That’s blurry, but it seems to me those had something to do with the limitations imposed on germany after WWI. They were only allowed to build ships under a given displacement. So, they build these “pocket battleships” which fell just under the limit, and had several of them at the beginning of WWII.
Count also the LHA-type Amphibious Assault Ships (so-called “Helicopter Carriers”), for superior “hospital” facilities.
I believe, though I admit to a little supposition, that the distinction has to do with the number and caliber of the guns. (The primary armament and secondary batteries- five and six-inch rifles- not smaller guns like AA turrets and the like.)
The Iowa-Class carries nine 16"/fifty-caliber rifles (that is, the barrel length is fifty times the bore diameter)
The Bismark carried only eight 15-inch rifles, and was thus somewhat less powerful than the Iowas, but it never fought them- the Hood carried roughly equal armament, eight 15" rifles in four turrets.
The English called theirs Dreadnoughts after an earlier class, but they were only slightly larger than what we called a Heavy Cruiser. The Bismark was smaller than our Capital ships, but still the largest Germany had put to sea and thus was their ‘capital’ ship.
The Japanese tried to one-up us in making a superbattleship, mounting nine 18" rifles- the largest naval rifles built- that could fire a 3,200-lb shell (as opposed to the Iowas’ 2,200-lb shell.)
At some 65,000 to 72,000 ton displacement, the Musashi and Yamato were a third again larger than the Iowas, for which we tried to answer in building the Montana-class which would have carried twelve 16" guns.
But I digress. 
The distinction is, I suppose, one of weight (displacement) and armament (measured as both number/caliber of primary and secondary batteries, and “broadside weight”- weight of shells/explosives of one round out of each gun from a broadside salvo.)
Kind of… but you neglect to mention that the HMS Hood was destoryed by a single shot from the Bismark, and the Bismark itself, while it took a lot of hits before going down, was disabled by a single torpedo to the rudder, making it rather useless for it’s intended purpose.
Why do we need any ships at all? Other than aircraft carriers and their defense shield. I guess. Tomahawks can be carried by B-2’s and B-52’s to anywhere in the world. Getting a plane in position is much much cheaper than getting a ship there.
Doc Nickel has the essentials: Battleships were kill-anything-in-your-path, fear-only-your-peer units, committed to massive armor and heavy-caliber armament ( >12 in. main batteries, 5-to-8 in. secondaries) resulting in very high displacement , > 25K tons for WW2 vessels. Cruisers, proper, were all-purpose journeyman ships that went for speed and high volume of fire by dispensing with the heavy armor and going for 6-to-10 inch main matteries, with their displacements usually at or below 10K tons and “heavies” still under 20K.
Panzerschiffe were peculiarly German, an end-run around arms control. From www.hazegray.org :
[quote]
Displ: 11,700 tons standard; 15,900-16,200 tons full load
Dim: 610 x 71 x 24 feet
Prop: 8 Diesels, 54,000 hp, 2 shafts, 28 knots
Crew: 619-1,150
Arm: 2 triple 11 inch, 8 single 5.9 inch, 3 dual 4.1/65,
4 dual 37 mm, 6 20 mm, 8 21 inch TT (aw)
Armor: 2.25-3 inch belt, 1.5 inch deck, 3.25-5.5 inch turrets, 6 inch CT
Designed as long range commerce raiders, powerful enough to sink anything they could not outrun and fast enough to outrun anything they could not sink, except for HMS Hood, Renown and Repulse [li]. Often classed as “pocket battleships”; officially listed as Panzerschiffe (“armored ships”). In reality they were raiding cruisers built to light cruiser standards and equipped with an exceptionally heavy main battery. Built under a clause in the Treaty of Versailles that allowed Germany to build ships up to 10,000 tons with guns of up to 11 inches; this was intended to allow coast defense battleships. Two further ships of this class were redesigned to become the Scharnhorst class in response to the French Dunkerque class. Deutschland Class varied in the style and arrangement of the superstructure.[/li][/quote]
[li]= the top-o-the-line British classes of Battlecruiser.[/li]
About Battlecruisers, these seem to have been a circa- WW1 idea from the Royal Navy’s peculiar head honch Lord Fisher: Battleship range and armament with Cruiser speed, achieved by cutting down the armor by half at the thickest points. You can see how this could present a problem if a battlecruiser found itself having to mano-a-mano it with a proper battleship in a situation where it could not use the speed advantage to dodge the other guy’s shots (Jutland). But of course, if the Royal Navy was doing it, it must be the thing to do, so many others adopted it. (We started to, then turned them into Aircraft Carriers. THAT was a good idea). Post-WW1 B-cruisers were really “fast battleships”, like Hood, but had many of the same problems.
Again from hazegray, compare the suite of a battlecruiser:
with a battleship:
[quote]
King George V class battleships
Displ: 36,727 tons standard; 44,800 tons full load
Dim: 745 x 103 x 29 feet
Prop: Steam turbines, 8 boilers, 4 shafts, 110,000 hp, 28 knots
Crew: 1422
Arm: 2 quad, 1 dual 14/45, 8 dual 5.25/50, 4 8-barelled 2 pound AA
Armor: 4.5-15 inch belt, 11-13 inch barbettes, 13 inch turrets, 4.5 inch CT
[quote]
with a plain ol’ “heavy cruiser” :
clairobscur has the genesis of the panzerschiffe correct: they were an attempt to create a powerful combatant on the displacement that was allowed by the Versailles Treaty and succeeding agreements (although they actually exceeded teh limit in fighting trim). They were a development of the same idea which gave birth to the U.S. Navy’s early frigates such as the Constitution. Like these vessels, the “pocket battleships” were smaller than the top-end men-of-war (Line-of-battle ships in the 1800’s, battleships in WWII) and were not expected to slug it out with one. They were faster than anything they couldn’t outfight, and stronger than anything they couldn’t outrun (afloat, that is). “Pocket battleship” or panzerschiffe were particular to the German Navy and these terms refer only to the Deustchland class. There were some other experiments in this direction, such as the US Navy’s Alaska class, but they didn’t see much use.
Battleships are, of course, the largest, best-armed, best-armored surface combatants. The term dreadnought refers to what most people think of when think battleship: the “all-big gun” ship. The original Dreadnought was launched by the Royal Navy in 1906 and created the battleship race which lead, in part to WWI. Prior to the Dreadnought, battleships carried a mix of large and medium-sized guns for ship-to-ship combat. Dreadnought carried 10 12" guns in 5 double turrets and a number of small guns for protection against torpedo boats, and set the pattern for later vessels.
Battlecruisers were a hybrid. They were an attempt to create a faster big-gun ship. They were generally about the same displacement as battleships, but sacrificed armor protection, number of large guns, or both. The original, again British, was Invincible, launched in 1908. It carried 8 12" guns on a displacement only slightly smaller than Dreadnought’s, but had less armor (e.g., 6" belt v. 11" belt") and was 5 knots faster. Later battlecruisers, such as the German Scharnhorst and the famous British Hood had a similar relationship to their contemporary battleships. All these battlecruisers shared a similar fate: sunk when they had to stand toe-to-toe with other big-gun ships.
Pocket Battleship: As clairobscur noted, these were heavily armed and armored ships that fell just barely below the treaty limits (Versaille and Washington) set for German warships. They were superior to heavy cruisers, but were no match for a genuine battleship (although some would hold that their guns’ rate of fire made up for their smaller shells).
Battle cruisers were a classic example of theory that simply failed in real life. The original intent was to build a ship as large as a battleship (so that its hull length would permit great speed) with the same armament as a battleship (14" guns or larger) that would allow it to destroy any smaller vessel with impunity, while using less armor than a battleship, to increase it speed even more.
It was intended as a long-range raider or interdiction ship and the idea was that it could destroy anything it could catch and run from anything that could destroy it and.
The reality was that any time an admiral needed a lot of big guns, he would throw the lightly armored battlecruisers into the line with the rest of the battleships, where its lack of armor made it a death trap.
The Hood, a battlecruiser, should never have been sent up against the Bismarck (although the Brits did not have much option at the time for available ships).
That’ll teach me to walk back and hit “Submit” after being called away. Everyone has beaten me to the answers.
Because we have a limited fleet of aircraft that need a certain amount of time for each flight and refitting. In actual warfare, one needs to be able to see how many targets were missed and go right back after them. We can do that more easily with F/A-18s off a carrier that is only an hour away from the target than we can with a B-2 that needs almost a day to hit a target and return to its U.S. air base. (I believe that we have begun staging them out of the Indian Ocean for the last campaign in Iraq, but we are still able to drop more tons of weapons, more swiftly, from four carriers close to the war zone than we can using long-range bombers staged much farther away.)
Correct. From globalsecurity.org’s Jan 17th article:
What makes me curious is that the flight distance is roughly halved, but the flight time is only a quarter of the previous time. Why is that?
I would guess that it’s a typo, but if it is not, then I would think that they may stage longer flights at lower speeds to conserve fuel or that they reduce airspeed signficantly to refuel and the longer flight requires more refueling slowdowns.
Re-reading this
I’m pretty sure that that is a typo. My memory is that the round trip from the States was just a bit less than a day–not 40 hours.
Since everyone’s covered the crucial aspects of why a battleship should be retired, let me add one reason why they shouldn’t be scrapped completely. There’s a version of 1812 Overture where the USS New Jersey fires her guns for the piece that’s just awesome.
I can’t see a combat role for battleships any more, but I don’t think that we should scrap them all, since they have been so important to our history.
Many people argue that battleships are worth keeping because of their primary role: serving as heavily armored floating artillery platforms. But this is not the role envisoned for these battleships when they were being built; battleships were designed to fight other battleships. Obviously, with only one nation in the world having put a battleship to sea in the last few decades, nobody was trying to justify that mission.
But using a battleship for shore bombardment is the same as using one for missile launching platform, a hospital ship, a supply depot, an oil tanker, a machine shop, a headquarters ship, a musical instrument, or any other the other jobs battleships have been pressed into. Just because a battleship can do a job doesn’t mean it’s the best ship for the job.
Actually they exceeded the treaty limit which I think was 10,000 tons. The ‘pocket battleships’ weighed in at around 12,000 tons and when loaded with fuel, ammunition and so on pushed 16,000 tons. The rest is right though. Consider that while close in size a proper battleship weighed in at around 40,000 tons and you can see where these ships fell short. The pocket battleships hit hard but had a glass jaw…one good pop and they were down fro the count.
The HMS Hood wasn’t a battleship…it was a battlecruiser (or heavy cruiser?). Additionally it was known to have weak deck armor. IIRC it was due for an armor upgrade shortly after it met the Bismarck…obviously it never got one. A plunging shot from the Bismarck went through the deck and ignited a magazine. No ship would be able to survive that.
Just because battleships were originally designed to fight other battleships doesn’t detract from their usefulness as an artillery platform. It is devastating in that role. Beyond the actual damage they can inflict (which is considerable) they have a psychological effect that can’t be underestimated. IIRC North Korea (at some point in the Korean War) was unwilling to come to the negotiating table. Aircraft carriers, bombers, ground troops and so on didn’t make them budge. The US placed some battleships offshore and they positively freaked. They changed their tune and agreed to come to the negotiating table IF the battleships were withdrawn (which they were).
Everyone these days seems enamored with the capabilities of laser guided bombs from aircraft and Tomahawk missiles. Fair enough…they are amazing and incredibly useful when the shooting starts. Nevertheless they simply cannot get the job done alone. We’ve seen it twice now in Iraq and in Afghanistan. The name of the game is combined arms…everyone doing their part.
Unfortunately without battleships the US does not have any sea based artillery. Granted in Afghanistan (which is thoroughly landlocked) there was no useful role for a battleship. As things turned out neither was there a role fro one in Iraq but with the recent Iraq war one could envision a role for them without stretching too far. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia allowed us to base troops. Kuwait owed us one so they could hardly say no but Saudi Arabia was a bit of a question mark. Everyone else in the region would not allow US troops to base there (ala Turkey). Imagine a scenario where everyone in the region tells the US to piss-off. The US would be forced to come in by sea at that teeny point that Iraq has on the gulf. In such a scenario a battelship would be the most valuable asset available. Even with only a 25 mile range the goal would be to establish a beachhead for the marines and nothing…not all the aircraft carriers we possess…would aid that task better than a battleship.
Finally, remember that a Tomahawk costs in excess of $1 millon each when considering the costs of a battleship. The Tomahawk has a greater range and more adaptability with differing munitions but trade that off with volume of fire and destructive capacity. Assume a shell from the main guns of a battleship cost $10,000 each to fire (just a guess in my part but I think that’s being generous and then some). I now have a 100:1 cost benefit with the shells vs. missiles. Each shell is more destructive and I get the psychological effect of volume fire versus an occasional missile. If we assume (and again I’m just guessing here) that a BB costs $300 million a year to operate then your break-even point is needing to fire 301 Tomahawks in one year. A battleship would toss 300+ shells in one day to support a landing. Add in its usefulness as a floating hospital (not to be underestimated), ability as a machine shop and psychological effect and a BB can be cost effective.
In the end it is just a tool. Like a hammer it is good for some jobs and not so good for others but when the circumstances call for one there is no substitute.
Whoops…for my math to equal out I should have said 100 shells.
Also, I forgot to mention a battleship’s survivability…don’t underestimate it. They are quite simply the toughest things ever afloat. In some respects an aircraft carrier might be harder to sink but if it is it’d only be due to its sheer size versus anything else. A battleship is armored like crazy. Harpoon and Exocet missiles would have a tough time sinking a battleship. The Russian Shipwreck missile would probably be the most effective but those are hardly common.
While it’s true that planes are faster, for moving large amounts of men and/or equipment, nothing is more effective then ships. Of course, to protect those ships, you need various other ships to protect them. In addition, a ship can just be “parked” in a certain area until needed, while planes are limited by the amount of time in the air until they either have to return to base or need an in-air refueling.
I imagine that there is also the tactical advantage of having what amounts to a mobile military base floating offshore, rather then having to build or take over land to operate from immediately.
Peace-DESK
Even if we grant that we want a sea-based artillery platform, that still doesn’t mean we want battleships. The armor would be a major liability in modern warfare: Steel a foot thick has to weigh a heck of a lot, and by decreasing the weight of armor, you could increase speed, supplies carried on board (including ammo, support facilities, and people), or both, which would be much more useful in modern warfare. The reason an aircraft carrier is more surviveable is not that it can absorb more hits, but that it doesn’t get hit as much in the first place. If we put our artillery ship under the protective umbrella of a carrier, it wouldn’t need the heavy armor.
Of course, there’s also the matter that any capital ship built now is probably going to be nuclear, and I can’t imagine it’s easy to convert over an old diesel ship. So even if we wanted BBs specifically, it’d be a good idea to build new ones from the bottom up, rather than keeping Big Mo around.
This is correct. The Japaneese attack on Pearl Harbor (to many) is considered a tactical failure because they didn’t get any carriers. By a stroke of luck, they were out at sea that day. Our victor at Midway was tactically a much bigger victory because we got a few of their carriers…
Today, if battleships were to be used, it would be for a pure psychological warfare…kinda like “carpet bombing.” Getting shelled with 2,000 pounders ain’t fun. Plus the sight of a battleship in your port is awe inspiring.
Actually except for an aircraft carrier a battleship is the fastest naval vessle we have. The Iowa class was specifically engineered to be able to keep up with the carriers of WWII…nothing else could. Removing armor probably doesn’t make it faster as it probably already achieves its hull speed. Removing armor would just get you better gas mileage.
Likewise, its ammunition capacity is already huge and removing armor probably wouldn’t free up all that much room.
Frankly I think you would want to keep the armor. An aircraft carrier can do its job from a few hundred miles offshore. A BB needs to be much closer thus placing it at greater risk. A carrier can provide air cover but you still want protection from ground-based weaponry. Granted the best solution is not to get hit in the first place but the second best solution is gobs of armor if your first solution fails.