maxim wrote:
@ Dick J: I do not think that Savo proved that the New Orleans were a bad design - the New Orleans class was for sure the best pre-war USN heavy cruiser except probably of USS Wichita. My point was that there is no proof that heavy cruiser armour had any use. Even in gun actions heavily armoured ships were disabled. Rick's list would be other argument - the deadliest weapon was the torpedo.
Even the best of the armored ships will be sunk if they allow themselves to become a static target. Armor does not make a ship immune. It buys time for you to disable the other guy before he disables you. And armor provides an "immune zone" where the armor is most effective. At Savo, the Japanese were already inside the inner edge of that zone, so essentially it was as if there was nothing to stop the shells. In order to have a meaningful test of the value of armor, you need a battle where both sides are prepared and can maneuver their ships to the best advantage. Also, it might have been useful to have something like a Northampton and a New Orleans side by side to see which was disable first and find out if the New Orleans' armor bought enough time. Since no such action occurred, it is difficult to say whether or not the armor added value.
maxim wrote:
USN gun fire was already good during the Battle of Kula Gulf and Battle of Kolombangara. In both battles the Japanese flagship was rapidly disabled - but in both battles the Japanese counter attack was successful. Also at Tassafaronga the leading Japanese ship as sunk by gun fire - but again the Japanese torpedo attack was successful. Was that a problem that these Japanese destroyers were not detected? Or not been hit?
The problem with the MK-3 was that it reflected off too many things, including shell splashes. (In fact, the shell splashes produced a stronger return than the ship did.) To reduce that a bit, the radars were "range gated", meaning that you set a near and far range value and only the echoes in that range were displayed. But when you target a fast ship, such as a destroyer, it will maneuver rapidly when the first shell splashes show up. The DD will quickly exit the range set for the MK-3, but the shell splashes will remain. The shooter will still see a "target" (shell splashes) and concentrate on that, leaving the DD free to launch its torpedo attack. In the mean time, the US cruiser would cease fire, see no remaining target, and assume that it had been sunk. Then the torpedoes started arriving and the cruisers paid the price. The MK-8 could follow the target better and keep him busy if not disable him more quickly. So it made a huge difference in a night action. At Surigao, Maryland couldn't range off of the IJN BB (probably Yamashiro, but some argue that point), but she
could range off of West Virginia's shell splashes.
BTW, one correction to Rick's list: Quincy was hit by at least two and possibly three torpedoes. Also, what sank the Astoria was the fire that continued afterward that cooked off a 5" magazine and finally put her under. So had they been able to put out that fire, she might have survived.