What if the Montana Class Battleship class had been built?

I think it would of made for a nice carrier. But a fuel guzzler. Plus a prime target for kamikaze attacks. Montana class were supposed to travel at 28 knots would it be able to travel at that rate as a carrier? Essex class could reach 33 knots and the Enterprise CV-6 could reach 32.5 knots. I just think at the time the navy was on the attack and speed was of the essence. But, man what a carrier it would of made. At the length of the proposed battleship 920 feet would it make it 1100 feet for the flight deck? If so, this puts it pretty close to modern day carriers. Would it still be in service upgraded to nuclear?

 

The career of the British super battleship Vanguard might illustrate the fate of the Montanna class.

"There were already eight battleships at the Normandy landings, everything from the 12" guns of the old USS Arkansas (BB-33), up to the 16" guns of the HMS battleships. I don’t see the Montana class adding all that much to the equation."

Those eight battle ships were spread across targets covering the landings of five different division HQ. None of their preperatory fires exceeded two hours & the US sector, Utah & Omaha beaches, the preperatory fires were less than one hour, with just twenty minutes on the fortifications overlooking the beaches. In comparison with other beach assualts in 1944 that was grossly inadaquate. The result was approximately 2000 US soldiers died on Omaha beach, twice what were lost against the far better defended Betio island November 1943 or other beach assualts of 1944.

There were a number of other failures in fire support against Omaha Beach, but the others were unproven or experimental in nature. Only the fire support from naval gunfire had a long and validated record for amphibious assualts. If several more battleships afloat could have increased that fire support significantly then perhaps casualties could have reduced by 25% or 50% that day.

Inland in the next few weeks the fire support from the battleships proved essential in breaking the German defenses in the bloody battle across the Cotetin pennensula and into Normandy. Another dozen or two dozen large caliber ships guns would have been very usefull in breaking that battle of attrition sooner.

 

That's the one case where a few knots' speed makes a significant difference. For example the Japanese Kaga, ex-battleship, 28 knots, was considered less effective than her half-sister Akagi, which had similar aviation facilities but 31 knots speed. USS Wasp (CV-7) was considered inferior due to her 29-knot speed; almost as soon as she was built there were studies of upgrading her engineering plant, although it proved impractical.

If battleships were going to be converted to carriers, the obvious candidates were the Iowas, 33 knots, as long as an Essex, and with wider beam, which might enable them to carry close to the same air group despite not being designed for the purpose.

For all the attention given to speed, there were very few instances in which it proved tactically significant, especially for capital ships. Our 28-knot battleships operated in carrier task forces. Most surface actions involved one or both sides trying to accomplish missions in which running away was tantamount to defeat. How many engagements can we cite that turned on a couple of knots' speed difference? I'll take the extra firepower!

 

For the Montanas to be used at D-Day, we would need both the ships completed well before they actually would have been and a change in philosophy. The USN devoted its first-line ships to the Pacific. The four BBs allowed for Overlord and Dragoon were the four oldest, three of them distinctly inferior even to the rest of the WWI generation.

Had they been willing to consider it, the Montanas or other modern battleships offered considerably more bunker-busting potential. The USN had developed a new generation of unusually powerful projectiles; the 16" AP weighed 2700lb compared to 2240lb for our older 16" ships like Colorado, 2048lb for the British Nelson class, or 1500lb for the 14", the largest USN guns at Normandy. Several of our new battleships including Iowa operated in European waters when needed, so it would not seem impossible to send a couple over for the most decisive operation of the war.

There were certainly occasions, like Leyte, where several additional battleships could have been put to good use. Of course the same is true of carriers, or even "some damned things called LSTs".

 

You have grounds for complaint - Montana is the only state of the lower 48 never to have had an active battleship named for it.

As you mentioned, the "Big Ten" armored cruisers were considered prestigious enough to be named for states, and state names were also used for a class of monitors. Expansion of the Navy under the Teddy Roosevelt adminstration reached the point where every state name had been used, so they had to start renaming non-battleships to free up names for new battleships. As new states were admitted, their names were promptly used also, which is why names like Arizona and New Mexico graced our most modern dreadnoughts. Eventually they even had to take names from the oldest battleships; Massachusetts, Indiana, and Iowa became Coast Defense Battleships 1, 2 and 4 (the famous Oregon, BB-3, got to keep her name). They were going to be used for a new class along with the last three armored cruiser names, South Dakota, North Carolina, and Montana; but they were cancelled under the Washington Treaty.

 

Forgot to mention, Montana is also the only US battleship name cancelled twice. You fellows in Big Sky Country need to get yourselves some more congressmen!

 

We don't have enough population to do so, one in the House and two Senators is all we have, or will have I suppose.

 

The proposed Montana Class USS Louisiana (BB-71) would have been the last of the 5 Montana's to be built. It would have been the third warship to bear the name of the 18th state if it would have been built and commissioned. I guess that counts for something....

 

As a tank commander with 18 years experince put it to us: "It does not matter how fast you are; you cant outrun a sabot round. (LtCol 'Buster' Diggs USMC 1988)

 

That's why I preferred to be infantry. A moving foxhole attracks the eye....

 

Kind of hard to dig a foxhole in the Pacific Ocean; or any ocean for that matter, of course the same could be said for most of your larger bodies of water. If you get right down to it there is a fine line between a foxhole and a puddle anyway, that's why Marines dig fighting holes.

 

Oh don't go and be such a mobile sand-bag on me now....

 

Although while I do agree that the battleship was becoming obsolete as WW2 dragged on, battleships and big guns or their lack of did play a major role in the early days of WW2. If the Japanese Navy had had the balls to use The Mushasi and Yamato for ship to ship night combat in and around Guadalcanal and the Solomons, then the outcome of the Battle for Guadalcanal and Tulagi might have been very different. Even the Battle of the Coral Sea might have been different. I mean 3000lb shells fired at Henderson Field would not have been good for the Marines. As it was, even without the Yamato and Mushashi, the big guns and nighttime naval fighting techniques of the Jap ships during the Battle of Savo Island and the Battle of Santa Cruz almost tipped the balance in Japans favor in the fight for Guadalcanal. Had the Americans lost that struggle, the Japs would have had a lot of time to consolidate in the Southwest Pacific theater and would have eventually invaded Port Moresby and Austraila.

Even at Pearl Harbor, imagine the Yamato and Mushasi 15 miles off shore lobbing 3000lb shells into Honolulu, Pearl and Scofield barracks while the Japs had 300 planes in the air to protect them. The Japs didn't know how to use what they had.

It's not that the Montana class ships were obsolete they were just late to the party, had they (or the Iowa's also for that matter) been launched around the time that Yamato and Mushasi were launched then they definitely would have been needed around Guadalcanal and the Solomon's.

 

It just occured to me that had they joined 3rd Fleet prior to Leyte Gulf they might have been left behind due to their speed and the over abundance of other battleships and actually met the IJN Center Force. Of course the SoDaks and company were also about the same speed as the Montana's and they weren't left behind but the presence of say 4 more fast batatleships might have had some impact in that regard. Not sure they would have been worked up in time though.

 

Maybe if Bismark was a little faster she might have been able to get away from Sheffield, especially if the seas were heavy. Probably not. (Probably 'knot'. Harrrrr!!!)

 

True, avoiding an engagement, or forcing one on a reluctant opponent, is one of the cases where superior speed can be useful. As you note, it may depend as much on sea conditions as design speed - or on having a hole drilled through one's bow and carrying around a few thousand tons of superfluous salt water. Evading action may be perfectly consistent with one's mission; in this case Bismarck was simply seeking to escape to a French port, and her original mission had been commerce raiding rather than fighting dramatic battles.

Overall though I'll still take the ship that can beat the other guy in combat over the one that can run away from it

 

Well cruising speed can have some considerable impact as well. A battleship that could cruse at say 25 knots could get places a lot faster than one that had to cruse at 15 knots or less. It has been postulated that one reason the Yamato's didn't shell Henderson is that they didn't have the speed to get there and back under cover of darkness. It's also been speculated that their fuel consumption in an attempt to do so would be prohibitive.