Battleship shootout "What if...?" question

Not sure but it is an interesting question. Maybe we can do that thing on Discovery channel where they have to animals fight it out on a computer. They program all tha animals strengths and weakneses into the computer and let em rumble. I liked the shark vs alligator episode. I always wondered what the outcome would have been if there was a big Battleship shootout during WW2.

I would have to say the Iowa-class hands down in a ship-to-ship engagement. The Yamoto showed its weakness during the Battle off Samar. Where she and a powerful Japanese surface force tricked the Americans and ended up engaging Taffy-3. A U.S. Task Force made up of five jeep carriers, 3 destroyers and 3 destroyer-escorts. The Yamoto was utterly ineffective and while facing overwhelming odds, only 2 destroyers, a DE and a carrier was suck. Yamoto’s weakness lay in the lack of fire control radars and finders. The ships fire control was easily messed up with a little smoke screen. Her guns might have been bigger, but if you can’t aim ‘em, they are rather ineffective.
As for the Bismarck, her armor showed its weakness when she was sunk. True she took a hell of a pounding, but displacement wise, she was a huge lightweight when compared with the Iowa or Yamoto.
The Iowa was designed specifically to fight the Yamoto, but never got the chance. Would have been a hell of a fight though, but with the American’s superiority in radars, fire direction, speed and communications, I think the Iowa would come out on top hands-down.

Well for one the Iowas where never designed to take on the Yamato class. The US Navy didnt know of them until well after Pearl Harbor. The design for the Iowas was on the boards well before the attack on Pearl Harbor. But with faster speed, radar fire control and awsome damage control and the "all or nothing" concept in there armor I believe that the Iowas would have emerged as the winner.

David C

One should not count out the dark horse of the group, the KGV class. The Iowas are a slightly later generation and in the electronic suite only the British Anson or Vanguard could compare although the German gunnery radar for the main guns should not be discounted. The Japanese were behind the technology curve and it showed in Yamato's performance although the Japanese did produce good fire control systems for their cruisers. Iowa vs Vanguard most people expect Vanguard to win or it to be a toss up.

The Iowas were the least armoured of any the classes. Some references list them as battlecruisers. That came about in the late 1970s when their actual armour was revealed. We also know that inch for inch American WWII armour was significantly inferior to the British and Germans. This fact was determined post-war, on analysis of Tirpitz's armour. 1" British = 1.25" American, 1" German = 1.2" American. No analysis of Japanese armour has ever come to light, so it is not known how good it really was.

The Vanguard was the best ship in handling any sort of seaway while the Iowas lost speed rapidly, and the KGV's tended to push their bows under in certain conditions.

It is difficult to determine how a "straight up fight" could occur as you would typically expect one to run away, turning it into a stern chase with only a lucky hit bringing the chase to an end. If you are in and around islands and shallow water then there is the possibility of surprise or if there is a convoy involved. What about lighting conditions and sea conditions?

Yamato was also a magnificent seaboat. It's not clear to me whether Vanguard could do better than Yamato as far as sea keeping goes.

on a japanese warship website, they did a "compare & constrast" of some of the big BB's of WWII.

the following titiled "The World's Best Battleship: The Sequel!" is listed below; and while at first glance it looks simple, detailed info is given in separate links.

http://www.combinedfleet.com/baddest.htm

enjoy

What a difficult question.
In my opinion the Iowa class would have faired better against any of the others,with maybe the Bismark or Tirpitz coming in second due to their exellent gunnery systems.

As far as the Bismark being a huge lightweight goes.she took a pounding from what was it KG5 10-14inch,POW 10-14inch,Hood 8-15inch Rodney 9-16inch and
Renown 6 -15-inch plus the 2 carriers Victorious and Ark Royal and the multitude of destroyers and cruisers and she still had to be given the Coup de grace by the Dorsetshire.[or the sea-cocks opened by her crew].
The huge lightweight in this action was the HMS HOOD.

Hi,
About the Bismarck i think you guys should see James Camerons Bismarck Expedition.
To me it was the best battleship ever, not the most powerfull or the bigger, but the most balanced.
Her 15 inch guns weren't the same thing as the 15 inch guns of older warships.
Those 15 inch guns had the same capacity of penetration of many 16 inch guns.
Her armour wasn't so weak as it looks like, was made of a secret steel formula .
If you watch James Camerons Expedition you will see.
How many holes you guys think there are on Bismarck armour ?
"700 shells of 14 and 16 Inch were fired against Bismarck in the last batle."

Its not the ship, but the crew and captain. I would think it would be the Bismark drawing with the Iowa. The KGV had too small of guns and lacked range, the Yamato lacked modern fire support the officers would take too many risks, the Bismark showed how much skill and firepower the Germans had based on how long she survived the battle against overwhelming odds. The Iowa was equal in technology, better in firepower, but I think the weakness would be in the crews experience.

then, out of atimewarp, comes a Los Angeles class boat and all four ships are sitting on the bottom!!!

This has been both great entertainment as well as great information,. I thank you sea dogs for taking the time & effort to respond to what some might consider to be an outsider's frivolous question.

If we stay within the confines of the ships mentioned, then it's Iowa.

Although Yamato's guns were bigger, the Iowa's 16" rifles had superior range. So, combined with gunnery radar, Iowa could operate outside of Yamato's effective gunnery range and pound her from long distance, using her speed to maintain range and bearing.

With regards to KGV and Bismarck, you're talking about a completely different generation of battleship. Ranges were lower, and both Bismarck and KGV utilized optical gunnery, as well as WW1 doctrines of ranging and targeting (ladder vs. straddle).

And no, the Iowas were not deisgned to counter the Yamatos. The Yamatos were envisioned as early as the 1930s to counter the 5-5-3 Washington Treaty. Japan figured that if they could not have a superior number of ships, they would be of superior quality and size.

Jeff

One could speculate until the cows come home as to which of the WW II battlewagons would prevail but if they really had meet the outcome may be deterimined by some act of fate or mistake by some guy down in the boiler room. Looking at these ships on paper is fine but if things were decided that way the NY Yankees would have won all the recent World Championships because on paper they are the best That said in warfare "speed is life" so I vote for the Iowa's 30+ knots speed to get hem in and out of any tight spota so they could prevail

Speed, Range, and Radar.. Not even a close match. The Iowas were 10 years ahead of the others.. Her 16in rifled hi rate of fire guns were like six shooters against flintlock dueling pistols..

Iowa vs any PGM armed with Harpoon?

This raises another question...Iowas were belted to stop plunging gunfire up to 16" in diameter...Harpoons are configured to punch holes into the sides of hulls of modern day, soft hulled ships...

One has to wonder exactly how much damage a Harpoon would do to an Iowa...after all, a Zero crashed into the side of the hull of Missouri in 1945 and all it did was scratch the paint.

Jeff

Yeah, if it hits the hull or decks, it would be a case of "sweepers, man your brooms". Do a helluva lot of damage to unarmoured sensors topside, though.

Chris.

The Iowa class battleships had the advantage of speed over Yamato class. Most likely the engagement between Missouri and Yamato would happen on the Missouri's terms. The engagement would happen at night when Missouri had all the advantages. The Missouri would have the range for Yamato faster than Yamato would be able the range of Missouri. Yamato would be taking hits from the Missouri's 2700 pound armor piercing shells. Yamato's 155mm secondary turrets were very vulnerable since they did not have there armor increased from their light crusier armor they were built with. Hits from Missouri's 2500 pound high explosive shells would be fired at long range would do considerable dammage to the upper works of the vessel which were not armored.

How about throwing the Montana into the equation, if the CVs hadn't proven themselves, the Montana class would have been coming down the pike after the Iowas. What then?

The Montana class would have been slower than the Iowas but, in a shoot out with the Yamatos the Montanas would have 12 16"/50 guns instead of 9 in the Iowas, and more heavier armor. The 2700 lb armor piercing shells would be fired in salvos of 12 (2700 * 12 = 32,400 lbs = 16.2 short tons) rather than 9 (2700 lb * 9 = 24300 lbs = 12.15 short tons). There is a very good posibility that the Montanas would have turned the Yamatos into swiss cheese.

I think that any BB vs BB engagement would have favored the U.S., especially later in the war. Look what happened off Guadalcanal when the Washington (I think it was) and South Dakota took on the Japanese. While the SD took some damage from a lucky shot, the NC put some serious lead on the Tokyo Express.... and this was in the 42-43 era, before American superiority in technology had come into full effect. Even later in the war during Surigo Strait, the old Battlewagons (Pearl Harbor survivors) put the smack down on the Japanese. Though they did have a lot of help from the DESRONs and PT boats, not to mention to advantage of crossing the T.

But I think in a Cruiser-Cruiser duel, the Japanese would have had more advantages. Our heavy cruisers, while good, I THINK were outclassed by their Japanese counterparts, I could be wrong. Am I? They had a REAL tough time off Guadalcanal and I always here about the Japanese CVs. Any thoughts?

I think we were forced to use our CVs as Screens and this put them at a disadvantage. Plus they were looked at as being more expendable during the earlier war engagements. And one thing we do know that early in the War the Japanese had the great advantage of well trained crews esp. at night action, with slightly better equipment.. The US caught up real fast though. But BB to BB our SoDaks and Iowas were too much.. Speed and technology that works are very important in a slug -fest. The US BBs had both.. I really don't think any BB would have been much of a match unless the Iowas made a mistake or the adversary got lucky which we know does happen in war.
Just my opinion,

Funny how no one ever specifies conditions in these hypothetical battles: Day or night, clear skies or fog, open water or channel, need for initiative on either side, etc.

If you put an Iowa and an Yamato down on a clear day with the Iowa within the Yamato's immunity zone you get ground beef. Add in fog and you get a different result.

If you want to know,the Jappines battle wagons and curisers where no match to the US ships.My father served on the USS San Fransico during WW2 and help sank a battleship of JIN during Guadalcanal also a heavy curiser.The Frisco had only 8 inch guns which were better then the JIN.Also the Bismark was better armoured then most ships and used empty barrels in water tight compartments along both her sides.This made her hard to sink,this was learned by the Britshs who used them in cargo ships.Both the Germans and Brits did this.The if you go with the Montana class you must think of a newer Bismark class that the Germans where going to put into production.This ship would have been the biggest and would have been armed with 20inch guns.The Germans and the Brits had an edge in building this monsters of ships but unlike the US did not devolp superioery gun with longer range and better munistions to go along with it.The Iowa class skippent on armour for speed and did not have a good torpedo belt on its sides like the others.I think all in all the Bismark was a superior ship then most off its counter parts.Digger

I agree, Bismarck was a oustanding warship. However Bismarck wasn't built to battle against ships like the Iowa or Yamato. The almost started H class yes, these could battle with the biggest, the would have 8x16" guns, very similar to the Bismarck class in design but with 2 funels better armour and bigger guns. They were a bigger and better version of Bismarck class.

The german monster with 20 inch guns was a hitler dream, those ships ended in what was the H class, they had more or less the size of yamato, 8x16" guns and it looked like the bismarck, but with 2 funels.

What if...........you chucked those very elegant Italian Battleships into the stew,you know the ones i mean Littorio and sisters...

In all reallity we must ask this questions for a shootout.
1.what were some of these battlewagons design for?
2.armourments both main and secondiry?
3.the armour of these ships?
4.the speed of the ships?
The JIN made only two BB'S at home,the Yamoto and Musihi.Both of there main armourment was made mostly for shore bombirment,there second for AA.The JIN relayed on carriers and knew that the BB'S had seen its better days in the Pacific.
The Brits and Germans made theres for anti-shipping and the north Atlantic.Which is showen in there secondiry armourment and was blenden well for AA.
The Iatlians and the French were mosty heavily armourment and light armour.They where great ships in the hands of a good skilled crew but were easily sunk with torpedos.Tironto-remember.
The US after Pearl Harbor combined these lesions together in the Iowa class.The Montana class was already designed before the Iowa class and was scrapped in favor for the Iowa's.The Iowa's were lightly armour for speed,heavilyed armed with longer range guns for the mains and blended the secondiry armourment with high angle for AA'S.Digger

Digger,

In discussions regarding the USS Montana You need to remember that there were two of them... The BB51 South Dakato Class (Never Completed and stricken.) And BB67 disigned after the Iowa Class. The Iowa itself was laid in June of 41 a full 6 months before Pearl Harbor. Her design as far as Firepower, Armor and Drive train were decided long before that. Major changes that took place to the Iowa's were basically a result of the relailiies of combat. Primarily AAA and Radar improvements.

The following link is very useful for tech info about BB's and other Warships...
http://www.warships1.com/

Enjoy,

Hibrass

(ps: Pardon the spelling problem, it is far to early on a Saturday morning.)

The Iowas simply outclassed all the others, after that it gets a little foggy IMO.
As for the Italian BBs: Their crews called them the "cardboard navy" (Or something similar.) and any of the other four would have creamed them.

As far as Missiles:
Harpoon SLAM-ER most likely would only char the paint of an Iowa, It is not an AP weapon, the warhead is high explosive blast.
Exocet can't sink a Frigate even when 2 are used.