Great Japanese Battleships...

Both were monsters, Both were sunk. I prefer not to be sunk What's so great bout being sunk??
Now the SoDaks, New Jersey, Missouri,Washington, North Carolina were great Battleships. Not because they were US Navy Ships but because they were Great Ships that were not sunk.

QUOTE: Originally posted by butchy Both were monsters, Both were sunk. I prefer not to be sunk What's so great bout being sunk?? Now the SoDaks, New Jersey, Missouri,Washington, North Carolina were great Battleships. Not because they were US Navy Ships but because they were Great Ships that were not sunk.

I'd have to agree, a great ship is one that survives an engagement to tell the story.

That's certainly true

In terms of size and several other factors, Yamato and her sister Musashi were great ships...but we also have to remember that certain ships mean certain things to different people.

Without breaking down your criteria into categories, there's several ways to categorize WW2 ships as 'great ships'

Ships that evoked national pride or sorrow:

USS Arizona
HMS Hood
IJN Yamato
DKM Bismarck

Ships with a history of achivement

USS Enterprise CV-6
HMS Warspite
HMS Sheffield
Type VII U-boat (U-99, U-48, U-100, U-47)

Point is, I can name dozens of 'great ships' and find a reason to substantiate it.
Sometimes, it's because of one single event...

USS Missouri (site of the surrender ceremony)
USS Arizona (first major loss of a USN vessel in WW2)
DKM Bismarck (loss of Germany's most famous ship)
IJN Yamato (loss of Japan's most famous ship)

It is, at best, very subjective.

Jeff

I like Yamato better soley because of the AA layout. Mushashi just seems to be missing something on the pt/stbd sided due to the gap between her outboard most AA mounts. I know silly but to each their own.

As for the greatest ship my vote goes to ....ENTERPRISE. I know, I know.. shes not a BATTLESHIP AMTRAC! Yeah, but she destroyed more enemy aircraft, her aircraft sank more enemy vessels, and survived everything the enemy threw at her. Heck, the Japanese claimed her sunk atleast 6 times that I am aware of. In fact Kamakaze would not engage her because she was a "ghost ship". Unfortunately as we all know, her fate was decided by men who cared more for money than honor for a great ship.

at least the name was continued onto the 1st nuclear powered aircraft carrier

Anyone got pictures of CV-65? I would love to get my hands on one of those 1:350 Tamiya ones... they look pretty darn cool. =)

..it is just amazing to put the two ships side by side: Yamato and Missouri and imagine, what a ship to ship battle would have been.
Also to look at how the two nations engineers had solved the same problems of weight, armour, caliber, speed etc.
Yamato actually did well and survived into 1945 and was involved in more action than I thought before I started to study it. One of the great benefits of scale modelling: You have to get to know the "object"
rgds
Ole from Denmark

QUOTE: Originally posted by adamwehn I'd have to agree, a great ship is one that survives an engagement to tell the story.

I would certainly agree that the North Carolinas, South Dakotas, and Iowas were great battleships in different ways. I also tend to think that the Yamatos perhaps have a slightly inflated reputation.

However, regardless of the relative merits of one class to another, I think the fact that all ten US fast battleships survived the war intact, while the two Japanese superbattleships did not is totally irrelevant. The ferocity and concentration of the air attacks that sank the two Yamatos was something the US battleships never had to face. The US battleships' anti-aircraft defenses were probably superior to that of the Yamatos, but that superiority would not have allowed any of them to survive the attacks that the Yamatos did not.

The fact is that any WWII ship forced to deal with the concentration of airpower that faced Musashi and later Yamato, would have gone to the bottom just the same.

Andy

Actually, the Allies learned fairly early on in WW II that capital ships without aircover and facing large numbers of enemy aircraft, were not going to survive. Do the names HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse sound familiar?

True true, but the US navy did put a lot more thought into their water tight compartmentation than any other navy. Jeff Herne pointed out and I agree that it is hard to pin point the death blow on either of Japans super dreadnaughts. As far as concentrated air attack, anybody remember the fight off Okinawa? Granted they were not coordinated torpedo attacks like the U.S. Navy's aerial attacks on the aforementioned, but a 10,000lb flying bomb can be effective against any warship. Several USN BBs were hit by Kamakaze with minor damage. In all honesty, every class BB had their stregnths and weaknesses. As with any engagement, I believe it would have flat come down to luck and training and courage of the individual commanders and crews.

Washington & So. Dakota vs. Kirishima + cruisers? Pearl Harbor battleships at Leyte Gulf? There is evidence out there.
G.L.

I always liked the Alaska class BC's, too bad they never got to see much combat (though if someone has informatioon to the contray I'll stand corrected) and what of the Japanese ships they were meant to take on ?. and imagine if the Montana's had been built and launched.............................................. makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

umustb
Wanted some picture's of the USS Enterprise

opps wrong Enterprise



at least most on the steel from CV-6 went into CVN-65
as a note on those two battleships, the US Navy used more aircraft against them, then the Japanese used to attack Pearl Harbor

but than the japanese ships weren't caught by surprise like the americans at pearl harbor

QUOTE: Originally posted by Bill Clarke I always liked the Alaska class BC's, too bad they never got to see much combat (though if someone has informatioon to the contray I'll stand corrected)

They saw quite a bit of action as fast carrier escorts, and - IIRC - were prized for their heavy AA armament. When the Franklin left the combat zone after her catastrophic meeting with a kamikaze, she was escorted by both Alaska and Guam.

They also teamed up to bombard a Japanese Radar installation near Okinawa during that campaign.

Yah.. Tora Tora Tora! (Movie on the Pearl Harbour attack)

FSM just bought my article, "The Greatest Battleship Never Built." If you want to see a herkin' big dreadnaught, wait 'til this kitbash hits the newstands. It's bigger and more heavily armed than even the Yamato/Musashi ships.

Andy makes a very strong and valid point...no ship, even the mighty Iowas, could have survived the concentrated aerial attacks that the US brought to the Yamatos. The loss of these ships was truly the end of the era of the battleship, because it was realized that although these ships (and all the others as well) could not survive concentrated aerial attacks.

When you look at the world's battleships...here's something to ponder. This list is just off the top of my head, so I may have missed a few...I decided to add Scharnhorst and Gneisenau to the list since they could be considered small battleships (at 32,000 tons).

Prince of Wales - sunk by aircraft
Repulse - sunk by aircraft
Yamato - sunk by aircraft
Musashi - sunk by aircraft
Tirpitz - sunk by aircraft
Bismarck - wounded by aircraft, subseqently sunk as a result.
Arizona - sunk by aircraft
California - sunk by aircraft (raised and returned to service)
Oklahoma - sunk by aircraft
Tennessee - sunk by aircraft (raised and returned to service)
West Virginia - sunk by aircraft (raised and returned to service)
Hiei - sunk by aircraft
Haruna - sunk by aircraft
Ise - sunk by aircraft
Hyuga - run aground after being attacked by aircraft
Littorio - sunk by aircraft (still on the bottom in 1943 when Italy left the war)
Conte Di Cavour - sunk by aircraft (raised and returned to service)
Caio Duilio - sunk by aircraft (raised and returned to service)
Roma - sunk by aircraft dropped Fritz X bomb
Gneisenau - bombed by aircraft after hitting a mine, scuttled as a result.

Now we look at battleships sunk by submarines

HMS Barham - sunk by U-331
HMS Royal Oak - sunk by U-47
IJN Kongo - sunk by USS Sealion

And finally, battleships sunk by direct gunnery contact

HMS Hood
Bismarck
Scharnhorst
Yamashiro
Kirishima

It's pretty obvious when you look at the losses, that the era of the battleship was over. It is fortunate for the Allies that the Japanese and Germans were incapable of launching several hundred aircraft in a strike against shipping, as the US fleet was capable of doing by 1944.

So...did I forget any other ships??

Air power is the way to win a war!

You only partially correct about air power is the way to win wars Exhibit A is Vietnam Any question about who had complete air control? Boots on the ground wins wars but air power allows the boots to increase their chances of winning When it comes to the large number of battleships and other ships also lost to air power no question he who rules the sky wins In WW 2 battleships were white elephants from day one but I love them dispite that fact Some day some one will figure out how to defeat air power (space power/lasers ?) and future generations will speak about how wonderful the aircraft carriers of 1940 thru 20?? were

I don't know that Vietnam is such a good analogy. Regardless of the conduct of operations, the political arena is where the outcome was decided. It was fully two years after the withdrawal of American forces that Saigon fell. The only Americans driven out by the enemy were embassy guards, diplomats and journalists.

Butchy mentions great battleships like the Missouri and New Jersey. These are Iowa class battleships. The USS Iowa took Roosevelt to several of his overseas conferences with the allied leaders. If Roosevelt had lived, the treaty might have been signed on the USS Iowa rather than the USS Missouri (Truman's home state).

Actually, there's a great story here....

Back in 1997, I was the Director of the NJ Aviation Hall of Fame and Museum. One of our inductees that year was Adm. Halsey, who was born and grew up in Elizabeth, NJ. In my conversations with his son, he mentioned that his father had intended for the surrender documents to be signed about the USS New Jersey, which was his flagship, but Harry S. Truman, from Missouri, ordered the surrender to be signed aboard the Missouri instead.

When you compare the condition of the two ships at the time, New Jersey had just come out refit at Puget Sound and arrived at Guam in August of 1945 as Adm. Spruance's Flagship. Missouri on the other hand, had been in combat since February of '45 with no refits or paint work. When you look at photos of the two, NJ was much prettier than MO was at the time, but I guess that really didn't matter to old Harry S.

Jeff

i didnt realize Adm Bull Halsey was from NJ...Elizabeth is only a n hour and a half from my house.thats cool to know.

Yup, he attended the Pingry School for Boys (a high-falutin' prep school), and also has the disctinction of being the oldest man to receive his naval aviators wings. If I remember correctly, he was 57 when he went through the program at Pensacola.

He was originally on destroyers, but when offered command of the Saratoga (I'm reaching here, it's been awhile) he insisted that he understand every aspect of carrier operations, so he got himself not only trained as a pilot, he got himself carrier qualified too. Quite a guy, it's too bad that history blames him for leaving the invasion force at Leyte Gulf. All he knew was that a Japanese carrier force was heading south from the north, and it was his job to get the carriers...no one expected the Southern and Center Forces to pop out from behind Leyte. Anyway, I digress...

Jeff

Jeff,
When I was a military-beat newspaper reporter, I did an interview with a fellow who was on Missouri through the whole war. He recited the story of how everyone in the fleet thought New Jersey would be the signature ship, but, indeed, Truman gave the order that it be Missouri. Plus, and my memory is a bit faulty, too, wasn't it his wife who broke the champagne at Missouri's launch?

Actually, it was his daughter, Miss Margaret. :-)

J