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I'm curious about the different configurations they had on various Battleships in history. The HMS Nelson, for example, had all 3 turrets in the front. Why? Was there a particular advantage in doing this? Was it better to have, say, two triple barrel turrets or three double barrel turrets? What was the logic of putting turrets amidships (like on the Ise and a few others)? On a small ship like a Destroyer this isn't as much of a problem, because its very maneuverable. However, on a big ship like a Battleship, it seems like you are basically guaranteed to have at least one set of guns with fairly crappy fields of fire. I know most BBs would generally position themselves to get into a boadside to bring the most guns to bear, but was there advantages to having a lot of guns that could fire off the bow so you could agressively 'chase' enemy ships (like the German pocket battleships)? Was there any point to having Battlecruisers through most of world war 2? When a big heavy mofo of a BB can steam 33+ knots it seems like sacrificing armor for speed starts to become redundant. Why were these big ships so labor-intensive to operate? I heard one of the factors in deploying Battleships (besides the immense resource cost/build times) was that they took thousands of sailors to operate.
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Apr 3, 2014 16:11
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The other day I was reading about some of the more religious or superstition prone (mostly German) Napoleonic era soldiers throwing away playing cards and other gaming pieces they were carrying before going into battle as they believed having them on them would in some way curse them or reverse their luck and chances or survival. I was then reminded of WEEDLORDBONERHEGEL explaining how early modern soldiers dealt with trying to improve their shooting chances and healing themselves and I am quite curious at the origin of this sort of thing in the 16th and 17th centuries. So Hegel, any examples of anything like this?
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Apr 3, 2014 16:16
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Think about the number of weapons that are needed to be served at any given time and the number of systems that needed to be operated. You have: Main armament Secondary armament AA armament Radar Fire control for main armament Fire control for secondary Fire control for antiaircraft Signalling Radio Con Engineering Damage control Spotter aircraft
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Apr 3, 2014 16:22
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Kaal posted:It's not an easy thing to reduce someone's views on his life's work down to a single statement, but I'd say that while he is not truly a Lost Cause proponent he certainly is a Southerner at heart and has no interest in offending Southern sensibilities about the nature of the Confederacy. Though he doesn't make the mistake of worshipping Lee and the honorable Confederate soldier, he's very interested in portraying the grandeur of the war and not all that interested in addressing the co-occurrent hypocrisy and dysfunction. It should be remembered that he is essentially writing for other hobbyist Civil War historians, which are almost overwhelmingly Confederate sympathizers from the South. He wrote books that focus on the military history of the war; I'm not really sure why that is so suspect. If he'd made the claim "this work contains a comprehensive socio-political history of the United States during the Civil War era" and then ignored the socio-political elements of the war then I'd be more inclined to agree that his writing is a bit compromised, but, well, he didn't do that.
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Apr 3, 2014 16:27
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Rent-A-Cop posted:The Black Sea Fleet is never going to sneak up on anyone. They have to literally sail through the middle of downtown Istanbul to get out into the Mediterranean.
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Apr 3, 2014 17:22
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Foreword, I don't claim to be an expert on this stuff, but I've read about or asked about these sort of questions in the past.Panfilo posted:I'm curious about the different configurations they had on various Battleships in history. The HMS Nelson, for example, had all 3 turrets in the front. Why? Was there a particular advantage in doing this? The advantage is that you can bring your full 9 guns worth of firepower onto any one target as long at it's within the front 200 degrees or so of your ship. For a more traditional 2+1 or 2+2 or whatever arrangement, you can only bring your fore guns upon something in front of you. Of course this does mean that if someone gets behind you you're in trouble. quote:Was it better to have, say, two triple barrel turrets or three double barrel turrets? There's advantages and disadvantage to both. The primary advantage of having more concentrated guns is that you don't have to put in as many ammo lifts and magazines to service them, though the overall size of your magazines may not differ too much. Also this allows for more concentration of fire on targets in arc. The downside is that if you lose that turret you've lost 3 guns instead of two (or even 4 in some cases), and that it does tend to limit the size of the guns that you can carry in those turrets. Each gun in a turret will have its own loading crew and the increase is pretty linear. This means that you need to have a larger mounting for that turret as well and that can cause structural concerns. quote:What was the logic of putting turrets amidships (like on the Ise and a few others)? On a small ship like a Destroyer this isn't as much of a problem, because its very maneuverable. However, on a big ship like a Battleship, it seems like you are basically guaranteed to have at least one set of guns with fairly crappy fields of fire. Can't say anything for certain on this, but it sounds like a MORE GUNS thing. People really liked those wing guns and it persisted through the HMS Dreadnought. I believe that they were eventually dropped for being too much of a weight/defense concern compared to their practicality. Those wing turrets again would have ammo lifts and are right up against the hull, making them more exposed to both enemy shells and (more importantly) torpedoes. quote:I know most BBs would generally position themselves to get into a boadside to bring the most guns to bear, but was there advantages to having a lot of guns that could fire off the bow so you could agressively 'chase' enemy ships (like the German pocket battleships)? It's a good idea in theory, but planning upon something that requires everything to work perfectly and your foe to comply with your needs doesn't tend to lead to anything but disaster in reality. Unless they're even stupider, but again, you can't count on that. quote:Was there any point to having Battlecruisers through most of world war 2? When a big heavy mofo of a BB can steam 33+ knots it seems like sacrificing armor for speed starts to become redundant. Fast BBs weren't really a thing until later on in the war, but in general the Battlecruiser idea was a bit flawed to begin with. If you want powerful you're better off with a proper Battleship. If you want screening, recon, and raiding you're better off building more Cruisers and Destroyers instead of Battlecruisers. And of course in WWII most of that was done by planes now. (Kyoon got the last one) Taerkar fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Apr 3, 2014 |
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Apr 3, 2014 17:27
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The last time Gibraltar was strategically relevant was probably actually as late as WW2 - German u-boats that went into the Med had to do it submerged because of the destroyer patrols, and the current in from the Atlantic is actually strong enough that it wasn't possible for them to get back out into the Ocean while submerged - they were stuck there for the rest of the war.
Alchenar fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Apr 3, 2014 |
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Apr 3, 2014 17:30
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Panfilo posted:I'm curious about the different configurations they had on various Battleships in history. The HMS Nelson, for example, had all 3 turrets in the front. Why? Was there a particular advantage in doing this? Weight savings. It was the only way to get nine 16" guns with adequate protection into 35,000 tons with 1922 technology. Taerkar posted:The advantage is that you can bring your full 9 guns worth of firepower onto any one target as long at it's within the front 200 degrees or so of your ship. For a more traditional 2+1 or 2+2 or whatever arrangement, you can only bring your fore guns upon something in front of you. Of course this does mean that if someone gets behind you you're in trouble. Except the X turret on Nelson and Rodney was on the same deck as A turret, so you have to fight broadside on or make goofy 60 degree tacks that ruin your fire control in order to fire nine guns. Panfilo posted:Was it better to have, say, two triple barrel turrets or three double barrel turrets? Taerkar posted:The primary advantage of having more concentrated guns is that you don't have to put in as many ammo lifts and magazines to service them, though the overall size of your magazines may not differ too much. And you don't have to armor extra turrets (and a longer citadel), which is a large savings of weight. Another potential downside to triple (and especially quad mounts) is excessive shot dispersion because of interference from your turretmates. Panfilo posted:Was there any point to having Battlecruisers through most of world war 2? When a big heavy mofo of a BB can steam 33+ knots it seems like sacrificing armor for speed starts to become redundant. Well, no one was building battlecruisers in WWII. The Kirishimas and Renowns of the world were certainly better than nothing, and often more useful than slow battlewagons. People call the Alaskas battlecruisers, but it's more complicated than that (I'd say they're heavy cruisers unfettered from treaty limitations, and products of their time).
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Apr 3, 2014 17:49
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Panfilo posted:I'm curious about the different configurations they had on various Battleships in history. The HMS Nelson, for example, had all 3 turrets in the front. Why? Was there a particular advantage in doing this? The general advantage is that you can save weight by only having two barbettes and magazines, as opposed to the three or four you have on a more conventional layout. Panfilo posted:What was the logic of putting turrets amidships (like on the Ise and a few others)? On a small ship like a Destroyer this isn't as much of a problem, because its very maneuverable. However, on a big ship like a Battleship, it seems like you are basically guaranteed to have at least one set of guns with fairly crappy fields of fire. And a lot of ships with midships turrets and flank-firing problems did have this problem. Plus, given the massive shockwave from a 12-inch gun, you couldn't fire a flank-firing turret over you bow/stern or you'd blow the superstructure off your own ship. Panfilo posted:Was there any point to having Battlecruisers through most of world war 2? When a big heavy mofo of a BB can steam 33+ knots it seems like sacrificing armor for speed starts to become redundant. There wasn't much of a point to battleships OR battlescruisers in WWII either. You have a handful of battleship vs. battleship actions in the North Atlantic, the Med, and in the Pacific and that's it. The rest of the time, battleships rusted away like Tirpitz, were cannibalized for parts, or were used as AA platforms and naval bombardment ships. Still, the Navy wanted to build the Alaska-class... Panfilo posted:Why were these big ships so labor-intensive to operate? I heard one of the factors in deploying Battleships (besides the immense resource cost/build times) was that they took thousands of sailors to operate. One, battleships are big. Really, really big. Big ships with lots of moving parts (AA guns, radar, engineering) need lots of people. Two, in a pre-microprocessor era, you couldn't automate a lot of the things you can today, so large warships had large manning requirements.
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Apr 3, 2014 17:50
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Why did the German ships have a secondary armament for surface targets and a tertiary armament for aircraft? Most battleships used dual purpose guns (like the 5" guns on many American BBs). Like wing turrets, this design seems inefficient, and a waste of manpower, displacement, and resources. Did the Kriegsmarine think it would have to simultaneously fend off both small ships and aircraft? Did Battleships "split fire" much? Due to the Washington treaty, the IJN couldnt have as many BBs as the US. Their plan was Battleships that could take on multiple enemy Battleships. This implies that the Yamato would be squaring off against, say, the USS Iowa and USS South Dakota simultaneously and prevail in their desired "decisive battle". This seems unlikely. While there were some battles where BBs took an enormous amount of punishment, they usually ended up sinking eventually. The KM Bismark took a lot of hits before she sank, but because her rudder was jammed she didnt seem to deal out much damage back. I also find it ironic nations sank so much resources into these battlewagons but were so hesitant to risk losing them they hid them in port to the point they werent able to do anything- Yamato spent most of the war in Rabaul just sitting around. Panfilo fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Apr 3, 2014 |
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Apr 3, 2014 18:00
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Panfilo posted:Why did the German ships have a secondary armament for surface targets and a tertiary armament for aircraft? Most battleships used dual purpose guns (like the 5" guns on many American BBs). Like wing turrets, this design seems inefficient, and a waste of manpower, displacement, and resources. Did the Kriegsmarine think it would have to simultaneously fend off both small ships and aircraft? It was expensive in weight and manpower, but there's a non-trivial lead time in designing both a gun and its mount - sometimes you use what you have. Moreover, it's not entirely a foolish choice - lighter calibers for AAA give you better rate of fire, and 6" (or 5.9") guns really are quite a bit scarier to lighter forces than 4-5"s. Much of the sterling reputation of the 5"/38 is due to peripheral factors (RPC, VT fuze, superior fire control, radar), as well. Not that it wasn't an excellent gun, I'm just clarifying the implicit comparison. Panfilo posted:This implies that the Yamato would be squaring off against, say, the USS Iowa and USS South Dakota simultaneously and prevail in their desired "decisive battle". This seems unlikely. I don't really want to get into the notional decisive battle (except to say that Long Lances against a squadron of WWI battleships would be extremely unpleasant), but let me point out that Yamato was in theater for two years before even the first of the Iowas. This is not to be construed as a judgement that Yamato was a good investment of resources. Panfilo posted:While there were some battles where BBs took an enormous amount of punishment, they usually ended up sinking eventually. The KM Bismark took a lot of hits before she sank It is really quite hard to sink a battleship with gunfire without it exploding. You sink ships by letting in water, not air. The RN was casting around pretty desperately for enough torpedoes to finish Bismarck. Panfilo posted:Yamato spent most of the war in Rabaul just sitting around. Truk. (and Kure for refits)
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Apr 3, 2014 18:18
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Panfilo posted:I'm curious about the different configurations they had on various Battleships in history. The HMS Nelson, for example, had all 3 turrets in the front. Why? Was there a particular advantage in doing this? The Nelsons were rather distinctive. They were designed to a weight limit and they were also the British 16" armed ships to match the US Colorados and Japanese Nagatos. All that and the lessons of Jutland combined to lead to some interesting decisions to make a ship armed with and armored against 16". The turrets were brought together to both minimize the size and dispersal of the magazines and because the British were doing something weird. Unlike the vast majority of battleships, they loosened the design restriction on the protected waterline required. Most battleships wouldn't see a benefit from grouping the turrets like that, but because the British were prepared to sacrifice protected bouyancy reserve, they saved a lot of weight with that layout. Enough so that the US, who'd been building ships to a weight limit for almost the entire life of their battleship design staff was left scratching their heads as to how the British had pulled it off.
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Apr 3, 2014 18:26
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Panfilo posted:Why did the German ships have a secondary armament for surface targets and a tertiary armament for aircraft? Most battleships used dual purpose guns (like the 5" guns on many American BBs). Like wing turrets, this design seems inefficient, and a waste of manpower, displacement, and resources. Did the Kriegsmarine think it would have to simultaneously fend off both small ships and aircraft? The secondary armaments on the big ships were meant to engage smaller threats like cruisers and destroyers (after they replaced their original targets as the wielder of that which kills ships: torpedoes) as those would be closer than the big guns. Keep in mind that long-range fire was rather criminally neglected as a concept at first until the actual effect of plunging fire was understood. When the secondaries were in range of the big ships they'd fire at them too and make a mess of the superstructure as they wouldn't have the oomph to get through the belt. Those guns became more AA-focused as the threat of naval aviation became more apparent. Many times the ships would be refitted to carry more AA guns (esp. 20mm Oerlikon and 40mm Bofors or similar) as the war carried on. The Merry Marauder posted:It was expensive in weight and manpower, but there's a non-trivial lead time in designing both a gun and its mount - sometimes you use what you have. Moreover, it's not entirely a foolish choice - lighter calibers for AAA give you better rate of fire, and 6" (or 5.9") guns really are quite a bit scarier to lighter forces than 4-5"s. Much of the sterling reputation of the 5"/38 is due to peripheral factors (RPC, VT fuze, superior fire control, radar), as well. Not that it wasn't an excellent gun, I'm just clarifying the implicit comparison. Well, the 5"/38 also had a rather nice shell and loading system that gave a good balance between size, fragmentation, and rate of fire that also helped. When you can toss up 15 of those shells into the air in a minute per barrel, you're pumping a LOT of metal at enemy planes. And considering how many shells it took on average to kill one (I want to say something like 1,000?), the faster you get them up there, the better.
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Apr 3, 2014 18:32
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That's really interesting about the Nelsons. Very creative design. So I guess most Battleships had a two layered field of fire- the primary armament meant to engage at long ranges and bombard shore targets, and a secondary armament used to fend off smaller ships. I know keeping the guns limited to a few sizes makes estimating ranges easier. But why did the Yamato have a triple 6.1" turret in addition to the 18.1" main battery? It wouldn't have the same ranges or trajectory arc as the bigger guns, and I also heard they were lousy AA guns. Did those IJN "beehive" 18 inch rounds manage to shoot down any aircraft? All they seemed to do was break one of the Musashi's barrels after only the second shot.
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Apr 3, 2014 18:48
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Taerkar posted:Well, the 5"/38 also had a rather nice shell and loading system that gave a good balance between size, fragmentation, and rate of fire that also helped. When you can toss up 15 of those shells into the air in a minute per barrel, you're pumping a LOT of metal at enemy planes. And considering how many shells it took on average to kill one (I want to say something like 1,000?), the faster you get them up there, the better. That's true, too. For irony's sake, I should add that the USN late in the war moved urgently toward intermediate AAA of a size we disdain on Bismarck and Veneto - Bofors were not enough to kill-stop a kamikaze, and it was not possible to mount enough 5" guns, so automatic 3" with VT fuzes were on the way to the fleet.
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Apr 3, 2014 18:48
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sullat posted:I seem to recall that he at least acknowledges his biases in the introduction to the trilogy, recognizing that he grew up steeped in a pro-Confederacy environment. He does, but those biases still affect his perspective pretty signficantly. bewbies posted:He wrote books that focus on the military history of the war; I'm not really sure why that is so suspect. If he'd made the claim "this work contains a comprehensive socio-political history of the United States during the Civil War era" and then ignored the socio-political elements of the war then I'd be more inclined to agree that his writing is a bit compromised, but, well, he didn't do that. The Civil War was a deeply political war, there's no way of avoiding mention of the socio-political context and he doesn't attempt to do that. Even extremely dry military histories of the war, such as William Sherman's Memoirs which is essentially a battle-by-battle description of the entire Western campaign, cannot avoid politics entirely. Moreover, attempting to author a history of the civil war that contained no mention of slavery or the political controversy would itself be suspect, as that would be a fairly transparent attempt at whitewash. But that is something of a side-note because certainly Shelby Foote does not shy away from including civilian perspectives and political topics. Again, Shelby Foote was not a bad historian (and his fictional work is also quite interesting), but there are good reasons that James McPherson is known as the go-to unbiased historian, while Shelby Foote was known for his humanizing and ultimately southern influence on Ken Burns' documentary.
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Apr 3, 2014 19:42
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Panfilo posted:That's really interesting about the Nelsons. Very creative design. Yeah, it's interesting that there were three treaty battleship classes armed with and "armored against" 16" fire. Considering the sacrifices made on the North Carolinas (being armored as 14" armed ships didn't help matters) and the south Dakotas (first to go postwar because between the armor and guns the crew was notoriously uncomfortable) decades later, the Nelsons don't look that bad at all.
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Apr 3, 2014 20:14
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Panfilo posted:
One thing I heard about hiding battleships like that was just the threat of them existing, forces the enemy to be more cautious and beef up patrols. But if you lose them in battle the deterrent is gone and they get a free hand.
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Apr 3, 2014 22:01
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What was the logic behind using shell diameter to determine armor protection? It seems like they would try to "match" these elements- 14" of armor needed to stop a 14" shell for example. But this doesn't make any sense- how is the shell's diameter being such a big factor? Wouldn't weight, hardness, and velocity play a bigger role? Why use bags of cordite when the shells get to be a certain size? Having scaled- up cartridges seems safer (basically giant bullets). Was there some endgame to battleship design before missiles and aircraft made them obsolete? They just kept getting bigger and bigger; the Montana and Super Yamato would have been absolute monsters but I'm curious if there would have really been any point- past some point a superbattleship wouldn't really confer any advantage vs a fleet of more numerous smaller BBs and CAs. Even 24" of armor won't make a ship indestructible- fire control directors, radar areals,the bow, rudder and propellers will always be vulnerable.
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Apr 3, 2014 22:02
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Panfilo posted:What was the logic behind using shell diameter to determine armor protection? It seems like they would try to "match" these elements- 14" of armor needed to stop a 14" shell for example. But this doesn't make any sense- how is the shell's diameter being such a big factor? Wouldn't weight, hardness, and velocity play a bigger role?
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Apr 3, 2014 22:06
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Panfilo posted:What was the logic behind using shell diameter to determine armor protection? It seems like they would try to "match" these elements- 14" of armor needed to stop a 14" shell for example. But this doesn't make any sense- how is the shell's diameter being such a big factor? Wouldn't weight, hardness, and velocity play a bigger role? When you're dealing with naval-caliber weapons, the size of the projectile starts to matter a lot more for armor penetration than anything else. In no small part because of how hard it is to get to the higher velocities that you would see with tank guns. This means that you can roughly guess how well a shell will penetrate based upon diameter alone. Now there are extra qualifiers that go into this, such as the quality of metal and some other special things (Which is why the Iowa's 16" shells are about as good at penetrating as the Yamato's 18"), but it's a generally understood idea. quote:Why use bags of cordite when the shells get to be a certain size? Having scaled- up cartridges seems safer (basically giant bullets). Practicality. Not only do the number of bags help determine range, but the length of the projectile + cartridge would be massive and not only weigh a whole lot but require a lot of fiddling to maneuver and load.
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Apr 3, 2014 22:12
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Taerkar posted:When you're dealing with naval-caliber weapons, the size of the projectile starts to matter a lot more for armor penetration than anything else. In no small part because of how hard it is to get to the higher velocities that you would see with tank guns. This means that you can roughly guess how well a shell will penetrate based upon diameter alone. Now there are extra qualifiers that go into this, such as the quality of metal and some other special things (Which is why the Iowa's 16" shells are about as good at penetrating as the Yamato's 18"), but it's a generally understood idea. So at that size it's starting to be an impact depth thing?
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Apr 3, 2014 22:17
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Chillyrabbit posted:One thing I heard about hiding battleships like that was just the threat of them existing, forces the enemy to be more cautious and beef up patrols. But if you lose them in battle the deterrent is gone and they get a free hand. That is called Fleet-in-being and is a common tactic for a weaker fleet facing a stronger one. The main advantage is that the enemy can't use the ships for anything else while he has to sit and wait to see if you come out and play. The German High Seas Fleet was pretty much the definition of a fleet in being. The main disadvantage, of course, is that at some point someone is going to look at all those ships sitting in harbor during a war and ask why they aren't doing anything.
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Apr 3, 2014 23:07
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What's the thickest Battleship armor that suffered a penetrating hit? The Jean Bart maybe?
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Apr 3, 2014 23:21
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SeanBeansShako posted:The other day I was reading about some of the more religious or superstition prone (mostly German) Napoleonic era soldiers throwing away playing cards and other gaming pieces they were carrying before going into battle as they believed having them on them would in some way curse them or reverse their luck and chances or survival. Thank you for the references, handbanannas. Kaal posted:gohuskies is making a pretty valid point about being critical of the nature of Foote's perspective on the war. There's nothing to be gained from intentionally ignoring the beliefs of the authors and the way that they present the Civil War. Kaal posted:Again, Shelby Foote was not a bad historian (and his fictional work is also quite interesting), but there are good reasons that James McPherson is known as the go-to unbiased historian, while Shelby Foote was known for his humanizing and ultimately southern influence on Ken Burns' documentary.
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Apr 4, 2014 00:07
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WEEDLORDBONERHEGEL posted:I never said that we should ignore Foote's background or refrain from criticizing his perspective. But I'm getting the feeling that any sympathetic mention of anyone who worked for the Confederacy is suspect. Without undue offense, it seems to me that you are voicing dissent precisely because I am invoking his background and criticizing his perspective. WEEDLORDBONERHEGEL posted:It's possible to have a human sympathy toward someone while still maintaining that they were wrong (or duped, or whatever). I agree with this, but the problem with Lost Cause historians goes far beyond that. Most historians make an effort to recognize the sacrifices made by all sides in the war (barring some conservative demagogues who enjoy sticking it to the North 150 years later). But what typically happens is that both sides get equated as being noble Americans doing their duty, the generals become caricatures, the politics get re-envisioned, and the idea that slavery was evil and had massive human costs becomes a footnote in the telling of the Great Confederacy. Shelby Foote is hardly the worst example of Lost Cause historians, but he certainly does not provide an unbiased portrayal of the war. I think that you may be underestimating the degree to which the American understanding of the war has been tilted in favor of how Southerners want to see it. Editorial bias in terms of what historians choose to cover is rampant amongst Civil War authors - in no small part because most of them become interested in the subject precisely because they are Confederate sympathizers. And that has had a lasting impact on the historical treatment of the war. McPherson is not some kind of Unionist alternative perspective - if you want to see those, check out some of the many abolitionist authors to whom the Confederate soldiers were nothing more than a destructive gaggle of traitorous slavers. That view, which was hardly radical at the time in the North, is virtually unheard of in the modern day for fear of offending Southern sensibilities. It's as if the only historical treatment of WWII came from right-wing Germans, to whom the blitzkriegs, occupations and Holocaust were incidental to the Treaty of Versailles and the grand combat of the Western theatre. Kaal fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Apr 4, 2014 |
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Apr 4, 2014 00:51
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WEEDLORDBONERHEGEL posted:Also, there's this. While you could get a bullet out with a chisel, it was also possible to attempt to draw it out with magic/science. For instance, this is from the time of Emperor Charles VI: Is it possible that some of these recipes are so convoluted and specific because they don't necessarily work, and a bunch of different formulae get folded together over time? Like the guy dies of a putrefying wound and someone else is like "did you forget the rabbit's chest hair? I heard you need some rabbit's chest hair" and the recipe gets amended with "AND YOU NEED CHEST HAIR FROM A RABBIT, DO NOT gently caress THIS UP"? Or because the imprecision makes it impossible to be sure if you did it "right," e.g. if it doesn't work you can always think like "well we didn't pound the crabs(?) small enough" This primary source stuff is really interesting, thanks for posting it.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:12
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Panfilo posted:What was the logic behind using shell diameter to determine armor protection? It seems like they would try to "match" these elements- 14" of armor needed to stop a 14" shell for example. But this doesn't make any sense- how is the shell's diameter being such a big factor? Wouldn't weight, hardness, and velocity play a bigger role? Shell diameter is for battleships a rather reliable indicator of penetration capability. Some guns are better than others but barring something really unusual (read USN superheavy shells, which were good enough to make a 16" shell pen about as well as the Japanese 18", and to make the US 18"/47 Mk A's penetration sobering) the guns with the same diameter will penetrate similarly. It's not like tank guns where some have lower penetrating guns because they're shorter lower velocity guns (makes their HE shell better because the walls on the shells don't have to be as thick), pretty much all of them are 45-50 calibers long. There's not that much variation between countries within that (the Italian 15" was particularly high velocity because they were probably going to have repair facilities so they could get replacement liners easily when they wore their rifling out but that meant only 6% faster on a 10% heavier shell, than the Bismarck which traded shell weight and speed for a higher rate of fire). The rationale with the armor being matched somewhat to the protection (which notably didn't happen with battlecruisers) was that a battleship which was armored against her own guns was a balanced design. Armoring a battleship is another kettle of worms but it's basically trying to protect against a given gun within a reasonably sized area (the immune zone, defined with a minimum range under which the guns would penetrate the belt armor on the sides and a maximum range beyond which plunging shells would penetrate the deck armor). So anyway, in the context of an arms race, the idea of balanced ships is compelling because by armoring and arming for a given shell, you're making a ship that can comprehensively outclass last generation. The guns and armor on a ship are where the weight goes, so one comes at the expense of the other. Thus the emphasis on balancing them. Speed is the third major component of the balance, with machinery and hull form both playing a part. Machinery is expensive and heavy. It's not topweight so it's not coming entirely out of the same budget, but it's still weight. Hull form is a matter of shaping the hull so it gives the least resistance in the water. There's a problem there, and that's that the ideal hull is longer and/or thinner the ideal as far as fitting everything in the hull goes. The magazines and torpedo defenses have a set width, so to get the fineness ratio right the hull needs to get longer. This doesn't necessarily cost weight, but in practice it costs weight because more hull length means more waterline which means more armor. The Nelson was different in that they went with a really long hull but didn't protect as much waterline so they could get the armor thickness and the guns they needed. That's how they got a decent speed on so little horsepower. About super battleships, battleships scale up to fit what metallurgy, gun designs and their country's economy can do. The biggest baddest battleship you can afford to build and operate a few of (unless you're South American and want a national naval phallic symbol) is going to be the most useful. 35k tons gets you a balanced 15" or so ship. 70k tons gets you a balanced 18" ship. That 18" ship can drub the 15" ships remorselessly without much chance of losing. The rule of thumb as far as I can tell is if you can get the numbers, make them as big as you can support. You do need the numbers to protect from stuff like how the South Dakota got blinded right before the Washington executed the Kirishima. The Guadalcanal campaign is pretty illustrative about that sort of thing, the importance of some level of numbers but also how badly a superior battleship will murder an inferior one. Brass vs silk propellant storage: yeah it's a bit of a help, the Germans did do the brass thing, it helps with sparks but if there's a fire or something, the heat will probably cook it off anyway. Probably e;fb as all get out, and it's a phone post so fact checking soon in an edit. Sorry about the organization or lack thereof too. xthetenth fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Apr 4, 2014 |
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Apr 4, 2014 01:16
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WEEDLORDBONERHEGEL posted:I never said that we should ignore Foote's background or refrain from criticizing his perspective. But I'm getting the feeling that any sympathetic mention of anyone who worked for the Confederacy is suspect. We have to be able to discuss the fact that this country's motivation for going to war was wrong, a great evil, while still acknowledging that, you know, people are suffering and dying. It's possible to have a human sympathy toward someone while still maintaining that they were wrong (or duped, or whatever). You're taking a pretty absolutist stance Hegel? I'm pretty sure Gohuskies didn't say "everything that comes out of their mouth from after that moment is poo poo" so much as "is worth being suspicious of". Which it is.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:25
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Kaal posted:Shelby Foote is hardly the worst example of Lost Cause historians, but he certainly does not provide an unbiased portrayal of the war. Can you give us some examples where Foote writes with bias?
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Apr 4, 2014 01:33
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Koramei posted:You're taking a pretty absolutist stance Hegel? I'm pretty sure Gohuskies didn't say "everything that comes out of their mouth from after that moment is poo poo" so much as "is worth being suspicious of".
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Apr 4, 2014 01:38
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xthetenth posted:The rationale with the armor being matched somewhat to the protection (which notably didn't happen with battlecruisers) was that a battleship which was armored against her own guns was a balanced design. Armoring a battleship is another kettle of worms but it's basically trying to protect against a given gun within a reasonably sized area (the immune zone, defined with a minimum range under which the guns would penetrate the belt armor on the sides and a maximum range beyond which plunging shells would penetrate the deck armor). So anyway, in the context of an arms race, the idea of balanced ships is compelling because by armoring and arming for a given shell, you're making a ship that can comprehensively outclass last generation. The guns and armor on a ship are where the weight goes, so one comes at the expense of the other. Thus the emphasis on balancing them. To further expand on armor for warships there were many different approaches taken to how to armor them. Some went to try and cover as much as possible, but this typically resulted in either being a bit underarmored everywhere or being too heavy/slow to be all that useful. The later American BBs took the 'All or Nothing' approach, which resulted in them having some rather impressive protective schemes (especially due to the ability of the US to splurge on the good stuff) by simply protecting the key parts of the battleship with the heavy stuff and giving the rest of it lighter protection.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:41
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Tekopo posted:Battle Cry of Freedom is pretty heavily pro-union from what I remember. Shelby Foote is pretty objective about his analysis even though he's from the south. He does get a little lost-causy in a few parts when discussing the relative industrial power and population of the South and the North but it's not especially noticeable and he certainly doesn't get into any nonsense about southern chivalry or anything like that from what I remember. His portrayal of the various commanders on both sides was pretty fair and he clearly respects Abraham Lincoln a great deal; other than his personal admiration for Nathan Bedford Forrest I don't find any of his views to be especially objectionable, and although MacPherson's work is clearly superior in technical terms it isn't as readable (although it is by no means dry and technical). I try to read the trilogy or listen to its absolutely fantastic audiobook version once a year or so, and would definitely recommend it as both a literary work and as a gateway to more specific Civil War topics.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:42
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DeceasedHorse posted:other than his personal admiration for Nathan Bedford Forrest I don't find any of his views to be especially objectionable... On the same note, I should probably lose my petty little grudge against Gustavus Adolphus. Kaal posted:I agree with this, but the problem with Lost Cause historians goes far beyond that. Most historians make an effort to recognize the sacrifices made by all sides in the war (barring some conservative demagogues who enjoy sticking it to the North 150 years later). But what typically happens is that both sides get equated as being noble Americans doing their duty... HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Apr 4, 2014 |
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Apr 4, 2014 01:46
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WEEDLORDBONERHEGEL posted:He said that bringing up Patrick Cleburne was an attempt to exonerate the CSA from the charge of racism. I don't see that at all, and I'm wondering if he thinks it's propaganda to bring up any Southerner who was less racist than the Southern establishment. What are you supposed to do, not mention him? I don't fuckin' know anything about the American Civil War you just struck me as unusually hostile is all and I didn't think what you took was the other dude's intent. WEEDLORDBONERHEGEL posted:Forrest had horrible opinions, but was also an excellent cavalry general. It's not a vindication of his opinions, or of the part where he founded a racist terrorist organization, to mention his talent. Okay but the thing is- it kind of is, at least in the context where it would come up. Who cares that he was an excellent cavalry general; why is that something worth pointing out in any situation other than one where all parties involved will surely know anyway?
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Apr 4, 2014 01:57
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Not to defend Forrest for his role in founding the klan and its early actions, but as a "the more you know" he did come around later in life and ordered the first klan dissolved in addition to coming out in favor of equal rights for blacks.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:57
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Koramei posted:Who cares that he was an excellent cavalry general... Raskolnikov38 posted:Not to defend Forrest for his role in founding the klan and its early actions, but as a "the more you know" he did come around later in life and ordered the first klan dissolved in addition to coming out in favor of equal rights for blacks.
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Apr 4, 2014 02:05
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yeah but quote:why is that something worth pointing out in any situation other than one where all parties involved will surely know anyway? The kind of person that would think of it as something to bring up is the kind of person worth being skeptical of.
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Apr 4, 2014 02:09
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Koramei posted:The kind of person that would think of it as something to bring up is the kind of person worth being skeptical of. I understand that I might be coming off as testy, but it seems like a number of people here are advocating some sort of weird history doctoring. What should we do? Never mention him? Call him incompetent, even when he wasn't, because he had abhorrent opinions in areas that had nothing to do with being a good tactician? If you're talking about the western theater, eventually you are going to talk about Forrest. You need to be able to evaluate his deeds on their merits, good and bad.
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Apr 4, 2014 02:19
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bewbies posted:Can you give us some examples where Foote writes with bias? The example I recall most is when he's talking about the post-war attitudes of veterans, and he says that the whole ”Lost Cause” sentiment was a result of mtual post-war reconciliation rather than, I don't know, historical revisionism or whatever.
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Apr 4, 2014 02:20
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