Lutscha wrote:
There were no joint problems as in Yamato that I know of, so I don't see a problem there but as of now I have not finished my new book about R.
Never mind, I mis-read your post.
Lutscha wrote:
There were no joint problems as in Yamato that I know of, so I don't see a problem there but as of now I have not finished my new book about R.
While I agree with you that in general trying to judge a ship "better or worse" than another is a waste of time - I disagree somewhat that "facts" (what you really mean is "Historical Events" as statistics can be "facts" too) are a superior way to compare the relative merits of a given design.Please, don't start writing statistics about the ships. Not even about the low rate of fire of Richelieu or the insuficiently armoured decks of Bismarck against plunging fire >25000m. It won't do any good. To many "good designs" have proved to be flaws in battle (South Dakota at Gudalcanal, Hipper as a merchant raider, PoW AA and ATS protection in Java Sea, etc), and viceversa (who could believe the accomplishments of Warspite, a WW1 era BB?). We can only rely on what actually happened. The rest is just speculation.
Your point of view is very reasonable. In fact, most of the arguments that I've read on this forum are spawned from the intrinsic desire of our, very rational, heads, to mathematically justify this or that position. And, deep down, I think there IS a true, mathematical way, of assesing a ships overall power. But I also think that, for the time being, we do not know that way; and maybe we won't ever know it. And that's because Battleships are tremendously complex units, and complexity, in mathematics, means uncertainty.boredatwork wrote:
Consider the following example:
At Jutland Queen Mary was hit by approximately 3-5 heavy shells and exploded killing 1266 men. HMS Lion on the otherhand, suffered 16 hits at Doggerbank and 13 hits at Jutland and survived both battles, her sister Princess Royal suffered 9 heavy hits at Jutland and survived, and finally HMS Tiger suffered 6 hits at Dogger Bank and 15 at Jutland and also survived.
If we look purely at "what actually happened" we could draw the conclusion that Queen Mary was a flawed design compared to both the Tiger and Lion classes as she did not survive as many hits.
Satistically however her armor layout was virtually identical to her half sisters.
So what is the correct interpretation? Obviously that the armor of Queen Mary was insufficient to keep out German fire and once penetrated could result in an explosion that would destroy the ship AND we can INFER by looking at statistics that despite the fact that they did not blow up, Lion and Tiger shared identical protection so they potentially could have.
In otherwords the problem with relying purely on historical events as evidence is the sample of data available is so extremely small that the element of chance has an extraordinarily large impact on any conclusions you could try and draw regarding a design - That a lucky ship achieves more than than expected is not necessarily evidence of good design - likewise that an unlucky ship does not perform up to expectation is not necessarily evidence of faulty design.
More relavent IMO in comparing designs which too many authors ignore is CONTEXT. Too many people for example simply say the American AoN protection was "better" than Bismarck's WW1 style layout (or vice versa), present 1 or 2 arguments in favour of their preference and leave it at that.
The better comparisons on the other hand will list the strengths and weekness of both systems and will present the specific conditions under which each can be expected to excel and then present evidence as to how likely those conditions are to occur in battle. That way rather than being force fed someone's (usually biased) opinion you can evaluate for yourself the likely effectiveness of a given ship in a given situation and therefore the relative merits of 2 or more designs on a situation by situation basis.
Indeed!The devil is always in the details .....
Both of the North Carolinas were Atlantic battleships. They just happened to find some gainful employment in the Pacific...alecsandros wrote:Bismarck remains, on the top of the pedestal for BBs of the Atlantic.
I think some torpedoes are vastly more effective than others.alecsandros wrote:Richelieu received a torpedo at Dakar that made huge damage. After quick repairs, he could barely reach 14n. Bismarck received the first torpedo from Victorious and didn't even notice it (yes, I know, I know, to shallow drop, but a torpedo is a torpedo non the less).
Well, you're right in both aspects.yellowtail3 wrote:
Both of the North Carolinas were Atlantic battleships. They just happened to find some gainful employment in the Pacific...
I think some torpedoes are vastly more effective than others.