[aldo_14]

Originally posted by TrashMan


@Aldo - as I was saying - those italian ships were rather poor (25000 tonnes and you call that a battleship? Compared to US and Jap ships that was an ant) The only exception was Vittorio Venetto, which realyl was a big ship, but if you check the battleship comparion page, you will se it is rated very badly in the waterline armor and anti-aircraft defences.

Wikipedia calls it a battleship, so I'm happy to accept a peer-reviewed definition.

All of which is beside my point; battleship armour was shown to be penetrated by a small number of air launched torpedos in Taranto (from what were fairly primitive aircraft - fabric covered biplanes).  It serves as an illustration of the damage that can be done - in an area of relatively crude technology compared to today - to a battleship with air-based weaponry.  Although the Italians did have over 600 anti-aircraft guns and 90 barrage balloons, so it wasn't exactly a cakewalk anyways.

The whole point being made is that the battleship has been rendered obselete by aircraft and stand-off weaponry, and that was

[Boomer]

One thing is being disregarded here:  human nature.  

Look at all of us:  we're discussing the failure of large warships against pathetic aircraft in WWII.  We are looking at the mistakes of our predecessors, and building off of them to prevent the same thing from happening in 2005.

Warp ahead:  23-whateverish

How many generations?  How many wars?  How many failed plans?  How many monstrosities?  All the lessons we've learned now are still applied, in a different fashion, but they're still applied.  Is it not possible that in Trashman's scenario, these issues have been looked at and dealt with?

And besides, he's not even constrained by physical limitations.  I don't care what anyone says.  No matter what, as time goes on people adapt, greater failure spawns greater invention, and we persevere.  We learn to study ourselves and correct our mistakes so that they don't repeat in the future.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled program:  FreeSpace and WWII:  The Conspiracy Revealed.  

[IceFire]

Keep in mind that there was a big difference in armament between the Prince of Wales and the Repulse being attacked by 100 some odd G4M Betty and G3M Nell bombers and the various destroyers, cruisers, and battleships that faced the Japanese kamikazi attacks much later in the war.

Biggest changes were massive increase in guns and proximity fuse shells.  Late war battleships of WWII in the USN and British fleet were fairly well protected against an attack that the Prince of Wales was not quite upto the challenge of facing.

That whole Force Z thing was a fiasco as the RN knew they were in striking range of Japanese aircraft but ventured out in search of invasion ships anyways.  Churchill later wrote that it was apparently one of the largest shocks he ever got in the war.

As for the Archangel model here...pretty good...looks decent.  Seems to follow the Sathanas killing trend.   Need some fresh takes on the capital ship trend sometime...

[NGTM-1R]

Originally posted by aldo_14

Wikipedia calls it a battleship, so I'm happy to accept a peer-reviewed definition.

All of which is beside my point; battleship armour was shown to be penetrated by a small number of air launched torpedos in Taranto (from what were fairly primitive aircraft - fabric covered biplanes).  It serves as an illustration of the damage that can be done - in an area of relatively crude technology compared to today - to a battleship with air-based weaponry.  Although the Italians did have over 600 anti-aircraft guns and 90 barrage balloons, so it wasn't exactly a cakewalk anyways.

It is worth noting that the Vittero Venetio could put only about two-thirds as much weight of metal in the air as a late-war US Gearing-class destroyer over the span of one minute. (Gearing: 12,963 lbs. Vittero Venetio: 9,821 lbs.)  And the Gearing would have vastly superior, radar-based fire-control to boot.

And the Vittero Venetio also had a defective underwater protection system; according to evidence from the time, and by people who have studied the ship's blueprints and presumably know what they are talking about, it had defective seam joins and was virtually useless when it came to multiple hits in the same area.

It is also worth mentioning, again, that an Iowa-class is actually quite capable of shrugging off any modern surface-to-surface or air-to-surface missile short of a nuclear weapon. None of those weapons are armor-piercing. Yes, you will cause casualities, you will make a mess of exposed equipment, but the bottom line is that you will not penetrate the armor belt and will not do fatal damage to the ship, not even with the ungodly huge Russian Shipwreck or Kingfish missiles.

[Fade Rathnik]

Thats good to know, now can one imagine if they used modern tank armor for combat ships. There would be great difficulty in sinking the bastard. That is of cource faling to acknowlege(sp) that that might make the boat to heavy to sail.

[Roanoke]

Fact is anyship caught in port is highly vulnerable to an air strike. Pearl harbour, anyone ?

[TrashMan]

Allso, one musnt' forget that the torpedos used in WW2 were huge - a torpedo bomber carrier one and it was practicly the size or the bomber itself.

And 100 bombers is a lot. An avarage carrier could support 60 fighters at those times.

Allso, todays warships have no armor to speak off, so that Excocet missile thing in the Falklands is what you get as a result.
Most todays ships have 1-2 120m cannons which are enough to pierce trough the enmy ship, showing just how weak todays armor really is...

[Fade Rathnik]

yes but they can fire some serious AP rounds thru that small bore cannon. Remember all you have to do is disable a ship. And AP rounds are good at making things not work

[TrashMan]

OK - repulse got hit by 4 torpedos and hte prince of Whales by 8-9.. It allso sez it got 5 direct bomb hits in the last enemy attack run - how many before I couldn't find.

Given that the Repulse was old it's not surprising that it sunk rather fast. The POW got pounded far harder (even a jap bomber rammed him near the waterline)  and was still floating. Against 100 bombers one really couldn't expect another outcome, but it does prove that better design = better survivalbility.

American warships built after Peral Harbor and this event were designed with that in mind. Iowa had 140 cannons total,triple hull, multiple bulkheads and those extra torpedo bumber strips 8forgot what they are called)

Allso, I just checked some other books too (I have 2500 books at home, and half of them are about ships.. what can I say? My father was a ship captain).
Vittorio Venettoa had TERRIBLE AF defences and fire control..
Most british ships had rather weak waterline armor..

interesting...this sheds some more light on the situation..