US Battleships

[delcyros]

Dear Byron,

generally I agree but I do also have a different opinion with regard to storm damage on BB-59 in 1943.

First of all, it looks like it had been a storm but was it really that worse? Wind force 6 is a strong breeze (21 to 26 kts), not a gale. And Seastate 4 is nothing special either: Moderate Seastate with the waves not taller than 2.5m, rather than 4.5. I take it that condition in fact was state four with wind blowing at worst state 6, temporarely (the report says "max.").
That doesn´t look like poor sea condition to me, in fact it perfectly resembles Denmark Street or normal atlantic conditions. Max. heel angle recorded was 13 deg (the MAD is submerged below the waterline at 13 deg heel, irregardless of displacement) and this indicates that BB-59 wasn´t taking the weather from the bow directly. It also explains why water was coming over the weatherdeck and threatened to flood the engineeering spaces through air ducts.
But in action sometimes You cannot afford to choose the heading best suited for the weather, sometimes You have to go with the heading imposed by tactical considerations and I´m rather alerted by the light casted by thís report on poor weather fighting capability of these ships. I would strictly seperate between survivability in poor weather (very few Dreadnought battleships, even ones with less freeboard were sunbk in storms) and the ability to conduct effective gunnery in these conditions.

I would also prefer not to exaggerate the issue, much for the reasons You outlined above, but I have seen people saying that british and german ships were notoriously prone to turret water ingress in poor weather while U.S. battleships were not. I take the report as confirmation that reports for similar wateringress at moderate seastate exist but I don´t take it that these conditions prevailed. All forces technicians were able to identify, isolate and work out the problems associated with poor weather turret operation after stimulating experiences with them. The U.S. Navy should be expected to improve upon this BB-59 experience much the same way SCHARNHORSTs turrets were improved over her 1940 experiences -in 1943 off North Cape in a full gale she was able to operate her A-turret -something she wasn´t able back in 1940 facing the action off Norway with RENOWN.

Still this raises a couple of interesting questions -a proper comparison with poor weather performance needs to be done yet. U.S. fast battleships had the lowest freeboard of all fast BB´s in combat displacement and the combination of fine bow and pronounced shoulder made them wet even in Calm Seas (compare G&D for pictures in flat seastate). I also remember that Dumas mentioned that DUNKERQUE -another fast BB design with these hull figures- had BOTH of her forward turrets k.o.ed in moderate weather through turret flooding. The failures of SCHARNHORST are well documented as are the waterproblems of RENOWN and KGV, so BB-59 isn´t alone in this. What is missing is a proper analysis to put this in a quantitative or qualitative context with seastates, in order to assess whether or not the report holds significance or congruence to other poor weather reports in an intra- and inter-class comparative perspective.

That beeing said, it was asked for whether or not U.S. battleships had the CAPABILITY to tackle with BISMARCK in an one-on-one engagement. I most definetly say, YES THEY HAD. I have also seen -on other boards- the opposite by posters stating that it would be simple walkover for U.S. battleships over BISMARCK. To those I equally definetely said: NO IT´s NOT. But when capability is asked for we have to reckon the capability and the U.S. 16in is a powerful gun, particularely at long range and not acknowledging this is doing no good but testimonies perceptional weaknesses.

[Byron Angel]

Dear Byron,

generally I agree but I do also have a different opinion with regard to storm damage on BB-59 in 1943.

First of all, it looks like it had been a storm but was it really that worse? Wind force 6 is a strong breeze (21 to 26 kts), not a gale. And Seastate 4 is nothing special either: Moderate Seastate with the waves not taller than 2.5m, rather than 4.5. I take it that condition in fact was state four with wind blowing at worst state 6, temporarely (the report says "max.").
That doesn´t look like poor sea condition to me, in fact it perfectly resembles Denmark Street or normal atlantic conditions. Max. heel angle recorded was 13 deg (the MAD is submerged below the waterline at 13 deg heel, irregardless of displacement) and this indicates that BB-59 wasn´t taking the weather from the bow directly. It also explains why water was coming over the weatherdeck and threatened to flood the engineeering spaces through air ducts.
But in action sometimes You cannot afford to choose the heading best suited for the weather, sometimes You have to go with the heading imposed by tactical considerations and I´m rather alerted by the light casted by thís report on poor weather fighting capability of these ships. I would strictly seperate between survivability in poor weather (very few Dreadnought battleships, even ones with less freeboard were sunbk in storms) and the ability to conduct effective gunnery in these conditions.

I would also prefer not to exaggerate the issue, much for the reasons You outlined above, but I have seen people saying that british and german ships were notoriously prone to turret water ingress in poor weather while U.S. battleships were not. I take the report as confirmation that reports for similar wateringress at moderate seastate exist but I don´t take it that these conditions prevailed. All forces technicians were able to identify, isolate and work out the problems associated with poor weather turret operation after stimulating experiences with them. The U.S. Navy should be expected to improve upon this BB-59 experience much the same way SCHARNHORSTs turrets were improved over her 1940 experiences -in 1943 off North Cape in a full gale she was able to operate her A-turret -something she wasn´t able back in 1940 facing the action off Norway with RENOWN.

Still this raises a couple of interesting questions -a proper comparison with poor weather performance needs to be done yet. U.S. fast battleships had the lowest freeboard of all fast BB´s in combat displacement and the combination of fine bow and pronounced shoulder made them wet even in Calm Seas (compare G&D for pictures in flat seastate). I also remember that Dumas mentioned that DUNKERQUE -another fast BB design with these hull figures- had BOTH of her forward turrets k.o.ed in moderate weather through turret flooding. The failures of SCHARNHORST are well documented as are the waterproblems of RENOWN and KGV, so BB-59 isn´t alone in this. What is missing is a proper analysis to put this in a quantitative or qualitative context with seastates, in order to assess whether or not the report holds significance or congruence to other poor weather reports in an intra- and inter-class comparative perspective.

That beeing said, it was asked for whether or not U.S. battleships had the CAPABILITY to tackle with BISMARCK in an one-on-one engagement. I most definetly say, YES THEY HAD. I have also seen -on other boards- the opposite by posters stating that it would be simple walkover for U.S. battleships over BISMARCK. To those I equally definetely said: NO IT´s NOT. But when capability is asked for we have to reckon the capability and the U.S. 16in is a powerful gun, particularely at long range and not acknowledging this is doing no good but testimonies perceptional weaknesses.

..... Fair comments all.

I was not trying to argue that these US fast BBs were not wet, only that they were perfectly seaworthy. In the case of MASSACHUSETTS of Cape Hatteras, the ingress of water into her forward turret was a direct consequence of the two gun bloomers having been carried away; the flooding of the engine room ventilation shafts was the result of a rogue wave. As I have mentioned before, Cape Hatteras is a very nasty area for navigation; it is quite shallow and produces short steep seas much like those found in the southern part of the North Sea.

The frank opinion on the wetness of WW2 American fast BBs can be summed up by an excerpt from a USN evaluation report on the IOWA Class prepared shortly after WW2. Although its remarks are confined to the IOWA class, the appraisal is probably more or less applicable to the two preceding classes as well -

quote -

b. Seaworthiness

(1) The seaworthiness ofthe IOWA class is excellent. The ships are steady gun platforms and they have good stability in all conditions of loading and weather. They have a good freeboard but are wetter, from Turret II aft, than seems proper for ships of their size. This wetness seems due to the sudden and extreme widening of the hull lines just forward of Turret I. It is understood that the narrow forecastle, distinctive to this class, was adopted to save overall weight and as a means of avoiding the necessity for providing support for the weight of a heavier bow structure forward of the armored box.

(2) In future design an attempt should be made to broaden the bow lines above the waterline to provide a drier and more roomy ship, and one with more reserve buoyancy forward. The wetness of the present ships has been of no concern in the normally smooth South or Central Pacific, but would be a decidedly undesirable feature if they were to be employed in other waters, such as the North Atlantic.

- unquote


B

[lwd]

...
The frank opinion on the wetness of WW2 American fast BBs can be summed up by an excerpt from a USN evaluation report on the IOWA Class prepared shortly after WW2. Although its remarks are confined to the IOWA class, the appraisal is probably more or less applicable to the two preceding classes as well -

The only thing that would bring that to question is the following in red:

quote -

b. Seaworthiness

(1) The seaworthiness of the IOWA class is excellent. The ships are steady gun platforms and they have good stability in all conditions of loading and weather. They have a good freeboard but are wetter, from Turret II aft, than seems proper for ships of their size. This wetness seems due to the sudden and extreme widening of the hull lines just forward of Turret I. It is understood that the narrow forecastle, distinctive to this class, ...

[delcyros]

The widening of the hull lines in front of turret 1 is a consequence of the pronounced shouler of the hull lines there. This feature can be found in SOUTH DAKOTA and NORTH CAROLINA class, too. It makes for good fast lines, allows stable platform charackteristics but greatly increases wetness.
It is also appearent in fench fast BB´s with equal or worse wetness (At least turret 2 in BB-59 remained operational- something which cannot be said from DUNKERQUE).
US fast BB´s were perfectly capable of seakeeping, agreed. But the question is whether or not they could be fought effectively in medium seastate conditions. U.S. naval actions I can think of with capitalships are mostly calm weather events (Casablanca was exceptionally calm as was Guadacanal, Truk and Surigano Strait). The XO mentions that only turret 2 and some of the leeward secondary guns could be effectively employed to the windward int hese conditions, thus problems may have been experienced with turret 3 in one way or the other, too.

But there may be more than this report and it may shed a different light.