Naval History Forums

True enough, even with a later series Merlin and heavier defensive armament, it would still compare poorly with the likes of the Mosquito and Invader, but at the same time, you would have a single engined aircraft (a plus in a time when Merlin production was stretched to its limits) with range and p...

This is my last post on this topic because you have now descended into the ridiculous. I can't believe that you are extolling the virtues of the Fairey Battle. You must be the only person except their designer to consider it anything more than a abject failure. Shoto Douglas, someone who should kno...

At what point in the war does this battle take place? And what members of the QE class are used? The QEs during WWII can be broken down into two groups, Queen Elizabeth, Warspite and Valient, all of whom were heavily modernised, and Malaya and Barham, which where only lightly reworked from their ori...

A couple of cheap torpedoes or mines can do a lot of damage in confined waters to some very expensive ships. At this point in the war, this would probably be the chance that the IJN would have been hoping and praying for.

Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Indiana, Massachussetts, Alabama, North Carolina, Washington- 48,600 New York- 45,000 Yamato, Musashi- 43,456 Tenessee, California, Mississippi, Idaho, Pennsylvania- 36,000 Nagato, Mutsu- 35,984 Colorado, Maryland, West Virginia- 35,840 Ise, Hyug...

BlackBirdZGTR-Prince of Wales reached a speed of just over 29kts while moving to intercept Bismarck. On the other hand Yamato had a top speed of 27kts and I've never seen anything to show that she ever acheived a higher speed than this.

Personally I would put the Graf Zeppelin closer to an Independence class class CVL in capability than a CVE, and if moderner German aircraft could be found to equip her then I would rank her capabilites over a CVL. For example, if Fw 190Ds or Ta 152s could be navalised for the fighter role, with Fw...

Personally I would put the Graf Zeppelin closer to an Independence class class CVL in capability than a CVE, and if moderner German aircraft could be found to equip her then I would rank her capabilites over a CVL. For example, if Fw 190Ds or Ta 152s could be navalised for the fighter role, with Fw ...

All the British need to do in this scenario is knock out Yamato or Musashi's main fire director, rendering the ship near helpless to return fire, following this all British ships can concentrate on the other Yamato and try to achieve the same again. I doubt any British ships would be sunk here, ther...

As far as I know, only three shells hit Bismarcks belt, and all penetrated, as they should considering Bismarck has only twelve inches of belt armour and the range was under 20,000m. It isn't known for certain which BB fired these shells, but it is believed to have been Rodney. It is however unlikel...

Wouldn't even phosphorus tracers rounds set the fuel on fire? Possible. If the planes got close enough. Of course this exposes then to a lot of AA fire. Compared to attacking battleships, even ones with a near obsolete AA armament this is pretty low risk. And if not then those tanks are very large ...

Wouldn't even phosphorus tracers rounds set the fuel on fire? And if not then those tanks are very large and more to the point don't shoot back a while even a near miss with a 1000lb bomb should be enough to blow a hole in the side of a tank, causing fuel to escape and catch fire and I very much dou...

I'm not sure its as simple as that, because I don't think this battle is going to end with either ship sinking the other, though its likely both ships will end up badly damaged if Bismarck chooses to fight. Bismarck may indeed inflict more damage in this case, but I don't think Bismarck would choose...

I remember reading in a book (forgotten its name and author because it was a long time ago) that at Samar Yamato got a stradle on one of the US escort carriers at a range of over 30,000m, but I can't find much further on this. Perhaps someone here can confirm or disprove it.

There are a couple of points I wanted to add to my previous post but unfortunately the timer on the edit function had expired by the time I got round to it. By 1943 search radar had advanced to the point where it is almost impossible that the German group would get down to gun range undetected, they...