ww2 Battleship comparo

http://www.combinedfleet.com/baddest.htm#guns

 

They put the Italians last

 

Not really fair, considering that the Italians managed to be on both the winning and losing sides :lol:

 

I believe Littorio's were the most underrrated battleships of WW2. Sure, they didn't archieve much but on the other hand, I believe not even always praised Iowa or Yamatos would fared better. Atleast if used same way as Littorios were used.

 

Should have included a 'bang to the buck' section, that would have crucified the American ships. I believe the Iowas were massively more expensive to build than their European contempories.

 

but the thing is that several bb never engaged another bb so the actual performance of that particular ship is not really known, is just stadistics and pov

 

Which makes the much maligned KGV's the top dog since they definitely did slug it out with enemy BBs in a number of separate engagements.

 

Ebar:
Don't forget the USS Washington (BB56) who engaged and destroyed the IPN Battleship Kirishima during the Third Battle of Savo, Nov '42.

Tim

 

PoW (& Hood) vs Bismark
KGV (& Rodney) vs Bismark
DoY vs Scharnhorst

Any other actions involving a KGV class BB?

It compares well with e.g. Tirpitz, who only fired her main armament (in anger) against a weather station

 

Richeliu scored ahead of KGV in several scenarios. What's up? And Bismarck got pretty low for armour. What gives?

 

Richelieu was a better design than KGV.

Bismarck was not very well armored against battleship opponents.

 

I doubt that. Who had that great idea of concentrating all the main guns in front? If Richelieu ever gets into a good BB battle she has only one option and that is win. If she has to retreat, she's dead cause the only weapons on her stern are secondairy guns who can't reach the enemy BB if it keeps its distance while the enemy BB can still hit Richelieu.

 

The British.
In the real world, WWII battleship actions didn't generally break off with one side turning tail. Strasbourg did find herself fleeing the British, but I'm not sure that counts, and in any case it didn't hurt her in the slightest. Were there any other BBvBB incidents during the war in which one side broke off by turning tail? Denmark Strait? No. Calabria? No. Renown vs the Twins? No. The break-off tends to be oblique and dictated by range rather than bearing.
I can remember only one negative that the French found in the Richelieu gun disposition (which doesn't mean there aren't others I don't recall). With the weaponry concentrated near the foremast, it was in proximity to the primary pount of aim from enemy ships.
Such a mild criticism should hardly dictate the comparison any more than KGV's mount problems should. Richelieu was far more mobile than KGV: faster, longer-ranged, and superior in seakeeping. Her resistance to torpedoes was vastly superior. KGV has a greater percentage of protected buoyancy. I believe her machinery was more dispersed. Her guns were more accurate, at least initially. Both ships had their strengths, but Richelieu is the one I'd want on my team.

 

I'm guessing you won't count Hood & PoW vs Bismark & Prinz Eugen here...

 

IIRC Yamashiro was sunk by American battleships at Leyte gulf also though I'm not sure which US BB did the most damage.

I found this on another site and thought it was interesting. Not sure where the data came from.

 

Grieg:
You are correct.
Yamashiro was engaged by Admiral Oldendorfs' Seventh fleet "Old" battlewagons, Pennyslvania, Maryland, Mississippi, West Virginia, California and Tennessee. (The last 3 BBs listed had been upgraded with state-of-the-art radar-targeting for their fire-control systems.)
These ships laid it on Yamashiro pretty-good, with the Mississippi adding a salvo as well.
As she turned away from the battle, still making 19 knots, the Yamashiro was struck by two torpedos. She capsized and sank.

Tim

 

That would be the aforementioned Denmark Strait.

 

And I recall South Dakota got pounded pretty badly by Kirishima at Guadalcanal and Washington had to be there to bail her out. How can a ship with that history be a middleweight champion?

PS I guess Richeliu is better than KGV, since the site rated it higher.
PSS KGV and Rodney pounded Bismarck pretty good, and it still took two cruiser-launched torpedoes to sink the ship.

 

Actually South Dakota was taking hits from at least 3 Japanese ships, taking 42 hits before turning away. Still she wasn't ever in danger of sinking. After refit and repair in the states she was back in action in about 3 months (including transit time).

 

At the Battle of Casablanca, just a few days before Second Guadalcanal, SoDak's sistership Massachusetts experienced a number of minor electrical problems--certainly undesireable but not severe enough to prevent a fine performance froma new ship with a green crew. I believe also that another sistership, Indiana, reported electrical issues during her shakedown period. It seems there was a resident gremlin that had to be taken care of.
Unfortunately for SoDak...her engineering chief appears to have taken matters into his own inept hands. Prior to the Guadalcanal battle, he decided that it was a bad thing when the circuit breakers broke their circuits. So he fixed them in place. Duh. The result was that, when the the glitches showed up during the battle, they could not be localized. Entire sections of the ship lost power. The minor problem became a near disaster. Getting the exact details on this is not so easy because Capt Gatch deliberately left out the crewman's gaff from his Action Report.