German Battleships and convoy hunting.

[delcyros]

My estimation, too. The RN would always come out on top(The Lions would have been interesting). I might even think that the Z-Plan of a balanced fleet brought the KM in a desperate situation with it´s fleet torso in 1940. The will to build a battlefleet (with Bismarck and Tirpitz as it´s first units) also was only partly productive. For a raider they were kind of an overkill. The only real useful thing of these two units was the heavy "fleet in beeing" effect of Tirpitz in Norway and Bismarck in the Atlantic (which contributed a lot to the capture of crete). The Panzerschiffe would have been the better solution (cancel B&T and the twins and you may deploy 10 pocket battleships) in combination with a good submarine building program. But it is always easier with the knowledge of the past...
Syscom, would You like to fight Tirpitz in 1943 with South-Dakota or Iowa?
It wasn´t until 44 that US ships got firecontroll advantage with introduction of MK 8 FC. However, You pointed a very valid point: The US shipbuilding program produced the necessary transporting capabilities which the KM never had, beside of it´s large scale warship production program.

[syscom3]

Of course Id take the Iowa class as first choice.

But I'd still fight it out with the SD.

[delcyros]

And I suspect You would be a brave seamen to do so.

[syscom3]

It would be the German sailors who would be brave.......knowing they were sailing to their doom.

[delcyros]

1943 - I wouldn´t be that sure:
Iowa: sea-trials and training in the North Atlantic (as opposition to a possible Tirpitz breakout): untrained crew (which regularly overshoot it´s targets and had some technical breakdowns as well) in Iowa against trained and experienced crew of Tirpitz, comparable Radar and FC, bad weather in the Nort Atlantic (and Iowa was a way worser seaboat than Tirpitz), the unknown Tirpitz armor sheme (yep, it´s easy to stay out of range and get plunging fire if You would only have known Okun´s work...). There is not much the Iowa has in advance: Not the range (Iowa and Tirpitz identical) but the speed (as long as the unprotected bow get´s no hit). And the heavy KM ships were reputated for early hits.
Iowa went afterwards in the mediterranean but only to be returned in fear of Fritz X attacks (just my personal view). In 1943 both ships are technically equal but if you factor the crew, too....
The South Dakota at least has some worthy battle experience and much more gunnery training.

[syscom3]

The Iowa class BB's were needed in the Pacific for a variety of reasons.

There was really no use for them in the med.

How do you know the Iowa had bad sea keeping? The typhoons in the pacific had no effect on its sea keeping.

[Henk]

I do not like to say this but it is true.

The Iowa was a great sea ship and had better range finders and had greater range because of her 16 inch guns and she had 9 of them. She also had more sicondary guns. Well I must say that with a well oiled engine you can do anything. The German crew were indeed well trained and fought bravely, if you do not have well trained men or brave men you may have the best battleship she will not fight right.

Henk

[delcyros]

Dear Henk, switch to page 4-7, there is a lot discussed. 16" alone has nothing in favour...there are good guns and there are bad ones. The US 16"/45 and /50 are considered very good ones but so are the 15"/52 of Bismarck. There is only little difference between both guns and while it is true that Bismarck has one gun less, it still has more battery output due to a higher RoF.
The range finders of Iowa (the optical ones) are by far not as good as Bismarcks. I often read people saying so but if you reed the post ww2 comments on german optical rangefinders You will feel very disappointed if You think Iowa was state of the art.
And Iowa wasn´t a sea ship like Bismarck.
There is a way to find out wy: Metacentric height. You have two metacentric heights: one for transverse and longitudinal (compare the attached picture).
Here are some metacentric heights (GM) for BB:
Richelieu: 9.28 ft
Iowa: 9.26 ft
Yamato: 9.81 ft
Vittorio Veneto: 5.84 ft (ok-only in the calm mediterranean, neglectable)
Howe: 7.32 ft.
Vanguard: 11.12 ft.
Bismarck: 13.48 ft.
The design of german capital ships since pre ww1 were all with great empahsis on a high degree of design stability, as was the Bismarck. In most cases the centre of Bouyoncy is below the centre of weight the height is measured in ft over keel (CoG-CoD=metacentric height). The rule is:
The higher the metacentric height= the stronger the righting arm = more stability. I quote one occasion where two BB of different GM were in the same storm: during Nato maneuvres in the North Atlantic Iowa and Vanguard had same speed and direction, Vanguard suffered 15 degrees worsest list while Iowa suffered 25 degrees. Bismarck had even far more GM and therefor far more stability, in theory it could still prevent capsizing at 61 degrees when all other BB long went submerged! The longitudinal GM of Bismarck was better than Iowa as well. The fine bow of Iowa was a problem at heavy seas:"This shows why the Iowa's were so wet forward; because they had very fine lines, the mass of water displaced by the bows was not great so digging the bows (...in the waters...) in did not displace the center of buoyancy much so little righting arm existed."(compare article of Stuart Blade at the NTB) This is even more important if battledamage caused some flooding because this will always reduce the ships acceptable metacentric height (Counterflooding also will always reduce the GM). This may be a reason why Seydlitz managed to return with 5.500 tons of water during Jutland as it would directly contribut to the survivability of the Bismarcks.
A negaive side effect of this is that the rolling periods will be shorter at heavy seas, this will negatively influence weapon platform. A reason why german designers preferred the three axes stabilized mountings for all but the main artillery gunmounts.

[Henk]

Oh yes I agree wiht you that the Bismarck was a better sea ship than the Iowa and on the guns becuase the German gunners was better, lol. The only problems wiht the Bismarck was hes stern design and the stearing wiht the propellers and the AA. That is all, other wise she was great.

My friend bought himself a Bismarck model but he f****ed it up becuase he did not follow the instructions but it gafe me time to study the design of the ship and then I also got the famous book THE DESCOVERY OF THE BISMARCK by Dr Robert Ballard and I learned a lot there. Great book.

I also design ships just for fun by hand, the 3D thing is just still a problem.

Henk

[delcyros]

The stern design may be weak, agreed. Another possibility is that the welding failed at the very structure, which was already weakened by the torpedo blast. The bow structure of US cruisers wasn´t that good either. There are no recorded problems with the bow structure of US fast battleships, but they haven´t been tested. The stearing with one centreline prop was unstatisfying, agreed. The AA tracked the slow Swordfish too hard, otherwise the Tirpitz AA proved to be a capable AA suite at least for a battleship.
By the way Ballards book was my first on Bismarck, too.

[Henk]

The Prinz Eugen also had a weak stern and was forced to be in dry dock for a wile. They improved her bow and never had a problem since.

Yes the Tirpitz had great AA and was a brave ship, the only thing was that it was just sitting around.

Henk

[delcyros]

Fleet in beeing, this was Tirpitz purpose in Norway.
And yes, Prinz Eugen had to be docked after it suffered a torpedo hit in the stern. I believe Lutzow and Hipper also had some problems with the stern.
Could be that this is a general design weakness of german capital ships.

[Henk]

Yes, it was a small fault in the design, but a big one in battle.

Still I love German Designs of Battleships WW1 and WW2.

Henk

[delcyros]

Haven´t seen any battle related difficulties with the stern. Bismarck´s broke either while sinking or while hitting the ocean surface, Prinz Eugens broke after torpedo impact (but the ship still was able to maneure and keep some own speed), as did Lutzows stern suffered damaged after torpedo impact. That are two CA and RN CA are reputated for sinking after one or two hits. Compared with this it is pretty little damage.
I do personally like german high sea fleet ships. Aesthetically nothing beats Lutzow in ww1. In ww2 my vote would be either Yamato or Richeleieu with a close Washington beeing second (resp. third).

[syscom3]

Originally Posted by delcyros

......re two CA and RN CA are reputated for sinking after one or two hits. .......

What allied cruisers sank after one hit (excluding the USS Jeauneu which had a torpedo hit right in the magazine)