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AtomikKrab posted:Sounds like a good time to add some nuclear reactors in More like a good time to send 'em to the breaker. They were so clapped out that getting them back in shape would have ended up more expensive than building new ones.
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Feb 3, 2022 01:59
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Best Bi Geek Squid posted:Oh yeah I meant you could design a floating platform with the guns built into it. Could feed them with radar from other ships or from the barge itself congratulations youve designed a monitor
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Feb 3, 2022 03:00
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UCS Hellmaker posted:I think that the ammo and other limitations were also a major factor. Even with modernization, alot of the tech and skills to make ammo doesnt exist anymore, and the stuff they do have is old and dangerous. As is, its a ship thats 80 years old, and so much is going to be old and worn out that we might not be able to fix. Upkeep o nthem would have been a huge issue as things went on. the USN is already insanely undermanned and you can crew like eight Arleigh Burkes instead of one Iowa the burkes are gonna be better at like, everything, except being dope as hell
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Feb 3, 2022 03:03
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:congratulations youve designed a monitor
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Feb 3, 2022 03:05
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standard.deviant posted:What if we gave it some self-protection features like the ability to evade detection? It could pop up and launch an attack when it was safe. Congratulations, you've invented the Surcouf.
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Feb 3, 2022 03:09
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I've read Castles of Steel (A+ recommendation to anyone interested in this sort of stuff who hasn't), so I have at least some background in earlier dreadnaughts and the various cruisers. I've also read Tin Can Sailors (another excellent read) but that's about it for my non-submarine naval reading, and it doesn't really talk about battleships all that much for obvious reasons. So, with that in mind, why is the Iowa so good? Especially compared to the Yamato, which just seems so ridiculous? (I'm also interested in any other good reads on this stuff, if there are recommendations!)
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Feb 3, 2022 03:13
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The Yamato is pretty inefficient in terms of what it brings to the table versus what it costs. Bigger hull means more surface to armor which means heavier armor. You also need increasingly more machinery to move it (which has its own diminshing returns) so that just adds more to it. The Yamato class was built with the idea that since they'd be outnumbered they'd have to be superior, which it was, but 1 Yamato likely wasn't going to win against 2 Iowas (and may not even sink 1) Of course they all died to planes anyways and Japanese AA was close to if not the worst of the war.
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Feb 3, 2022 03:20
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Taerkar posted:Of course they all died to planes anyways and Japanese AA was close to if not the worst of the war. It wasn't, by a long shot. In 1940-41 you can make a good argument for them having the best AA of any navy around. And later on they drifted off into mediocrity, but remained ahead of the other axis powers and all but a few french ships. with only the British and Americans clearly pulling ahead. (For reference, worst in 1940-41 would be the Germans, followed by the French.)
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Feb 3, 2022 03:34
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shortspecialbus posted:I've read Castles of Steel (A+ recommendation to anyone interested in this sort of stuff who hasn't), so I have at least some background in earlier dreadnaughts and the various cruisers. I've also read Tin Can Sailors (another excellent read) but that's about it for my non-submarine naval reading, and it doesn't really talk about battleships all that much for obvious reasons. The armor was arguably better because the steel was better. The superheavy AP shells were about as penetrating as the 18" rounds from the Yamato, despite being considerably smaller and lighter, and had a higher rate of fire. But what would have been night-and-day in any engagement between the two is, again, the fire control, and the Iowa's was much more advanced. The Yamato didn't even have a good stable vertical system, and required a lot more people to take various readings and manually enter them into the FCS. And its radars were vastly inferior to those on the Iowa; basically, even with the radar they still needed to see to hit, whereas the Iowa could deliver accurate fire beyond the visual horizon in all weather conditions. Finally, a lot of the critical elements of the Yamato's FCS were located outside the armor. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Feb 3, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 03:44
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By the time of the Yamatos the Type 96 was rather obsolete, and the Japanese had nothing between it and the big AA (3" and above)
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Feb 3, 2022 03:45
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shortspecialbus posted:I've read Castles of Steel (A+ recommendation to anyone interested in this sort of stuff who hasn't), so I have at least some background in earlier dreadnaughts and the various cruisers. I've also read Tin Can Sailors (another excellent read) but that's about it for my non-submarine naval reading, and it doesn't really talk about battleships all that much for obvious reasons. The Iowas were the first (And last) American battleships built without treaty restrictions. Compared to the preceding South Dakota-class ships, the Iowas were bigger (57K ton displacement versus 44K for the SoDaks), faster (33 knots versus 27 knots), and had better guns (Both used 16" guns, but the Iowa's were slightly longer and thus had greater range and a higher muzzle velocity). On top of this, the United States were world leaders in steel and computer technology, and thus the ships were both extremely well armored and contained an absolutely uncontested top-of-the-line fire-control control system. The Iowas (Like most late-war American ships) were also bristling with the heaviest anti-aircraft gun battery ever put to sea. Consider this: In Castles of Steel, some of the toughest battleships around are the Queen Elizabeth-class ships. They were an extremely good design for their era, and managed to contribute meaningfully up into the Second World War. Compared against an Iowa, the American ship is 40% faster, has twice the amount of deck armor, is over half a football field longer, can shoot its guns out five miles farther, and has a complex and reliable fire control system that can actually detect ships and hit them at those ranges. So, yeah. The Iowas were extremely impressive and capable ships, which is a big reason as to why they lasted in service as long as they did. Yamato was also extremely impressive, but was arguably less capable overall than Iowa — it lacked the extremely sophisticated fire control that made Iowa's guns so accurate, it was significantly slower, and its anti-aircraft battery was both lighter and less capable. That being said, there's something to be said for having the biggest guns and the best armor, so it'll be interesting to see how the two stack up against each other in this game.
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Feb 3, 2022 03:45
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It's taken me an embarrassingly long time to work out that "fire control system" means "controlling where you shoot" and not, like, fire extinguishers...
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Feb 3, 2022 03:51
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Note that the displacement quoted above is the full load, not the standard displacement, which is what the treaty limitations were based on. (Think of it as "Out sailing" vs "Everything but fuel" and you won't be too wrong. Fuel is significant and that was sometimes incorporated into the torpedo defense). The South Dakotas were right up against the 35kt standard displacement limit, the KGVs were a smidge over 40k. The Yamatos were probably ~60kt standard and over 70k at full load. Most of those full displacements went up as the years went on because of more stuff added on via refits. Radar, AA, radar for your AA, even more AA... Taerkar fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Feb 3, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 03:54
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Tree Bucket posted:It's taken me an embarrassingly long time to work out that "fire control system" means "controlling where you shoot" and not, like, fire extinguishers... 
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Feb 3, 2022 04:14
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AtomikKrab posted:Sounds like a good time to add some nuclear reactors in Feasibly I don't know if that's possible, since to do so means somehow being able to get the reactor in, and I think with nuclear carriers that process is cutting the side open.
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Feb 3, 2022 04:30
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iospace posted:Also silly USS Wisconsin fact: her nickname was the Wisky. When she collided with the USS Eaton, they took the completed bow off the hulk of the Kentucky, slapped it on to her front end (in 16 days), and it became the WisKY. Continuing the digression: The Kentucky's hulk got parted out in a few different places. They took the boilers, turbines, and other parts of the propulsion system and stuck then into the first two fast combat support ships, including AOE-1 USS Sacramento, the ship I served on. Due to an entirely excessive amount of get up and go for its role, Sac was the fastest AOE in the fleet and used to regularly win head-to-head races with other ships of its type. By the time I was on her she was also one of the oldest commissioned USN ships, behind the last non-N CVs and the Enterprise*. When we were cleaning her out in preparation for decommissioning, we found medical supplies stuck behind the shelving in her supply stores that had expired in 1974. * and of course, USS Constitution Lemniscate Blue fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Feb 3, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 04:37
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iospace posted:Also silly USS Wisconsin fact: her nickname was the Wisky. When she collided with the USS Eaton, they took the completed bow off the hulk of the Kentucky, slapped it on to her front end (in 16 days), and it became the WisKY. You can't drop that without showing the buck tooth grin.   Phanatic posted:And its radars were vastly inferior to those on the Iowa; basically, even with the radar they still needed to see to hit, This is an old misconception that's been cast into severe doubt by newer research. At Samar Yamato accurately engaged USS Gambier Bay with radar-only blindfire through a smokescreen, straddling on first salvo doing so. Overall, her fire control at Samar was world-class, with her regularily scoring straddles on first salvo even at extreme ranges and against heavily maneuvering destroyers, including under conditions of limited visibility. The only real significant difference still obvious is that the Iowas could pick up targets faster when maneuvering themselves. Taerkar posted:By the time of the Yamatos the Type 96 was rather obsolete, and the Japanese had nothing between it and the big AA (3" and above) The Yamatos came out in 1942. The Type 96 was actually quite competitive with most other medium AA guns of the time. (It was ballistically closer to those than the light 20mm self-defense guns that formed the "tertiary" set below the medium AA and heavy flak guns.) This was still the era of guns like the pom-pom, the Chicago Piano etc. To say nothing about the Germans and French, who were using semi-auto 37mms on their warships. Magni fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Feb 3, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 05:22
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Re: shore bombardment, senior naval architect David K Brown had this to say:Nelson to Vanguard posted:It was often argued in the second half of the war that shore bombardment was invaluable and a major role, justifying the battleship. This argument has been accepted by most writers without any detailed consideration of the evidence. An example often quoted is the silencing of the Longues battery by Ajax on D-Day. She fired 150 6in shells between 0557 and 0620hrs (Argonaut later fired 29 rounds of 5.25in). Two German guns were hit by 6in shells entering the embrasure. The Naval Staff history considers this was due to chance since there were few craters around the battery. There is a vivid account of D Day bombardments by a spotter pilot. He maintains that battleship shells often missed by more than a mile. [fn: In a later book Crosley [the source] expands on the inaccuracy of naval gunfire, which he blamed on gyroscopic effects. This led to a lengthy correspondence with entrants from both sides of the Atlantic. In general, gyroscopic effects were not regarded as the cause and worn rifling thought more likely[.]] On 4 May 1945 the King George V and Howe bombarded Hirara airfield on the Sakashima Gunto. [fn: The ships fired 195 rounds of 14in, 598 6in and 378 5.25in.] The battleships fired at 25,000yds. The carriers were deprived of gunfire support and suffered heavily from air attack. Damage to the airfield was slight. [fn: It has been suggested that had the fighters used to escort the bombarding ships been used as fighter-bombers, they would have done more damage.] A large fraction of the mass of a big shell is steel, compared with the relatively light casing of a similarly sized bomb.
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Feb 3, 2022 05:42
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Magni posted:The Yamatos came out in 1942. The Type 96 was actually quite competitive with most other medium AA guns of the time. (It was ballistically closer to those than the light 20mm self-defense guns that formed the "tertiary" set below the medium AA and heavy flak guns.) This was still the era of guns like the pom-pom, the Chicago Piano etc. To say nothing about the Germans and French, who were using semi-auto 37mms on their warships. "It was only as bad as some other extremely ineffective AA guns" is damning with faint praise. The Type 96 was flat-out a bad weapon that was far less effective than other contemporary anti-aircraft weapons, which include the 20mm Oerlikon and the 40mm Bofors — which, even by 1942, were being produced and thrown onto ships as quickly as they could be produced.
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Feb 3, 2022 05:53
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I really need to know where this is from...
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Feb 3, 2022 06:53
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Sword of the stars. The first one, there is no sequal. UCS Hellmaker fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Feb 3, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 06:57
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Tree Bucket posted:I really need to know where this is from... Specifically 1, under no circumstances should you play SOTS2.
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Feb 3, 2022 07:07
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Magni posted:This is an old misconception that's been cast into severe doubt by newer research. At Samar Yamato accurately engaged USS Gambier Bay with radar-only blindfire through a smokescreen, straddling on first salvo doing so. Overall, her fire control at Samar was world-class, with her regularily scoring straddles on first salvo even at extreme ranges and against heavily maneuvering destroyers, including under conditions of limited visibility. The only real significant difference still obvious is that the Iowas could pick up targets faster when maneuvering themselves. Yup. The problem is that the fire control on Yamatos were continuously upgraded until they sank, and then all records lost with the ships and when the IJN burned everything near the end of the war. Literally nobody actually knows the state of radar or FC on the Yamato past spring of 1944, and anyone who claims to know specifics about them is lying. All we do have is the handful of times they fired their guns in anger, and off Samar Yamato certainly appears to have demonstrated shifting targets to a ship that was entirely behind a smokescreen and straddling on the first salvo, which would imply blind fire FC.
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Feb 3, 2022 07:36
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Tuna-Fish posted:Yup. The problem is that the fire control on Yamatos were continuously upgraded until they sank, and then all records lost with the ships and when the IJN burned everything near the end of the war. Literally nobody actually knows the state of radar or FC on the Yamato past spring of 1944, and anyone who claims to know specifics about them is lying. Couldn't we yknow look at the wreckage and go "nope no radars here"
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Feb 3, 2022 07:58
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It's about 1000ft underwater and not in the best of shape
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Feb 3, 2022 08:18
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OpenlyEvilJello posted:Re: shore bombardment, senior naval architect David K Brown had this to say: Yeah, while a 16" salvo is no doubt incredibly impressive on a human scale, those shells simply weren't a very efficient way of delivering explosives. The HE shells "only" had some 70kg of explosives in them, which is roughly the equivalent of a 250lbs airplane bomb. That's something that even a fairly light fighter/bomber could reasonably carry a couple of, and of course a dedicated bomber could bring something like 5000 lbs worth of bombs. Now, in WW2 there were probably a few situations where parking a battleship off of the coast would've been preferable to sending your planes in against AA. But with the advent of anti-ship missiles, a battleship parked within gun range of a hostile coastline might be just as vulnerable as a plane trying to bomb it.
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Feb 3, 2022 10:51
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Phanatic posted:I don't know that it was a dumb idea. I mean, I don't want to get into the political dimension of how much military spending is a good idea, but from a strictly military standpoint buying 32 destroyers that aren't particularly good at anti-air or anti-sub when you could be spending that money on, say, more Burkes, is not a good idea, even if those 32 destroyers do have really neat guns and cool electrical propulsion systems (that again, weren't as cool as the original plans, since the permanent-magnet motors got replaced with regular old induction motors). Cutting the buy order to just three instead of zero was really dumb, though: if you want to keep shipyards open keep them open building ships you want instead of ships you don't. The other issue is that a stealth destroyer isn't particularly good as part of a fleet that is not stealthy. Any fleet admiral would rather a destroyer take a torpedo or cruise missile than say a carrier or a fleet tender.
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Feb 3, 2022 11:04
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UCS Hellmaker posted:Sword of the stars. This is entirely accurate, such a shame no sequel happened at all none never Don't go looking
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Feb 3, 2022 12:29
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SOTS1 legit is a very good, fun space 4x and if you like that genre at all it is 100% easy recommend for being both weird and well executed. Foxfire_ posted:It's about 1000ft underwater and not in the best of shape This is such a cool picture but I really don't get what's going on with the very straight dark edges like I'm looking at a model or render. Is that what I'm looking at and I never had the context?
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Feb 3, 2022 14:31
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Tulip posted:SOTS1 legit is a very good, fun space 4x and if you like that genre at all it is 100% easy recommend for being both weird and well executed. I'm almost positive that's a diorama. Edit: yup 
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Feb 3, 2022 15:13
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UCS Hellmaker posted:The first one, there is no sequal. Pierzak posted:Specifically 1, under no circumstances should you play SOTS2. AtomikKrab posted:This is entirely accurate, such a shame no sequel happened at all It's such a shame because they were starting to lean more heavily on "WW2 in space" with the big battleship turrets and all. It coulda been something.
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Feb 3, 2022 15:13
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shortspecialbus posted:I'm almost positive that's a diorama. Ok that makes a lot of sense. Insanely cool diorama.
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Feb 3, 2022 15:16
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speaking of Yamato's wreck, if you haven't seen the Japanese movie that depicted it you should watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMbUrqDhims spoiler: a battleship under air attack from the entire air wing of TF58 was a very, very bad place to be
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Feb 3, 2022 15:40
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Tulip posted:SOTS1 legit is a very good, fun space 4x and if you like that genre at all it is 100% easy recommend for being both weird and well executed. That is apparently actually a model diorama made by Tamiya. Magni posted:It wasn't, by a long shot. In 1940-41 you can make a good argument for them having the best AA of any navy around. And later on they drifted off into mediocrity, but remained ahead of the other axis powers and all but a few french ships. with only the British and Americans clearly pulling ahead. I'd say French then Germans, unless something is changing dramatically to take the curse off the fact that the French's only automatic AA weapon is the 'beloved' Hotchkiss but in 13.2mm instead of 25mm like the Japanese used. Is 1941 late enough that they're starting to roll out 25mms of their own? The Germans may only have 20mm autocannon but they aren't that bad once the C38 starts showing up. Overall though I'd say in 1940/41 it's probably the UK, US, Japan, Italy, Germany, France in order of worstness, and I don't care to check for the soviets. The really big jumps imo are Japan down to Italy, which has relatively light 20mm and magical 40mm mounts that don't have a recoil mechanism more sophisticated than the ship's girder, and Italy down to Germany, which is very much abandon hope ye who enter here, as you start seeing 37mm medium guns that are hand loaded. I would not say that the Japanese AA fits are better than the British who are starting to stick pom-poms all over the place and have the benefit of HACS, or even the Americans, who are putting some pretty good directors together and while the 1.1" is maligned and sucks, it's maligned and sucks compared to the bofors which is clearly best in class. If you don't know what's coming next, it's pretty drat good. The 1.1"s on South Dakota certainly made an impression against the Japanese strike at Santa Cruz, a lot more than the Strasbourg shooting down two Swordfishes at Mers-el-Kabir in a prime example of stoppable force meeting a moveable object. The AA fit on Chevalier (and two other Fletchers that got refit later) has throw weight on a broadside that's in the same order of magnitude as the Bismarck and Richelieu, even.
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Feb 3, 2022 15:56
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bewbies posted:speaking of Yamato's wreck, if you haven't seen the Japanese movie that depicted it you should watch it: That's a decent reminder of what is actually being modeled when we say "the superstructure and fighting capabilities of the ship have been degraded." Actually question about that, this is WW2 where you need a bunch of people topside manning AA guns, but would there have been this many people on deck during a WW1 battleship shootout? It seems like once the fighting starts theoretically you want as many people below decks protected by armor as you can, but I dunno what topdeck requirements a WW1 battleship has in action assuming AA isn't required.
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Feb 3, 2022 16:03
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bewbies posted:speaking of Yamato's wreck, if you haven't seen the Japanese movie that depicted it you should watch it: Jesus. Well-made, but I had to stop watching halfway through. There's only so many dead bodies I can handle, and this hit my limit.
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Feb 3, 2022 16:13
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:There's only so many dead bodies I can handle, and this hit my limit.
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Feb 3, 2022 16:18
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If Tron is real we are monsters.
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Feb 3, 2022 16:21
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OpenlyEvilJello posted:Re: shore bombardment, senior naval architect David K Brown had this to say: One thing that often wasn’t appreciated, even at the time, is that shore bombardment is a skill that has to be trained. The slow, methodical fire of battleship guns against small, hardened surface targets takes a lot of training to get right, as the skills required to hit a 20-foot-wide bunker is significantly different from those needed to hit a 400-foot warship. This was demonstrated several times in the Pacific campaign. The USN Standard battleships, which specialized in shore shooting, routinely did much better at the task than the fast battleships, which mostly trained for surface and AA screening. It’s no real surprise that the fast British battleships had trouble with it, too. In fact, a lot of targets couldn’t be effectively engaged by flat-trajectory surface guns, leading to an effective if derpy solution: a landing craft fitted with a battery of 4.2in chemical mortars, the LC(M). Links to their employment: https://www.4point2.org/gunboats.htm
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Feb 3, 2022 16:30
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There's also my favorites, the LCS(L), which are up to three twin 40mm mounts on a 250 ton hull. They did a lot of work holding the pickets off Okinawa against kamikaze attack.bewbies posted:speaking of Yamato's wreck, if you haven't seen the Japanese movie that depicted it you should watch it: Note that in the whole attack American losses were 10 planes and 12 aircrew and note how there's a decent number of planes going down early and it just stops. It's a really bad day to be in the IJN. (disregard Our Heroes, they are obviously the protagonists of this movie and did not actually exist) xthetenth fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Feb 3, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 16:36
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