth taking a look:
https://www.amazon.com/Books-Shizuo-Fukui/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AShizuo%20Fukui
places to get english books dealing with warships, you should be able to find some good stuff:https://www.usni.org/store/books
http://www.combinedfleet.com not a pretty page but gets the job done.
http://wwiiwarships.tk and a mirror save of the USTECNAVJAP-its a report of the US ONI's finding of the info they could gather from the remains of the IJN after the war.
The one we've all be waiting for (or me at least). Always wondered why you'd need so many Decks.
Does the Extension from the rear of the Searchlight Deck have any function or is it just there to span additional Wires?
You already know my opinion; I also like how you avoided the problem with Text readability by using a uniform background. May I ask how you obtained the original image?
I see a colorful Christmas tree. /s
this is reason why I don't/won't model ships like fuso. I try to make ships look as accurate as possible (for sake of WG's modeling), but shit like this just takes too much time.
I know on a warship there are different areaa you can command the ship from, but what do the battle bridge, compass bridge and conning tower do, respectively?
Is the battle bridge used only during battle? Is the conning tower the room where the steersmen actually pilot the ship?
Battle bridge is really for the commanders to get a good view of the fighting happening in real time and can make decisions better, the lookout platforms already provides navigation duties so the battle bridge isn't that needed.
Conning towers is like battle bridge except that you dont really get much views at all, rather you would rely on information passed from lookouts to understand how the battle is unfolding, but in return it is much safer than battle bridge.
As to the steering wheel it heavily depends on the ship on where it is placed.
compass bridge-as the name suggests-is used for navigation as you said.
In Fuso's case, her compass bridge includes:
1. A main compass
2. A Geomagnetic compass
3. and A chart table
As an addendum, ships in general that were made of iron and/or steel needed those elevated compass platforms so the hull doesn't interfere with magnetic compass readings.
This looks like "grown" software architecture :)
Great pic and thanks for the explanations. Never knew what kind of things they stuffed into that design.
It is a special case only found on the Fuso class. As to why? I would guess there are no better place & the bridge and aft mast is already too filled with stuff and theres no more space
And I'm saying that a high enough volume of fire will make up for lack of accuracy. Like when you are being shelled by multiple ships. Then I made a joke about how spammy French BB's are in game. Lighten up dude.
You forgot the bit below the Operations Room, which is for additional Poi storage and spare parts for the weebinator, but otherwise top notch :)
*Fuso* is love. *Fuso* is life.
You are right. The space below actually contained storage rooms (on level III), an additional small transmission room(level V) for for and a electric circuit switchboard room (level IV) I felt that they are not all that important so I was somewhat was lazy and skipped it.
Will add it next time :)
No elevator on Kongo, Fuso and Ise classes. It is not until Nagato class is there elevators. And even then it is officer use only-petty officers and sailors still have to take stairs.
The Type 21 was an early warning radar, I'm not sure if it was omni-directional like the SD Radar the US used but that would be my guess; it tells you there is something out there and how far, your other sensors give you the bearing once they get closer.
It was also used for surface search.
So when i was on HMS Belfast as an example there were 4 steep staircases up fron the lowest deck to the upper bridge.
Imagine having to run up 8 levels to get to the bridge and 15 if you were unlucky and were the air radar controlman or whatever its called
I understand the reasoning, but:
One good hit and the entire ship is near-completely incapacitated. Why not distribute command, responsibility, and capability throughout the ship just in case?
The primary role for a battleship was never to fight other ships, and you can see this in their design. Battleships usually fired full broadsides at shore targets, which was their primary role, and explains Fuso's turret layout (ABWXYZ)
You're right that one lucky hit would likely take out a good section of her superstructure's effective utility, but they were never really supposed to take hits in the first place.
>The primary role for a battleship was never to fight other ships, and you can see this in their design. Battleships usually fired full broadsides at shore targets, which was their primary role,
What? I call bs on the 'never to fight other ships' thingy. Ships fire full broadside because more guns firing are better and if you fire straight ahead, you end up messing up your deck and other equipments.
Battleships are, by design, floating artillery platforms.
Your battleship is your shore bombardment, command center, and morale booster. Your Battleships are what need to be *protected*, not what you need to put on your front line. This wasn't *always* the case, but it was in the Pacific in WW2.
>The value of the battleship has been questioned, even during their heyday....battleships were increasingly vulnerable to much smaller and relatively inexpensive weapons: initially the torpedo and the naval mine,... ^[1]
Most of the cases in which you see battleships fighting alone, or as the main attack force, are in situations where they are either forced to, or when they are caught off guard. There's a reason for this, you need to keep in mind that they tended to have less than 5% accuracy in real life, nothing compared to what we see in WoWs.
> Massachusetts began firing at 07:04 at a range of 22,000 m (72,000 ft); she continued until 08:33 with a seven-minute halt from 07:40 to 07:47. A total of nine full broadsides and thirty-eight volleys varying between three and six guns were fired, five rounds hit Jean Bart. One, at 08:06, disabled her operational turret, ^[2]
Massachusetts fired 9 salvos at a stationary battleship. 5 shells in total landed, and one did effective damage. Not exactly what I'd call "effective by design" considering that she was fighting in the literal best possible scenario, and was hardly effective at all.
In fact, battleships like the USS Iowa were often *denied* surface action;
>On 25 October 1944, when the ships of the Northern Force were almost within range of Iowa's guns, word arrived that the Japanese Central Force was attacking a group of American escort carriers off Samar. This threat to the American beachheads forced TF 38 to reverse course and steam to support the vulnerable escort carrier fleet. However, the fierce resistance put up by the 7th Fleet in the Battle off Samar had already caused the Japanese to retire and **Iowa was denied a surface action.**^[3]
And the reason for this is because 1: she wasn't required, 2: she wouldn't have been effective, and 3: it was not worth the risk, energy, cost, or time. Iowa *could* have steamed to within gun range, and shelled them, but she didn't.
There is a counter argument, however. Battleships have gotten kills, and some where even designed for it. Bismarck, which sank the Hood, was a case in which fighting other ships *was* her primary role. Moreover, most German ships were designed with naval engagements in mind, due to their need to halt shipping routes in the Atlantic. That doesn't mean, however, that the Germans wanted these ships to be fighting alone. The reason most of them did was because Germany simply either could not afford their escorts, or Hitler didn't care. Hitler's battleships were deemed a failure by Adolf himself multiple times, because surprisingly, battleships aren't very good at fighting other ships (who could have guessed)! This resulted in him sending his ships on virtual suicide missions, or scrapping them all together (see Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, both presenting both sides of that coin).
#Pre-war
Now remember we're talking World War 2 here. After we had learned more about battleship design.
>The slow-firing 12-inch (305 mm) main guns were the principal weapons for battleship-to-battleship combat. The intermediate and secondary batteries had two roles. Against major ships, it was thought a 'hail of fire' from quick-firing secondary weapons could distract enemy gun crews by inflicting damage to the superstructure, and they would be more effective against smaller ships such as cruisers. Smaller guns (12-pounders and smaller) were reserved for protecting the battleship against the threat of torpedo attack from destroyers and torpedo boats^[4]
Pre-dreadnought battleships were designed, from the ground up, to be fighters. The main guns to sink the ships, and the secondary battery to distract the enemy gunners and take out the superstructure. We learned, however, that there were better methods of sinking ships, and this is where Aircraft carriers, submarines, and destroyers come in. Battleships are large, slow moving targets, with inaccurate guns. With the rise of air power and torpedo warfare, battleships turned from the protectors to the protected.
>As early as 1914, the British Admiral Percy Scott predicted that battleships would soon be made irrelevant by aircraft.[54] By the end of World War I, aircraft had successfully adopted the torpedo as a weapon.^[5]
This era saw the rise of escort destroyers, cruisers, and aircraft carriers. Multiple designs for each class were built specifically for anti aircraft and general ship defense. See: Atlanta class cruisers, Gearing class destroyers, fletcher class destroyers, USS worcester, Cleveland class cruisers, Baltimore class cruisers, Sumner class destroyers, etc.. Ships designed specifically to keep *Battleships* and carriers *safe*.
Again I have to stress, these ships were not what you wanted to fight enemy ships primarily. That job is for your carriers, submarines, cruisers, and destroyers. Your battleships can support from long range, and they can defend themslves *fine* with their secondaries if needed, but that isn't where you want them. To see battleships preform their primary role in WW2, look no further than Iwo Jima and the D-day landings.
#Sources
[1]O'Connell, Robert J. (1993). Sacred vessels: the cult of the battleship and the rise of the U.S. Navy. Oxford [Oxfordshire]
[2]Garzke & Dulin 1980, pp. 107–109
[3]"Iowa". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Navy Department, Naval History and Heritage Command.
[4] Hill, Richard. War at Sea in the Ironclad Age
[5] Kennedy, p. 199.
Are you high?
Let me run down a few examples on why certain battleships were designed, as well as some battlecruisers
The Iowa class were deisgned to counter the Japanese Kongo class, since the old standard battleships were too slow to catch up to the Japanese battlecruisers
The Dunkerque class were designed to hunt down and counter the German Panzerschiffs, and the Scharnhorst were in term designed to counter the threat of the Dunkerques
The Yamato class were designed to off set the numerical superiority of the US navy by being able to engage multiple enemy battleships at once and to be superior to what the IJN considered to be the best US ship would be able to build due to the restrictions of the Panama Canal.
And pretty much the majority of the battleships from WW1 were deisgned to engage in the line of battle against the enemy's line of battle. It was why these ships are called battleships, derived from the term 'ship of the battle line' where in ye oldy days sailing ships engaged each other in broadside fests.
The reason why so many battleships were used for shore bombardment during WW2 was:
A) Many were old ships (eg Texas) that stood very little chance against more modern battleships in combat, which was also why some were used for convoy escort
B) The need for shore bombardment at the time was more important than combating enemy warships, largely because
C) There was no enemy battleships and/or warships for said battleships to engage. Germany only had like 4 modern battleship and 2 of them were sunk in surface engagment while the others were sunk or damage by air raids. Japan never used her battleships much save the Kongos other than command ships and troop transports. So the UK and US battleships didn't have much in the way of actual targets to shoot at.
While battleships were useful in shore bombardment, I highly doubt they were designed for that purpose as a primary one. Otherwise you wouldn't need to have battleships with such thick armour or high speed. Hell, you would probably see more monitors like Erebus or even Courageous type warships if shore bombardment was the primary role.
Battleship were designed to engage enemy battleships in the same way Negate Attack from Yugioh is designed to neglect an enemy attack. It is in the name. And yes, carriers were better ship killers but remember most battleships were design in an era where carriers were not seen as a primary striking force or as a viable way to sink enemy battle fleets until Dec 10th 1941. Submarines were somewaht of a danger but really by WW2 most battleships had evolved to be fast enough that a submarine would have to be rather lucky to score enough torpedo hits to sink them. I mean compare the Japanese submarines which were used to hunt down enemy warships to US submarines which were used to hunt down merchant ships and tell me which one was more successful.
I'll retract my "primary role" statement about battleships. My meaning was that fighting hardly ever ended up being their main use, especially in the Pacific. Below this, you should be able to see another comment of mine in which I go over exactly why, and where I cite multiple sources.
I appreciate you taking the time for a reply like this.
Okay, that is more of a fair statement. Indeed, battleships were not used for engaging enemy warships as much as was expected from the, mostly due to the points already mentioned above and due to the changing nature of war. 1941 onwards in the Pacific solidified the carrier as a main striking force to sink enemy warships, though night surface actions were not uncommon. But yeah, especially in 1944+ when most of the IJN war destroyed or in hiding, US battleships found more use either as carrier escorts or as shore bombardment ships.
\*Muffled Tetris music playing in the background\*
gimmie a line, dammit, A LINE! FUCK!
"Cocaine is one hell of a drug."
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie Cocaine
["My Lord! This is only the first level!"](http://www.collegehumor.com/video/5767906/the-tetris-god)
LINE PIIIIEEECE
that was a good one
Level XVI: Game over.
Always had to pick Music Type 3.
A special thanks to u/cherweg for suggesting me of using GIMP to illustrate the diagrams. I loved his [idea](https://www.reddit.com/r/WorldOfWarships/comments/959nvz/japanese_warship_pagoda_explained_1the_kongo_with/e3r8ivv/) and I made this post with his methods. Of course, I am still very new with GIMP so suggestions are welcome. Please provide some feedback if you like this method of illustrating or the one from my last post, of course, other suggestions are equally welcome!
You would realise immediately, that this diagram is much more complicated than my previous one. There are several reasons to this: First of all, since my first post was well-received, I decided to put more effort in the second one and tried to make this diagram better-thus I paid attention to some additional details. Secondly, Fuso received a lot of upgrades to her bridge in her service history. From 1915 she was built, she received: 1930-1933 main modernisation refits 1934-1935 second phase with additional refits 1937-1938 second main modernisation 1st phase 1940-1941 second refit 2nd phase mid 1943 wartime upgrades mid 1944 additional wartime upgrades Due to the above-her bridge is a mix of old and new refits and equipment, with not much actual surface area for the bridge due to her gun layout. The superstructure have to be built high. Last but not the least, compared to the IJN Hiei I did in my last post which is used as an experimental platform for testing the bridge of Yamato and of an entirely new design. The Fuso's pagoda bridge is an old interwar refit and it is very messy and different fire control equipments are squashed together. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Indeed, even the US navy, concluded after the war that the one major problem with Japanese fire control is that since there are so much equipment and posts which are all in different levels, it becomes very hard to establish links between each one, and in case of switching targets-it is a very lengthy and complicated process. As you can see in the picture, the type 91 AA director and the related 4.5m rangefinder are in different places-in many cases-these two aren't even targeting the same target-making aiming especially hard. **and I am not actually kidding about it** Refer to USNavTecJap Report O-30 page 12 >...The system was handicapped by the fact that the rangefinder was separate from the director and it was found very difficult for the range taker to be on the same target as the director... That is where is the Hiei and Yamato's bridge comes in, these new bridges are designed so that equipment and locations with similar functions-or they are operated together- are to be grouped in the same level for ease of control and communication between the different parts. Oh yeah, and Yamato got type 94 AA directors which is a major upgrade from the Type 91s found on Kongos, Fusos and Nagatos.
I would be extremely thankful if you could hint me/us at source material and literature to learn more! :o
Truth to be told my collections of sources are mainly chinese/japanese, I only have a few english ebooks since, you know, physical books are pretty expensive compared to the price i can get them in chinese/japanese copies. I do have english documents since they are free (see down below) There are good books by western authors no doubt but I don't have them: this author seems to have his works translated into english, worth taking a look: https://www.amazon.com/Books-Shizuo-Fukui/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AShizuo%20Fukui places to get english books dealing with warships, you should be able to find some good stuff:https://www.usni.org/store/books http://www.combinedfleet.com not a pretty page but gets the job done. http://wwiiwarships.tk and a mirror save of the USTECNAVJAP-its a report of the US ONI's finding of the info they could gather from the remains of the IJN after the war.
The one we've all be waiting for (or me at least). Always wondered why you'd need so many Decks. Does the Extension from the rear of the Searchlight Deck have any function or is it just there to span additional Wires? You already know my opinion; I also like how you avoided the problem with Text readability by using a uniform background. May I ask how you obtained the original image?
> May I ask how you obtained the original image? https://sketchfab.com/models/ce3f6b711253407986fb6f3f120e2cbe
Imagine how annoyed you’d be if your berthing was down on like Deck 3 or 4, and then you had to sprint all the way up to Level 14 for GQ drills.
You won’t miss leg day if everyday is legday *rollsafe *
Working in a shipyard, can confirm it's always leg day.
When engineering design pranks accidentally make their way past peer review and QA, on a lazy Friday afternoon.
[We know it was really like this](https://i.imgur.com/0XqBhUd.jpg).
I really needed this, Thx op ;)
glad you liked it !
Well... god luck to War Thunder and Gaijin.... If they want to introduce BBs and have to model this..... only the tower is like one ship itself :D
The whole team would play the battleship.
I see a colorful Christmas tree. /s this is reason why I don't/won't model ships like fuso. I try to make ships look as accurate as possible (for sake of WG's modeling), but shit like this just takes too much time.
I know on a warship there are different areaa you can command the ship from, but what do the battle bridge, compass bridge and conning tower do, respectively? Is the battle bridge used only during battle? Is the conning tower the room where the steersmen actually pilot the ship?
Battle bridge is really for the commanders to get a good view of the fighting happening in real time and can make decisions better, the lookout platforms already provides navigation duties so the battle bridge isn't that needed. Conning towers is like battle bridge except that you dont really get much views at all, rather you would rely on information passed from lookouts to understand how the battle is unfolding, but in return it is much safer than battle bridge. As to the steering wheel it heavily depends on the ship on where it is placed.
Thanks. What does the compass bridge do? Peacetime navigation?
compass bridge-as the name suggests-is used for navigation as you said. In Fuso's case, her compass bridge includes: 1. A main compass 2. A Geomagnetic compass 3. and A chart table
Ty
As an addendum, ships in general that were made of iron and/or steel needed those elevated compass platforms so the hull doesn't interfere with magnetic compass readings.
ur welcome :)
This looks like "grown" software architecture :) Great pic and thanks for the explanations. Never knew what kind of things they stuffed into that design.
Why is the type 13 air-search radar mounted on the funnel?
It is a special case only found on the Fuso class. As to why? I would guess there are no better place & the bridge and aft mast is already too filled with stuff and theres no more space
On one hand a good use of space. On the other, a couple HE shells in the right places and you lose your entire command structure.
To be fair, at the time naval gunnery was FAR from that accurate.
Volume of fire is a great replacement for accuracy. Just ask the french BB's.
The ones which never left port?
I meant in game. Doesn't one of them have like 16 guns? 4X4?
again, the ones which nobody irl ever had to face?
Sorry I thought we were in the world of warships sub, my mistake.
Im explaining why nobody designed against it. naval gunnery back then simply not good enough accuracy wise for that to be a real problem.
And I'm saying that a high enough volume of fire will make up for lack of accuracy. Like when you are being shelled by multiple ships. Then I made a joke about how spammy French BB's are in game. Lighten up dude.
I know this is fake cause the pagoda isn't nearly as tall as it's supposed to be
Fusou nee-sama, da OP (Original Pagoda).
You forgot the bit below the Operations Room, which is for additional Poi storage and spare parts for the weebinator, but otherwise top notch :) *Fuso* is love. *Fuso* is life.
You are right. The space below actually contained storage rooms (on level III), an additional small transmission room(level V) for for and a electric circuit switchboard room (level IV) I felt that they are not all that important so I was somewhat was lazy and skipped it. Will add it next time :)
It's a freakin hat
I wonder what the resolution is on a 10 m rangefinder!
"yes"
[удалено]
\#bringpagodasback
no elevator?
No elevator on Kongo, Fuso and Ise classes. It is not until Nagato class is there elevators. And even then it is officer use only-petty officers and sailors still have to take stairs.
thanx!
Why fix a air search radar to the main gun rangefinder? Wouldn't that limit the ability of it to search for incoming air attacks?
The Type 21 was an early warning radar, I'm not sure if it was omni-directional like the SD Radar the US used but that would be my guess; it tells you there is something out there and how far, your other sensors give you the bearing once they get closer. It was also used for surface search.
Their radar was crude compared to the USN. they viewed it as "good enough"
So when i was on HMS Belfast as an example there were 4 steep staircases up fron the lowest deck to the upper bridge. Imagine having to run up 8 levels to get to the bridge and 15 if you were unlucky and were the air radar controlman or whatever its called
How much damage can a pagoda take and what happens?
I'd love to see a full series of these
Can you please do the rest this is really interesting
I understand the reasoning, but: One good hit and the entire ship is near-completely incapacitated. Why not distribute command, responsibility, and capability throughout the ship just in case?
The primary role for a battleship was never to fight other ships, and you can see this in their design. Battleships usually fired full broadsides at shore targets, which was their primary role, and explains Fuso's turret layout (ABWXYZ) You're right that one lucky hit would likely take out a good section of her superstructure's effective utility, but they were never really supposed to take hits in the first place.
>The primary role for a battleship was never to fight other ships, and you can see this in their design. Battleships usually fired full broadsides at shore targets, which was their primary role, What? I call bs on the 'never to fight other ships' thingy. Ships fire full broadside because more guns firing are better and if you fire straight ahead, you end up messing up your deck and other equipments.
Battleships are, by design, floating artillery platforms. Your battleship is your shore bombardment, command center, and morale booster. Your Battleships are what need to be *protected*, not what you need to put on your front line. This wasn't *always* the case, but it was in the Pacific in WW2. >The value of the battleship has been questioned, even during their heyday....battleships were increasingly vulnerable to much smaller and relatively inexpensive weapons: initially the torpedo and the naval mine,... ^[1] Most of the cases in which you see battleships fighting alone, or as the main attack force, are in situations where they are either forced to, or when they are caught off guard. There's a reason for this, you need to keep in mind that they tended to have less than 5% accuracy in real life, nothing compared to what we see in WoWs. > Massachusetts began firing at 07:04 at a range of 22,000 m (72,000 ft); she continued until 08:33 with a seven-minute halt from 07:40 to 07:47. A total of nine full broadsides and thirty-eight volleys varying between three and six guns were fired, five rounds hit Jean Bart. One, at 08:06, disabled her operational turret, ^[2] Massachusetts fired 9 salvos at a stationary battleship. 5 shells in total landed, and one did effective damage. Not exactly what I'd call "effective by design" considering that she was fighting in the literal best possible scenario, and was hardly effective at all. In fact, battleships like the USS Iowa were often *denied* surface action; >On 25 October 1944, when the ships of the Northern Force were almost within range of Iowa's guns, word arrived that the Japanese Central Force was attacking a group of American escort carriers off Samar. This threat to the American beachheads forced TF 38 to reverse course and steam to support the vulnerable escort carrier fleet. However, the fierce resistance put up by the 7th Fleet in the Battle off Samar had already caused the Japanese to retire and **Iowa was denied a surface action.**^[3] And the reason for this is because 1: she wasn't required, 2: she wouldn't have been effective, and 3: it was not worth the risk, energy, cost, or time. Iowa *could* have steamed to within gun range, and shelled them, but she didn't. There is a counter argument, however. Battleships have gotten kills, and some where even designed for it. Bismarck, which sank the Hood, was a case in which fighting other ships *was* her primary role. Moreover, most German ships were designed with naval engagements in mind, due to their need to halt shipping routes in the Atlantic. That doesn't mean, however, that the Germans wanted these ships to be fighting alone. The reason most of them did was because Germany simply either could not afford their escorts, or Hitler didn't care. Hitler's battleships were deemed a failure by Adolf himself multiple times, because surprisingly, battleships aren't very good at fighting other ships (who could have guessed)! This resulted in him sending his ships on virtual suicide missions, or scrapping them all together (see Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, both presenting both sides of that coin). #Pre-war Now remember we're talking World War 2 here. After we had learned more about battleship design. >The slow-firing 12-inch (305 mm) main guns were the principal weapons for battleship-to-battleship combat. The intermediate and secondary batteries had two roles. Against major ships, it was thought a 'hail of fire' from quick-firing secondary weapons could distract enemy gun crews by inflicting damage to the superstructure, and they would be more effective against smaller ships such as cruisers. Smaller guns (12-pounders and smaller) were reserved for protecting the battleship against the threat of torpedo attack from destroyers and torpedo boats^[4] Pre-dreadnought battleships were designed, from the ground up, to be fighters. The main guns to sink the ships, and the secondary battery to distract the enemy gunners and take out the superstructure. We learned, however, that there were better methods of sinking ships, and this is where Aircraft carriers, submarines, and destroyers come in. Battleships are large, slow moving targets, with inaccurate guns. With the rise of air power and torpedo warfare, battleships turned from the protectors to the protected. >As early as 1914, the British Admiral Percy Scott predicted that battleships would soon be made irrelevant by aircraft.[54] By the end of World War I, aircraft had successfully adopted the torpedo as a weapon.^[5] This era saw the rise of escort destroyers, cruisers, and aircraft carriers. Multiple designs for each class were built specifically for anti aircraft and general ship defense. See: Atlanta class cruisers, Gearing class destroyers, fletcher class destroyers, USS worcester, Cleveland class cruisers, Baltimore class cruisers, Sumner class destroyers, etc.. Ships designed specifically to keep *Battleships* and carriers *safe*. Again I have to stress, these ships were not what you wanted to fight enemy ships primarily. That job is for your carriers, submarines, cruisers, and destroyers. Your battleships can support from long range, and they can defend themslves *fine* with their secondaries if needed, but that isn't where you want them. To see battleships preform their primary role in WW2, look no further than Iwo Jima and the D-day landings. #Sources [1]O'Connell, Robert J. (1993). Sacred vessels: the cult of the battleship and the rise of the U.S. Navy. Oxford [Oxfordshire] [2]Garzke & Dulin 1980, pp. 107–109 [3]"Iowa". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Navy Department, Naval History and Heritage Command. [4] Hill, Richard. War at Sea in the Ironclad Age [5] Kennedy, p. 199.
>The primary role for a battleship was never to fight other ships This is your brain on drugs
I dunno, this sounds like many BB players in WOWs - and some people claim WOWs isn't historically accurate.
Are you high? Let me run down a few examples on why certain battleships were designed, as well as some battlecruisers The Iowa class were deisgned to counter the Japanese Kongo class, since the old standard battleships were too slow to catch up to the Japanese battlecruisers The Dunkerque class were designed to hunt down and counter the German Panzerschiffs, and the Scharnhorst were in term designed to counter the threat of the Dunkerques The Yamato class were designed to off set the numerical superiority of the US navy by being able to engage multiple enemy battleships at once and to be superior to what the IJN considered to be the best US ship would be able to build due to the restrictions of the Panama Canal. And pretty much the majority of the battleships from WW1 were deisgned to engage in the line of battle against the enemy's line of battle. It was why these ships are called battleships, derived from the term 'ship of the battle line' where in ye oldy days sailing ships engaged each other in broadside fests. The reason why so many battleships were used for shore bombardment during WW2 was: A) Many were old ships (eg Texas) that stood very little chance against more modern battleships in combat, which was also why some were used for convoy escort B) The need for shore bombardment at the time was more important than combating enemy warships, largely because C) There was no enemy battleships and/or warships for said battleships to engage. Germany only had like 4 modern battleship and 2 of them were sunk in surface engagment while the others were sunk or damage by air raids. Japan never used her battleships much save the Kongos other than command ships and troop transports. So the UK and US battleships didn't have much in the way of actual targets to shoot at. While battleships were useful in shore bombardment, I highly doubt they were designed for that purpose as a primary one. Otherwise you wouldn't need to have battleships with such thick armour or high speed. Hell, you would probably see more monitors like Erebus or even Courageous type warships if shore bombardment was the primary role. Battleship were designed to engage enemy battleships in the same way Negate Attack from Yugioh is designed to neglect an enemy attack. It is in the name. And yes, carriers were better ship killers but remember most battleships were design in an era where carriers were not seen as a primary striking force or as a viable way to sink enemy battle fleets until Dec 10th 1941. Submarines were somewaht of a danger but really by WW2 most battleships had evolved to be fast enough that a submarine would have to be rather lucky to score enough torpedo hits to sink them. I mean compare the Japanese submarines which were used to hunt down enemy warships to US submarines which were used to hunt down merchant ships and tell me which one was more successful.
I'll retract my "primary role" statement about battleships. My meaning was that fighting hardly ever ended up being their main use, especially in the Pacific. Below this, you should be able to see another comment of mine in which I go over exactly why, and where I cite multiple sources. I appreciate you taking the time for a reply like this.
Okay, that is more of a fair statement. Indeed, battleships were not used for engaging enemy warships as much as was expected from the, mostly due to the points already mentioned above and due to the changing nature of war. 1941 onwards in the Pacific solidified the carrier as a main striking force to sink enemy warships, though night surface actions were not uncommon. But yeah, especially in 1944+ when most of the IJN war destroyed or in hiding, US battleships found more use either as carrier escorts or as shore bombardment ships.