# What was the most important Navy Ship of all time? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 6, 2023, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250 "2023-04-06T13:07:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2023, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/101 "2023-04-11T18:43:18Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > _Constitution_ should be moored in its shadow I’m OK with what you wrote up until here. The USS Constitution shouldn’t be in any ship’s shadow. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2023, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/102 "2023-04-11T20:06:24Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > If _Enterprise_ had been lost at Midway and _Yorktown_ survived, we might be having a different conversation … Like how the Guadalcanal campaign was a disaster (or didn’t happen at all) for lack of carrier support. Because _Yorktown_ was stateside having its Coral Sea damage repaired. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2023, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/103 "2023-04-11T20:15:46Z")
If your point is that by the time Midway rolled around, _Enterprise_ and _Yorktown_ were not fungible due to _Yorktown_’s preexisting battle damage, then I agree. _Enterprise_ was already, even before _Yorktown_’s loss, the more important of the two according to the historical record. So we are lucky indeed CV-6 was not lost in its place. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2023, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/104 "2023-04-11T20:24:23Z")
I looked at google maps for a “largish city near Buenos Aires that might have a ship named after it” and didn’t pay attention to national boundaries. I have no excuse for my ignorance, and throw myself on the mercy of our future Argentinian overlords. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2023, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/105 "2023-04-11T20:30:41Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > I have no excuse for my ignorance, and throw myself on the mercy of our future Argentinian overlords. So no tears for you from Argentina, either. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2023, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/106 "2023-04-11T22:05:57Z")
My point — to the extent that I had one — was that if _Yorktown_ had survived Midway it would have been withdrawn to repair her Coral Sea damage properly. Had _Enterprise_ been sunk instead, the USN would have been down to one carrier (_Hornet_, whose performance at Midway had been somewhat less than exemplary) until _Wasp_ arrived from the Atlantic. I can’t help but feel this would have affected the existence, not to mention the outcome, of the Guadalcanal operation. ---
**Author:** ![SunUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SunUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunUp)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2023, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/107 "2023-04-11T23:02:51Z")
> [@OttoDaFe](#): > > Had _Enterprise_ been sunk instead, the USN would have been down to one carrier… Two carriers. _Saratoga_ was on her way from the West Coast and made port in Pearl Harbor on June 6th; she ferried planes to _Enterprise_ and _Hornet_ after the battle was over. She participated in the early part of the Guadalcanal campaign where, true to form, she was hit by a Japanese torpedo and forced to go to the West Coast for repairs. Would the U.S. have attacked Guadalcanal with just two fleet carriers, plus _Wasp_, and only a badly damaged _Yorktown_ in reserve? The alternative is to allow Japan to finish the Lunga Point airfield, which would make future offensives in the area difficult at best. I kinda think that Nimitz would roll the dice here, as long as there were enough land based air assets to keep Pearl Harbor safe, but that’s a WAG at best, and since the Solomons campaign was so close-run to start it really might have ended very differently. I’m sure that in late 1942 Nimitz would have agreed with the OP that CV-6 was the most important navy ship of all time… ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2023, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/108 "2023-04-11T23:27:02Z")
You better pray that Argentina has already anexed Uruguay (“La provincia rebelde”) by that time, if it has not and the Uruguayans are in a position of power they would not forgive you for thinking Montevideo is a city in Argentina… And you don’t want a powerful Uruguay angry at you believe me… (You should’ve gone with Bahia Blanca) ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2023, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/109 "2023-04-12T00:32:19Z")
I feel like we’re only one stray comment away from devolving into a discussion of the South American dreadnought race… ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2023, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/110 "2023-04-12T02:40:44Z")
Hmm…now I’m tempted to nominate the dreadnought [HMS _Agincourt_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Agincourt_(1913))\* solely on the basis of it having the absurd number of 7 twin-12inch turrets all in the centerline and thus capable of firing broadside. \*She was part of the South American dreadnought race, having been ordered by Brazil only to be sold to the Ottoman Empire while under construction when it proved too expensive for Brazil to afford when their rubber boom ended, only to be seized by the British when the Ottomans sided with the Central Powers in WWI. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2023, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/111 "2023-04-12T12:14:59Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > …only to be seized by the British when the Ottomans sided with the Central Powers in WWI. I’m afraid you’ve got that backwards. The Ottomans sided with the Central Powers in WWI when the British seized two ships meant for the Ottomans, in breach of contract. Or so the story goes. And of course the higher ups found a way to cast most of the blame on some hapless officer charged with letting two German ships escape pursuit in the Mediterranean by going over to the Ottomans. But I think that’s a bit disingenuous and self-serving on the part of the British government. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2023, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/112 "2023-04-12T16:48:28Z")
My bad, thanks for the correction. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2023, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/113 "2023-04-12T17:26:09Z")
I’m not sure it was so cut and dried, the Ottomans were in some ways under German influence, (but in other ways under British influence), if the ships had not been seized they may have stayed neutral, or they may have joined the central powers if they thought they were winning at some point. The seizure of the ships sure precipitated that, I agree, by both infuriating them and also providing an excuse to join the central powers. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2023, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/114 "2023-04-14T06:40:24Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > If the Enterprise had sunk at Pearl Harbor\*, the War would have been harder and longer. Quite probably by years. > [@Dissonance](#): > > [Combinedfleet.com](http://Combinedfleet.com) did a breakdown of just how hopelessly outmatched Japan was during WWII by examining this exact scenario, an alternate Midway with a reversed outcome where Japan gets the jump on the US and sinks every single US carrier in the battle while losing none of their own - actually an even better than reverse outcome as the US lost _Yorktown_ at Midway. Dammit. I’ve been insanely busy the last couple of days and had intended to post this very page and make the same argument, although not as elegantly, of course. (But, of course, in far too many words. . .) The old saying that gets trotted out as a quick sound bite, “amateurs talk strategy and professionals talk logistics” does apply here. Japan’s front lines were hopelessly over extended and shipping became increasingly larger of a problem the further they expanded. Japan didn’t have enough shipping to handle their own civilian needs (including the war industry) prior to the outbreak of hostilities with the Western allies, and when the Imperial Japanese Army requisitioned civilian ships for its needs at the beginning of the war, that put them in even that much more of a hole. I’m posted this in other threads, but in the summer of 1941, six months prior to Japan’s attack on the US, Tokyo was running into a problem with the inability to collect night soil as sales of gas for civilians was severely restricted and they could no longer use trucks for that purpose. This affected their manufacturing capacity as well. Their conquest of NEI allowed them to continue to war, but they never had enough gas for the war industry as well as civilian use. They were running out of scrap iron for manufacturing as well as experiencing other shortages for years. All of this was because of the ongoing, unwinnable quagmire in China. Once they got into war with the States, the eventual decay became unstoppable, regardless of any successes on the battlefield. Japanese strategy was fundamentally flawed. They would have been much better off fortifying their inner positions rather than continue to expand out further and further. Each mile they conquered added two miles to their logistics nightmare. There is no indication that even more success in the earlier stages of the war would have led them to prepare their defenses better. I don’t believe that the loss of just _Enterprise_ would have led to any significant lengthening of the war. The basic constraints that dictated the duration include Japan’s early successes, the fall of the territories and colonies, regrouping by American forces, the Doolittle Raid which tipped Japanese strategy towards Midway, Midway itself, Guadalcanal, the various naval battles around there in which the USN had a steep learning curve on modern fighting doctrine, then the recovery year of ’43, island hopping to get to Saipan and Guam, the development of the B-24 bomber and the firebombing campaign, Okinawa, and during all that the submarine warfare and the fiasco of the Mark 14 torpedo and finally the development of the atomic bomb and the end of the war in Europe which allowed for the US to allocate more resources as well as the entry of the USSR into the Pacific War. It’s easy to overlook the land war Japan was stalemated in over in China. That sucks manpower and resources that Japan could have used against the States. They would have lost anyway, but they could have made it more painful. Despite all the hard, bloody fighting on land, at sea and in the air, Japan didn’t surrender just because of their military defeats. The moral of the civilians was at the breaking point, and that directly affected the Emperor’s decision to take his extraconstitutional intervention to end the war as well as for certain members of the [Big Six](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_War_Council_(Japan)) to accept their defeat. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2023, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/115 "2023-04-14T14:49:45Z")
Agree 100% with all that. But there’s quite a difference between discussing whether Japan was doomed from the git-go, or whether CV-6 was the most important USN ship of the war. Given how thoroughly incontrovertibly true the former was, CV-6 could simultaneously have been the most important USN ship, and also completely irellevent to the final outcome & largely irrelevant to the timeline. There is a rule of thumb in ground warfare. Given like for like tech at the point of the battle, the attacker needs to outnumber the defender by 3x to have a reasonable expectation of winning the battle. A similar rule of thumb can be applied to a war. If the aggressor outnumbers the defender by 3 to 1 they stand a decent chance of winning. But they need to outnumber by 3x in populace, GDP, _and_ military hardware and prowess. And not be too disadvantaged by geography, culture, various Achilles heels, etc. By those standards, Japan fell woefully short on _every_ possible relevant metric. Meaning that them opening hostilities was an act of supreme military incompetence. Germany didn’t look much better when they first opened hostilities either. And only got worse as they widened who they were fighting. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2023, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/116 "2023-04-16T15:03:01Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > But there’s quite a difference between discussing whether Japan was doomed from the git-go, or whether CV-6 was the most important USN ship of the war. Oh, I agree with that completely, but I was disagreeing with @What_Exit that the loss of CV-6 would have protracted the war for several years. While @What_Exit has made a good case for Big E’s importance, he’s missed some of the most significant contributions and included others which were inconsequential. First, he completely overlooked what was among _Enterprise_’s greatest contribution, participation in the early raid of the Pacific War. The forward to an [interesting read](https://www.history.navy.mil/content/dam/nhhc/browse-by-topic/War%20and%20Conflict/WWII/Early-Raids-170407.pdf): > [@](#): > > It is disappointing that the early raids of the Pacific War are forgotten or at best afterthoughts. These first tentative forays against a formidable enemy and their names—Marshall and Gilbert Islands, Rabaul, Wake and Marcus Islands, and Lae and Salamaua—should be noted and recognized for what they were: the first combat operations by U.S. Navy carrier forces. > > With the U.S. battle fleet still licking its wounds in Pearl Harbor, it was left to the “supporting” fleet to take the fight to the enemy. Not one battlewagon engaged in any of these raids, which were combination carrier attacks and bombardments. Carriers began to show their beyond-the-horizon capabilities and cruisers provided the biggest guns. > > U.S. Navy carrier combat operations began at 0443 1 February 1942 when Enterprise launched the first aircraft in the main air attack on Kwajalein in the southern Marshall Islands group. Very shortly thereafter, at 0517 that morning, Yorktown joined the fight as she launched her air group against Makin in the northern Gilberts. > > Exactly three weeks later, Lexington was literally blooded in the abortive attack against Rabaul. Here the Navy received two inklings of what was to follow over the course the Pacific war. First, they witnessed the absolute need for aerial protection. Lieutenant Edward H. “Butch” O’Hare in his F4F Wildcat as the ship’s lone flying defense was credited with shooting down five Japanese bombers and saving “Lady Lex.” Future combat would require more than one defender. More ominous, however, was the behavior of two damaged aircraft, which “caused some of the people in [the task force] to conclude that it was doctrine for damaged Japanese planes to attempt to crash aboard our ships.” > > Enterprise and Yorktown were once again to team up for attacks against Wake and Marcus Islands, but Yorktown was diverted to another assignment. At Wake, the Navy learned the lesson of keeping a carrier close enough to the big-gun ships to provide them protection against “shadowers,” observation aircraft that would lurk just outside of antiaircraft range and leave them open to aerial attack. They also learned of the need for reserve pilots. After a four-hour attack mission, pilots then refueled and were immediately launched for defensive combat air patrol missions often into the evening hours. > > In the last of this series of raids, Navy air operations came into its own. In the 10 March attacks against Lae and Salamaua in New Guinea, two United States aircraft carrier groups—Lexington and Yorktown—operated together in a coordinated attack for the first time in history. This served as the prototype for the much larger combined carrier operations to follow throughout the war. Through the course of these actions, the United States was on the attack for the first time in the war. While the victories were not momentous and the losses were light, they were truly the first steps—the dawn—of the rise of the carrier as the new “ship of the line.” In early 1942, the USN really did not yet understand what it took to fight a modern naval war, let alone a carrier-centered one. In the series of raids, the US started gaining the hard-earned experience which would allow a strategic victory at Coral Sea, despite losing _Lexington_ and the damage to _Yorktown_, and that in turn contributed to the victory at Midway. Looking at the Doolittle Raid, it had a seeming more significant role in the war than these raids, yet without the raids, the US would not have developed the experience needed for success in further battles. Spring training may not seem as important as real games, but just try and skip it one year and see what happens. Looking at _Hornet_, CV-8 made a major contribution to the war with the Doolittle Raid, yet did perform well at Midway, including the infamous “[flight to nowhere](https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/2012/may/mitscher-and-mystery-midway).” > [@](#): > > The newest American carrier, the Hornet did not even have sufficient time to qualify most of her pilots as she steamed south from Norfolk, Virginia, to the Panama Canal, then up the U.S. West Coast to Alameda, California. There the planes of her air group were struck below to the hangar deck, so she could take aboard 16 Mitchell B-25 bombers for an Army Air Forces raid on Tokyo led by Lieutenant Colonel “Jimmy” Doolittle. Naturally, pilot training had to be suspended while the Hornet was thus encumbered, and only after Doolittle and his fellow pilots took off did the Hornet resume normal carrier operations. Given that timetable, the Hornet had not been able to participate in any of the early American raids against Japanese outposts in the Marshall Islands and elsewhere. The Battle of Midway was therefore her first action against an enemy force. Alternately, a case could be made that the ship which had the most impact on the Pacific War was _Yamato_, because without the superbattleship, the Japanese perhaps would never have started the war. Of course, MPVs are almost never picked from losing teams, and _Yamato_ never accomplished much during the war. It’s probably more important to pick a ship that helped win the war than one which helped start and lose it. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2023, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/117 "2023-04-16T18:40:13Z")
Can you say _Bismarck_? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2023, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/118 "2023-04-16T18:41:41Z")
Actually, in many ways the Iowa class were the best Battleships of all time. It had to do with the combination of Speed, Accuracy and especially rate of fire. Bismarck & Yamato were bigger but not better. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2023, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/119 "2023-04-16T18:46:18Z")
True. But for ships that didn’t accomplish much (or any) actually battling, they (_Yamato_ & _Bismarck_) sure occupied a disproportionate amount of their enemies’ planning time and attention. “Fleet in being” and all that stuff. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2023, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250/120 "2023-04-17T13:43:23Z")
The difference is that Germany would have gone to war with or without her battleships, but I really don’t know what Japan would have done without hers. All of 1941 was a very interesting period in Japan and a fascinating slow motion train wreck, until you think of the tens of millions of people who died horribly because incompetent military leaders put avoiding momentary discomfort above the suicide of a nation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-important-navy-ship-of-all-time/982250.md?page=7)