From: aaron@serss0 (aaron)
Subject: Re: Heavy/Light Cruiser
Reply-To: aaron@fiu.edu  (StanleY!) 
Organization: Florida International University, Miami
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 02:35:58 GMT
Disclaimer: all comments are solely my remarks...

As this is getting well off the beaten path (even though I find it a
fascinating subject, and apparently, so do others . . .), I will provide a
little ho-hum protection.  Those of you who want to skip past this are
encouraged to hit either 'n' or 'j' . . .


Very well, then . . . on to correcting a few fallacies, and establish a few
correct positions . . . (no joke or lie . . .)

>Tim Cottle wrote: 
>>Kevin Weber writes:

>>The battle between the Hood and Bismark marked the last encounter between
>>battleships.  It was realized, especially in the Pacific, that the main
>>role of battleships was to bombard land forces from sea.  They would,
>>however, still chase the big aircraft carriers, which are slower than
>>battleships.
>>
Incorrect.  The final battleship vs. battleship engagement did indeed come
in World War II, but it was not the _Hood_ losing to the _Bismarck_.  That
wasn't even the final scene of that episode either, as the British chased
the _Bismarck_ down with no less than 3 battleships and a battlecruiser,
not to mention countless smaller ships and a pair of carriers.  Shortly
before she sank, the _Bismarck_ was directly engaged with the battleships
_HMS King George IV_ and _HMS Rodney_.  No, this was really only the first
of several engagements between such monsters.  Among them, in late 1944,
was the Battle of Surigao Strait, when a battleline consisting of of five
or six of the old battleships repaired from the attack on Pearl Harbor,
sank the Japanese battleships the _Fuso_ and _Yamashiro_.  That date -- 25
October, 1944 -- was the last time that a battleship fired on a battleship.

What had become recognised was that the battleship was protection for the
main asset, the aircraft carrier, besides being an excellent shore
bombardment platform as you say.  (I would also mention that it is a
fallacy to believe that the aircraft carriers were in any way slower than
the battleships.  The _Missouris_ were fast at 32 knots, but the carriers
had an easy time keeping up with that.  Indeed, the first two major
carriers the US had -- the _Lexington_ and the _Saratoga_ -- were built on
the hulls of a pair of battlecruisers which the US cancelled; and the speed
these ships were capable of was some 33.25 knots -- as fast if not faster
than most destroyers and light cruisers!

>
>Not correct.  Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, the aircraft carriers in 
>sevice with US fleet, with the possible exception of the USS Ranger, were as
>fast or faster than our battleship fleet, which was largely of WWI and 1920's
>vintage.  The newer construction battleships, laid down after 1940, such as
>the USS North Carolina, were as fast as the carriers, but by the time they
>were built, the concepts of sea battle had changed, causing them to become most
>valuable as anti-aircraft platforms for the protection of the carriers.  In
>fact, in one battle at dusk, the North Carolina was putting out such a barrage
>of AA  that observers on other ships thought she had been hit and was afire.
>
Point very well made.  Check out pictures of the _USS Texas_, after her
1942 modernisation.  The ship fairly bristles with AA arms; and this was an
*old* battleship.  As you mentioned, the newer battleships, as much as they
carried a heavier main armament were terrifyingly heavily armed against
aircraft.


>Until the battleships were lost at Pearl, the Navy plan was to lure the Japanesefleet to a point northeast of Midway Island, and meet them with the battleships.The role of aircraft carriers was to provide a platform for scout aircraft to 
>lead the battleships to the Japanese fleet, and to provide artillery spotting 
>for the gun action that would follow.  The Japanese sinking of the battleships
>was actually a blessing in disguise to the US Navy, as it caused them to 
>rethink the concept of war at sea.
>
I should like to see some proof behind this thinking.  Nothing I have ever
seen or hear or read (and that has, in times past, been an immense amount
of materiel) *ever* hinted at anything remotely close to this idea.  Sure,
the Navy Battleline was a proud monument, but even before Pearl Harbor,
thanks to such luminaries as William Halsey, it was realised that the
carrier was going to be *THE* mode of fighting.  William Mitchell's sinking
of the circa-WWI German battleship _Ostfriesland_ heralded that all too
clearly, and the Japanese took it every bit as much to heart as did the
Americans . . .

>
>>I should mention that the US realized this advantage.  Japan still believed
>>till the end of WWII that the battleship could be used for naval assualt,
>>an error which proved very costly at the battle for Leyte gulf, and which
>>resulted in the sinking of the Yamamoto.
>
You have the reasoning behind that entire series of battles completely
wrong.  The Japanese knew perfectly clearly that air power was the decisive
factor; the reason they committed the Combined Fleet SAGs (surface action
groups) as they did was because they had far more of such capital ships
than they did carriers.  And the carriers, few that there were and
undersupplied with aircraft and crew, were being used to lure the US fleets
away so that the SAGs could tear up the Phillipine invasion without fear of
major air attacks.  Even then, they miscalculated, for at first they were
in range of US aircraft; and this resulted in the loss of several ships,
including the sistership to the giant _Yamato_ -- the _Musashi_.  (The
_Yamato_ was not to be sunk until much later . . .)  In fact, the Japanese
were successful with their plan, or at least to some extent; the heaviest
US forces were drawn north to chase (and sink) the few remaining Japanese
carriers, and the SAGs roared into Philippine waters almost unapposed.
History was not to notch a victory for the Japanese, though it was close
indeed.

>The battleship was the "Yamato", the admiral was Yamamoto.  The Yamato, and
>its sister ship, Musagi (or something close to that) were the only ships to
>mount 18" main battery guns, as opposed to the normal 16" guns.
>
Correct on the original ship, and on the Admiral (a more brilliant naval
commander has not been seen . . .).  Close on the second -- again, the
sistership's name was _Musashi_.  However, wrt 18" guns, the _Yamatos_ were
not the only, and indeed not even the *first* ships to mount that caliber
weapon.  That distinction rightly belongs the _HMS Furious_, a curious
hybrid aircraft carrier/cruiser which carried a single 18" for several
years before being converted completely into an aircraft carrier.  This
weapon would later be mounted on a monitor, for shore bombardment purposes.
I would also not that 16" guns were by no means the "normal" armament for
battleships.  After developement, yes, for American ships it was.  But uch
was not the case for ships of all other nationalities sporting battleships.
The majority of British ships made use of 15" primary weaponry -- indeed, I
would say this was more the normal calibre for the world's navies, as this
held true with the majority of ships in the Japanese, Italian and French
navies as well -- and 12" abounded too.  11" and 13.5" were not unheard of,
either.

I hope that those of you reading this thread have found this post of
interest and information.  I hold myself open to further discussion, though
for a short while, replies may be infrequent at best to machinery problems.

Main source: _Battleships_, by Crescent Books, New York, Philip de
Ste. Croix, editor.  Pub. 1983


Regards,

StanleY!
aaron@fiu.edu

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