ABDA_Krijn wrote:kongo's side armour was only 9 inch .. hiei was left a wreck by a couple of us cruisers and destroyers at Guadalcanal.
Hiei was not doomed until next morning when the planes of Cactus Air Force did show up. She was still with firing capability...in fact she was firing at a USN DD in the morning. 1 or 2 hits from San Francisco managed to penetrate the belt and wreck the steering room...and it was at point blank range.
ABDA_Krijn wrote:the Prince of wales and repulse had a hopeless aa battery, the 5.25's on POW where to slow in firing and traversing to keep up and the POW had only a few pompons as other air defence. Repulse was even more desperate she had the clumsy 4 inch tripple mounts and a few pompons.
PoW had a very powerful AA battery...in fact such guns were perhaps the best AA heavy AA guns of the Royal Navy at the time. She was slow firing because she received two early torpedo hits near the stern that wrecked the rudder and flooded the power plant reducing the energy of the ship in 50% therefore taking half the power for the AA turrets. Still they kept working them manually. Amazingly Repulse managed to shot down around 5 planes with such reduced AA guns. Trained crews always count.
ABDA_Krijn wrote:strong points of the dutch BC's
armour.. 275 mm thick (11 inch)
guns the german 11.1's where not great against modern heavy armourd battleships but the light armour of the Kongo's is not an issue.
aa guns /firecontrol the dutch ships used the Hazemeyer/HSA tri-axis balanced firecontrol for their lighter aa's (20's and 40's) something copied by the british and americans (and currently Hazemeyer/hsa is still a leading force in these weaponsystems )
11' guns were good guns and more then enough to deal with heavy cruisers. Not sure if Kongo's armour could defeat them but I find hard to believe they could. Dutch firecontrol was as good as the german ones which were good....normally you get a hit on the 3rd shot.
ABDA_Krijn wrote:another ship that should be part of the abda fleet is the cruiser that turned around when nearly out of oil and after hearing the disaster in the java sea .. Hr Ms Heemskerck this fast modern aa cruiser with its modern firecontrol and fast firing 10 4 inch guns would become the best aa cruiser in the british eastern fleet .
Heemskerck wouldn't have made much of a difference in such battle. She would probably be leading the dutch destroyers or all the allied destroyers present and would probably counter-charge the incoming japanese flotillas. Torpedo or gunfire victim she would have become. Tromp was lucky to survive the beating she took at Badung Strait from a couple of japanese destroyers.
ABDA_Krijn wrote:if the japanese had gone into a pure gun action against the allied fleet with 1 or 2 of the new BC's i think they would have withdrawn and waited till aircraft carriers and pure battleships became available like Nagato and Mutsu or Yamato.
Going in a pure gun action? Hardly! If you have a proper long-range weapon like the Long-Lance and a poor gunnery performance at such range you would surelly employ both weapons. Torpedoes are almost always present in every surface battle the IJN gets into it.
Like I said before the japanese had air supremacy therefore they would know long before what they were to face therefore the battle would never had took place...they would have just send the bombers to do the job. Still, they didn't do that on the battle of the 26-27th of February anyway.
No battleships were present in the area anyway...two Kongo's were escorting the carrier stricking force and the other 2 were a bit far away. Yamato and Musashi were not assigned to such campaign or even finished. The rest was at the home islands I believe.
Good points anyway, Krijn.
Java Sea is one of the subjects I like the most to read and study. Please, don't take my different opinions in a clashy way. I don't mean to start a serious argument on this. Just like to share the info.
Good luck with the project. I have Tromp here to build one of these days!!!
[quote="ABDA_Krijn"]kongo's side armour was only 9 inch .. hiei was left a wreck by a couple of us cruisers and destroyers at Guadalcanal.[/quote]
Hiei was not doomed until next morning when the planes of Cactus Air Force did show up. She was still with firing capability...in fact she was firing at a USN DD in the morning. 1 or 2 hits from San Francisco managed to penetrate the belt and wreck the steering room...and it was at point blank range.
[quote="ABDA_Krijn"]the Prince of wales and repulse had a hopeless aa battery, the 5.25's on POW where to slow in firing and traversing to keep up and the POW had only a few pompons as other air defence. Repulse was even more desperate she had the clumsy 4 inch tripple mounts and a few pompons.[/quote]
PoW had a very powerful AA battery...in fact such guns were perhaps the best AA heavy AA guns of the Royal Navy at the time. She was slow firing because she received two early torpedo hits near the stern that wrecked the rudder and flooded the power plant reducing the energy of the ship in 50% therefore taking half the power for the AA turrets. Still they kept working them manually. Amazingly Repulse managed to shot down around 5 planes with such reduced AA guns. Trained crews always count.
[quote="ABDA_Krijn"]strong points of the dutch BC's
armour.. 275 mm thick (11 inch)
guns the german 11.1's where not great against modern heavy armourd battleships but the light armour of the Kongo's is not an issue.
aa guns /firecontrol the dutch ships used the Hazemeyer/HSA tri-axis balanced firecontrol for their lighter aa's (20's and 40's) something copied by the british and americans (and currently Hazemeyer/hsa is still a leading force in these weaponsystems )[/quote]
11' guns were good guns and more then enough to deal with heavy cruisers. Not sure if Kongo's armour could defeat them but I find hard to believe they could. Dutch firecontrol was as good as the german ones which were good....normally you get a hit on the 3rd shot.
[quote="ABDA_Krijn"]another ship that should be part of the abda fleet is the cruiser that turned around when nearly out of oil and after hearing the disaster in the java sea .. Hr Ms Heemskerck this fast modern aa cruiser with its modern firecontrol and fast firing 10 4 inch guns would become the best aa cruiser in the british eastern fleet .[/quote]
Heemskerck wouldn't have made much of a difference in such battle. She would probably be leading the dutch destroyers or all the allied destroyers present and would probably counter-charge the incoming japanese flotillas. Torpedo or gunfire victim she would have become. Tromp was lucky to survive the beating she took at Badung Strait from a couple of japanese destroyers.
[quote="ABDA_Krijn"]if the japanese had gone into a pure gun action against the allied fleet with 1 or 2 of the new BC's i think they would have withdrawn and waited till aircraft carriers and pure battleships became available like Nagato and Mutsu or Yamato.[/quote]
Going in a pure gun action? Hardly! If you have a proper long-range weapon like the Long-Lance and a poor gunnery performance at such range you would surelly employ both weapons. Torpedoes are almost always present in every surface battle the IJN gets into it.
Like I said before the japanese had air supremacy therefore they would know long before what they were to face therefore the battle would never had took place...they would have just send the bombers to do the job. Still, they didn't do that on the battle of the 26-27th of February anyway.
No battleships were present in the area anyway...two Kongo's were escorting the carrier stricking force and the other 2 were a bit far away. Yamato and Musashi were not assigned to such campaign or even finished. The rest was at the home islands I believe.
Good points anyway, Krijn.
Java Sea is one of the subjects I like the most to read and study. Please, don't take my different opinions in a clashy way. I don't mean to start a serious argument on this. Just like to share the info. :thumbs_up_1:
Good luck with the project. I have Tromp here to build one of these days!!! :big_grin: