It’s my impression that the Bismark chase was not a typical one for air power.
Yes, but it illustrates the way Admirals thought about aircraft and battleships in 1941. As a previous post pointed out, they had to find her. Massive aircraft attack jammed her rudder and cruisers sank her.
It’s not a circular argument at all, although you’re offering up a strawman argument in return. First, O’Connell is not primarily concerned with World War II; second, throughout the Pacific War, both the United States and the Japanese sought to operate carriers and battleships together as far as possible to ensure that they could eventually fight the battle that would decide control of the ocean. They never did: and witness that the Imperial Navy’s battleships remained a constant threat to the USN’s anmphibious operations. Carriers fared extremely poorly in engaging battleships, even if said battleships did not possess carrier protection, as at Leyte Gulf, where MUSASHI alone succumbed to the airstrikes – one out of eight Japanese battleships operating without so much as a single Zero for air cover. Only U.S. battleships could guarantee the destruction of the Japanese battleships, and thus the safety of whatever shipping could not stand up to a Japanese battleship.
Not only does O’Connell’s argument hold no water whatsoever for the interwar period, were aircraft were decidedly NOT able to inflict anything near crippling damage to maneuvering warships, but even the war, with its myth of “after Pearl, everybody saw the carrier was king,” is a more difficult story. Yes, the U.S. fought without much of its battleline for the whole of 1942 – questions of fuel supply mainly, and sufficient numbers of escorts. But starting in 1943, the U.S. Navy accepted the decisive role of the battleship in its combat plans, not because it was wedded to obsolete concepts, but because battleships alone could be realiably expected to stop other battleships.
As for the circularity of my argument: battleships were the true measure of seapower because of all ships afloat, they were still capable of staying afloat the longest, and sufficiently capable of stopping the really decisive naval operations, amphibious operations, that they just could not be left afloat. That’s why even in 1944, it paid to pay attention to them.
There is absolutely no evidence, and this bears emphasizing, that cruiser torpedoes damaged or sank BISMARCK fell victim to two things: a fluke hit on her rudder by not massive, but courageous attacks (the attack that got her contained a grand total of six planes), and the impossibility of escape from two battleships, KING GEORGE V and RODNEY. Without either of these items, BISMARCK goes to France safely (if possibly a little worse for wear).
Again: air power by 1941 had become a creditable threat against battleships operating alone and without air cover against massive (or lucky) aerial opposition (as mlees has pointed out). But no admiral in 1941 envisaged such a scenario: battleships operated as part of a fleet, including early warning ships and aircraft carriers for aerial protection, and within the context of such a fleet, the least vulnerable ship to submarine, air, mine, and enemy battleship opposition was the battleship. It alone, after all was said and done, could stand up to the strongest enemy ship and thus achieve sea control for ones own auxilliaries. Against an enemy in control of the sea, guerre de course could still be effective, but it could never with any certainty deny him use of the ocean, as could the battleship, simply because cruisers could be matched with cruisers, submarines with destroyers, and so on.
Operation Drumbeat - great book on the German U Boats off of the United States.
Last Shot: A great book on a Confederate Raider. Gives an insight into the international politics of the Civil War as well:
That was part of O’Connell’s argument. The navies spent millions building battleships between the wars and then when the war started, the battleships weren’t used. He points out that their main role during WWII was transporting oil and other supplies and being used as artillery platforms. Actual naval combat was fought by other classes. (Look at the HMS Anson, a modern new battleship that was on active service for five years of war and never fired its guns at an enemy ship.)
The battleships had become too valuable to use in combat. Admirals wouldn’t go into a battle where they had a 90% chance of victory because a 10% chance of defeat was considered too high a risk. The only battles where they were used where situations where they were attacking a fleet in harbor like Mers-el-Kebir, Pearl Harbor, or Taranto by surprise or on virtual suicide missions like the final cruises of the Bismarck, the Prince of Wales, or the Yamato.
ETA: If nothing else, we’ve probably convinced Derek to read this book.
Herman Wouk said, about the Japanese care in using their battleships: “A weapon jealously husbanded is no weapon at all.”