[Desert Tyrant]

Eh, becuase I feel like it. 

My thoughts on the 'Yamato vs. Iowa' thing.  It might be useful, might not. 

"The Iowa-class Battleship had an armanant of nine 16in guns, divided into 3 batteries. The Iowa's 16/50Cal shells weighed 2,700 pounds, and could fire accurately for as far as thirty miles, if memeory serves me. Their back-up weapons were 5in/38Cal shells, as well as a large number of 40 and 20 millimetre weapon batteries. The Iowa's armour was definately not as thick as the Yamato's, however, it significantly could outrun the Yamato: The Iowa classes top-speed was 33 knots, while Yamato's was 24-27 knots. The famed German battleship Bismarck, for example, was capable of going up to 29 knots in optimal conditions.

There were four Iowas built: Iowa, BB-61, New Jersy, BB-62, Missouri, BB-63, and Wisconsin, BB-64. There were originally supposed to be six of them, the Illinios, and the Kentuky, which was fairly close to being completed.

On the other hand, there was two Yamato-class Battleships, the Yamato and the Musahshi, both of which suffered inglorious deaths: Mushashi was sunk in the battle of Letye Gulf, after taking a massive amount of damage.(Mushashi took 17 torpedos and 20 15,000 pound bombs. For comparison, the strongest bomb that the US had, short of the Nuke, was a 5,000 pound bunker buster IIRC. That is an incredible amount of firepower no matter how you slice it.)

Yamato wound up being sunk in a suicide mission against the US navy at Okinowa. Now, both never fought each other, but What If?

Yamato-classes armanant was nine 18.1 in. gun batteries, which wa sdivided into the same 3 gun battry arrangement as the Iowa-class. Her secondary armanant was 6.1 gun batteries, and had a smattering of 25 and 13mm gun batteries, which like the Iowa's 40 and 20mm were used for anti-aircraft duty.

Yamato was superior in terms of gunfire, but the US 16/50Cal guns were better at penatration. Yamato's real downside against the Iowa-class, aside from the fact that the American Battleship is much faster, is the fact that the Yamato-class' fire-control were decidely medicre. The Iowa used a Radar-control fireing system which by WWII standards were extremely accurate. Yamato's fire-control wasn't nearly as good.

Bottom line: Iowa had at least a 50% chance against The Yamato class, at the least."

[Mobius]

May I know why you called this thread "World War 2"?

[Mr. Vega]

Judging from reading accounts of Jutland and Hood vs. Bismarck, seems whoever gets just one or two good hits first wins, so it goes to the Iowas greater accuracy.

[Snail]

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  \ USS Coolness                      /
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                                                    ( U-1337                        )
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[jr2]

Nice ASCII art there, Snail.    ... but you forgot to add depth charges dropping from the USS C 

[wdarkk]

http://www.combinedfleet.com/ sums it up pretty well. Japan was kinda screwed from the part where they decided to go to war with the US. The Nazis were ignoring all sorts of stuff we did (HEY UK HAVE SOME DESTROYERS! PAY LATER!) because they didn't want to fight the US and USSR at the same time. Then Japan went and brought the US into the mess and it was just attrition.

Also, there was the fact that the Japanese Navy was terrible at protecting its supply lines.

[Flipside]

I seem to recall the Yamato had problems with recoil on those main guns as well?

WDarkk is also right about protecting convoys, the Japanese 'warrior culture' meant that far too much was put into actually fighting and not enough into escorting the supply vessels. The Royal Navy learned some pretty harsh lessons from trying to go nose-nose with the Japanese battle fleet, though that was partly because they were stretched so thin, they lost the Prince of Wales to Torpedo Boats and could barely afford the assets to push more ships into the area what with engaging the German fleet.

[Maxwell]

Now, both never fought each other, but What If?

The reason they would never fight each other was because naval air power, what Japan had used to progress early in the war and what was the dominant force in war, had been almost entirely lost to the Americans.

Aircraft were faster and able to reach targets before ships most times. Add to that the Japanese ships had poor antiaircraft defenses compared to their American counterparts. 
A direct battle was unlikely.

[BloodEagle]

Japan was kinda screwed from the part where they decided to go to war with the US.

The war with Japan could have easily gone the other way due to the invention of the jet engine. In fact if the U.S. had waited a week or two, the war would have lasted a lot longer.

The Nazis were ignoring all sorts of stuff we did (HEY UK HAVE SOME DESTROYERS! PAY LATER!) because they didn't want to fight the US and USSR at the same time.

They didn't ignore anything. They almost instigated a war between Mexico and the U.S.

[Desert Tyrant]

May I know why you called this thread "World War 2"?

Because I can.  Plus remember i'm a douchebag.

Judging from reading accounts of Jutland and Hood vs. Bismarck, seems whoever gets just one or two good hits first wins, so it goes to the Iowas greater accuracy.

Well, Hood's a bit of an outlier.  From what i've read on wiki(Take it with a grain of salt, though), Hood sounds like she was sunk by a freakshot that punched through the Deck armour.

And damn it, that she looked awesome too. 

(It might be worth noting that Bismarck could survive longer in a straight-up fight, mainly because of the virtues of either ships design.  The Hood had thin armour in comparison with a main battleship, but was nearly equaly armed as well, as both ships fired 15inch shells.  Honestly, the concept of a Battlecruiser sounds much better suited for raiding than a BB like Bismarck.  It might also be worth noting that Bismarck forced the Englishes newest BB, Price of Wales, to retreat.  Then again from what i've heard the King George V wasn't a brilliantly designed ship)

(As an aside, I hear the US is going to comission the King George VI battleship soon. )

Now, both never fought each other, but What If?

The reason they would never fight each other was because naval air power, what Japan had used to progress early in the war and what was the dominant force in war, had been almost entirely lost to the Americans.

I know that, I posted that as a 'What if the USS Iowa did in fact engage the Japanese BB Yamato at Okinowa?  Or the Mushashi at Letye Gulf?  (And after reading up on that battle, jesus the Mushashi was a tough bastard.)

[Roanoke]

May I know why you called this thread "World War 2"?

Because I can.  Plus remember i'm a douchebag.

Judging from reading accounts of Jutland and Hood vs. Bismarck, seems whoever gets just one or two good hits first wins, so it goes to the Iowas greater accuracy.

Well, Hood's a bit of an outlier.  From what i've read on wiki(Take it with a grain of salt, though), Hood sounds like she was sunk by a freakshot that punched through the Deck armour.

And damn it, that she looked awesome too. 

(It might be worth noting that Bismarck could survive longer in a straight-up fight, mainly because of the virtues of either ships design.  The Hood had thin armour in comparison with a main battleship, but was nearly equaly armed as well, as both ships fired 15inch shells.  Honestly, the concept of a Battlecruiser sounds much better suited for raiding than a BB like Bismarck.  It might also be worth noting that Bismarck forced the Englishes newest BB, Price of Wales, to retreat.  Then again from what i've heard the King George V wasn't a brilliantly designed ship)

You're almost right. The Hood was an old design with strong side armour but minimal deck armour (IIRC they may have even been wood decking). Due to advances in gun design, shells travlled in an arch, rather than directly at a target, so they would be arriving "from above". So to speak.

[Maxwell]

What if the USS Iowa did in fact engage the Japanese BB Yamato at Okinowa?

Gun for gun it would probably have been a stalemate with both ships taking serious damage. I understand the Iowa had superior fire control systems with its mark1... which is the most important thing as armor ain't gonna do squat against shells this large, but that probably wouldn't mean much.

Ships of this kind rarely sail alone. Not only for the security of numbers but also because they need a great deal of support from the fleet. Everything from supplies to information has to be pumped into these ships or they are going to lose effectiveness quickly.

The Yamato had very little for backup in its final battle and, as a combat system, had failed before the first shot was fired.

Saying the Yamato was killed by aircraft is like saying Mike tyson lost a fight because he tripped over a folding chair on his way to the ring.
...but when you starve, blindfold, and intoxicate your fighter before sending him to the match, thats exactly the sort of thing that will happen.

[Desert Tyrant]

You're almost right. The Hood was an old design with strong side armour but minimal deck armour (IIRC they may have even been wood decking). Due to advances in gun design, sheels travlled in an arch, rather than directly at a target, so they would be arriving "from above". So to speak.

I know Hood was a fairly old design.  I don't think that she was launched until... 1918-ish? 

But yeah, Hood's deck armour was garbage.  And no, I don't what to know what would of happened if the Yamato was there instead(Sure it'd never happen, but sometimes it's fun to speculate.)

[IceFire]

Please appropriately title your threads when you create them.  Thanks!

[Mobius]

The new title of this thread isn't perfect, either

[NGTM-1R]

The be-all, the end-all, the alpha and the omega, to this discussion: http://www.combinedfleet.com/baddest.htm

The reason why it's the best: http://www.combinedfleet.com/okun_biz.htm This guy does ballistics for a living, and he genuinely enjoys it. If he speaks, you best be listen' fool.

[wdarkk]

Japan was kinda screwed from the part where they decided to go to war with the US.

The war with Japan could have easily gone the other way due to the invention of the jet engine. In fact if the U.S. had waited a week or two, the war would have lasted a lot longer.

I'm gonna have to ask you to back that up.

The Nazis were ignoring all sorts of stuff we did (HEY UK HAVE SOME DESTROYERS! PAY LATER!) because they didn't want to fight the US and USSR at the same time.

They didn't ignore anything. They almost instigated a war between Mexico and the U.S.

Wasn't that WW1? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmerman_telegram Did the Germans try that again?

[IceFire]

The new title of this thread isn't perfect, either

How is that?

[BloodEagle]

I'm gonna have to ask you to back that up.

I saw it on the History Channel during one of their 'WWII Days'. I'll hunt for a link tomorrow.

Wasn't that WW1? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmerman_telegram Did the Germans try that again?

Curse my memory! 

Well, they still blew up merchant vessels! 

[Mefustae]

I saw it on the History Channel during one of their 'WWII Days'.

But it's always WWII Day on the History Channel. They should call it the ****ing World War 2 Channel ffs. Honestly, would it kill them to do something other than WWII and Ancient Rome?