Some notes on battleship combat

This is from an article (unpublished at this point) I wrote at a friend's suggestion on battleship combat, and in particular engagements where a Washington Naval Treaty or later battleship, during WW 2. Some are, yes, obvious. Others may be new to some.


Conclusions from these battles:

* He who shoots first and hits generally wins.

* Large caliber battleship shell hits are extremely effective when they strike areas of their target ship’s vital systems. Often just two or three such hits can virtually put a ship out of action.

* Heavy armor is usually inadequate to prevent serious damage from major caliber hits even when it is not penetrated.

* Speed is only an advantage in avoiding action not in continuing it. In every case above the faster ship(s) only used their speed for escape not to close or maneuver with the enemy.

* Usually one or two shell hits at or below the waterline are sufficient to negate the superior speed of an opponent’s ship.

* In most weather conditions and at night a superior radar fire control system is a huge advantage over a search radar and optical systems.

* Battleships operating in pairs or groups have a tremendous advantage over a single ship even when that single vessel is superior in technical qualities.

* Loss of centralized fire control is usually fatal. Battleships operating in local control are almost universally unable to bring effective fire on an opponent.

* Optical fire control has a maximum practical range of about 20,000 yards under most circumstances.

* The diving shell threat is serious but it is highly overrated. The likelihood of getting such hits is very low.

 

well, in some cases a battleship Vs. destroyer, the destroyer will win becuase of speed and maneuverability

 

It may be fairer to say that a number of destroyers may win....

A destroyer must avoid the battleship's not inconsiderable secondary armament and then have weapons capable of disabling it. If a flotilla attacks, a 'lucky' torpedo hit may be achieved but more usually in WWI/WWII naval engagements, destroyers were used to administer the coup de grace following capital ship action.

 

Thanx T.A.!

So if you shoot don´t miss!

 

IMO i reckon 4xIJN heavy cruisers of the ATAGO,NACHI or MOGAMI class would have made short work of any battleship.All are capable of 34-35 knots and armed with 10x8inch guns not to mention the dreaded and famous Long Lance torpedoes.4 approaching the target at high speed in different direction to split the battleship defences.Fair enough to say the 8 inch rounds are not goin to penetrate the thick belt of the battleship but it will suffice in damaging the secondary guns and cause havoc in the ships upper stucture and bridge area and kill all expose AA gun crews,Lets not forget the Long Lance torpedoes could be fired at point blank range or 40000 yards away both with lethal effects if it hits.And they also carry reloads for another attack run if they miss.The battleship might sink 1 or 2 cruisers at best but no doubt it will be sunk itself if a few Long Lancers does find its mark.

 

I really doubt that four heavy crusiers could successfully take on a single battleship in a 'stand up' fight whether they are Japanese, US, or another nation's. The only example of this is at Matapan where the RN battleship Warspite took on 4 Italian 8" Zara class cruisers sinking three while the fourth withdrew.

Some generalized notes why:

In the first half of wW 2 engagment range will be limited to about 20,000 yds in daytime. Night will be about half or less of that max without radar.
If we use the example of four Japanese heavy cruisers these can salvo a maximum of 64 torpedoes from one side. At 40,000 yards this equates to about a 30 minute run time and aiming is done blind (40,000 yds is over the optical horizon for ships which maxes at about 35,000 yds). Against a single battleship 200 yds long moving at 20 knots this results in a spread with approxmately 320 yds between torpedoes. Thus, the probability of a hit is about one-half percent.
At 20,000 yds run time is about 15 minutes and will likely result in one or two hits. Of course, any battleship worth its salt will have either sunk or crippled all four cruisers in this time. Look at the Graf Spee engagment. All three British cruisers took damage, two were essentially crippled in about this time versus a ship with about half a battleship's armament.

If we look at the latter half of the war the situation is far worse. Now, most battleships have fire control radar. If we are talking a US one with Mk 8 radar the engagment will occur at 30,000 to 35,000 yds with a one or two salvo straddle rate. The cruisers will not even get in range to engage before they are shot to pieces. By raking the torpedo spread at this range there is virtually no chance of a hit outside pure luck. As one torpedo will not sink a battleship the engagement is all but one sided.
If the BB is a US one, except for the oldest classes, the Japanese will need at least 4 or 5 torpedo hits minimum to have even a chance of sinking the ship. Certainly, this will cripple it; but that does not equate to sinking it.
For instance, California at Pearl Harbor took 3 torpedoes (admittedly not Long Lance). C&R found that had the ship been at full Zed it would have survived.
No US cruiser outside the old Oamaha class took less than two long lance to sink. Basically, against a single battleship four cruisers stand little chance under all but the most favorable circumstances.

 

Yikes, you could toss this one back and forth for a decade. 4 Atago's vs. 1... what? Washington, KG V, Tennessee, Rodney, Mississippi, Dunkerque, Caio Duilio, Queen Elizibeth, Littorio, Iowa?
Clearly the Miss would have a good chance of enguaging 4 targets with 3-14 inch guns (each) at the same time (4 triple-gun turrets), and at a superior range.
A water spout (from a near miss) half the length of the ship tends to make the knees rubbery.
Fear factor. Once in range...so are you from 20 DP 5 inch guns (and company).
Torpedos have no brains (back then) and if you are on all sides...look-out.
The reason for the "L" shaped ambush is all too aparent. In Eastern Solomons the North Carolina was hit by a torpedo aimed at the Wasp (traveling a further 2,000 yards away to do it).
Cruisers would have to sink the Battleship to put it out of action since their guns (though powerful) are not up to the job, (conning tower/barbettes/turrets/magazines). The fire against you would keep comming until the water covered her over.
They would have to get into torpedo range and score hit(s), probably all on the same side as well. As the Americans did against Yamato/Musashi.
A busy day for all parties, and a bloody one as well.

 

On engagement:

The battleship would be limited by how its fire control is laid out. Using turrets in local control would be worthless (see my list above). Therefore, a US battleship is limited to engaging 2 targets with a split battery. If say, this was a four turret older BB the salvos would be either 4 or 6 rounds. Given typical firing rates and a Mk 3 or 8 FC radar with optical backup one could expect the target to take 3 or 4 hits in the first 6 to 8 salvos, or about 2 or 3 minutes of fire, at 20,000 yds. Against a heavy cruiser 3 or 4 solid 14" or 16" hits would be devastating.
A solid machinery space hit would leave any of the Japanese cruisers with little speed as they lack split plants. Hits in the areas of turrets would likely put more than one out of action as these have little more than splinter armor protection (1 to 3"). A hit in the area of the torpedo tubes would devastate the entire battery as there is no screening or real splinter protection in this area.
The cruisers simply cannot close the range quickly enough to prevent their being shot to pieces before they can effectively reply with their weapons. They need to close to about 10,000 to 15,000 yards to really effectively engage a battleship. In the 7 to 10 minutes necessary to do this they get pulverized by the BB's main battery.
At 10,000 yards they are now in range for the secondaries on most BB's to engage as well. This adds variously 2 to 4 additional fire control systems to allow effective fire.

If you look at the South Dakota, the peppering of 4" to 8" shells she took at Second Savo Island did nothing to her fighting power. The electrical problems were largely self inflicted. A breaker panel in the superstructure had tripped due to a problem with equipment powered from it (I have details but not with me at the moment). A ship's Electrician reset the breaker and locked it in causing a trip of the load center breaker downstream along with the service bus breaker when they sensed the short. This knocked out power to a large portion of the ship including most of the fire control, radar, and communications systems not enemy action. Therefore, one could expect the cruisers to do little real damage in reply even if they were able to get into range to do so.

 

In the second battle for Gaudalcanal, the Japanese had their chance to take on a Battleship with 2 heavy, 2 light cruisers, and 6 destroyers.
One more CL & 3DDs to the South.
They chose not to, even at night/close range/from both sides, where they would've had every advantage they could have hoped for.
They saw the water spouts of what was shooting at them, and wanted no part of it.
They retired.

 

Takao, and Atago (flagship) were there.

 

The Iowa class steams at 33 knots, and had an accurate range of 19 miles for its 16 inch guns.(could fire up to 26 miles)(over the horizon)
To attack with 4 cruisers with a closing rate of 1 knot would be suicide.
Good target practice for the Iowa boys (in "Z" turret) though.
It would take a torpedo with "long-legs" indeed to reach out that far.
The Iowa could choose the range, and "Pummel" any cruiser, covey of cruisers foolish enough to make the attempt.
I think the Atagos are beautiful ships. Fast, powerful, sleek and impressive in all respects...for Cruisers.
This does not scare Battleships. Closing the range just increases the Battleships chances of hitting you.
As W.C. (Ching) Lee said, he was confident (with SoDak & Washington, 4 tin cans), he could stop Kirishima, 2 heavies, 3 lights, 9 destroyers which were spotted by submarine Trout & aircraft, and he knew Vice Admiral Kondo was comming.
Even with losing most of SoDak's firepower for most of the "show", the results proved this.

 

I would like to add that heavy cruisers did mix it up at Iron bottom sound with a couple of battlecruisers(And yes, I know that battlecruiser’s do not share the battleships heavy armor, their idea being speed=survivability.). These battlecruisers being the Hiei and the Kirishima. The engagement started on Nov 13, 1942. Five US Heavy Cruisers with nine destroyers took part in the nocturnal melee. An Estimated 50 8" and 5" rounds tore into and disabled the Hiei and she was finished off the next morning.

On the flip side, consider this, what if the Hiei and Kirishima had radar fire control? The US Cruisers would likely have been torn to shreds and sent to the bottom. The next engagement was to show how effective radar fire control was when the Kirishima was sunk by the USS Washington!

[ 28. January 2007, 05:05 PM: Message edited by: BB45Colorado ]

 

"If we look at the latter half of the war the situation is far worse. Now, most battleships have fire control radar. If we are talking a US one with Mk 8 radar the engagment will occur at 30,000 to 35,000 yds with a one or two salvo straddle rate. The cruisers will not even get in range to engage before they are shot to pieces. By raking the torpedo spread at this range there is virtually no chance of a hit outside pure luck. As one torpedo will not sink a battleship the engagement is all but one sided.
If the BB is a US one, except for the oldest classes, the Japanese will need at least 4 or 5 torpedo hits minimum to have even a chance of sinking the ship. Certainly, this will cripple it; but that does not equate to sinking it.
For instance, California at Pearl Harbor took 3 torpedoes (admittedly not Long Lance). C&R found that had the ship been at full Zed it would have survived.
No US cruiser outside" Post by-T.R. Gardner

Also, it must be noted that with the Colorado Class and after all US Battleships were extensively internally subdivided. On top of that, they had anti-torpedo bilges. Also, the belt on the USS Colorado alone was up to 16 inches thick!! Talk about massive!

Your soon to be resident battleship expert,

Bill

 

Thank you and welcome to the forum, Bill, a honourable name you chose Can you tell us more on the Washington / Kirisima subject?

 

Yes welcome to the forums. I would like your opinion on aircraft use for spotting shells on Battleships, both US and other powers. Anouther unnamed forum person said they were useless and sometimes tossed overboard as a fire hazard. Please comment on this.

 

A photo of the aforementioned USS Washington about 3 months prior to her engagement with the IJN battleship Kirishima.

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/n30000/n33803.jpg

 

“Thank you and welcome to the forum, Bill, a honourable name you chose Can you tell us more on the Washington / Kirishima subject?” Question from Za Rodinu.

A most excellent subject! And thanks for the warm welcome!

The USS Washington and the USS South Dakota were detached from Rear Admirals Willis Lee’s task force 64 to deal with the recurrent Japanese attacks. They had with them an escort consisting of a few cruisers and a number of destroyers. As stated earlier, the IJN Hiei had already been sunk in a night engagement the day before. The IJN Kirishima returned to Guadalcanal with an entourage of cruisers and destroyers. The Japanese were able to again surprise the Americans momentarily, and had 3 of the American destroyers burning out of control within minutes. The USS South Dakota’s electrical system then went down, several breakers had tripped; this was due to the vibrations of the 16” main armament firing. The IJN Kirishima was totally focused on the USS South Dakota, which it had illuminated with spotlights, it didn’t even notice the USS Washington. The USS Washington opened up on the IJN Kirishima with a devastating radar directed fire, which left the Kirishima a blazing wreck within minutes.

An interesting side note on the USS Washington. The USS Washington(BB-56), was a North Carolina class battleship. Did you know that the Washington would have been a Colorado class battleship had the Washington naval conference not taken place? The terms of the Washington Naval treaty required that the then building Washington(BB-47) be stopped. It was expended as a target.

More to follow!

Bill

 

Just a quick note: The Colorado, like all US interwar battleships, had a 13 1/2 belt. This was because this was the thickest plate that US manufacturers could supply in quantity at the time.

 

"Just a quick note: The Colorado, like all US interwar battleships, had a 13 1/2 belt. This was because this was the thickest plate that US manufacturers could supply in quantity at the time." Post from T.A. Gardner.

I'm not trying to sound contrary, but my Jane's Battleship book list's the Colorado Class as having 16" armor on the belt. This armor was it's thickest around the middle of the ship and thinned out towards the ends of the ship.(This was the 'soft ends'.) Of another note, it appears from the pictures in my Grandfathers USS Colorado cruiser book that the armor belt was at least 16”. The reason for this, is that there are some men standing on it, about ready to dive into the ocean. Their feet are shorter than the width of the armor(Of course they could be wearing size 6 shoes.)

Again, I'm not trying to be contrary.

Bill!

[ 29. January 2007, 11:58 AM: Message edited by: BB45Colorado ]

 

Unfortunately, the old Jane's from the WW II period (and earlier) were often rife with errors. See for example:

US Battleships; An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman. He sources the US Navy's Bureau of Construction and Repair records and blueprints as a source on this.

Battleships and Battlecruisers by Sigfried Beyer

Naval Ordinance: A Textbook 1939 ed. US Naval official Chapter XII Armor

These, among others are much better sources of information on the subject.
The Colorado's belt, like all of the interwar US battleships was 13 1/2" tapering to 8" below the waterline.