Scharnhorst and Gneisenau vs Yamato

[Monitor]

The weakest battleships of World War II against the most powerful of them all. This is a two against one but considering Yamato's armor and guns...

Scharnhorst & Gneisenau
Displacement 38,400 tons
Main guns 9 x 11"
Secondary guns 12 x 5.9"
Armor 13.7" belt, 13.4" turrets, 13.7" CT
Speed 32 knots

Yamato
Displacement 72,000 tons
Main guns 9 x 18"
Secondary guns 6 x 6.1"
Armor 16.1" belt, 25.6" turrets, 19.7" CT
Speed 27 knots

[turlock]

If I were the Germans, I'd run.
Ironically, the maximum theoretical gunnery range of all three ships is the same...circa 45,000 yards. Yamato's foretop height was much higher than in Scharnhorst so the optical ranging capability of the Japanese ship was also greater. The German ships also wouldn't have a chance of knocking out a main battery turret on Yamato. The best chance for a kill on Yamato might be a lucky hit on one of the six inch secondary turrets and thus detonate a magazine. The German commander would have to be insane to take on Yamato when he could run away.

[Torpedo Bob]

How about...

Gneisenau lurks at long range firing broadsides to try to knock out secondary armament and as much equipment as possible while Scharnhorst makes a dash at full speed to close with Yamato and fire torpedos?

[Javier L.]

The problem is that even a single hit by Yamato's 18 inch shells could be disastrous, and the Japanese mammoth can resist several 11 inch hits without much problem. If I were the German commander I wouldn't close the range. In my opinion, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau should attack separately fighting Yamato at long distance and from different angles. Since S and G have higher rate of fire and advantage of speed they could always break away at will. If the Germans can obtain hits before Yamato does, maybe destroying a rangefinder, that could be the key. I wouldn't dare closing the range and go for a torpedo attack until Yamato's main battery is silenced, is this possible?

[Tiornu]

I don't think the Germans would want to go into battle with their torpedo warheads out of storage and sitting above the armor deck.
Effective torpedo range is less than 10,000 yards.

[_Derfflinger_]

Since the KM's mission orders usually were to avoid combat with superior, equal, or "anything even close" combatants, and that S & G usually operated alone with no support, I would recommend the twin sisters break away from Yamato and run for the hills.

Given that this is a hypothetical scenario, if the SH and GU were forced to engage in a contest with Yamato, as suggested above, a strategy similar to what the RN used against Adm Graf Spee at the River Plate battle would be their only hope for success - take two divergent positions so as to split Yamato's fire, stay in contact for close coordination, use their superior speed to stay at extreme range, and use their advantage of more rapid fire to try for effective damage vs their much bigger opponent. Sort of a "two Davids vs Goliath" situation.

Derf

[Nellie]

I agree with what is written here and come to think about what Bismarck and Tirpitz could have done against Yamato, the odds had been more equal then and i think Yamato would have big problems to handle the Germans!

[Torpedo Bob]

Here's another twist...

What if Gneisenau had completed the modifications for 15" guns. That may swing it a bit.

[_Derfflinger_]

Would the grand plan have been, assuming the fitting of Gneisenau with 15" guns was successful, to ultimately do the same to Scharnhorst? Since the project to switch over GU was never completed, I don't recall reading of definite plans for SH.

Assuming the two ladies could keep their noses out of the swells (a bow extension was planned), they would have been quite the pair with 15" ordinance.

I would assume a slight speed decrease would also come with the change.

Derf

[Tiornu]

The plan was proposed for both ships fairly early on, but the occasion never arose for their extended removal from service. Gneisenau was knocked out of action by bomb damage, so they took the opportunity to undertake a complete conversion.

[RF]

Would S and G have any better chance than the three pocket battleships as proposed in another thread?

[Karl Heidenreich]

I don´t believe that the Twins or the three pocket battleships could had any chance against Yamato. As a matter of fact I find very doubtfull that Bismarck and Tirpiz could win such a battle against Yamato. The Japanese BB was designed and built in order to balance the US numerical superiority in BBs, so, it was intended to fight against one, two or more enemies at any given time: Yamato vs. Arizona + Nevada or Yamato vs. NC + SD.

[Gary]

The Best S & G could hope for would be to mess up Yamato's topside (similiar to what happened to SoDak at Guadalcanal) as the 11 inch guns would not be able to get anywhere near penetrating Yamato's vitals.

S & G should run from this encounter.

[miro777]

hey...
i don't think Scharnhorst and Gneisenau would have done much damage on Yamato, even if they had 15in guns...

though i think that Tirpitz and Bismarck would have almost defiantly gotten a win over Yamato...

Two ships of the Bismarck class....they could have beaten anyone...



miro

[RF]

I don´t believe that the Twins or the three pocket battleships could had any chance against Yamato. As a matter of fact I find very doubtfull that Bismarck and Tirpiz could win such a battle against Yamato. The Japanese BB was designed and built in order to balance the US numerical superiority in BBs, so, it was intended to fight against one, two or more enemies at any given time: Yamato vs. Arizona + Nevada or Yamato vs. NC + SD.

How about Bismarck, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau plus all three panzerschiffe together?