Age of the battleship really ended when?

[chuck]

It may seem like the result of crack smoking to you, but it's normal behavior for us!

[Werner]

Anyone who believes Halsey ran the 5th Fleet in 1944 should serve five detentions for not paying attention in class.

[Werner]

I found this experiment particularly odious because of my family ancestry located there. Fortunately, the centuries-old church containing population archives was not flattened, nor even damaged, as far as I know.

The Russians did a fair approximation with my ancestral home in 1945. That part of Germany is now a part of Russia.

They flattened all the 500 year old structures to put up Stalin's cubes and rectangles.

Before

After

Site of the castle.

[guest]

Getting back to the original discussion, I would just like to put in my two bobs worth in.
.ww2 was won by the side with the most battleships, and they got some sterling service from them. Furthermore, their deterrent factor was crucial. Germany could not have invaded England without eliminating the RN'S surface fleet. There were several sanguine episodes, off Crete and in Sunda Straits are the first two which come to mind, where invasion forces were drubbed in contact with big gun vessels. What if Prince of Wales and Repulse had caught the Malaya invasion force, as was their intention? What if Yamato and Musashi had been deployed at Gaudalcanal? And how much of a headache did the Tirpitz cause, simply by sitting in a fjiord?
. What if they had gone down the gatling gun road in the twenties when they first developed AA weapons? By the fifties jet fighters had them. The ascendancy of the aeroplane was due entirely to its superiority over the AA, which was originally believed, certainly by the RN, to be perfectly adequate, but one reason that they believed that was that in any case they didn't want to spend any more money. The Warspite, for example, begins the war with four quad .50 machine guns, but surely commonsense and less parsimony would dictate that you line your decks with such a weapon just to make sure, as they later tried to do with the oerlikon. The thinking was flawed, not the idea of the battleship.
. It would be possible to build a very well armoured vessel with ordnance more powerful than laymen such as ourselves would realise.( I questioned a RAN officer at a careers talk about the Phalynx, and rocket assisted artillery shells, and he would not comment, but you can be sure that weapons technology has moved on.) There is bound to be a number of strategic uses for a modern day battleship.
.Conversely, battleships were, and would be expensive, and require a massive number of skilled personnel. The taxpayers of most countries could not wear the cost.
.Also, if you can design an indestructable vessel then they will come up with a way to destroy it. The whole history of armour consists of advances which render systems obselete, hence you have an expensive arms race, and I refer you back to my previous point.
.Given all of the above it seems as though it was not so much the case that the battleship was obsolete, as that there was a general agreement not to bother with them. You chiefly need a battleship if an enemy has them, if he isnt going to bother then you don't need to, unless you have the USA's defence budget.
I hope this elicits a response, as this is a both a fascinating and a fraught subject. I always stress in my yr 10 History class the importance of the building of the Dreadnought, the subsequent arms race, and its effect upon the way people thought. It is certain that if these behemoths can fascinate people like us in this day and age then there was some sort of transcendent quality to their appearance, but it is also certain that they could be an efective tool.

[Andy G]

There is bound to be a number of strategic uses for a modern day battleship.

That's an interesting comment - but I cannot honestly imagine any uses that can't be performed by other vessels (or aircraft, for that matter) at least as well, and cheaper.

Your line about transcendental quality is intriguing.

The history of the battleship is certainly an insight into human culture.

I believe that the birth of the battleship (as we know it) was inevitable - experience from Tsushima, similar ideas occurring across the world, the availability of then-new technologies, a fear by the RN that they might be left behind, a forceful personality in Jacky Fisher - HMS Dreadnought was bound to be built.

And once she was, it was inevitable that other nations would follow suit. Not just the big-leaguers - even nations who could barely afford them.

The rabid pre-War propaganda ("we want eight"), the demonisation of other nations' battleship programmes, the lofting of "the battleship" as a symbol of might, of national measure: all fuelled a completely senseless, expensive and unnecessary arms race - there's the birth of your transcendental quality. A belief in objects, the evolution of those objects, over and above their actual value. It's essentially Medieval cathedral-building in the machine age.

The myth of their worth was pricked after the stalemate at Jutland, wrecked with the post-War nations bankrupt and vulnerable, until some collective sanity returned giving rise to the Washington Conference.

That said, their golden age still reverberates. I live in a country rich in its Edwardian heritage, and I'm making a model of the Dreadnought because, well, I'm fascinated - and probably because, like the dinosaurs I loved as a child, (and unlike the cathedrals that dot the cities) I can't see the real thing today.

Andy

[bengtsson]

That said, their golden age still reverberates. I live in a country rich in its Edwardian heritage, and I'm making a model of the Dreadnought because, well, I'm fascinated - and probably because, like the dinosaurs I loved as a child, (and unlike the cathedrals that dot the cities) I can't see the real thing today.

Andy

I agree very much that the Battleship was both the main element of Sea Power in it's time and a social phenomenon as well. Especially in Britain it is a great part of the heritage of the long years of Royal Navy power. Why was Warspite scrapped? That was a crime of the highest order. She should be right next to Belfast on the Thames!
My Battleship interests are mainly centered around the rise of the pre dreadnought and most of all, the Dreadnoughts of the Grand Fleet and High Seas Fleet. WWII Battleships are very interesting as studies in ship building, but I don't see them as being quite so important in the WWII context. And most of all, they are about as relevant to 2008 naval power as the New Zealand War Canoe was to the age of the Pre-Dreadnought. Nice to look at, but of little value in battle.
It's an age old argument about Aircraft and their Carriers killing off the age of the BB. I understand why many ship lovers don't like the idea. If I had my way, all of WWII would have been fought like Jutland. But reality is that the Aircraft Carriers became the Capital Ship. It's hard not to admire the brilliant use of aircraft at sea. If not for the aircraft carriers, no naval vessel would dare get within close range of a coast held by the enemy. In fact, Aircraft Carriers gave the surface warship a new lease on life in the face of Air Force advocates who felt the Surface Navy was due for the scrap heap. So lets admire the Carriers for saving our beloved Navies from Air Force advocates .

Bob B. Guess I finally figured out how to edit, instead of quote myself.

[Werner]

Curiously, it seems to me these two delivery systems (aircraft and guns) only represent polls of a continuum. Although descendants of kamikazes, cruise missiles are today more allied with guns as drones are allied with airplanes. One is a reusable system, and the other isn't.

Gun ranges and guidance are now smearing the distinction between cruise missiles and shells. It may be that in a generation the pendulum swings back to shells for a while. Meanwhile, automation continues to remove the man from the mission in flying airplanes. In a generation, pilots may be almost eliminated from combat aircraft. Once machines take over, simple economics will decide what systems survive.

[chuck]

.ww2 was won by the side with the most battleships, and they got some sterling service from them.

The relationship between winning and having the most battleships is probably a not a strong and universal one. It is hard to imagine the US would loose the pacific war merely because she had fewer battleships than Japan, or had not made effective use of them. However it is easy to imagine the UK loosing the Atlantic war if she had fewer battleships than Germany. One might postulate that, at least around the second half of the war, battleship remained a potentially decisive instrument of sea power in either narrow and confined seas, or in seas habitually too heavy for effective carrier operation.

This also suggests to me that, had the war ended with Soviet Union in somewhat better economic and industrial shape, and the competition between the Soviet Union and the west started a little closer to parity than was the case in real history, then there might have been another window of 5-10 years in which battleships could play a leading role in the struggle to contain the Soviet Navy and protecting the Atlantic against Soviet breakout. In other words, battleship supremacy passed a little sooner than would otherwise be the case simply because enemies requiring battleships didn't really exist during what otherwise would have been a few more years in which battleship might remain an effective instrument of sea power.

[bengtsson]

Maybe the best illustration of where Battleships had gotten to be by 1944 would be Admiral Kurita's BB and CA force crashing into a force of 18 knot small unarmoured carriers with low aircraft capacity screened by DEs. Four Battleships with a group of CAs and DDs put on a pretty poor performance against the Jeep Carriers. Kurita may have been demoralised by earlier Fleet Carrier attacks which sent Musashi to the bottom and US subs cutting CAs out of his force like at a turkey shoot, and he hadn't slept in 3 days. So he was not really as fit to command as he could have been. But his force of four BBs, including the most powerful on earth, did little to justify their building costs. The slow Carriers who could be destroyed by one good 18inch hit, launched aircraft all morning and carried out attacks which kept Kurita force fumbling around until two of his CAs were knocked out and he finally called it a day with very little to show for all those heavy guns. It marked a low point in the Battleship's history as a naval weapon. Excuses are not enough to explain why 4 BBs couldn't sink a few Jeep Carriers. It was the constant air attacks that kept Kurita's ships of balance.
In European waters, at war's beginning, I'de say the Royal Navy BB force saved the day. Without BB superiority, Britain was open to invasion. The sea lanes needed heavy cover to prevent German heavy ships getting out. So there was an early war use for the Battleship. Later in the war, as the channel dash showed, BBs were simply running for their lives in confined waters, unless they held air superiority by Carrier or Land based air.

Bob B.

[chuck]

Actually, I think Kurita's action only illustrates that it is always possible to loose a battle no matter what the odds are. It was Kurita's poor tactical judgment, lack of decision and lack of resolve that lost the battle. If he had 4 well equipped fleet carriers instead of 4 battleships, he would still have lost.

[Werner]

The Japanese situation off Samar was not really a full test of Japanese battleships. The command structure seems to have failed them at a key moment. The cruisers kept some tactical coordination, and they delivered all or almost all the damage to carriers.

As I have said before in this forum, it does appear that Japanese fire control made hits in daylight at long range (over 13Km) nearly impossible. At least that's the historical record.

[chuck]

Actually, I think Kurita's action only illustrates that it is always possible to loose a battle no matter what the odds are. It was Kurita's poor tactical judgment, lack of decision and lack of resolve that lost the battle. If he had 4 well equipped fleet carriers instead of 4 battleships, he would still have lost.

Incidentally, If I recall, on the way to Sumar, Kurita's battleship force absorbed many more bomb and torpedo hits than it would take to put 5 fleet carriers out of commission. I think if he did have 5 fleet carriers instead of 5 battleships, he wouldn't even gotten as far as he actually did, and would have been annihilated on the way. And if by chance both of these scenarios - a 5 battleship Japanese assault force and a 5 carrier Japanese assault fleet - were to realize in that battle, the outcome might very well convince everyone that unless you have parity or supremacy in carrier power, you would do better by relying on your battleships because in the face of enemy carrier superiority, battleships would a better chance of achieving something at least than a weak carrier force. This is all the more the case if your enemy can't just perpetually run around on the open sea to keep all his assets out of the gun range of your battleship because he has a vital fixed point which he must defend and which your battleships can reach and take under fire.

[Werner]

If Kurita had five well-equipped carriers instead of battleships, he would have been better off attacking Ultihi and Manus. Such strikes would slow supply to the front and cause Nimitz to divide his strong fleet into several additional defensive forces.

[bengtsson]

If he had five fleet Carriers he would have stood two hundred miles off and pounded the Invasion Fleet. Remember, it was Carrier Aircraft that pounded his force trying to get into gun range. If Japanese Carrier aircraft and crews had not been of such low quality by 1944, I'de take them over Yamato and company any day of the week. In any case, Kurita's big gun force was only hours away from complete distruction by " Bull" and his Carriers. Bull screwed up and failed at both ends in not giving Ching Lee a chance to airout a few Japanese heavy ships with his US BB force. Still, it was the Carrier force, both Fleet and Jeep, that made Kurita's mission suicide. They held the huge balance of power that no BB could challenge. As it was, they put Musashi down long before her 18in guns would ever come into play. Had not Bull taken the bait, Yamato would lie in her grave in a different place and much sooner, along with all the other BBs,CAs and DDs. You just couldn't fool around with the USN Carriers in 1944, and live to tell about it.

Bob B.

[Werner]

Bob, the problem with your analysis is that Kurita (or Ozawa, or whoever) would have a giant "bulls-eye" on his behind. Loitering any time at all off the Leyte invasion beach would bring the several hundred mile wide hurricane that was TF38 to blot out the sun. Even attacking Ulithi and Manus would leave a wake of sightings so long Halsey and ComSubPac would have an exact idea where he was. He needs to get to a target, hit it hard and then retire to his fuel supply as quickly as possible, hoping Nimitz doesn't have any well placed assets to get him.

On the other hand, if he sinks the station tankers at Manus and Ulithi, Nimitz is the one who has to retire, until the fuel train is sorted out. The Army on Leyte would be in a Guadalcanal-like fix.

[Chuck not logged in.]

If he had five fleet Carriers he would have stood two hundred miles off and pounded the Invasion Fleet.

Bob B.

The Americans would have just pounded him back. The actual pounding the Americans delivered to Kurita's battleforce on the way in was, if I recall, considerable more than what it would taken to take all 5 carriers out. So the chances are if he had 5 carriers, he wouldn't have been able to effect any better outcome than what he actually achieved even if he had been decisive, intelligent and filled to the ears with resolution. With his 4 battleships he could have accomplished more if he maintain proper control of his formation and pressed home his attacks.

I think rather than marking the death of battleship, Samar actually strongly suggests that there is still considerable life left in battleships.

[Guest]

The intriguing thing about the events off Samar, and numerous other engagements, is that it really does seem that navies in general were reluctant to make a full commitment of their battleship force in order to achieve an objective or be sunk in the process, whereas they would of course sacrifice any number of planes, tanks and men in a land battle. We know that Yamato and Musashi were being retained as a final line of defence until late in the war, when the eldorado of the Decisive Encounter would take place, but you should also remember just what these two great engineering feats must have meant to Japanese national pride. The RN WOULD commit, it seems,( albeit chased from the Indian Ocean in 1942) Churchill said that the KGV could be towed home by tugs if it had to be, but it must finish the job of sinking the Bismark, and it would have been pointless for the navy not to have fully opposed Operation Sea Lion if it had taken place, and then of course they would have suffered losses. But the RN was in the position to be profligate with its battleships; it had quite a few of them for one thing. But why did the Italian navy not seek a decisive encounter in the Mediteranian? Give Yamamoto's assessment that they must hurt the US decisively over that initial six month period, why did he not roll his dice with his powerful battleship fleet?
You can not really answer any of these questions fully, of course, but it obvious that battleships had a quality which to some must have precluded the idea that they might be risked. National pride is the obvious answer. In one part of Joyce's Ulysses, the Cyclops episode, a bigoted, nationalistic anglophobe sits in the corner of Davy Byrnes' pub and harangues anyone who will listen about the glory to come of the New Ireland; he talks glowingly of the great day when an Irish battleship will gloriously comb the oceans of the world, demonstrating the greatness of the Irish people. Well, I dont think any less of the Irish people for the fact that they never built a battleship, but I cantell you that when I grew interested in ships and navies I was quite dissapointed to find that the RAN had no battleships, and it was perhaps these sort of feeling that prevented battleships to be used to their full effectiveness. Hence the eclipse of the big gun.

[Werner]

What targets did the USN offer for battleships in January-July, 1942?

They did commit the Kongos in the autumn, but they were envisioned as carrier consorts, and without carriers, I guess their high speed put them on the spot in the Solomons.

[Tracy White]

Give Yamamoto's assessment that they must hurt the US decisively over that initial six month period, why did he not roll his dice with his powerful battleship fleet?

Umm... because he decided to do it with a weapon that actually had a chance of making a difference?

[chuck]

Yamamoto's assessment that they must hurt the US decisively over that initial six month period, why did he not roll his dice with his powerful battleship fleet?

Roll his dice to do what?

Besides, there is a fundamental mismatch between the specifications of Japanese battleships and the actual war in the pacific. All Japanese battleships were heavily influenced by the Russo-Japanese war and the battle of Tsushima. They are all intended to remain in or near Japanese home water and engage the enemy battlefleet when the latter sorties into Japanese waters. So they were all relative short ranged. The only exception were the Kongos, who were given longer range by Japanese standards to accompany fast raiding forces that would attrit the enemy battlefleet while enroute to Japan. Yamamoto's forward strategy turned the traditional Japanese naval strategy upside down, leaving the Japan with a battlefleet that is quite unsuited to the type of war being fought. So logistically it would have been difficult for the Japanese battleships to seek out American forces at a forward location during 1942 even if the Americans were inclined to be found.