[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Odyssey

[color=cc9900]Again, yes, but you're not going to purposefully aim to take out those components without damaging a single bit of the rest of the ship, are you? The more that blows up the better, especially if it's firing at you.[/color]

i never suggested leaving the rest of the ship untouched......  crippling implies massive damage, I'm talking about not administering the coupe de grace.  With a major target (in FS terms), it's often necessarry to take out vital compnents (key turrets, weapons & engine control) in order to take it down with minimal losses anyways.

A smaller scale analogy is with soldiers - kill a soldier and he's dead (needs replaced).  Paralyse or badly wound him and the enemy needs to recover him, treat him (over a long term, diverting medical resources), and still has to replace him.

I'm not talking about a general rule - just a strategy that, when possible, it's better to cripple than kill.  Obviously it won't apply in all cases - no tactic does.

[Nico]

Originally posted by TrashMan

I wonder how would the battle have gone if their enemy was a Iowa or Yamato? (seeing that anyone of hem could sink Bismarck easily)

would be the same, I suppose:
from what I know, the skills of the Bismark crew were excellent ( freaky accuracy rate ). Don't quote me on that, but the Bismarck and Yamato had really heavy hulls, more than the Iowa, I believe. Then you have that whole math for range+penetration+caliber stuff that made the iowa's guns more effective. On a one on one, it's hard to tell, but on the case of the Bismarck slaughtering party, well, that would make no difference. One ship against a fleet, as good as this ship is, will just be no good. I gather that any nowadays' frigate would do better, in fact, being fast, smaller, with cruise missiles and stuff (but that's irelevant and completly subjective, one lucky shot would be the end of a frigate, so... ).
Oh, btw, what is not true ( to me ) about the torpedo/bismarck deal, seems true for the yamato, tho. But I don't know much about the yamato save for the fact it looked ( as in visual, I mean ), like the most powerful warmachine mankind has ever made, to me ( look at those guns )

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Nico



Oh, btw, what is not true ( to me ) about the torpedo/bismarck deal, seems true for the yamato, tho. But I don't know much about the yamato save for the fact it looked ( as in visual, I mean ), like the most powerful warmachine mankind has ever made, to me ( look at those guns )

According to http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/yamato_class.htm#Yamato , the Yamatos 'sister' ship, the Musashi(or something) was sunk by 4 torpedos.  It was, though, converted into a carrier midway through construction, but I'd assum that they would have used the same hull.

[Ashrak]

the thing is..... FS2 ships ARE undergunned....easy solution....kick up the hull values and ammount of guns so they compensate

[Flaser]

Actually a torpedo can kill even the heaviest ships easly if used the best way: blowing up below the ship's backbone.

That way the very weight of the ship will kill it. The torpedo just blasts out the water underneath.

Of course it was impossible to use torpedos with that precision during WWII, but I guess there must have been lucky shots.

[IceFire]

Originally posted by Akalabeth Angel
As for Pearl Harbour - it was a sneak attack. The crew was asleep, the bulkheads were open, the AA gunns unmanned. Even then the Japs didn't find it that easy to sink them all.

   All of that information is irrelevant. What is relevant is that a bomb or two (the movies suggest one bomb) destroyed the entire ship. It didn't take hundreds of Kate torpedo planes and japanese bombers to destroy the ship, only one or two hits.
   Furthermore, on a larger scale one could ask if the American battleship fleet was ravaged at Pearl Harbour how did they manage to win the war? If Battleships are so important? The answer probably is because the American Carriers, and more importantly the fightercraft were not destroyed because they were on manoeuvers or whatever.

The Arizona sank because of improperly stored munitions and gunpowder onboard the ship that shouldn't have been there in the first place.  Essentially it was a lucky single bomb that hit that area, should have caused the average amount of damage, and instead had its force multiplied by the entire ships magazine.  The hull burst, buckled, and blew up from the inside out and the ship sank.

I think that is the only battleship unrecoverable from Pearl Harbor.  Many ships from that attack were back in action by 1944.

You are right however that it was indeed the aircraft carrier that was the deciding force.  The Battleship was obsolete the moment the aircraft carrier arrived on the seas.  Battleships are now only relevant for essentially artillery purposes which was what they used them for most of the time.

[Shrike]

Originally posted by Nico
would be the same, I suppose:
from what I know, the skills of the Bismark crew were excellent ( freaky accuracy rate ). Don't quote me on that, but the Bismarck and Yamato had really heavy hulls, more than the Iowa, I believe. Then you have that whole math for range+penetration+caliber stuff that made the iowa's guns more effective. On a one on one, it's hard to tell, but on the case of the Bismarck slaughtering party, well, that would make no difference. One ship against a fleet, as good as this ship is, will just be no good. I gather that any nowadays' frigate would do better, in fact, being fast, smaller, with cruise missiles and stuff (but that's irelevant and completly subjective, one lucky shot would be the end of a frigate, so... ).
Oh, btw, what is not true ( to me ) about the torpedo/bismarck deal, seems true for the yamato, tho. But I don't know much about the yamato save for the fact it looked ( as in visual, I mean ), like the most powerful warmachine mankind has ever made, to me ( look at those guns )

The Bismarck really is highly overrated.  It was actually a rather poor design.

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

[mikhael]

Originally posted by IceFire
You are right however that it was indeed the aircraft carrier that was the deciding force.  The Battleship was obsolete the moment the aircraft carrier arrived on the seas.  Battleships are now only relevant for essentially artillery purposes which was what they used them for most of the time.

Absolutely.

The key is force projection. A battleship can only project military power in a well defined ellipse around the ship. The power it can project is pretty much limited to what you can pack into a shell and launch from deck gun. Once the deck gun is fired, there is no changing your decisions. A carrier on the other hand is the perfect incarnation of force projection. Through its air wings, a carrier can project power past the horizon, how to a radius determined only by the availability of in-air refueling. Those same airwings are flexible, able to deliver ordinance of every description in an intelligent and reasoned manner.

Mind you, and Iowa can turn a map grid into an earthly representation of hell itself in about the same time it takes for a marine to call for a shore bombardment, but that's really all they're good for these days.

[Nico]

Originally posted by Shrike
The Bismarck really is highly overrated.  It was actually a rather poor design.

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

The thing with the Bismark is that it had quite a big killboard ( mostly unarmed ships, tho, I believe ). What was wrong: it sunk the Hood, that hurt the Brits pride, it seems
The german made a bigger ship than the Bismark: the Tirpiz ( or something ), but seems it wasn't as famous.
Anyway, yeah, battleships re pretty useless now, I believe.

[aldo_14]

IIRC the Tirpitz never left dock - it was hidden in a fjord in Norway, and survived repeated heavy bombings;

http://www.bismarck-class.dk/tirpitz/history/tiropercatechism.html

[Killfrenzy]

I still think it's daft that a 20m single-seat fighter can take down a 2km warship.....

Incidentally, HMS Hood had no sister ships - she was a one of a kind Battlecruiser.

Trashman, HMS Repulse was a Battlecruiser of WWI era, like her sister HMS Renown. Both had a top speed of 28 knots and a main armament of 6x15" guns (3x2). Repulse was sunk by the Japanese (as stated) whilst the only major incident involving Renown was when she jumped on the Battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau off Norway and the pair of them ran away even though they could have sunk the British capital ship.

Incidentally a Heavy Cruiser carries 8" guns, a Light Cruiser 6".

Nico: Only 2 Battleships engaged the Bismarck in her final battle on May 27th 1941. HMS King George V (12x14") and HMS Rodney (9x16"). Other ships in the vicinity included five Tribal-class Destroyers, the Aircraft Carrier HMS Ark Royal, the Battlecruiser Renown, the Heavy Cruiser HMS Dorsetshire and the Light Cruiser HMS Sheffield. Out of those other ships the Destroyers had harassed the Bismarck all night and HMS Dorsetshire fired three torpedoes to finish the battle after King George V and Rodney reduced Bismarck to a burning hulk on the water. Although the torpedoes didn't sink her, they hit around the time that the scuttle charges went off so it looked like the torpedoes sunk her.

Shrike, Bismarck was a superior warship to her immediate rivals of the Royal Navy. She was fast, powerfully armed and well protected. The Royal Navy had nothing that could really catch her and yet match her firepower. HMS Hood was as fast and as well armed, but no where near as well protected. The only other ships that could match Bismarck firepower for firepower were the Queen Elizabeth class, the 'R' class (ships such as HMS Revenge) and The Nelson class (although the guns were bigger at 16"). Sadly though none of these ships had a hope of catching the German warship.

The website you quote badly compares the warships, particularly when it comes to fire control and 'conducting a naval campaign.' Rarely, if at all, does the website take into account actual historical events. It just throws lots of figures at you!

Personally, I'd love to see the Iowa survive being chased by an entire navy when they know where she is. I'd also like to see a warship equal the performance of the Bismarck at the Battle of the Denmark Straight. Okay, so the hit that sank HMS Hood was pure damned luck, but they'd already hit her at least twice! Prinz Eugen started the fire on Hood's upper deck from quite a long range.

Incidentally, Scharnhorst landed an 11" shell on HMS Ardent from a range of over 26,000 yards. That's quite incredible gunnery! The Germans were VERY good at optical rangefinding.

Of course the Iowa 'comes out on top' - she was specifically designed to counter the threat posed by ships such as Tirpitz whilst at the same time being able to piss about in the Pacific. If the Iowa and Yamato met at sea in a traditional gunnery engagement, you'd have a lot of drowned Americans. 18" guns do tend to hurt a lot!

[TrashMan]

Originally posted by Shrike
The Bismarck really is highly overrated.  It was actually a rather poor design.

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

Iowa wins!!!!!!! (loo kat the ani-aircraft armament ratings!!)

[Killfrenzy]

Shooting down a fast flying aircraft from a rolling warship is somewhat tricky. The only hope that any warship had was to saturate the area with tracer.

[Nico]

Originally posted by Killfrenzy
Nico: Only 2 Battleships engaged the Bismarck in her final battle on May 27th 1941. HMS King George V (12x14") and HMS Rodney (9x16"). Other ships in the vicinity included five Tribal-class Destroyers, the Aircraft Carrier HMS Ark Royal, the Battlecruiser Renown, the Heavy Cruiser HMS Dorsetshire and the Light Cruiser HMS Sheffield. Out of those other ships the Destroyers had harassed the Bismarck all night and HMS Dorsetshire fired three torpedoes to finish the battle after King George V and Rodney reduced Bismarck to a burning hulk on the water. Although the torpedoes didn't sink her, they hit around the time that the scuttle charges went off so it looked like the torpedoes sunk her.

Well, I'm not good at ships terminology. But that makes even more ships than I thought
Yeah, I remember the other torps hit deal, that's the first thing Cameron checked out in his mission, iirc. The shots dealt superficial damage to the outer layer of the hull, and water didn't get through the second... her, don't know the name, never mind.
The fact is, wether the brits sunk or not the Bismarck has been a big deal for years, so the truth has finally been unveild. To me, it doesn't change much things, the Bismarck DID sink because of the brits attack, and that's it. torpedoes or scuttle charges, the result is the same, no?
What I'd love, now, is to have Cameron do the same thing with the Yamato ( but there's nothing to prove there, so it's unlikely ). After all, Titanic DID have a good reason to exist, it started the whole " cameron goes underwater" thing

[Nico]

Originally posted by Shrike
The Bismarck really is highly overrated.  It was actually a rather poor design.

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

btw, that website is kind of idiotic, I quote:

"Underwater Protection

You're probably asking yourself, who cares about underwater protection when you're slinging big shells at each other? Answer, sometimes those shells miss, and if they miss short of their intended target, they still stand a very good chance of diving into the side of the target below her waterline."

Underwater protection is kind the most important of them all, shooting there is how you sink a ship nice and clean. That said this site is all about big guns, they kind of forgot torpedoes and submarines.
On a side note, I'm astonished, the Richelieu scores way better than I would have believed

[Killfrenzy]

If only he'd do a movie based on the Bismarck.....or better yet, the Scharnhorst!!

[aldo_14]

[edit] Im an idiot.  Ignore me[/edit]

[Shrike]

Originally posted by Killfrenzy
Shrike, Bismarck was a superior warship to her immediate rivals of the Royal Navy. She was fast, powerfully armed and well protected. The Royal Navy had nothing that could really catch her and yet match her firepower. HMS Hood was as fast and as well armed, but no where near as well protected. The only other ships that could match Bismarck firepower for firepower were the Queen Elizabeth class, the 'R' class (ships such as HMS Revenge) and The Nelson class (although the guns were bigger at 16"). Sadly though none of these ships had a hope of catching the German warship.

Of course the Bismarck individually outclassed the British vessel, she had a good 6-8000 tons on any British battleship of the time.  However, she was by no means a superb warship and was built on rather outdated naval principles and lacked many of the refinements that the allied powers had, such as effective fire control radar.

The website you quote badly compares the warships, particularly when it comes to fire control and 'conducting a naval campaign.' Rarely, if at all, does the website take into account actual historical events. It just throws lots of figures at you! [/B]

How would you compare them then?  What are your issues with the way these were presented?  Most of the battleships never engaged one another so historical events are not particularly useful in terms of comparing them.  There are always chances of upsets and lucky hits, like the Hood.

Personally, I'd love to see the Iowa survive being chased by an entire navy when they know where she is. I'd also like to see a warship equal the performance of the Bismarck at the Battle of the Denmark Straight. Okay, so the hit that sank HMS Hood was pure damned luck, but they'd already hit her at least twice! Prinz Eugen started the fire on Hood's upper deck from quite a long range.[/B]

Well, putting an Iowa in the Bismarck's place would mean that the Royal Navy would be rather more hard-pressed to defeat her.  Higher speed, significantly better weapons, blindfire radar, grossly superior AA defense, better armoring... One battleship against a fleet is pretty much a foregone conclusion no matter what your contestants are, but I have never seen a well laid out case for why the Bismarck is truly one of the best battleships of WWII.

Incidentally, Scharnhorst landed an 11" shell on HMS Ardent from a range of over 26,000 yards. That's quite incredible gunnery! The Germans were VERY good at optical rangefinding.[/B]

However, by comparison the British had superior radar fire control.  Yes, the Bismarck had quality optics, it had a rating of 9 for them, only loosing out because the nightfighting optics were inferior to the Yamato, who was designed with the Japanese obsession with nightfighting in mind.  However, the German optics, while excellent, were very un-ergodynamic - they were unsuited for long engagements and their effectiveness would drop off markedly.  Plus of course by the middle of WWII, optics had become the poor cousin to radar, and German radar was nowhere near comparable to allied radar.

Of course the Iowa 'comes out on top' - she was specifically designed to counter the threat posed by ships such as Tirpitz whilst at the same time being able to piss about in the Pacific. If the Iowa and Yamato met at sea in a traditional gunnery engagement, you'd have a lot of drowned Americans. 18" guns do tend to hurt a lot! [/B]

Yes, 18" guns hurt a lot... so do the best 16" guns ever made firing super-heavy projectiles.  Furthermore, the Iowas had vastly superior fire control and at long range would have been far more accurate than the Yamato.  The Iowas can target over the horizon, the Yamato can't.

[BlazeME]

So who's battleships are the best?

On FS2 the ships have less guns because the guns are (I mean ) bigger. The flak shells are probably 1m thick and the beams are about 5 meters thick (plus beams need more space for power)

[neo_hermes]

How many Fusion Reactors are on a Orion Class Destroyer?