RoG Bismarck, Pray for me!

The battleship wins? Check the scorecard. Swordfish:1, Bismark:0
How many battleships have been constructed since the end of WWII?
How many aircraft carriers and submarines have been constructed?
Seems the governments and militaries of the world have spoken.
The third dimension of the battlefield has been deemed to be of highest priority. That is the realm of the aircraft and the missile.

searat12 wrote:

I tell you what;.... Name ANY weapon system besides a battleship, that can RECEIVE 6 x 1000 Lbs hits of explosive (I don't care how it is delivered, bomb, shell, torpedo, missile, etc.), and still be be 'combat effective;' just ONE, whether it is a submarine, a carrier, whatever..... If you can name ONE, then I will say the Battleship is 'obsolete'.  If not, then there is nothing else to say, the battleship wins!!

How'za 'bout a missile silo??

Oh thats easy, Searat. 16 A4 Skyhawks incoming towards your big steel drainplug with 4000 pounds of iron bombs each, dispersed across 3 miles of water and staggered in 30 second intervals. Flying at maybe 500 knots, one man/woman each, from all points of the compass, which means that a barely subsonic B-24 will peel in on you more or less unstoppable every 3 seconds, for several minutes, from god knows where. And that's 1965 technology. But so am I, so it's hard to speculate forward.

That qualifies as a weapons system, no?

So to answer your question, you can't bomb, shell or torpedo my Scooters, just shoot them down, which isn't going to happen with your Gatling guns, and I'm not even suggesting the truly lethals, on my end.

Tally Ho dude, here comes the Navy Air Wing.

searat12 wrote:

I tell you what;.... Name ANY weapon system besides a battleship, that can RECEIVE 6 x 1000 Lbs hits of explosive (I don't care how it is delivered, bomb, shell, torpedo, missile, etc.), and still be be 'combat effective;' just ONE, whether it is a submarine, a carrier, whatever..... If you can name ONE, then I will say the Battleship is 'obsolete'.  If not, then there is nothing else to say, the battleship wins!!

...wins what? I don't understand...BB's have been sunk with less than what you are describing, and some carriers, like the Franklin, survived terrible damage...

I tell you what;.... Name ANY weapon system besides a battleship, that can RECEIVE 6 x 1000 Lbs hits of explosive (I don't care how it is delivered, bomb, shell, torpedo, missile, etc.), and still be be 'combat effective;' just ONE, whether it is a submarine, a carrier, whatever..... If you can name ONE, then I will say the Battleship is 'obsolete'.  If not, then there is nothing else to say, the battleship wins!! 

subfixer wrote:

Mansteins revenge wrote:  subfixer wrote: I'm just saying that if a battleship (or two) had undertaken this mission that human losses on both sides would have been less. The guns of a BB would have been more accurate and, since the enemy knew what was coming, they could have had a better chance of evacuating personnel out of the target area leaving jus the targets themselves.  The personnel were the targets...that was the doctrine for most of that war: body-count... Not in this particular operation, Manny. This wasn't a tactical operation per se. A month and a half later we were more or less done with Vietnam.

Wait, I'm lost. We're talking about the NJ, correct, and to the question of Hijacking the thread, I apologize to the original poster. The NJ tour of duty was late 1968 through spring 69, correct? I got drafted in 74, although no one had been called up for a couple of years.

Mansteins revenge wrote:

subfixer wrote: I'm just saying that if a battleship (or two) had undertaken this mission that human losses on both sides would have been less. The guns of a BB would have been more accurate and, since the enemy knew what was coming, they could have had a better chance of evacuating personnel out of the target area leaving jus the targets themselves.  The personnel were the targets...that was the doctrine for most of that war: body-count...

Not in this particular operation, Manny. This wasn't a tactical operation per se. A month and a half later we were more or less done with Vietnam.

Actually searat12, you aren't too far from the mark about the "no boats" analogy. Since no one can actually see the submarine, how would they know if there were none there? (wink)
I liken the submarine to the following analogy:
You are driving along a 3:00 am, the traffic signal before you changes from green to red. You stop. As you sit there, you look around and see no other cars in sight. The red light drags on. You are wondering o yourself "why did the light even change, there were no cars to trigger it"? but still you sit. Finally, after what seems an eternity, the light changes and you return to your travels.
Now, why did you stop in the first place? And better still, why did you sit there for the full duration of the light? There were no police cars around. Why didn't you just run the light and continue on your way?
You sat there because, just because you didn't SEE the police car, doesn't mean there might not be one there that you COULDN'T see. It was the fear of he unknown that kept you in line. Just like the submarine.
And that was just a simple traffic light scenario. The police are not everywhere at every moment of every day, but the thought that just because you can't see them doesn't mean they can't make their presence felt. That it why we live in a (reasonably) orderly society.
And to respond to ADleitch: rabbiteatsnake doesn't seem to mind how things are going, at least he has made no objections.

ADleitch wrote:

All started from a tank guy, way to go!!!

Now had there been tanks on the Falklands, that would have been a different story...great observation...

I really don't understand some of you people, poor guy started what appeared to be a very interesting thread on building and detailing the ROG Bismarck. 130 posts later, 3 posts about the Model 2 of them from the guy his self. 7 pages of nothing to do with the model. Talk about highjacking a thread. I hope the guy starts a new one so we don't have to search through all of this to find it.

 

All started from a tank guy, way to go!!!

subfixer wrote:

I'm just saying that if a battleship (or two) had undertaken this mission that human losses on both sides would have been less. The guns of a BB would have been more accurate and, since the enemy knew what was coming, they could have had a better chance of evacuating personnel out of the target area leaving jus the targets themselves.

The personnel were the targets...that was the doctrine for most of that war: body-count...

The targets during Linebacker II were infrastructure like power plants, supply centers, port facilities, airfields,SAM sites, and such. They weren't bombing a phantom target but real military targets of a conventional measure.  Linebacker II got the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating table after they had been stalling.

Here is a link to "ye olde" Wikipedia entry on this operation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Linebacker_II

I'm just saying that if a battleship (or two) had undertaken this mission that human losses on both sides would have been less. The guns of a BB would have been more accurate and, since the enemy knew what was coming, they could have had a better chance of evacuating personnel out of the target area leaving jus the targets themselves. 

Sure sub, and I respect the loss of the aircrews, but the damage reports from the NJ shelling that I've seen are speculative at best. Charlie was a thin and widely spread force, which could not be knocked out in one big deadly barrage, I seriously doubt that the NV Generals ever were in fear of something that they could see coming.

If anyone ever comes up with a theory abt how we could possibly have "won" that war, I'll rep the book for free. BB is not the answer.

I remember back in December of 1972 during Linebacker II. We were just off the port of Haiphong about 10 to 15 miles and watching the B-52 strikes and the SAMs and all of that. I think now of how unnecessary that would have been if instead of my carrier, it had been the New Jersey in our place. No loss to aircrews for one thing, I'll bet.

Correctly. And the carrier "25th of May", ex HMS Venerable was forced back into port by the presence of the HMS. Iron Duke, or their subs, can't remember which? So that the Super Etendards had to fly from Rio Grande.

El Jere needs to come in here.

Britain had a Sheffield class destroyer in the ways that had been paid for by Argentina. They quietly pocketed the payment and kept the ship.

I think the Falklands/ Malvinas war is a perfect example of why aircraft are the deciding factor in war over the ocean. The relatively untested Harrier proved that technology trumps tradition.

Now that being said, I would say that the war was truly won by the heroics of the Royal Army, who really toughed it out and with their officers leading and dying, rubbed out the oppossition, NTL the RAF/ RN Air wings really rose to the challenge. And then there's Black Buck, which I've studied for years. That was a true feat.

Well, and here IBTL. Yes of course I can imagine George junior totally backing down because that's exactly what he did with No. K. And Ronny sold Hughes AAM's and F-14 parts to the Iranians, so let's not go there, shall we?

Nixon won the Presidency because he portrayed Johnson and of course McGovern as appeasers, which has been the canard hung around the neck of the Democratic Party whenever they have tried to improve the condition of the local working class. But thats just me; end of rant.

Battleships aliterate with a word that also starts with B. In the Falklands campaign, the last engagement of navy units ever, British sub presence negated, and in one case destroyed, both artillery and air wing assets. On the other side, the British suffered all of their losses from air power, that largely had to fly for a while, tracked all the way, but did real damage.

The thought of the heavy artillery reducing, and that is a word in war technology, the defences on the Falklands is laughable. There would still be hearings to this day abt why a bunch of sheep farmers are still buried in mud.

The New Jersey was only really effective in the DMZ zone in Vietnam. There is absolutely no way that those guns would mean anything to Afganistan, most of Pakistan, Iraq, Iran except for their coastal cities, North Korea, China, oh what the heck Andorra, Switzerland...

I give up.

subfixer wrote:

Mansteins revenge wrote:  warshipguy wrote: Manny commented tongue-in-cheek that, had Hood been around, Argentina would never have invaded the Falklands.    Granted, it is an overstatement, but one serious problem that the Royal Navy had was that the largest guns it had for shore bombardment were the 5" popguns on its destroyers.  Oh, well, here's to lessons never learned!  Bill Morrison yeah, otherwise Hood could have sat ofshore and shelled the Argentinians into submission, as the US did at Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Pelilieu, etc, etc, etc... Do I detect a slight note of sarcasm, Manny? The Marines did have a terrible time taking those islands, but the Argentinians didn't have the time to dig in like the Japanese did. Big guns would have made a difference in the Falklands, I think. But don't sell five inch guns short, 5" is the equivalent to a 127mm howitzer.

British Paras brought in their own field artillery and had air-support...the only large surface ship (other than the Brit CA's) was an Argentenian Cruiser that didn't fare too well as I recall...

warshipguy wrote:

Never thought of old Milhouse as a wimp before, I'll have to think on that. I can't find any reference to the bridge story, can you elaborate. It sounds to me like the BB tore up a lot of bunkers and tunnels though.

Tricky Dicky was OK, but the State Dept and Congress he had to work with left a lot to be desired.  No one wanted to "insult the opposition" (especially USSR and China) so all the branches of the military were effectively handcuffed.  The New Jersey just happened to be one of the most glaring.  It may even have been deployed while Johnson was still in office.  Can you imagine Ronny or either George not taking advantage of the enemy being actually afraid of any particular weapon system?  And no, the BBs would not have magically ended the war, but they would have helped a lot more if they had been allowed to do their job as originally intended when the New Jersey was re-activated.  North Vietnam had absolutely no defense against the New Jersey's plunging pinpoint shellfire.  Except to refuse to negotiate if it went back on duty!  So they played that card and we folded our hand.

As for the reference, it was a book I checked out of the library some 20 to 30 years ago, about the history of the Iowa class BBs.  It was written shortly after the New Jersey was re-mothballed after Vietnam.  It discussed all their actions in WWII, then had another section describing all their actions in Korea. The final chapter was about the New Jersey in Vietnam, since it was the only BB to be re-activated, following Korea, at the time the book was written.  It's probably no longer in print since so much more history has been added to the Iowa Class BBs since then.

Oh gosh people. After the invasion Makin Atoll was hell on earth, smoking palm stumps maybe 3' high, ruined for years. That wasn't going to work in the Falklands, and there was no reason for it. I'm not even that keen on what the New Jersey did to Vietnam, but in the South Atlantic, no way.

Several dozen Harriers got the job done.

Mansteins revenge wrote:

warshipguy wrote: Manny commented tongue-in-cheek that, had Hood been around, Argentina would never have invaded the Falklands.    Granted, it is an overstatement, but one serious problem that the Royal Navy had was that the largest guns it had for shore bombardment were the 5" popguns on its destroyers.  Oh, well, here's to lessons never learned!  Bill Morrison yeah, otherwise Hood could have sat ofshore and shelled the Argentinians into submission, as the US did at Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Pelilieu, etc, etc, etc...

Do I detect a slight note of sarcasm, Manny? The Marines did have a terrible time taking those islands, but the Argentinians didn't have the time to dig in like the Japanese did. Big guns would have made a difference in the Falklands, I think. But don't sell five inch guns short, 5" is the equivalent to a 127mm howitzer.

warshipguy wrote:

Manny commented tongue-in-cheek that, had Hood been around, Argentina would never have invaded the Falklands.    Granted, it is an overstatement, but one serious problem that the Royal Navy had was that the largest guns it had for shore bombardment were the 5" popguns on its destroyers.  Oh, well, here's to lessons never learned!  Bill Morrison

yeah, otherwise Hood could have sat ofshore and shelled the Argentinians into submission, as the US did at Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Pelilieu, etc, etc, etc...

Manny commented tongue-in-cheek that, had Hood been around, Argentina would never have invaded the Falklands.    Granted, it is an overstatement, but one serious problem that the Royal Navy had was that the largest guns it had for shore bombardment were the 5" popguns on its destroyers.  Oh, well, here's to lessons never learned! 

Bill Morrison

tucchase wrote:

warshipguy wrote: Also, don't forget that the Marine Corps has long lamented the decommissioning of the Iowa's.  Those professionals recognize the value of those 16" guns; I wonder if we have the same level of expertise to criticize their point of view. This has been a most interesting discussion! Years ago I read the history of the New Jersey.  It mentioned that when it went to Vietnam it was very successful at doing jobs that the Air Force and Navy Carriers were unable to accomplish.  One specific case was a bridge in North Vietnam located in a narrow canyon and protected by an impressive array of anti-aircraft missles and batteries.  Both Air groups tried for weeks to take out this bridge, with no result other than the loss of several aircraft.  The New Jersey was called in and dropped the bridge into the river in twenty minutes!  The Lady was so successful that when the New Jersey left Vietnam for replenishment at Long Beach the North Vietnamese at the Peace Table said they would leave the Peace Talks and not return if the New Jersey returned to Vietnam!  They did NOT say this about any other warship or military group that we had deployed.  The New Jersey scared the c**p out of the North Vietnamese.  Its big guns could reach 75% of both countries, and it didn't even have Tomahawks back then.  Of course, the wimps we had in power, at that time, caved in and the Lady never went back to Vietnam.  Coulda been a much shorter conflict.  We should have sent the Lady back and added one, or more (wouldn't have cost any more than the war did anyway), of her sisters also. Searat12's analogy is, IMHO, great.  Except the sleazy little weasel should be a small statured SEAL in a trenchcoat with many weapons hidden.  Doesn't look like much, but he could waste the whole bar in a heartbeat if he needs to.  I agree that the BBs are no longer the "Top Dog", but they ARE uniquely qualified to do certain missions that no other warship is capable of doing.  If they just weren't so gol-darned expensive to operate!  Just wanted to put in my 2 cents into this great discussion.  Meanwhile, what about the model??

Never thought of old Milhouse as a wimp before, I'll have to think on that. I can't find any reference to the bridge story, can you elaborate. It sounds to me like the BB tore up a lot of bunkers and tunnels though.

tucchase wrote:

warshipguy wrote: Also, don't forget that the Marine Corps has long lamented the decommissioning of the Iowa's.  Those professionals recognize the value of those 16" guns; I wonder if we have the same level of expertise to criticize their point of view. This has been a most interesting discussion! Years ago I read the history of the New Jersey.  It mentioned that when it went to Vietnam it was very successful at doing jobs that the Air Force and Navy Carriers were unable to accomplish.  One specific case was a bridge in North Vietnam located in a narrow canyon and protected by an impressive array of anti-aircraft missles and batteries.  Both Air groups tried for weeks to take out this bridge, with no result other than the loss of several aircraft.  The New Jersey was called in and dropped the bridge into the river in twenty minutes!  The Lady was so successful that when the New Jersey left Vietnam for replenishment at Long Beach the North Vietnamese at the Peace Table said they would leave the Peace Talks and not return if the New Jersey returned to Vietnam!  They did NOT say this about any other warship or military group that we had deployed.  The New Jersey scared the c**p out of the North Vietnamese.  Its big guns could reach 75% of both countries, and it didn't even have Tomahawks back then.  Of course, the wimps we had in power, at that time, caved in and the Lady never went back to Vietnam.  Coulda been a much shorter conflict.  We should have sent the Lady back and added one, or more (wouldn't have cost any more than the war did anyway), of her sisters also. Searat12's analogy is, IMHO, great.  Except the sleazy little weasel should be a small statured SEAL in a trenchcoat with many weapons hidden.  Doesn't look like much, but he could waste the whole bar in a heartbeat if he needs to.  I agree that the BBs are no longer the "Top Dog", but they ARE uniquely qualified to do certain missions that no other warship is capable of doing.  If they just weren't so gol-darned expensive to operate!  Just wanted to put in my 2 cents into this great discussion.  Meanwhile, what about the model??

If only we had more BB's we would have won the Vietnam War!!!

warshipguy wrote:

Also, don't forget that the Marine Corps has long lamented the decommissioning of the Iowa's.  Those professionals recognize the value of those 16" guns; I wonder if we have the same level of expertise to criticize their point of view.

This has been a most interesting discussion! Years ago I read the history of the New Jersey.  It mentioned that when it went to Vietnam it was very successful at doing jobs that the Air Force and Navy Carriers were unable to accomplish.  One specific case was a bridge in North Vietnam located in a narrow canyon and protected by an impressive array of anti-aircraft missles and batteries.  Both Air groups tried for weeks to take out this bridge, with no result other than the loss of several aircraft.  The New Jersey was called in and dropped the bridge into the river in twenty minutes!  The Lady was so successful that when the New Jersey left Vietnam for replenishment at Long Beach the North Vietnamese at the Peace Table said they would leave the Peace Talks and not return if the New Jersey returned to Vietnam!  They did NOT say this about any other warship or military group that we had deployed.  The New Jersey scared the c**p out of the North Vietnamese.  Its big guns could reach 75% of both countries, and it didn't even have Tomahawks back then.  Of course, the wimps we had in power, at that time, caved in and the Lady never went back to Vietnam.  Coulda been a much shorter conflict.  We should have sent the Lady back and added one, or more (wouldn't have cost any more than the war did anyway), of her sisters also.

Searat12's analogy is, IMHO, great.  Except the sleazy little weasel should be a small statured SEAL in a trenchcoat with many weapons hidden.  Doesn't look like much, but he could waste the whole bar in a heartbeat if he needs to.  I agree that the BBs are no longer the "Top Dog", but they ARE uniquely qualified to do certain missions that no other warship is capable of doing.  If they just weren't so gol-darned expensive to operate!  Just wanted to put in my 2 cents into this great discussion.  Meanwhile, what about the model??

warshipguy wrote:

Again, as a former submariner, Trident missiles are not usable in most political and military situations. For example, Great Britain had boomers during the Falklands campaign but they did not deter Argentina from invading British Territory.  And, that is a rational nation!  North Korea does not have rational leaders that could be deterred by the implicit threat of nuclear attack or retaliation. Bill Morrison P.S. The axiom is that each boomer carries more explosive firepower than expended in every theater of every war in the twentieth century.

If only the Hood had still been around...Argentinia would have never dared invade the Falklands...

PaintsWithBrush wrote:

searat12, Considering the fact that just one nuclear missile submarine carries more firepower than every battleship ever built by every nation across the expanse of history, I think the submarine amounts to far more than a "sleazy guy with a .32" in any situation. Your love of the battleship is truly undeniable, but one F/A18 flying supersonic at treetop level over his palace would create all the "thunder" Lil Kim would need to convince him of the folly of his dreams.

It's not so much that I love the battleship, but I think you missed the point.  An FA-18 'flying over the palace' would be a direct act of war, and just his approach into NKorean airpsace would most likely have already caused a war, whether or not he was shot down or not, whether or not he was armed or not.  That's the problem with a carrier!  It cannot sit in plain sight, but must remain 'over the horizon' along with all its aircraft, and it cannot take a hit, or it blows sky high.  A submarine cannot remain on the surface (they are THE most delicate of ships, and it defeats the whole purpose of a submarne in the first place!), and anything else BUT a battleship would be liable to be sunk or made combat ineffective with one hit.  A battleship, however, is designed to be hit, multiple times, and still come up for more, with a counterpunch that would knock most nations on their butt, let alone other naval vessels.  No other ship has this capability.  For this reason, the battleship can sail in sight of land, just offshore, where everyone can see it, a menacing presence that cannot just be slapped down with a single shot.  That is the BIGGEST advantage of a battleship, that no other ship can match, not even the latest greatest of designs.  I think if you follow your argument to its logical conclusion, we don't need any ships at all, and can do everything that is needed via ICBM's launched from Nebraska; isn't that true?

Again, as a former submariner, Trident missiles are not usable in most political and military situations. For example, Great Britain had boomers during the Falklands campaign but they did not deter Argentina from invading British Territory.  And, that is a rational nation!  North Korea does not have rational leaders that could be deterred by the implicit threat of nuclear attack or retaliation.

Bill Morrison

P.S. The axiom is that each boomer carries more explosive firepower than expended in every theater of every war in the twentieth century.

searat12,
Considering the fact that just one nuclear missile submarine carries more firepower than every battleship ever built by every nation across the expanse of history, I think the submarine amounts to far more than a "sleazy guy with a .32" in any situation.
Your love of the battleship is truly undeniable, but one F/A18 flying supersonic at treetop level over his palace would create all the "thunder" Lil Kim would need to convince him of the folly of his dreams.

The problem with submarines for missions like this is precisely because they CAN'T be seen.  There is ALWAYS a submarine near NKorea, but if you don't see it, you can pretend it isn't there.  But a battleship cruising up and down the coast in plain view cannot be dismissed so lightly, and provides undeniable proof of not only the presence of the US Navy, but its relative disregard for anything the NKoreans might care to throw at it.  This was of great value during the crisis in Lebanon, and worked very well in the Persian Gulf too vis a vis the Iranians, and was easpecially true after everybody got to see just what a battleship can unleash.  Even just cruising around firing 'practise' rounds, the thunder of those guns carries a very long way indeed...... Gunboat diplomacy' has been around for many, many years, and the psychological factor still works today.

Just think about a rowdy bar.... a sleazy little weasel with a .32 under his coat sneaks in and hides in a dark corner that no-one notices.  Yeah, he CAN kill somebody by shooting them in the back, but his mere presence there doesn't affect what is going on in the bar (that's a submarine!).  Then, a cop car car pulls up outside with his lights flashing, but as long as the cops stay outside, it doesn't really affect what's going on in the bar (that's an aircraft carrier!).  Then a 300 Lbs linebacker walks into the bar in full body armor and carrying a sawed-off riot-pump 12 gauge shotgun and has a look around.  The place goes silent, the piano stops playing, the card games stop, and suspicious characters start edging for the back door (that's a battleship!)!

As for Pearl Harbor and Midway, Pearl was always going to be a surprise hit and run attack, but at Midway, the Japanese battlefleet WAS there, and its purpose (once the Amrican aircraft carriers had been disabled or destroyed), was to wade in and deal with the American surface fleet 'mano a mano.'  And this might STILL have happened if the Japanese carrier fleet hadn't been so comprehensively destroyed.  If even ONE of the fleet carriers had survived,  Yamamoto was prepared to send in the battleships, but NO carriers, meant they would be heading into a situation they had no advanced preparation or reconaissance for.....