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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.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jul 21, 2014 9:39:10 GMT -6
I don't believe that anyone who has worked on commercial or military hardware will disagree that the more complex a system, the more failure nodes it will have and more susceptible to either mission kills or non-operational failures. The carrier had to be the most complex and possibly the easiest target to mission kill. One well placed 500 lb. or 1000 lb. bomb, could mission kill a carrier in the blink of a moment and frequently did just that. At Pearl Harbor, the dive bombers were on a SEAD mission against the airfields and AA guns on the ships, they were not assigned to try to sink the BB's with those 500 lb. bombs. The only ones that did try, the fourteen that attacked the USS Nevada were totally ineffective against her 5 1/4 inch deck armor. I think it has to be recognized that a sailing battleship was a very difficult target to sink or even mission kill especially the fast battleships like the KG V's, North Carolina's, South Dakotas etc. At 28 knots or better, they were very maneuverable and well equipped with light and medium AA guns for defense but like all naval vessels at this time, they needed air cover. The fact that of the twenty-seven battleships sunk in WWII, eleven were victims in a port, the two coastal defense ships in Narvik excluded would seem to prove the point that at sea, the battleship was a difficult target. Pearl Harbor and Taranto are not evidence for the demise of the battleships, they had effectively no protection which would have not been true at sea.
By 1919, even Josephus Daniels (Navy Secretary)had realized the importance of the carrier. Technology had to catch up, to make the carrier what everyone except a few, knew it would be. Duraluminum structures, cantilever low mounted wings, retractable landing gears, more powerful engines, better flight instruments, radios all finally contributed to making the aircraft and the carrier, the best striking weapon available. A quick comparison is important; A WV class battleship could throw eight tons of ordnance every two minutes but at 30000 yards, its approximate accuracy was 5%. In 1941, one dive bomber(US SBD's) could drop a thousand pound bomb and take out a carriers deck at a range of 150 miles. Two such hits and that carrier might be an inferno as did happen. That thousand pound bomb was eight tons. ( from Battle Line: The United States Navy 1919-1939 by Trent Hone).
Just my take
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jul 22, 2014 12:02:13 GMT -6
Some more thoughts and information on this subject. I've been researching the moment or action, in the interwar period that represents the revolution in Naval thinking for the US Navy in regards to the carrier, its uses and the battleship. The two problems would be Fleet Problem IX and X. In Fleet Problem IX, Admiral Fletcher Pratt detached Saratoga and attacked the Panama Canal. The carrier's objective was not the battleships, but the canal and his maneuver succeeded even though the opposing battleships sank Saratoga during aircraft recovery. As to that, Pratt stated in time of war, he would have pulled back out of range, and that is what most fleet commanders did during WWII. Here is a quote by a staff officer of Admiral Joseph Reeves the carrier commander:
The second problem was the most important, IMO. It was Fleet Problem X In Fleet Problem X, Admiral Louis Nulton maintained the Mahanian tradition of seeking a decisive battle to gain sea control. Unfortunately for Nulton, the opposing commander, Admiral William Cole detached his carrier from the main body and ordered it to locate and attack the opposing Blue Fleet. The dive bombers showed up overhead and completely disrupted the opposing fleets disposition. Only one ship was judged sunk on either side and a battleship duel did occur, but as most stated at the time, it was anti-climatic and not decisive.
These two problems and the succeeding problem, Fleet Problem XI, showed that the carrier could disrupt sea control and that the search for the decisive battle to gain sea control could be defeated or at least delayed until one side was ready to engage the main force. It was also the first long distance aircraft carrier to aircraft carrier battle to be simulated. In fact, it has been noted how the results mirrored Midway, twelve years later.
These two problems and the succeeding ones, began the process of multi-dimensional thinking in the US Navy. The aircraft carrier and its load of planes essentially reduced the problem of geography as a limiting factor. As stated in many books, the ship could not outrun an aircaft. The failure to accept the fact that distance and geography were not protection probably was a contributing factor at Pearl Harbor.
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Post by William Miller on Jul 22, 2014 23:13:52 GMT -6
I have to keep this short as my week is already keeping me busy.
A few points of view,
a) The reason PH even happened the way it did was because the old BBs could not keep up with the CVs - which in turn - suggests that protecting them at sea would have been a serious liability to any faster CV, and possibly not done at all. Fast BBs had to keep up with the CVs otherwise they could not protect the CVs with AAA firepower or maintain protection for themselves. CVs would, and did, operate without BBs, but more often then not the opposite was not the case. So which was more of a liability or vulnerable to air attack? The BB or the CV? One good torp hit on a BB could, and sometimes did, keep it from ever returning to port, or if in port from going to sea for months. The bomb might have been a problem for the CV (although many times CVs were hit and still able to operate A/C soon after).. but torps could be equally crippling to many BBs at the time - examples, Yamato, Musashi, Pennsylvania, PoW, Repulse, and Bismarck - all of which were effectively knocked out of the war by just a few torpedo hits, in some cases only 1 hit was required. A BB crippled from a torpedo hit, which often forced any ship to lose considerable speed, makes it far more vulnerable. No BB ever built could defend itself against a full CV air wing.. but the CV could defend itself, and all escorts, from surface attack very effectively - even if the targets were BBs and even if they were only mission killed. Of course none of this even takes into account that any reasonable bomb damage could also lock up a BB in port for weeks or months.. if the SS is damaged enough the FCDs may be rendered ineffective making the BB a target more then a warship.
b) CVs, and land based air, dictated when surface combatants could operate - which in effect was a "mission kill" without damage being required if the surface combatants could NOT fulfill their roles in a naval theater. A surface combatant being stuck in port, for reasons of lack of self-protection, is not an asset, its a liability at worst, or at the least, a useless ship. CVs, and land based air power, made that situation a reality in WW2 like no other military asset in the history of naval warfare. All of the sudden a ship could be sunk at anytime, anywhere, if any enemy air power was a threat - especially if no one had any idea where the enemy CVs were, as happened to the IJN constantly, not even counting the times the Germans and Italians could not keep effective track of RN CVs. During WW1 torpedo armed assets were short ranged and easier to defend against.. but later on aerial assets changed everything. One could never assume that an air attack was not possible - and often those that did assume it could not happen paid dearly for it. Even the threat of naval air attack caused entire armadas to back off their missions, hide in the darkness, or try to use overcast skies as cover. Midway was a perfect example, even though the USN CVs had weakened air wings the IJN commanders could not risk pressing their luck any further. Coral Sea was also an example. Once the CVs were removed as threats to the enemy, or as the primary naval assets of the mission, the rest of the ships, no matter how big they were, instantly became seriously threatened targets - even if only by perception.
Point being.. yes, not many BBs were sunk at sea by air power, but their deployments were greatly dictated on when, or if, the enemy had aerial assets that could threaten their operations. The RN might have been a bit more brazen with their BBs due to lack of KM naval air power and poor coordination with the Luftwaffe around the Arctic and Atlantic but that was not the case in the Indian Ocean where they got spanked by Japanese aircraft on several occasions. The IJN and RM had to quickly restrict their surface combatant operations due to possible allied naval air attacks once the USN and RN CVs entered the Med and Pacific theaters. The KM was greatly restricted not just to be being vastly outnumbered in terms of surface combatants (of which many could not even catch them, and the ones that could catch them could not always outgun them) but also due to RN CVs that could catch them with good speed and even faster aircraft. Even though the RN aircraft were not always capable of flying a long distance they still allowed the CV to strike from ranges far beyond any KM gunfire, and that was all that mattered.
The side with the most CVs and effective aircraft determined the war at sea, end of story. Whether they sank many BBs at sea was almost irrelevant, especially if the BBs were kept pinned up in port due to the very threat of CVs attacking them if they attempted to deploy. A mission kill is a mission kill, whether by threat of damage or due to damage. The role of the BB was to shoot things.. not be pinned up in port, end up as bomb/torpedo sponges, or spend more time being repaired then being deployed.
Bottom line, sinking a ship was never required to win a naval war.. this simple fact even held true back to the age of sail. A warship either had the choice to be a worthy asset that could deploy and fight effectively or end up a target and/or liability.
That is my few cents. Anyone else?
Thanks Dennis.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jul 24, 2014 13:26:27 GMT -6
There are many myths about Pearl Harbor and one of them is that Halsey didn't want the battleships because they were too slow. In point of fact, the tankers that were with the two TF's were even slower than the battleships. In fact, he took battleships with him, when he departed on 28 November. He then sent the battleships to their exercise area and headed to Wake Island. At this time, he issued Battle Order #1 putting his TF on a war footing. Halsey was aware that he was not equipped to fight a major battle and that without the BB's he could retreat much faster, it only made sense. So the BB's stayed at home. Were the battleships the target? Absolutely, remember that the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty maintained a ratio of 10:6. In military circles, square those numbers and you have the combat power ratio: 100:36. As we all should know, a 3:1 advantage is hard to overcome, so Yamamoto had to reduce that ratio to 6:6 or sink four battleships. He accomplished that objective at Pearl Harbor. The Japanese still subscribed to Mahan's view of sea control via the decisive battle, a concept long disposed of, by the US Navy since Fleet Problem IX and the realization that the fleet would not be able to thrust across after the start of the war. The Japanese had secured, in the early part of the century a copy of WPO, but that plan was now gone, the Japanese did not know that. So, did Pearl Harbor really spell the end of the battleship? Not in the eyes of the US Navy, that fact had been accepted many years earlier during Fleet Problems and war games at the NWC. Only the Japanese still subscribed to it. The US Navy had found other uses for the old battleships in their games with amphibious landings.
As to the protection, all fleet ships now had to be integrated together under the protection of the carrier air wings that had been standard since 1933, if I remember correctly. All deployments during WWII were dictated by the availability of carrier air except in the Mediterranean around the Straits of Sicily where land based air could provide most of the protection from Naples to Bizerte for the Italian convoys.
We think that the battleship had diminished in importance by 1941, and that wasn’t true. The Washington Naval Treaty and the London Treaty forced navies to become more balanced. Weapons research and ship construction now focused on aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, transports, mobile dry docks and other types. The fortification clause in the treaty eliminated land bases in the Pacific, hence the aircraft carrier had to be further developed to substitute in the initial phases of the coming war to allow for the invasion and occupation of forward bases. With the capture of those forward bases, now land based air could provide air cover for the fleets. Pearl Harbor might have eliminated four battleships, but in the end it was the treaties that caused most of the change in the view. The battleship, although no longer the queen of the fleet, still took its place side by side with the other important vessels in a balanced fleet.
Note: In one of my books, there is the picture below of the USS Wisconsin parked outboard of the recovered hull of the Oklahoma. The caption was "Yamamoto exchanged fighting the Oklahoma class battleship with 14 inch guns for the Iowa class, radar equipped 16 inch guns that could strike and did at over 32 miles. Think he made the right decision?
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Post by William Miller on Jul 26, 2014 14:34:19 GMT -6
Hi Dennis,
At the time of the early 1940s few realized the true potential of the CV for dictating a naval war as of yet but even as you noted, speed was life - and the old battlewagons with a cruising speed of around 15 knots, poor maneuverability, weak AA defenses, massive oil hogs (especially if going anything over 15 knots, their most fuel efficient speed was around 11 knots), etc.. were simply not tactically viable in combat zones with a CV task force that operated at an average cruising speed over around 20+ knots - which was faster then most of those battleships could sprint at. End result, they were a severe liability - especially if the CV force wanted to keep any enemy surface combatants at arms length so their airpower could do their intended work.
Even saying the above, once the CVs proved themselves to the rest of the BB entrenched thinkers at Coral Sea and Midway the results of their strategic strength was clear. No surface force could risk being caught at sea without CV air cover - especially during daylight. The IJN operations were greatly affected by the perceived threat of naval air attack as were the RM and KM.
Yes, this may be hindsight but the historical results of how and when naval units deployed during WW2 was similar in many ways to WW1 when other cheaper torpedo armed threats often caused navies to think twice about deploying their mighty fleets (mines were of course another major problem). The CV simply compounded that effect with aircraft. Anything that could be armed with a cheap and dangerous torpedo was a threat to a big fat battleship.
As to your Iowa context.. by the time the Iowa deployed the IJN CV forces were crippled and far less of a threat then during 1941 along with most of the quality IJN pilots being killed. IMHO, the F6F Hellcat was far more valuable in the Pacific then all of the SDs, NCs, and Iowas combined. The USN could, and for the most part did, win the war in the Pacific without a single battleship .. that alone speaks for the power of the CVs and their air wings.
Thanks.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jul 26, 2014 18:28:26 GMT -6
In 1937, Richmond Kelly Turner stated " “The Employment of Aviation in Naval Warfare.... meant that nothing behind the enemy front is entirely secure from observation and attack.” Improved performance also implied that carrier aircraft could put air bases on land out of commission and achieve “command of the air” in a region. War games and exercises that set one carrier against another were misleading. “For us to attain command of the air around a hostile fleet in its own home waters we must not only destroy its carrier decks, but also all the airdromes or land-based aviation in its vicinity".
Quoted from "Replacing Battleships with Aircraft Carriers in the Pacific in World War II" authored by Thomas Hone
I think this quote pretty well sums up the advantages of the carrier and its air wing. Turner went on to say that enough concentration of carriers had to be achieved to accomplish the desired goal. So, Pearl Harbor did not show us anything we ourselves were not aware of; that a carrier force could strike behind your lines at airfields and harbors. Now how do you achieve that necessary concentration? We know that experience showed that the side who found the other first had the advantage, therefore scouting was paramount. But how do we balance the requirements? How many fighters for protection of the ships and air wings, how many scouts and how many strike aircraft? So, how many carriers do we need and how do we combine them into groups. In other words, how do we cluster them? In the beginning, we used two carriers; a day carrier which provided scouting, CAP and inner patrols and the strike carrier. Normal distance between the two was 1000 yards until the day carrier had to launch or recover aircraft. At this point, it would increase the distance to 5000 to 10,000 yards. It probably had to do these four times a day. This also meant that the strike carrier had to change course to stay closer to the day carrier. This hampered movement to or from the enemy. It also complicated the screening function. The cruisers and destroyers now had to separate, and close in around each carrier as they moved apart or a submarine could get inside the formation. This happened more than needed to us. By 1943 there was a serious discussion amongst the commanders about how many carriers should be in a task force. Many said that two was max; others said that three was possible and better. Eventually, PAC-10 combined all the documents and procedures for all ships and specifically stated that concentration depended on the circumstances. IMO, an admission that hard and fast rules don't win wars, but flexibility does. It did specify the standard task force organization at two Essex class carriers and two light carriers like the Independence class.
Interestingly, it was Vice Admiral Ernest J. King who in 1939, was the Commander Aircraft, Battle Force who issued a document defining the primary mission of carrier aircraft as "gaining and maintaining control of the air in the theatre of naval operations; missions of a defensive nature militate against the accomplishment of this mission. " If the carriers had to head off to a major raid, the battleship forces were on their own. Also, at night, the carriers could not stay close to the battleships. If a night action was possible, the carriers had to abandon the battleship force. King’s document also stated that after an amphibious invasion, it was not recommended that the carrier force stay around, which in fact it did at Guadalcanal and King became upset when Fletcher did that very thing; left the area for refueling. It was found that the carriers had to stay close to the invasion to maintain air superiority over the Japanese. Well, so much for doctrine.
My point is that carrier doctrine was established at the beginning of the war, but as always, it had to be flexible, based on circumstances. My impression is that the carrier owned the daylight, the battleship owned the night. We and the Japanese knew what the carrier could do and its limitations. Pearl Harbor did not awaken us to anything, we knew it was possible. This was why less than six months later, we launched B-25’s from their decks and struck Tokyo. Cruising procedures and doctrine might have been modified and adjusted to new technology and circumstances but on the whole, we knew what the carrier was capable of, from the beginning. This maybe the real difference between the US Navy and the IJN, flexibility.
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Post by William Miller on Jul 29, 2014 18:30:16 GMT -6
I think we are on the same page, in the end, the debate over CV vs BB is very academic IMHO. The CV, when it could find and attack other naval units at reasonable distances and with effective firepower, could and often did, cause the "mission kill" of not only battleships but entire armadas due to their perceived and direct threat to any other naval unit in existence. This feat was never achieved at the same level by the BB in any naval war. This fact still persists to this day with the possible exception of nuclear powered submarines, of which could be another topic in itself. (Of course the above does not even get into attacking land targets at far greater ranges - and out of range of enemy shore defenses - with aircraft)
Point being, the BB was a threat that *could* mission kill enemy naval units -IF- it could get into range with its guns. But until the 1940s faster BBs were built they were some of the slowest ships of many fleets. The CV changed that situation dramatically.. not only were they fast, the planes could reach out further then any gun and faster then any ship by many times over, and repeat the process if the situation permitted. No ship, in port or at sea, was safe from the CV. During WW1 BBs were not able to reach ships in port as easily as CVs could during WW2 - if anything, ports could become sitting duck death traps if CVs could attack the ships in port with planes (which was already being done to some effect by WW1 with further planned attacks being considered). CVs also proved extremely invaluable for countering sub threats, which a BB was almost useless against and could end up being more a target then an asset.
I think one final thought would come to mind.. a naval war could be won without BBs by around the 1930s - possibly earlier. The same was not the case without the CRs, DDs, or CVs. After the dust settled.. the BB - with the biggest guns and most armor - was mothballed as a class of modern warship... all other warship types still prevailed to this day. And before anyone goes "but the BB Iowa class came back".. only to make craters and launch TLAMs and at an extremely high operating cost of nearly $10,000 per hour - not including expensive refit and upgrade costs. To make matters worse, they were filling a role that far cheaper, and vastly more versatile, platforms/weapons (especially in overall terms of operational flexibility) could have accomplished at the time.
Thanks.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jul 29, 2014 21:59:26 GMT -6
I think we are on the same page, in the end, the debate over CV vs BB is very academic IMHO. The CV, when it could find and attack other naval units at reasonable distances and with effective firepower, could and often did, cause the "mission kill" of not only battleships but entire armadas due to their perceived and direct threat to any other naval unit in existence. This feat was never achieved at the same level by the BB in any naval war. This fact still persists to this day with the possible exception of nuclear powered submarines, of which could be another topic in itself. (Of course the above does not even get into attacking land targets at far greater ranges - and out of range of enemy shore defenses - with aircraft) Point being, the BB was a threat that *could* mission kill enemy naval units -IF- it could get into range with its guns. But until the 1940s faster BBs were built they were some of the slowest ships of many fleets. The CV changed that situation dramatically.. not only were they fast, the planes could reach out further then any gun and faster then any ship by many times over, and repeat the process if the situation permitted. No ship, in port or at sea, was safe from the CV. During WW1 BBs were not able to reach ships in port as easily as CVs could during WW2 - if anything, ports could become sitting duck death traps if CVs could attack the ships in port with planes (which was already being done to some effect by WW1 with further planned attacks being considered). CVs also proved extremely invaluable for countering sub threats, which a BB was almost useless against and could end up being more a target then an asset. I think one final thought would come to mind.. a naval war could be won without BBs by around the 1930s - possibly earlier. The same was not the case without the CRs, DDs, or CVs. After the dust settled.. the BB - with the biggest guns and most armor - was mothballed as a class of modern warship... all other warship types still prevailed to this day. And before anyone goes "but the BB Iowa class came back".. only to make craters and launch TLAMs and at an extremely high operating cost of nearly $10,000 per hour - not including expensive refit and upgrade costs. To make matters worse, they were filling a role that far cheaper, and vastly more versatile, platforms/weapons (especially in overall terms of operational flexibility) could have accomplished at the time. Thanks. How interesting it is, that in 1904, Sir John Fisher developed one of best replacements for the battleship; the battlecruiser. Faster than battleships, heavily armed, more maneuverable and cheaper to operate; almost a perfect match for the carrier. Unfortunately, due to Jutland, not well thought of. With the protection of the carrier, speed of the carrier, this ship could have been important through the interwar period. Also interesting is the fact that the most widely used capital ships for the IJN in the Pacific were in fact, updated battlecruisers of the Kongo class. They always accompanied the carriers until most were lost, but still important at Guadalcanal where two were lost. Still, a good concept as long as mated with the carrier.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jul 29, 2014 21:59:37 GMT -6
I think we are on the same page, in the end, the debate over CV vs BB is very academic IMHO. The CV, when it could find and attack other naval units at reasonable distances and with effective firepower, could and often did, cause the "mission kill" of not only battleships but entire armadas due to their perceived and direct threat to any other naval unit in existence. This feat was never achieved at the same level by the BB in any naval war. This fact still persists to this day with the possible exception of nuclear powered submarines, of which could be another topic in itself. (Of course the above does not even get into attacking land targets at far greater ranges - and out of range of enemy shore defenses - with aircraft) Point being, the BB was a threat that *could* mission kill enemy naval units -IF- it could get into range with its guns. But until the 1940s faster BBs were built they were some of the slowest ships of many fleets. The CV changed that situation dramatically.. not only were they fast, the planes could reach out further then any gun and faster then any ship by many times over, and repeat the process if the situation permitted. No ship, in port or at sea, was safe from the CV. During WW1 BBs were not able to reach ships in port as easily as CVs could during WW2 - if anything, ports could become sitting duck death traps if CVs could attack the ships in port with planes (which was already being done to some effect by WW1 with further planned attacks being considered). CVs also proved extremely invaluable for countering sub threats, which a BB was almost useless against and could end up being more a target then an asset. I think one final thought would come to mind.. a naval war could be won without BBs by around the 1930s - possibly earlier. The same was not the case without the CRs, DDs, or CVs. After the dust settled.. the BB - with the biggest guns and most armor - was mothballed as a class of modern warship... all other warship types still prevailed to this day. And before anyone goes "but the BB Iowa class came back".. only to make craters and launch TLAMs and at an extremely high operating cost of nearly $10,000 per hour - not including expensive refit and upgrade costs. To make matters worse, they were filling a role that far cheaper, and vastly more versatile, platforms/weapons (especially in overall terms of operational flexibility) could have accomplished at the time. Thanks. How interesting it is, that in 1904, Sir John Fisher developed one of best replacements for the battleship; the battlecruiser. Faster than battleships, heavily armed, more maneuverable and cheaper to operate; almost a perfect match for the carrier. Unfortunately, due to Jutland, not well thought of. With the protection of the carrier, speed of the carrier, this ship could have been important through the interwar period. Also interesting is the fact that the most widely used capital ships for the IJN in the Pacific were in fact, updated battlecruisers of the Kongo class. They always accompanied the carriers until most were lost, but still important at Guadalcanal where two were lost. Still, a good concept as long as mated with the carrier.
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Post by William Miller on Aug 2, 2014 15:09:26 GMT -6
I have posted before about being an advocate of the BC concept and that they suffered a bad rap due to poor decision making about ammo handling at Jutland and immature tactics. BCs had a higher operational tempo then the battleships in both world wars and their cruising speeds proved invaluable. As you have stated previously the CVs in many ways replaced the BC mission roles (recon, screening, engaging faster then typical BB speed targets, etc..). Even in the world of heavy armor speed still proved to be a more critical asset then armor for warships - as is proven in modern day. You simply can't armor everything and if the BB can't run away from a CV it could quickly become a sitting duck and mission killed or sunk - as was proven many times. Anything with a lower then 20+ knot cruising speed by WW2 was more of a liability then an asset. For fast dashes 24+ knots had to be maintained for *sustained* periods to avoid being attacked by aircraft during daylight. This fact alone made the Yamato class a total waste of a warship especially since it was a massive fuel hog.
During WW1 early BCs were sometimes more expensive then the BBs due to their numerous boiler requirements but later more powerful BBs were able to match pace with them but at higher cost.
In the end a ship with good AA firepower, speed to keep up with the CVs, and ability to fend off surface attacks was all that was needed in the 1940s. Heavy armor was almost a waste of time and expense especially if high speed was not part of the equation. Even the USN could have done just fine with 8-10 Alaskas instead of the more expensive NCs, Iowas, and SDs - only the Washington pulverized an enemy capital ship at sea, the Yamashiro - which the Alaska could have mauled just as easily at that range. The Surigao Straight is not even worth mentioning.. 2-3 Alaskas would have made that just more of what it already was, a turkey shoot. The Brits made good use of their KGVs due to less powerful CV air wings and usually lousy weather conditions in the North Sea but again they could have waged their naval war with numerous BCs augmented by CVs if needed.
One could argue.. that if CVs and BCs been built in reasonable numbers that the BBs were never really needed for WW2. The only reason BBs still reigned during WW1 is because CVs were not quite ready to kill them at sea yet.. but the writing was on the wall by 1918, and it would have come to pass by the 1930s had the opportunity been available to prove it. Wartime efforts evolved weapons far faster then peace time so if WW1 had lasted longer the entire CV concept could have changed naval war tactics much sooner then the 1940s.
Thanks.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 2, 2014 17:43:37 GMT -6
I've always felt that the problems at Jutland were not the cause of the demise of the class of warships we call battle cruisers. The class had two primary missions: heavy reconnaissance because they could in theory dispose of the enemy's cruisers performing the same function and commerce protection. There were two other missions that were assigned to them; Pursuit of the enemy fleet and support on the ends of the line against cruisers attempting to outflank the fleet. All those missions were taken over by new types of ships; namely the aircraft carrier and the submarine. The carrier with its aircraft could scout farther than the battle cruiser and strike the enemy ship or ships, if armed. It could perform this mission at a much longer range than the battle cruiser. The submarine in 1917 took over commerce raiding and the commerce protection mission had to be assigned to destroyers and aircraft carriers. The battle cruiser had lost two of its primary missions, mostly due to the 1922 Washington Naval treaty which elevated the carrier, submarines, cruisers and destroyers to an equal status with the battle cruiser and dreadnoughts.
The last two missions were never, in my opinion, serious missions for the battle cruisers. With their thin armor chasing a retreating battle force seems to me to be very dangerous, especially with the advent of the sea mine and long range torpedo. Also, protecting the flanks of the battle fleet essentially puts the battle cruiser in the battle line, and it was never designed for that position. When viewed in this manner, it would seem that the battle cruiser simply lost its missions and those that were built in the latter part of WW1 by the British and Japanese were upgraded but were never terribly successful.
Now, personally I have always liked the Deutschland class cruisers with six 11 inch guns, 26 knot speed, range of 18,650 miles and eight torpedo tubes. It also had 88mm guns, 37mm and 20mm guns for AA defense. Secondary guns were 8 x 6 inch guns. When used carefully, they could have had a good effect, especially in the Mediterranean and possibly the South Pacific. Hard to know, but interesting as an idea.
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Post by William Miller on Aug 3, 2014 4:15:40 GMT -6
I think our opinions of the BC vary a bit here,
IMHO, the BC was an excellent concept for fleet and CV escorts, battle line flank protection/pursuit, scouting (WW1), cruiser squadron leaders, convoy protection, bombardment, and hunting down convoy raiders.
The above would let the BBs hold the battle line while the BCs could use their speed and firepower to handle other missions that might be a waste of resources for larger and often more expensive battleship. I do not believe the the typical carrier convoy escort (usually a CVL/CVE with few aircraft) was entirely capable of fending off a warship surface raider so the BC would still have a mission to perform in that role if there was a viable known threat. Bolstering the battle-line to help protect against non-BB warship threats, and/or to augment the firepower of the BBs, was also a viable mission if performed correctly IMHO. Many of the problems the BCs faced was conflicting ideas between the admirals on how to use BCs due to immature tactics and lack of battle experience.
Those are my thoughts.
Thanks
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Post by oldpop2000 on Aug 3, 2014 22:03:28 GMT -6
My brief historical narrative does not represent my opinion, but simply the story behind the demise of the class of warships. There were many factors in the demise of the battle cruiser and the dreadnoughts. Here are some, in my opinion.
First, the pre-war naval strategies precluded decisive battles, although neither side probably knew that. Neither the Germans nor the British understood the naval strategies of the other. The British strategy of blockade by distance and the German strategy of fleet in being, kept both fleets apart. Jutland changed nothing in the strategic side but tactically, it changed doctrine and procedures. No time to go into that, it’s all there in the memoirs of the participants. After the war, navies did not change their view of Mahan's naval strategy, but politics, economics did change their procurements and fleet compositions. Their view of Mahan, changed during interwar period, very gradually.
Politically, the nations in Europe and the US were overcome by peace movements and their governments like the Harding, Coolidge and Hoover administrations reflected that. The 1922 treaty declared a holiday in battleship building which the peace loving governments were glad to see, as they were certain that the previous war was caused by the naval arms race. So, naval budgets were slashed, and it was now cheaper to overhaul and upgrade the current crop of battleships than to design and build new ones. As the budgets were slashed and new classes of ships were developed, the battleship and the battle cruiser were had begun to diminish in importance. One threat to the British, the German's was eliminated, or so they thought. In fact, for the British, it was hard to find a real threat except for possibly Italy in the Mediterranean and maybe Japan, but Japan had been an ally so that consideration was less important. In fact, the US was more of a threat to England than anyone else. Sounds funny now, but it was true then. This is a complex story. The United States Navy General Board and other such boards now had to devise strategies with reduced budgets and possibly tactical doctrine that was no longer viable due to experiences in WW1 and technological improvements.
The issue of funding is always a key factor in procurements. One of the most important factors for any ship is cost per performance. For the battle cruiser, this is probably the most important factor in its demise. If you examine the cost of the battle cruiser versus the cost of the battleship, the difference wasn’t much, possibly a cost comparison of 2.5 million pounds versus 3 million pounds. With the political atmosphere and cost cutting, it was more cost effective to maintain the newer battleships with upgrades, and pour your scant resources into carriers, heavy cruisers, light cruisers, destroyers and submarines, than it was to build battle cruisers. These cheaper ships could perform most of the functions of the battle cruisers, with far less maintenance and if you needed to park them due to cost cuttings, they were cheaper to mothball. It was never a matter of whether the battle cruisers were a good design, it was always bang for buck and the battle cruiser lost that battle. For the proponents of battle cruisers, the losses at Jutland always hung around their necks like an albatross. The losses at Jutland were not due to poor designs, but that didn’t matter, it was used by opponents and government cost cutters as a good reason to focus on other ships.
This was the way the naval boards of the major navy’s looked at the issue and made the decision to focus on upgrading battleships, and purchasing carriers, cruisers, destroyers and submarines. The increasing cost of the battle cruiser (6.5 M pounds for Hood) generally eliminated that class from being built. Whether we believe that it was an appropriate class for the carriers or not, it was too expensive and other less expensive and faster ships to build became the norm. I’ve seen this kind of decision making in my career after Vietnam, and also with my dad after WWII. If you want to know why the F-14D was not procured, it wasn’t because it wasn’t an excellent aircraft; it was because of cost per performance. The F-18A could do the same job, cheaper and was easier by far to maintain.
I do not disagree with your assessment as to the flexibility of the battle cruiser design, however, I must agree with the boards assessment that pouring scarce money into expensive battle cruisers, does not make good sense. Let's think about what we might not have had during WWII if that decision had gone the other way.
Just my take
PS Sorry for the length
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Post by William Miller on Aug 4, 2014 5:19:28 GMT -6
To Dennis, You and me are on the same page regarding this historical backdrop to regarding the BCs - even if I do not agree with the decisions of the navies. If there was argument back then against the BCs then the arguments should have been stronger against the BBs which were more expensive and did less during WW2 then the BCs did - exception, the USN which did not build a BC until 1944. The simple fact remained, ships were getting faster.. except the old BBs which could barely get out of their own way, I guess few back then figured that out even though ALL navies wanted more speed out of their ships - ironic isn't it? The only new ship classes after WW1 that saved the RN from being the slow dogs in the Atlantic for catching the big German ships was the KGVs and CVs - and the KGVs were even slightly slower. If not for the R/R and Hood at the start of the war having a big gun fight would have been near impossible as the KGVs were still being finished and the early CVs had mediocre hitting power. In any event, the RN would have done just fine building less costly BCs similar in capability to the rebuilt Renown class rather then the near total waste of the Nelson class which was barely faster then a tug boat and had buckets of problems of their own. Ironically, due to the 14" gun turret issues with the KGVs the R/Rs had more reliable and heavier hitting firepower on average. The KGVs with the 15" proven turrets would have been a far better idea, and as such was done with the Vanguard class. The USN.. never needed a BB in the Pacific and for the most part won the war in the Pacific without them when you consider that none of the critical battles ever required a battleship. Only 2 times they were used for surface engagements and either one could have been handled by BCs. The RM had to use their BBs and BCs.. no CVs, same for the KM. Due to their limited capabilities in terms of naval reach, it did not really matter. Both navies would have likely saved a lot of effort and finances not even bothering with them as they were almost more of a liability then an asset in the end. Point being, regardless of what the reasons there were for a "big gun" warship (BB or BC) their days were already numbered by the time WW1 ended - just no one wanted to believe it yet. End result.. capital big gun ships were already on their way out, so building only BCs after WW1 would have made more sense IMHO. During WW2 .. BBs were not used nearly as much, many were too damned slow, and the CV was already on its way to rule the seas. The BCs would have allowed for a big gun ship for less cost that could also keep up with the new capital ships, the CVs, and be used more flexibly in terms of mission roles that simply did not require a bigger more expensive ship to accomplish. What actually did happen during history was because the "big gun" entrenched admirals were still fighting the previous war and that thinking blended in nicely with the backwards thinking political decisions. Sound familiar? Thanks
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