Richelieu vs KGV

[Thorsten Wahl]

No, but Iowa straddled Nowaki with her first salvo at about 35,000 yds.

Im not so familiar with US Battleships, but if I remember correctly, there was a revision of the gun mounts on Iowa (or another ship of this class)at the end of 1944 because of not negligible deviations between the gun mountings leading to a increased salvodispersion.

[Bgile]

No, but Iowa straddled Nowaki with her first salvo at about 35,000 yds.

Im not so familiar with US Battleships, but if I remember correctly, there was a revision of the gun mounts on Iowa (or another ship of this class)at the end of 1944 because of not negligible deviations between the gun mountings leading to a increased salvodispersion.

There was no mention of this in the Fischer/Jurens study of many,many shoots, but obviously any ship can have mechanical problems from time to time which need to be corrected.

[neil hilton]

Never admit it was good gunnery and a good system ... it was always pure luck.

It was excellent gunnery and very good system but luck always has something to do with it to some varying degree or other, remember what Napoleon said about good generalship; "is he lucky?". How consistant was Iowas gunnery, not just aganst Nowaki but in any other long range actions? One straddle in amongst a load of clean misses would be more down to luck than skill and technology. If near misses and straddles were fairly common and consistant, that is skill and a system that is good, IMO.

[Bgile]

Subsequent corrections were on the order of two or three mils and 200 yds.

You'd have to look at the article, but her gunnery was on the order of what you would be led to expect. Note also that US fast battleships conducted practice shoots fairly often.

[RobertsonN]

First priority with the Richelieu design appeared to be speed: probably with good reason, to bring the Italian fleet to action would require high speed; the Richelieu was also fast enough to be a dangerous opponent even for fast German ships, such as Scharnhorst or Hipper. And should Albion be perfidious, speed did allow more flexibility in either engaging old RN ships or avoiding new ones. It also appears that the machinery was the ship component that worked out best: high power, light weight and low volume occupied being outstanding features of the plant installed. Additionally, fuel efficiency and reliability seemed reasonable.
For protection, at least on paper, the system chosen was one of the best AON systems, with the thickest main armor deck of any battleship except the much larger Yamato, and with a splinter deck as well to give protection against penetration (as opposed to perforation) of the MAD. For extent, the length of the citadel at 429 ft was similar to that of Vanguard (434 ft).
As discussed in considerable detail here in this topic, the armament was the least satisfactory feature. So KGV would have probably gotten the better of the draw through better gunnery, as Rodney does in a well known video reconstuction (probably British). However, had the fortunes of war been kinder, Richelieu might have proved the more useful ship overall by virtue of its greater speed and range.

[RobertsonN]

While looking at the plans of Richelieu I noticed that immediately forward of the citadel the deck height between the main deck and the upper deck is unusually large. With shear forward, an additional deck was inserted forward of frame 217. This arrangement, to give added freeboard forward, did create a large compartment below the upper deck immediately forward of the citadel, which goes some way to explaining the large hole blasted by a bomb here.
I also note that Dulin and Garzke say "the main deck was the strength deck for strength calculations". Therefore, what I said earlier (on the Bismarck v Iowa thread) about the Richelieu is wrong: the thin upper deck was not the strength deck. And so the Richelieu's structural strength would not have been destroyed by large HE bombs blowing holes in the upper deck. The Richelieu had (similar to the Bismarck) a box structure formed by the MAD, the double bottom and the TBs with their upper 20 mm extensions to the MAD. This was quite shallow in relation to length and so stresses would have probably been quite high. The upper deck probably added to strength in normal situations.

[paul.mercer]

Gentlemen,
After all this discussion, what are your conclusions - given that this is a hypothetical situation, so we must assume that both ships are fully operational and are in a one to one situation.
Also, after this let us imagine the same confrontation but against Warspite with her fully worked up and experienced crew.

[RobertsonN]

In the early part of the war, I would favour KGV, because it had fewer problems with its gun mountings than Richelieu, and also probably a higher rate of fire and less dispersion of shot. As far as protection was concerned both ships were very well protected in their own ways, but the pros and contras of the schemes adopted would fill several pages. The speed advantage of the Richelieu was not decisive except to effect escape.
After the Richelieu was improved by the Americans, the odds against it would have been less. Richelieu now had better shells. When it operated with the Home Fleet in early 1944, the British were impressed by its seakeeping, steaming and the much improved AA fitted by the Americans (source: old issue of Warship). Despite various disadvantages (poor radar, American sourced ammunition and French crew!), it was transferred to the Far East as Britain had only two modern battleships operational. In this late phase of the war, with the battleship in the carrier escort/bombardment role, the Richelieu, with its higher speed and now better AA armament, may have been more suitable than KGV.
Against the Warspite, things would have been closer. The British ship had the more efficient main armament, but the French ship had much better protection and higher speed. The French ship should have prevailed.

[Dave Saxton]

Despite various disadvantages (poor radar, ........

Outside of the SC (Freidman says its a SA) on the head of the main mast, the refitted Rich's radar suite wasn't much different from a contemporary KGV. The firecontrol radars are British, with a 284M on the main battery director and two 285M's on the secondary directors. On the head of the fore mast was 281B airwarning along with a 242 IFF interrogater. It had USN surface search sets: an SG stepped on the foremast and a tiny SF on the forward bridge.

French ship had much better protection .....

I disagree. Beyond the questionable material quality affecting its efficieny, the French scheme is a derivative of the Nelson class internal raft concept. The British had moved on from this concept with the KGV. The KGV deck protection is 6" effective over the magazines and 5" effective over the machinery.

[RobertsonN]

When I said the French ship had much better protection I meant against Warspite.
And for the KGV I was giving the French ship the benefit of the doubt regarding armor quality. On that basis, its citadel should have provided a better immune zone than the KGV. In reality, the French armor quality, both vertical and horizontal, was probably inferior to that of the British ship, but by how much appears not to be known. For raft body designs, the Richelieu appeared to be one of the best. The main belt was deeper than in North Carolina, there was a 40 mm lower deck forward (unlike the Dunkerque) and ebonite mousse was used as a water exclusion material both outboard of the belt and in the large compartment immediately forward of the citadel. I've not read anything of its effectiveness but not seen anything negative. GM was relatively high. These features are favourable in comparison to the American raft body designs. The KGV had an exceptionally extensive armor scheme with a thick belt and deck, which had distinct advantages over any raft body scheme. There was the disadvantage that the belt did not gain increased effectiveness through being inclined, at least not amidships. You may have seen battleship comparisons, for example, on the marinearchive site, where the KGV comes out as vulnerable in relation to the other ships. There, people are asking the question: Did the British know these ships were so vulnerable? However, this is on the basis of a 21st century computer program, which is probably wrong, and has led to several false conclusions such as this.

[lwd]

Looking at http://www.navweaps.com/index_nathan/Pe ... France.htm
The French should be penetrating KGV's deck at arround at arround 33,000 yards and Warspites at about 32,000 for the magazines and just under 26,000 elsewhere
Belt penetration around 23,000 for KGV and under 24,000 for Warspite.
This with the original French shell. Looks like Warspite has very little in the way of an imune zone.
If we go with the US shell then.
Deck: KGV just under 32,000 yards Warspite around 31,000 and 25,000
Belt: just over 22,000 yards for KGV and around 23,000 for Warspite.
Looking at KGV vs Richelieu: http://www.navweaps.com/index_nathan/Pe ... ritain.htm
Deck: no table for the French but looks like around 33,000 yards (although if you believe the poor French armor argument this could drop a bit) and belt numbers range from 23,000 yards to around 30,000 yards depending on whoose armor you compare it too.
Warspite vs Richelieu: the only shells listed that don't assume supercharges are older ones so it's rather problematic. However
looks like the decks may become vulnerable at around 28,000 yards so just short of max range.
Belts somewhere between 18,000 and 23,000 yards.

While the Richeliue does have some what tougher turrets I think the number of guns gives a slight edge to KGV. If you had a very good simulation and ran this until 100 victories were achieved I would expect the numbers to be somewhere around 45:55 possibly even closer.
Against Warspite the French ship could stay out of her range and engage in a long distance shoot with little danger but I'm not sure if this is cosistent with French doctrine or if her fire control radars would support it. On paper the faster, newer, French ship equiped with higher velocity rounds should have a tremendous edge but ....

Against Warspite the French ship has a number of edges but Warspite was a lucky ship and I'm not sure the paper edges are enough to offset the luck factor.

[RobertsonN]

The games approach is very instructive as it takes out the chance element involved in a single engagement.
The official performance (on the basis of tests) for the British 15 in 1938 lb shell was about 14 in at 15000 yds. I doubt whether the French 15 in could have improved on this by 7000 yds. See for instance, the British immunity period for KGV versus Tirpitz dating from 1942. It's inner edge is about 16000 yds at 90 deg IIRC.
The French 15 in should have been better than the British gun but by how much would depend on the MV. The new gun MV value for the French gun seems to have varied. The British figures are for average gun (2400 fps) condition, down from 2458 fps new. What the average gun MV for the French gun was does not seem to be known. NavWeapons gives 15.49 in @ 24060 yds, but this evidently does not take account of the better British armor quality. Similarly, the British 15 in gun would look pushed to penetrate the Richelieu's side system (does that include the sloped deck behind the belt as well?) out to 24000 yds, even given lesser quality French armor.