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Post by Airy W on Oct 28, 2018 22:13:48 GMT -6
The Queen Elizabeth class are the best battleships, purely because of their value for money. State of the art early in WW1, still competent battleships at the end of WW2. No other battleships gave such useful service in both wars. What about the Kongōs?
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 28, 2018 22:31:50 GMT -6
The Queen Elizabeth class are the best battleships, purely because of their value for money. State of the art early in WW1, still competent battleships at the end of WW2. No other battleships gave such useful service in both wars. What about the Kongōs? What about the USS Arkansas? Laid down three years before the QE battleships, escorted convoys, supported the DDay invasion and the Invasion of Southern France then went to the Pacific and bombarded Japanese on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. She was a target ship at Bikini Tests. I have pictures of her vertical on the Test Baker underwater blast.
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Post by bcoopactual on Oct 29, 2018 0:17:18 GMT -6
I have to give the nod to the QE class as well for most bang for the buck. Neither the Kongōs nor any of the American battleships available in WW1 saw much, if any, action in that conflict where the QEs could be credited with saving the British battlecruiser force at Jutland. Queen Elizabeth itself also participated in the Gallipoli campaign. Combined with their heavy use in WW2 I think they are clearly tops in this list. That doesn't take away from the good service put in by the Kongōs in WW2.
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Post by generalvikus on Oct 29, 2018 3:58:45 GMT -6
I'd side with Bcoop and mobeer on the question of 'useful service' insofar as saying that the Queen Elizabeth's combat record seems more favourable than the Kongos, and certainly more than the Arkansas; after all, even a bad ship can sail with convoys and bombard shore targets just fine. That's not to say that ships which only performed such mundane roles were inferior, but in terms of proven combat utility over time I think the QEs probably surpass all their rivals. Whether or not they really were a superior ship compared with the other examples mentioned is another question, and one that it much more subjective.
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Post by Airy W on Oct 29, 2018 8:02:16 GMT -6
The Kongōs were fast enough for the offensive operations of the combined fleet. The QEs were not fast enough for similar campaigns.
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Post by dorn on Oct 29, 2018 8:36:58 GMT -6
The Kongōs were fast enough for the offensive operations of the combined fleet. The QEs were not fast enough for similar campaigns. They were good ships to escort carriers but they were very poor ships to ship to ship combat. They armor protection especially belt armor was the issue. They have not AoN armor scheme, they were vulnerable even to heavy cruisers. QEs was not ideal ships but they have good firepower (8x15" guns was not best but still have punch, had good reliability and small disperse pattern), some armor (13" belt, 5" deck over magazines, 3.1" over machinery for HMS Warspite) which was outclassed but still can do some job and was faster than US 21 knots battleships. Modernized QEs have even better fire control. Note: Their reconstruction costs 1/3 of KGV class battleship. I do not know reconstruction costs of Italians and Japanese battleships but I think it was much more costly. US battleships from WW1 was good too however you do not need battleships so much in Pacific, you can bombard, you can screen carriers, you can defend convoys but they are not ideal ship for classic role of fast battleships. QEs were not either however they can do the role a little better and were quite useful as anything else was not available.
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Post by Airy W on Oct 29, 2018 8:49:30 GMT -6
Firstest with the mostest.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 29, 2018 9:38:29 GMT -6
Well, how about the HMS Warspite. She fought with the QE at Jutland and was heavily damaged. In WW2 she participated in the destruction of eight German destroyers in Narvik, she was at Calabria and Matapan, Crete, provided fire support at Normandy and escorted some convoys. She was damaged many times. Seems that a good record to me.
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Post by bcoopactual on Oct 29, 2018 9:45:28 GMT -6
Airy W , I'm not trying to say the Queen Elizabeth's were the best battleships ever or even necessarily the most versatile. You're right, they were too slow for carrier escort duties and that's probably the one battleship mission they weren't suited for. But they were plenty busy in WW2 performing other missions [Edit - as oldpop2000 pointed out as I was typing this post] so that doesn't really take away from their usefulness as far as bang for the buck is concerned. Besides, as a carrier escort, a battleship is really just an overstuffed cruiser. It's not a mission that probably couldn't be performed better by an equivalent cost in light or heavy cruisers. With the significant caveat that you need a battleship's guns and armor if the enemy battleships ever get into surface combat range.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 29, 2018 10:04:54 GMT -6
I believe that we need to possibly define a set of criteria with which to judge a ship and its performance throughout its history. Is it firepower, speed, armor? Is it the number of naval battles? Is it convoy and fire support? Just what is it. How many actual surface battles were there in WW2. The Battle of the Denmark Straits, sinking of the Bismarck, Guadalcanal action against Kirishima, Matapan, Calabria, Mers-El-Kebir. Does this make sense? Possibly, the most useful task for these battleships was convoy protection and fire support for invasions. Our old dreadnoughts were used to escort convoys from the Pacific Coast to Australia and then provide fire support for island invasions. Isn't that a useful and successful task?
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Post by archelaos on Oct 29, 2018 11:42:36 GMT -6
I believe that we need to possibly define a set of criteria with which to judge a ship and its performance throughout its history. Is it firepower, speed, armor? Is it the number of naval battles? Is it convoy and fire support? Just what is it. How many actual surface battles were there in WW2. The Battle of the Denmark Straits, sinking of the Bismarck, Guadalcanal action against Kirishima, Matapan, Calabria, Mers-El-Kebir. Does this make sense? Possibly, the most useful task for these battleships was convoy protection and fire support for invasions. Our old dreadnoughts were used to escort convoys from the Pacific Coast to Australia and then provide fire support for island invasions. Isn't that a useful and successful task? I think that for a battleship, performance in duties like convoy escort or bombardments is irrelevant even though those would be commonest types of operations, as any BB will perform roughly the same in all of them - scare raiders, help with AA, destroy fortifications etc. Speed doesn't matter, as most of the convoys will be slower still. Armour is not a priority as raiders would rather run away from splashes than try fighting as even single heavy hit may mission-kill them and land forces mostly have relatively short ranged, limited calibre guns (4-6in).
I'd risk to say that Dreadnought herself would perform well in those tasks, had she survived till WWII and had modern FC and turrets modified for higher elevation (this mostly for bombardment missions).
On the other hand BB that is good in surface combat would be also good at all other duties (not necessarily carrier escort, you need speed for that).
My favourite ship classes (on the basis of looks, combat record and/or stats) are:
BB, BC: Derfflinger, QE, North Carolina CA : Atago, Zara, Georgios Averof
CL : Brooklyn, Crown Colony, La Galissonniere
DD : Grom
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Post by generalvikus on Oct 29, 2018 17:42:02 GMT -6
I believe that we need to possibly define a set of criteria with which to judge a ship and its performance throughout its history. Is it firepower, speed, armor? Is it the number of naval battles? Is it convoy and fire support? Just what is it. How many actual surface battles were there in WW2. The Battle of the Denmark Straits, sinking of the Bismarck, Guadalcanal action against Kirishima, Matapan, Calabria, Mers-El-Kebir. Does this make sense? Possibly, the most useful task for these battleships was convoy protection and fire support for invasions. Our old dreadnoughts were used to escort convoys from the Pacific Coast to Australia and then provide fire support for island invasions. Isn't that a useful and successful task? Clearly it is a useful task and clearly they were successful in performing it, but a badly designed, shoddily built battleship could escort convoys and bombard shore targets just as well as a fantastic ship, or at least do a perfectly adequate job of it. So, for the purposes of this thread, which is to sort out the very best historical designs, I think that we should consider only more intense actions to be evidence of a ship's worthiness. A ship that escorted convoys and bombarded shore targets for the entire war may well have been the best of them all; it just didn't get a chance to prove it, but you can still argue for that ship's merits on a theoretical basis. And when we're talking about the QE, I think that we're all referring to the Queen Elizabeth class, of which the Warspite is the most famous and celebrated example.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Oct 29, 2018 21:53:11 GMT -6
I believe that we need to possibly define a set of criteria with which to judge a ship and its performance throughout its history. Is it firepower, speed, armor? Is it the number of naval battles? Is it convoy and fire support? Just what is it. How many actual surface battles were there in WW2. The Battle of the Denmark Straits, sinking of the Bismarck, Guadalcanal action against Kirishima, Matapan, Calabria, Mers-El-Kebir. Does this make sense? Possibly, the most useful task for these battleships was convoy protection and fire support for invasions. Our old dreadnoughts were used to escort convoys from the Pacific Coast to Australia and then provide fire support for island invasions. Isn't that a useful and successful task? …... So, for the purposes of this thread, which is to sort out the very best historical designs, I think that we should consider only more intense actions to be evidence of a ship's worthiness. A ship that escorted convoys and bombarded shore targets for the entire war may well have been the best of them all; it just didn't get a chance to prove it, but you can still argue for that ship's merits on a theoretical basis. …... Ok, so define "very best historical designs". Is it just "more intense actions" that we use as evidence of a ship's worthiness? What is the theoretical basis for judging a ship's merits?
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Post by rockmedic109 on Oct 29, 2018 21:56:32 GMT -6
The Alaska class gets a nod for looks. Longevity would go to Constitution and Victory but this would be the wrong forum for them. I agree the QE class sets a pretty high standard. They were eclipsed by others but had remained a front-line unit for so long speaks very well of their design. But I have to admit that I've always been partial to the HMS Hood. But I have to admit a certain bias.
Stephen E Hood
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Post by aeson on Oct 29, 2018 22:45:23 GMT -6
They were eclipsed by others but had remained a front-line unit for so long speaks very well of their design. I'd be a bit leery of citing the length of time over which the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships remained front-line units as evidence of the quality of the design, if only because there are a number of factors - the First World War and its economic costs, the 1922 Treaty of Washington and the 1930 Treaty of London, the Great Depression, political opposition to continued high naval expenditures, probably others - which could be argued to have artificially lengthened the span of time over which the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships remained front-line units.
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