German Light Cruisers

More than Vittorio Veneto, that AFAIK survived the war, you should think of Roma and Tirpitz, while getting a tallboy hit on a moving ship is unlikely I doubt anty sort of WW2 AA would stop a Fritz-X, it's warhead is equivalent of a large battleship shell hitting at an angle the armour wasn't designed to defeat, if you get lucky, like the second hit on Roma that's it. IMO the techlogy existed to develop something that could be fired at the limit of 5"/38 range, and a Fritz-X and its plane cost lot less to build than a BB. The reason the Iowa's survived was that most modern weapons are designed with softer targets in mind, her armour could defeat a harpoon class SSM (roughly equivalent to a WW2 8" shell) and probably a larger tomahawk cruise missile (the non nuclear version of course), but against a a SS-N-19 Shipwreck with it's one ton warhead or terminal "climb and dive" attack profile SSN things get a lot more iffy. It makes no sense to create a 55.000t 2000 men crew ship that can be made obsolete by a software upgrade!.

 

Agreed.

I disagree here. Now the US never had to face a combined attack without CAP compared to what the Musahi and Yamato faced but it certainly faced attacks as or more intense than the other ships mentioend.

The purpose of AA is not to shoot down the attackers it's to protect the friendly vessel or vessels. If for instance you look at the the attack vs the VV I believe that it was by 4 or 5 British torpedo bombers. Due to heavy flak all but one released at longer ranges the one that made the hit got significantly closer and was shot down in the process. Now think about what radar controled guns with proximaty fuses would have done to that attack.

Indeed. Put it in the position of Yamashiro and the same can be said.

I'm not convinced that they could in WWII. Note that he radio controled version of Fritz-X could be jammed fairly easily. The wire controled version had a range only about a third the range of the 5"38 and since the conrolling air craft had to fly straight and level this is not a prescription for success. I agree eventually guided missiles and jets would drive battleships into obsolecence although even then with SAMS and superior EW they would have had a pretty good chance of surviving. The problem was there wasn't really that much for them to do in the post war world as no apparent enemies had battleships and our guided missiles could take out smaller combatants.

I think she would have had a very good chance of surviving an attack vs the above in part for the reasons you stated. These were not designed to take on battleship armor. Then of course if you look at combined arms CAP is a part of the battleships defence just as it's guns (and later missiles) are part of the carriers defence. Subs are probably an even more significant problem espeically equipped with some of the guided torpedoes and the ability to detonate under the hull. Even then it we might have seen new ones if there was a percieved need that was great enough. However in the post WWII world they simply weren't needed for sea control.

 

This is a tangent I didn't think possible when I posted "yes and no", I had no intention of going here, it's an issue of design, role, upgrade, use vs. cost - oh well:

---------“But none of them had an AA suite comparable to late war US or British battleships. Furthermore their designs predate the carrier being considered a real threat to a battleship.”

Huh? When exactly did the carrier become a real threat to a battleship, I’m not disputing it, just give me a date? Better yet, how many battleships were designed and built AFTER this date? Let me answer that – apart from possibly Vanguard - NONE. Even the Iowas dated back to the 30’s, their designs were essentially complete by the end of 1938 i.e. BEFORE WWII, the Montanas were authorized in 1940, to be laid down in 1941, the Lions dated back to 1938, they were being laid down before the war started, Vanguard in early 1941. These later designs were either not started, or weren’t completed, why? Because given their costs vs. designed role vs. expected usefulness, they just weren’t worth it –they were obsolescent. It was that AA suite that gave a role to those BB’s completed, given ASW and a measure of Air Group long range protection they acted as AA escorts for the carriers, the ships that were winning the war. It retarded their obsolescence for the course of the war. But despite there being plenty of carriers retained, even that wasn’t enough to save the NCs and SoDaks postwar.

--------------------“I disagree.
If for instance the Iowa, Alaska, and several US DD's with their AA suites as of 1944 or 45 are put in place of force Z I doubt any would be sunk.
Same goes for Iowa replacing Bismarck or Vittorio Veneto.
Yamato and Musashi were overwhelmed by attacks from how many carriers? That's like saying replace Yamashiro by any other battleship and the results will likely be pretty much the same.”

How many carriers did it take to sink Force Z? Just kidding, but the US types you mentioned don’t have to be sunk, a single hit in enemy controlled waters could still disable them sufficiently to allow more powerful forces to finish the job. The fact remains that modern BB’s were capable of being overwhelmed by air attack, disabled and/or sunk. If you were to tell the crew of Bismarck that they’d be struck by torpedoes from the likes of FAA Swordfish, disabled then attacked by 2 ships of their own type and sunk, without even striking a blow on them in return, and the majority like you would say, “I disagree”. The US types had certainly been made more capable than most, but even they were not immune from the “golden BB”, electrical systems break down in the heat of battle, radars malfunction or are jammed, aircraft suddenly appear out of the fog, even a Montana’s deck was apt to be penetrated by an AP bomb dropped at altitude. Of course any ship was prone to all that, and BB’s could be very useful, it was the costs that were prohibitive, why no more were built, only the US could afford to keep those useful big guns around so long, and even then, only periodically. For the rest, it was cheaper to build new, maintain, update and crew “those several … DD's with their AA suites”, if lost they could be replaced, other nations couldn't afford to keep those still useful around Battleships. Would an updated Vanguard have been useful as part of the Task Force off the Falklands in 1982? You betcha! What's old become's new again, but thirty years of costs staving off obsolescence were prohibitive.


NOTE:

ob·so·lete
adjective
1. no longer in general use; fallen into disuse: an obsolete expression.
2. of a discarded or outmoded type; out of date: an obsolete battleship.

ob·so·les·cence
noun
the state, process, or condition of being or becoming obsolete.

ob·so·les·cent
adjective
1. becoming obsolete; passing out of use, as a word:an obsolescent term.
2. becoming outdated or outmoded, as machinery or weapons.

 

Firtst of all I'm quite familiar with the definitons of both obolete and obsolescence.

That's a tough question but of course is not all that relevant to my statement which was about perception rather than reality. Perhaps I should have said "seriosus" rather than "real". Prior to the demise of Force Z there seams to have been an understanding that a battleship and escorts could fair well against any reasonable level of air attack. Force Z demise caused this to be reevalutaed.

But AA suites were upgraded on some before they were finished and as the war progressed on those that had been completed earlier.

But this wasn't due to aircraft. Indeed a sub or even a destroyer could be a serious threat to a battleship. What drove thier demise was as much political as anything else. The two strongest navies in the world came out of WWII as very firm allies (depending on how you calculate it the the 3red and 4th strongest). After Leyte Gulf no foe could even really consider challengeing them for control of the seas and thus no one built a fleet that could contest with even the lighter forces these allies could field.

As long as Japan fielded a number of battleships the US battleships retained their sea control functions. Without them Letye Gulf could have been a real disaster. After Letye they simply didn't have any serious opposition left.

But a WWI sub could do that to a battleship as well and during WWII a cruiser managed to do it to a battleship. You also ignored the point that the air raids mentioned other than the ones that sunk the Yamato and Musashi would very likely have floundered vs the US ships mentioned.

They were also capable of being overwhelemd or sunk by submarines, light forces, and other battleships. If you had two relativly equal forces during that period vieing for sea contorl in a "decisive battle" then it likely would have come down to battleships being important if not critical. However by the end of 43 the allies simply had an overwhelming naval force.

No ship is. But it can come from a number of different places and doesn't mean a ship is obsolete or oboslescent.

Given the size and altitude required the P(H) of such a hit would be remarkably low. If she was underway and had a reasonable amount of AA ammo so close to 0 that it might as well be.

 

Aw Heck, if there's gonna be a spelling quiz, I'm outta here!

 

No US battleship faced a full onslaught of air attack with out cap, after Pearl. How would a new US BB have fared against a air strike of even one carrier with out supporting cap to knock down a significant portion of the strike. Also with the Kamikaze attacks the carriers were the target generally, what if the BB's were the primary target.

 

IIRC, the USS South Dakota did pretty well at the Battle of Santa Cruz, although that was a target rich environment for both the Japanese and the Americans.

A US "fast battleship" would likely fair OK against a one carrier Japanese raid of 50-60 aircraft, although the North Carolina class might not(as I remember, they had inferior underwater protection). However, the attacks against Musashi and Yamato were about 400 aircraft.

The US battleships faired well against Japanese kamikazes, incurring only minor damage from their attacks. Battleships, being well-armored, are mostly immune to such attacks, with damage usually confined to the lesser armored areas of the deck and superstructure. Although, kamikaze attacks-to weaken the battleship's AA fire & fire control-followed by a torpedo attack, might stand a good chance of inflicting serious or fatal damage to the battleship. But, that would depend on how many & where the kamikazes struck.

 

As this thread is German light cruisers I think mentioning the KMS Niobe (Northern one) is not too far off topic, she had a powerful AA set but was practically overwhelmed by a massed soviet air strike. Some planes will get through and no amount of armour or AA will save a ship from multiple bomb hits, far less torpedoes. Against air attack the "all or nothing" armour scheme may work against the US ships as they will take damage from almost any hit in the unprotected areas though it will defeat most pojectiles in the protected ones.

AFAIK the US BBs at sea were not usually the targets of japanese conventional air attacks, shooting while they are strafing your decks is a very different proposition then shooting unoposed, most light AA positions had minimal protection. Against a determined attack or a missile damaging the attacker may not be enough, that was the reason the USN started replacing the 5"/38 with the 5"/54 and most light AA with 3" guns after the war before switching to SAMs.
IMO BBs without CAP proved vulnerable to air attacks and if you have a CV you don't really need BBs if not for shore bombardment for which role alone they are not cost effective, some sort of monitor would do just as well if not better. This doesn't mean that if you already have them you souldn't use them but it makes no sense building new ones.

 

I don't know if I would call the Niobe's AA armament "powerful". She had 8*105mm guns, and I am not sure about radar fire control. This would probably equate to the AA battery of a pre-WW2 "Treaty" heavy cruiser. Also, while the many aircraft were used in the attack against Niobe(some 130), roughly half were fighters, and another 23 were IL-2s which were used as flak suppression against shore-based german/finnish batteries. 28 Pe-2s and 4 A-20s attacked Niobe, With the last(the "skip-bombingA-20s) being the decisive strike. After the battle German/Finnish claims were 9 aircraft shot down, while the Soviets admitted to losing one of the A-20s.

I guess we could also point to the loss of the USS Chicago and damaging of the destroyer USS La Valette after a series of air stirkes during the Battle of Rennell Island. These outcome of these attacks could have been much worse, with the heavy cruisers USS Wichita and USS Louisville being struck by dud torpedoes.

 

Ya gotta love those German Light Cruisers! At the risk of speaking in circles, here goes:


-----------------“Firtst of all I'm quite familiar with the definitons of both obolete and obsolescence.”


I had no intention of insulting your intelligence, I just wanted to be clear, I didn’t use the word “obsolete”, except in a narrative that I attributed to an author/historian, otherwise I used “obsolescent” and “obsolescence” in referring to battleships. I should have stated that; if you were insulted, I apologize.


-------------------“That's a tough question but of course is not all that relevant to my statement which was about perception rather than reality.Perhaps I should have said "seriosus" rather than "real".Prior to the demise of Force Z there seams to have been an understanding that a battleship and escorts could fair well against any reasonable level of air attack. Force Z demise caused this to be reevalutaed.”


OK, then without question, no battleships were designed after this date.

--------------“But AA suites were upgraded on some before they were finished and as the war progressed on those that had been completed earlier.”


Ah, but their primary role i.e. what they were designed for, was “sea control” as you put it, by way of their big guns, the AA suites allowed them a chance to survive in an air threat environment, but if that was their intended role, an AA cruiser would’ve been a more cost effective alternative.


-----------------“But this wasn't due to aircraft. Indeed a sub or even a destroyer could be a serious threat to a battleship. What drove their demise was as much political as anything else. The two strongest navies in the world came out of WWII as very firm allies (depending on how you calculate it the the3red and 4th strongest). After Leyte Gulf no foe could even really considerchallengeing them for control of the seas and thus no one built a fleet that could contest with even the lighter forces these allies could field.”


Of course subs and destroyers could threaten a battleship, that was proven in WWI, the modern fast BB’s, beyond their heavy armour, were designed with counter destroyer in mind, and hulls designed to resist torpedo damage. I’ve already stated that one feature that always challenged obsolescence was speed, it also provided the best defence against submarines, still battleships required destroyers for ASW & to counter the enemy destroyer. The new feature to challenge the battleship in this war was the aircraft, lots of speedy aircraft carrying loads that could disable or sink even a modern Fast Battleship, for a small fraction of the cost of that battleship.

The aircraft was also the best means of pro-actively countering both the submarine and the destroyer, taken together there was a symbiotic relationship between them all, voilà the Task Force. But in terms of sea control, while at any given time a ship carrying aircraft could project power hundreds of miles, the battleship at the time was limited to tens of miles. I should add that when the new enemy i.e. the Soviets and Warsaw Pact decided to build navies to challenge the US & NATO, battleships weren’t on the shopping list.

You say “political”, I said “costs”, “expense” i.e. money – do you really think there’s a whole lot of difference?


-------------------------------“They were also capable of being overwhelmed or sunk by submarines, light forces, and other battleships. If you had two relatively equal forces during that period viewing for sea control in a"decisive battle" then it likely would have come down to battleships being important if not critical. However by the end of 43 the allies simply had an overwhelming naval force.” …“As long as Japan fielded a number of battleships the US battleships retained their sea control functions. Without them Letye Gulf could have been a real disaster. After Letye they simply didn't have any serious opposition left.”


Then it must be ironic that in most of the USN/IJN air and sea battles which occurred before late 1942, before battle and attrition took its toll on the Japanese battleship forces, the US made due with carriers and cruiser forces to contest the Japanese, while US Battleship forces were available for sea control functions, and weren’t utilized.


---------------“But a WWI sub could do that to a battleship as well and during WWII a cruiser managed to do it to a battleship. You also ignored the point that the air raids mentioned other than the ones that sunk the Yamato andMusashi would very likely have floundered vs the US ships mentioned.”


I didn’t deal with it directly, but I didn’t ignore it, go back and read that “Golden BB” bit. I'll add that if SoDak or Mass. had been in the same position as PoW or Bismarck, when their electrical systems or radar chose to gap out, they could’ve suffered the same fates.


---------“No ship is. But it can come from a number of different places and doesn't mean a ship is obsolete or obsolescent. … Given the size and altitude required the P(H) of such a hit would be remarkably low. If she was underway and had a reasonable amount of AA ammo so close to 0 that it might as well be.


Of course we have the fates of Tirpitz and Roma, and the air dropped nuclear bomb, the writing on the wall that as much as anything else caused the demise of most of the battleships that survived WWII.

 

It is ironic that the Italian navy which was built for speed ended up being useless in battle, so speed is nice, but not at the expense of being able to fight.

 

... but at least they weren't sunk by submarines! I think it was Churchill who wanted to use the Littorios as carrier escorts in the Pacific, part of the rationale for sending Royal Sovereign to the Soviets instead.

 

I've made that distinction myself. For some reason was a bit thin skinned when I posted that reply. No need to apologize.

However if one had been it would certainly have had a more powerfull AA suite than most if not all the earlier ones.

NO. An AA cruiser could not full fill the "sea control" role. The AA suites like the seconadary weapons designed to take out DDs was to allow the BB to full fill it's primary role.

So how was adding AA guns and operating in bigger task groups different from the techniques to counter subs and torpedo boats?
Indeed one of the lessons that came from WWII was the effect of combined arms on both land and sea. Heterogenouis groups of ships could be much stronger in concert than they could alone. That the carrier became an important part of such groups doesn't mean that battleships weren't as well. Note torpedo boats, subs, and DDs could also sink or disable even a modern Battleship for a "small fraction of the cost" of said battleship. Neither they nor aircraft had much chance of doing so however if the BB was operating as part of a combined arms team.

At some times and places. Not in bad weather and not very well at night either. Then there was the fragility of the aircraft of the time.

But they didn't or at least they didn't build navies capable of challenging NATO sea control. They built navies that could potentially bleed it and perhaps temporarily prevent NATO from controling some areas but they were never capable of much in the way of sea control themselves. They were too far behind the power curve in that regard and recognised it.

Were they? The old battleships were to fuel inefficient for early in the war but SoDak and Washington did get in at least one engagement. Of course most of the early battles were fought in rather confined waters and the Japanese weren't committing battlehips all that often either.

And a carrier that looses it's engines when opposing warships are in the area has problems as well. The SoDak had a one time serious problem with it's electrical system which was subsequentially fixed (and that problem was only as bad as it was because a circuit breaker got tied down). This wasn't a problem in 44 or 45.

Or not. Tirpitz was a sitting duck for how long before she was sunk? And that due at least in part to a CAP failure. And Roma had neither CAP, modern radar, or proximaty fuses, or for that matter all that strong an AA suite. Atomic bombs weren't cheap in the immediate post war world nor were they all that effective vs warship unless you got quite close. Guided missiles would indeed become a serious threat but then SAMs would also become an increasing threat to aircraft and missiles as well. Battleships were meant for sea control but when the largest ship your likely opponets are fielding are mediocre cruisers and you have lots of good cruisers there is little need for a battleship. If the Soviets had built battleships then the west would have kept theirs in service and perhpas even built new ones.

 

Battleships began to be designed with dual-purpose armament as early as 1931, most WWII-era battleships had it, and those that did not still had substantial AA batteries; so clearly there was an appreciation of the air threat. Modern designs and reconstructions also featured heavy deck armor, though that reflected both the air threat and the longer ranges of surface gunnery. It is accurate to say that the air danger was felt to be manageable until the demise of Force Z.

Perhaps the most notable factor not anticipated was the need for massive numbers of automatic weapons; a side benefit of DP was to free up deck space for Bofors, pom-poms, etc.

I should add that when the new enemy i.e. the Soviets and Warsaw Pact decided to build navies to challenge the US & NATO, battleships weren’t on the shopping list.

They deliberately employed what would come to be called assymetrical warfare, but if they had tried match the US or NATO directly, no doubt they would have noticed that the US and NATO had decommissioned all their battleships by 1958 and disposed of most of them by 1962.

The old battleships were to fuel inefficient for early in the war.....

I've seen that written, but Maryland and Colorado spent several months in the South Pacific in 1942-43, mainly around Fiji and the New Hebrides. There was nothing to keep them from steaming the few hundred miles to Guadalcanal if they were needed. The old battleships covered considerably greater distances supporting amphibious operations later in the war. If fuel efficiency was the critical issue, it would have been easier to employ them in the Solomons than at Surigao Strait.

 

It's mentioned in Neptune's Inferno. The problem was fleet oilers in early 42. As more came on line it became less and less a problem.

 

Well, it’s probably too late to say that I surmised long ago that you’ve been in more than one discussion over whether or not the battleship was obsolete post WWII?



-------------------------“However if one had been it would certainly have had a more powerfull AA suite than most if no tall the earlier ones”.


Of course, or convert currently building BB’s into aircraft carriers, as was proposed for Illinois and Kentucky at one point, or remove some or all of the big guns from the whole class, and convert them into guided missile boats, i.e. still more “aircraft”carrier so to speak, than big gun ship.


----------------------“NO. An AA cruiser could not full fill the "sea control" role. The AA suites like the secondary weapons designed to takeout DDs was to allow the BB to full fill it's primary role.”


I think that’s what I said?? Let me just rephrase that last bit then, if the BB’s intended role was its AA suite, an AA cruiser would’ve been a more cost effective alternative.


-----------------“So how was adding AA guns and operating in bigger task groups different from the techniques to counter subs and torpedo boats?”



Here it is, confirmed, the speaking in circles that I feared. As I said earlier, speed always challenged obsolescence. A Fast Battleship travelling at speed in a seaway, doing that “sea control” thing, had little to fear from a sub, or a destroyer for that matter, anything routine that diminished that speed (which usually meant most of the time) could put these ships at greater risk, and screening destroyers were required. Aircraft armed with bombs or torpedoes, if in range, posed a threat regardless, a Fast Battleship alone, was indeed alone, the new threat, more substantial and not designed for, the one that tipped the turnip truck.


--------------------------“Indeed one of the lessons that came from WWII was the effect of combined arms on both land and sea. Heterogeneous groups of ships could be much stronger in concert than they could alone. That the carrier became an important part of such groups doesn't mean that battleships weren't as well. Note torpedo boats, subs, and DDs could also sink or disable even a modern Battleship for a "small fraction of the cost" of said battleship. Neither they nor aircraft had much chance of doing so however if the BB was operating as part of a combined arms team.”



More circular motion. This is the statement that started all this “The trend in WWII was for "Fast Battleships", fast enough to escort carriers, but for their mutual protection, as the big gun ship by itself was obsolescent in the face of the aerial bomb and torpedo.” Ultimately the task force could do without the Fast Battleship, most of them would fall by the wayside after the war, the power of the aircraft and a ship that could carry a lot of them, took centre stage.



----------------“At some times and places. Not in bad weather and not very well at night either. Then there was the fragility of the aircraft of the time”.



And then came airborne radar, the night fighter for Fleet protection & the all-weather attack aircraft, stand-off missiles... Aircraft were indeed more fragile than a battleship, but they were semi-expendable, still relatively cheap to build and crew, and “the sky’s the limit” progress in terms of engineering and capability was in leaps and bounds, at least compared to a battleship.



-------------------------“But they didn't or at least they didn't build navies capable of challenging NATO sea control. They built navies that could potentially bleed it and perhaps temporarily prevent NATO from controlling some areas but they were never capable of much in the way of sea control themselves. They were too far behind the power curve in that regard and recognized it.”


Perhaps, but nuclear deterrence aside, they did build submarines, lots of ships with missile capability on the cheap, and carriers of a sort, and there were long range land based aircraft, primarily to challenge NATO’s ability to supply and reinforce Europe. The battleship, as designed, could challenge none of these, they were soon limited to little more than shore bombardment, what a monitor could do.



---------------“Were they? The old battleships were to fuel inefficient for early in the war but SoDak and Washington did get in at least one engagement. Of course most of the early battles were fought in rather confined waters and the Japanese weren't committing battleships all that often either.”


I haven’t read Hornfischer, but I assume he refers to “Task Force One”, little known otherwise, but battleship to the core, fully capable, better trained, and available with fuel etc., well before SoDak and Washington. Unlike the cruisers actually doing the fighting, it was deemed too expensive to lose in combat, so much for “sea control functions” – obsolescence, the aircraft had taken over.



-------------------------“And a carrier that looses it's engines when opposing warships are in the area has problems as well. The SoDak had a one time serious problem with it's electrical system which was subsequentially fixed (and that problem was only as bad as it was because a circuit breaker got tied down).This wasn't a problem in 44 or 45.”



Yes, but theSoDaks flaws came out in combat, leaving them ineffectual for a time, the golden BB in the air, a carrier in the same position still had its aircraft. If you consider the relative maximum speeds of Kurita’s force vs. the “Taffy’s”off Samar, the carriers, such as they were, may as well have been stopped. Yet given the naval weapons available and employed i.e. one of the most formidable Axis surface task type forces of the war vs. what amounts to battleship AA suites, merchant hulls and aircraft barely armed for the fight, and the costs in national treasure, and it all merely serves to showcase the obsolescence of the big gun battleship.



------------------“Or not. Tirpitz was a sitting duck for how long before she was sunk? And that due at least in part to a CAP failure. And Roma had neither CAP, modern radar, or proximaty fuses, or for that matter all that strong an AA suite. Atomic bombs weren't cheap in the immediate post war world nor were they all that effective vs warship unless you got quite close.Guided missiles would indeed become a serious threat but then SAMs would also become an increasing threat to aircraft and missiles as well. Battleships were meant for sea control but when the largest ship your likely opponents are fielding are mediocre cruisers and you have lots of good cruisers there is little need for a battleship. If the Soviets had built battleships then the west would have kept theirs in service and perhaps even built new ones.”



Or not. CAP failures in this case means that these battleships did not survive, because they needed that aircraft protection in order to survive, they couldn’t on their own.

I think you’re putting the cart before the horse, or you say Sauce and I say Tomato. The enemy was primarily a land based power with a large air force; the enemy fielded mediocre cruisers, despite the presence of battleships, because that’s all they needed, and battleships cost too much even for an autocrat, given what they were able to provide. It wasn’t long post-war that nuclear bombs, shells, missiles etc. were designed, and produced cheaper than the cost of a battleship anyway.

But as I stated in my first post:

“The Iowa Class were retained so long, that they remained viable as a weapons platform in the face of modern sea skimming missiles because no non-nuclear weapon in service could penetrate their armour!!”

For what it’s worth, one of my favourite topics is the development of the warship from the 19[SUP]th[/SUP] Century on, my desktop background’s a B&W picture of HMS Warspite, steaming into Valletta’s harbour; carriers aren’t my long suit.If you need/want more on Task Force One, let me know.

 

This is very interesting but I suggest we move it to a new "was the BB obsolete" thread (assuimg one doesn't exist already), the poor K class got left behind. BTW I'm I beleve the big gun ship days as capital ship were over by 1941, the armoured ship is possibly a different story as new armour types become available, after all modern MBT are a lot more heavily armoured than the Leopard 1, M60, AMX 30 generation that had practically given up any hope of resisting a main gun hit and relied on mobility for protection.
A interesting modern scenario is how would a modern task force overcome a batallion of long barrelled 155mm SPs backed by SAMs and AA to enable a landing ? The land guns outrange almost any gun currently afloat.

 

It's apparent that I'm still not getting my points across but as we are well OT I'm going to hold off responding to any more comments on whether or not battleships were obsolesent or obsolete in WWII.

 

... give yourself credit, you got your points across, again and again, I'm well acquainted with them. But when it comes right down to it, fundamentally I was talking about a group type that numbered in the dozens perhaps, that had many failures, whereas you wanted to take essentially 4 ships that developed features which addressed most of those failures, and at the end of it all, make them representative for the group type, moving forward. In those terms we can either elect to both be right in our chosen domains, or agree to disagree - your choice.

More later I'm sure, but in a different venue.

 

Your response indicate otherwise either that or you were deliberately twisting my words. My impression was that you wouldn't do the latter.