Best World war two warships?

[jonsidneyb]

Since SD, Washington, and Krishima have are part of this topic lets try and look at it from the Krishima's prespective.

Lets say I am am looking on from the bridge of the Krishima.

Oh, It's an American Battleship. One of those newer 16 inch gun varieties with lots of 5inch secondaries. This might be bad. Open fire!!!!!!!!

Boom Boom Boom!!!! We have scored some hits, everyone join in. Perhaps our lighter ships will take out her radar, damage the directors, maybe kill the bridge crew.

Hmmmm, she is not firing back. Maybe we hit something vital. Maybe she actually was not aware we where here and was not ready. Perhaps the bridge crew is dazed. No matter, we need to finish her before she can respond with those big 16 inch guns. Everyone, concentrate your fire on that battleship. Don't let her recover. We can win this one if we do not allow her to repair what ever damage we have caused.

Hmmm, what is that??? Another battle ship. Our turrets are all on the first battleship. It will take time to turn out guns, If we do turn out guns the 1st battleship might recover and strike back.

Boom Boom Boom!!!!!

Hmmm, it seems we are going to have trouble turning our turrets if we wanted to.

Boom Boom Boom!!!!!

We might be in trouble.

Boom Boom Boom!!!!!

Ok Ok, we are in trouble.

[delcyros]

I would like to mention that South Dakota fired 3 salvos with her MK 40 FC director. There is no mention about the results and obviously she was missing and did not achieved a hit or straddle on the target. I do not know whether or not her 5" sec. achieved any hit´s on Krishima but with the close range in mind, this cannot be excluded. However, SD wasn´t silenced early in the action. The powerloss knocked out main & secondary FC and limited the power hoists in operation. There was some emergency power avaiable for the training & firing of the turrets (provided by turbo dynamos) altough this energy was channelled soon to ship operations and damage controll.
There was nothing wrong with the circuit breaker itselve, prior to ~1930, it was a prone to failure under impact shock. In fact until Rickover revised the construction of USN Breakers pre WW2 it was a common occurance in USN vessels for breakers to open due to schock. However, SD had Rickover´s shock proof Breakers.
The problem therefore must be found in the integration of equipment but I am nowhere near educated enough for this question.

[renrich]

The reason that Kirishima concentrated her fire on SD was that she could see her. She did not see Washington. Washington "saw" Kirishima with her FC radar and her salvos were directed by radar. It is true that SD fired at a target early in the battle that was thought to be a BB but Kirishima took no hits at that time. One report says that an engineer on SD wired down the breakers so they would not pop and that caused further problems. Apparently SD was ineffective in the whole battle except as a target(which was helpful) The SD was hit several times by 14 inch bullets but most of them were shore bombardment type and did no vital damage.

[Glider]

The lucky thing about this battle was that the Jap destroyers who you would normally to be deadly at night and close range, didn't shine with thei their torps.

[renrich]

No question about the luck that the US enjoyed with their BBs in this battle re the IJN torps. In most of the other battles around Guadalcanal(as fierce and sanguinary as any in history) we suffered heavily from the Japanese torps. Of course "Ching" Lee was aware of the danger of those torps and he fought the battle accordingly. However, I stated as my criteria that a ship needed to be lucky to make my list and the Washington was lucky that night. Another ship that made my list, Pensacola, was unlucky at Tassaforonga, and had her bow blown off by a torp but she was lucky to not take the hit further aft, was repaired and fought out the rest of the war. Incidently my criteria include extra points if the ship was on the winning side in the war. We are talking about real results here.

[mkloby]

Originally Posted by renrich

No question about the luck that the US enjoyed with their BBs in this battle re the IJN torps. In most of the other battles around Guadalcanal(as fierce and sanguinary as any in history) we suffered heavily from the Japanese torps. Of course "Ching" Lee was aware of the danger of those torps and he fought the battle accordingly. However, I stated as my criteria that a ship needed to be lucky to make my list and the Washington was lucky that night. Another ship that made my list, Pensacola, was unlucky at Tassaforonga, and had her bow blown off by a torp but she was lucky to not take the hit further aft, was repaired and fought out the rest of the war. Incidently my criteria include extra points if the ship was on the winning side in the war. We are talking about real results here.

Quite fond of the P'cola

I always say it's better to be lucky than good. That's the damn truth!

[jonsidneyb]

When I look at Naval history there was a turning point there the battles started to be lopsided against the Japanese in surface action.

My main point there if we would have substituted many different ships from many nations in the place of washington I think the results would have been the same. Washington was not spotted until too late. Most battleships in Washingtons position would have prevailed.

[renrich]

Maybe, but Washington was there, she was commanded by a smart expert in gunnery, her FC radar(new) was in place and worked, her radar operators knew how to interpret the globs and her gunners were well trained. For a first action they were pretty effective. A combination of a good weapon, well trained crew, the ship was there when doctrine dictated BBs should not operate in those tight quarters and her commander had trained all his life for that moment. Lady Luck and maybe something else was looking over our shoulder that night.

[syscom3]

Renrich is correct.

The USS Washington was commanded by a good capt and a good admiral. And theres nothing that speaks for itself as who was left standing after a battle.

The results speak for themselves.

[delcyros]

May I interrupt You on this? Don´t take me wrong -I very much like Washington- but she had only limited radar FC by 42. If You study the after action reports properly and compare them with FC MK 3 manuals it is absolutely clear that she needed optical input from the firing director also. The excellent display of gunnery was remarkable (esspeccially the rapid firing) but the radar was not truly able for "blind fire".
It was able to detect BB sized targets with comparably high range precission and good resolution but the deflection preciseness made it necassary to input datas via optics. In the end this process is more complicated than radar / optic only input but her crew mastered this task with remarkable performance and for good results.

[renrich]

I will bow(as always) to del's superior knowledge as far as the details of the equipment used in naval warfare although I might feel somewhat equal to him when it comes to the ordnance on board the USS Constitution. (24 pounders and 32 pound carronades are within my area of expertise) The accounts I read of Washington at Guadalcanal did say that Kirishima revealed herself when she opened searchlights on SD so the Washington gunners were able to utilise optical sights as well as radar. I believe the ranges were incredibly short for naval gunfire(on the order of 8000-9000 yards.) Of course the Washington's secondary batteries provided star shells also. As del states the primary value of the radar aboard Washington was to locate the IJN ships.

[ToughOmbre]

Essex Class carriers, Iowa Class battleships, Fletcher Class destroyers. My two cents.

[jonsidneyb]

This was no attempt to take anything away from the Washington as she was a good ship and she was what she was. Two generations back from the Iowa but still a relatively new ship after the long battleship holiday. I have read this battle over and over. Washington did sink her and that was what she was supposed to do.

If someone gives you the shot you take it. I am still convinced this was not a test of Washington. What was the Japanese battleship supposed to do. She was pounding on a heavier bigger gunned ship not knowing why the the SD was not firing back.

Kirishma had a target and that gave Washington everything. Washington was a superior ship to begin with. The Japanese battleship is occupied and distracted. I guess we will never actually know at what moment she saw the Washington because if she did see it before being fired upon it was too late to respond.

Once Washington sailed up the into position and finds that her presence has not been detected what brilliant work piece of captaining is left to do. Not a whole bunch I think. The gunnery crews know their job and SD is being pounded. You give the order to open fire. The captain is not manning the directors, or loading the guns. He is now waiting for when he should check fire and looking guaging the other threats. The crew saw the other threats I am sure as well and would know what to do. You direct some fire on the other vessles.

The reason I make this comment is I notice alot of people building up Washington for doing her job and perhaps over rating Washington. Iowa didn't kill a battleship and I am not prepared to say that Washington is superior to Iowa.

The way I see it is Washington was there. She got an opportunity and took it like she is supposed to do.

What if it was Nelson that sailed into the same situation. Or perhaps Riechlieu. Maybe Venito. I think Bizmarch would do the same if they happened to be setting in that postion with and occupied enemy capital ship of inferior design. I am convinced Colorado would have made short work of her too. I am almost thinking Texas could have one this one quickly and easily.

[jonsidneyb]

Instead of being my long winded self.

I guess I should ask a question instead.

What battleships do you think would not have been able to handle this situation that Washington was in?

[jonsidneyb]

what is interesing is hearing it from a Japanese poing of view.

Japanese Account of Savo Island Battle