Post by William Miller on Jul 20, 2014 16:17:17 GMT -6
I posted this on another forum website but thought it might make for some discussion here,
There is one feature the CV could accomplish far more effectively then any surface combatant in the history of naval warfare, the "mission kill".
Many surface combatants, during all major naval wars, were stuck in port for months, or in some cases even permanently, due to varying degrees of damage. The Tirpitz suffered from a "bomb sponge, repair, repeat" cycle for years while the RAF/RN played it out like a target practice exercise. The Yamato and Musashi.. nuff said. Bismarck..a silly WW1 Swordfish crimped its first sortie. The USS Pennsylvania got hit in the ass end with a torp that crippled her. The Taranto raid effectively neutralized the bulk of the Italian navy during a critical portion of the Med naval campaign. Plus of course Pearl Harbor. And the list goes on.
By the end of WW1 aircraft were already starting to be a potential, and sometimes legitimate, threat to big fat battleships - had WW1 lasted just a few more years, and extrapolating for the RAPID development of several generations of aircraft in just a few years during the war, there is no reason to think that the CV would not have become a naval warfare game changer much sooner then the early 1940s. At a minimum the airplane was easily the most strategically important asset of WW1 (recon intel) and combined with mobile flight decks, being developed to carry torpedoes (by 1918 this was already being done) and bombs, it was simply a matter of time before they would start attacking warships at sea (they were already attacking BBs in port with bombs) - several merchants were already successfully attacked at sea before the end of the war by aerial ordnance. The only part that needed real work yet, was ToT coordination and communications, but the potential threat was already there by the end of WW1.
Point being.. it did not take much to push a battleship back to port due to damage that would cause a "mission kill", and even less to keep them pinned up in port due to a perceived threat, of which was already happening by the time WW1 got started for a variety of other reasons. The threat of a silly plane putting a fish in your fat battleship would have just added to the paranoia as was already being done by the submarine, destroyer-torpedo boats, and mines. BB captains, and admirals, of WW1 did not have the 20-20 hindsight of present day historians and detection and defenses against such threats were not very reliable at that time so self-preservation was more important then a show of force potentially risky deployment during those years. A captain losing his expensive battleship to such low cost weapons would have likely cost him his career, life, or both at that time. Remember, BBs did not have very good underwater protection yet and superstructures (SS) could be severely damaged by fire and explosions even with small bombs. Now before anyone goes "who cares about the superstructure!".. remember, a BB had one PRIMARY purpose in life, put a big fat shell on a moving target at sea (all other missions were secondary like being overly expensive crater makers and AAA barges) and the very complex and sophisticated fire controls were mostly all up in the SS.. knock those out and the BB was little more then an armored noise-making Titanic target. The fact that a damaged SS could cause havoc was also proven many times over during the RJW, WW1, and WW2.
The simple threat of cost effective weapons that could damage a big fat expensive battleship were already having their effect on naval warfare by the early 1900s during the RJW. In effect the BB was losing its role as a *deployable* effective naval strategic platform even before WW1 got started - as was proven by their "paper strength" but serious lack of deployment sorties when compared to the cruisers, and even battlecruisers. When the CV came of age around the 1930s with more powerful ordnance being carried by stronger engined aircraft, and definitely after they proved themselves in combat 1940s, the BB era was effectively over.
The simple fact that capital ship deployments were greatly dictated by enemy naval air/land power during WW2 also speaks volumes of the perceived, and real, threat of aircraft. CVs with planes were deploying constantly .. BBs did not deploy nearly as often (and using mother nature as adhoc cloud cover protection did not always work out so well), especially without CV protection. Much the same restricted deployments of BBs happened during WW1, as noted above, due to other perceived threats such as mines and torpedo armed enemy naval platforms.
It was all a matter of when.. not if, the BB reign would end. It only took longer due to the lack of military priorities and funding put into improving aircraft and CVs after WW1 ended. Had the war lasted longer, the game changing events could have, and likely would have, happened MUCH sooner.
The main point of this context is that the more expensive and complex the weapon system the easier it is to mission kill it. Quite often, that is all you need to win a battle, a campaign, or possibly even an entire war.
Thanks.
There is one feature the CV could accomplish far more effectively then any surface combatant in the history of naval warfare, the "mission kill".
Many surface combatants, during all major naval wars, were stuck in port for months, or in some cases even permanently, due to varying degrees of damage. The Tirpitz suffered from a "bomb sponge, repair, repeat" cycle for years while the RAF/RN played it out like a target practice exercise. The Yamato and Musashi.. nuff said. Bismarck..a silly WW1 Swordfish crimped its first sortie. The USS Pennsylvania got hit in the ass end with a torp that crippled her. The Taranto raid effectively neutralized the bulk of the Italian navy during a critical portion of the Med naval campaign. Plus of course Pearl Harbor. And the list goes on.
By the end of WW1 aircraft were already starting to be a potential, and sometimes legitimate, threat to big fat battleships - had WW1 lasted just a few more years, and extrapolating for the RAPID development of several generations of aircraft in just a few years during the war, there is no reason to think that the CV would not have become a naval warfare game changer much sooner then the early 1940s. At a minimum the airplane was easily the most strategically important asset of WW1 (recon intel) and combined with mobile flight decks, being developed to carry torpedoes (by 1918 this was already being done) and bombs, it was simply a matter of time before they would start attacking warships at sea (they were already attacking BBs in port with bombs) - several merchants were already successfully attacked at sea before the end of the war by aerial ordnance. The only part that needed real work yet, was ToT coordination and communications, but the potential threat was already there by the end of WW1.
Point being.. it did not take much to push a battleship back to port due to damage that would cause a "mission kill", and even less to keep them pinned up in port due to a perceived threat, of which was already happening by the time WW1 got started for a variety of other reasons. The threat of a silly plane putting a fish in your fat battleship would have just added to the paranoia as was already being done by the submarine, destroyer-torpedo boats, and mines. BB captains, and admirals, of WW1 did not have the 20-20 hindsight of present day historians and detection and defenses against such threats were not very reliable at that time so self-preservation was more important then a show of force potentially risky deployment during those years. A captain losing his expensive battleship to such low cost weapons would have likely cost him his career, life, or both at that time. Remember, BBs did not have very good underwater protection yet and superstructures (SS) could be severely damaged by fire and explosions even with small bombs. Now before anyone goes "who cares about the superstructure!".. remember, a BB had one PRIMARY purpose in life, put a big fat shell on a moving target at sea (all other missions were secondary like being overly expensive crater makers and AAA barges) and the very complex and sophisticated fire controls were mostly all up in the SS.. knock those out and the BB was little more then an armored noise-making Titanic target. The fact that a damaged SS could cause havoc was also proven many times over during the RJW, WW1, and WW2.
The simple threat of cost effective weapons that could damage a big fat expensive battleship were already having their effect on naval warfare by the early 1900s during the RJW. In effect the BB was losing its role as a *deployable* effective naval strategic platform even before WW1 got started - as was proven by their "paper strength" but serious lack of deployment sorties when compared to the cruisers, and even battlecruisers. When the CV came of age around the 1930s with more powerful ordnance being carried by stronger engined aircraft, and definitely after they proved themselves in combat 1940s, the BB era was effectively over.
The simple fact that capital ship deployments were greatly dictated by enemy naval air/land power during WW2 also speaks volumes of the perceived, and real, threat of aircraft. CVs with planes were deploying constantly .. BBs did not deploy nearly as often (and using mother nature as adhoc cloud cover protection did not always work out so well), especially without CV protection. Much the same restricted deployments of BBs happened during WW1, as noted above, due to other perceived threats such as mines and torpedo armed enemy naval platforms.
It was all a matter of when.. not if, the BB reign would end. It only took longer due to the lack of military priorities and funding put into improving aircraft and CVs after WW1 ended. Had the war lasted longer, the game changing events could have, and likely would have, happened MUCH sooner.
The main point of this context is that the more expensive and complex the weapon system the easier it is to mission kill it. Quite often, that is all you need to win a battle, a campaign, or possibly even an entire war.
Thanks.