The USS Midway, commissioned in 1945, took less than two years to build. One big factor was the availability of 12 power plants originally slated for a battleship. Another was the hull design. The design (the the Midway’s hull itself) was designed for a Montana Class battleship. No battleships of this class were actually built, presumably because the era of the battleship was over.
Anyway, and back to Montana Class design, does anyone know if these ships were to look anything like the Iowa Class ships, which I assume they were to replace? Or what the major differences/improvements were to be?
wiki has a n article on the Montana class battleships here, including images of an artists impression of how they would have appeared had they been build.
The USS Midway was a carrier, or I just didn’t know there was a battleship so named.
Over at ww2 forums I inquired whether or not the Iowa-class ships were designed to be “escort battleships” by dint of their speed to keep up with the 30+ knot carriers but the guys argued against this. In any case, the Montanas were clearly meant to fight in-line.
Imagine if WW2 continued for another 5 years with all belligerents still had enough resources to crank out weapons (sans atomics) the US would have fielded 4 Montanas (48 16" guns) while the Japanese would build two super-Yamatos (8 20" guns.) Over at the Atlantic, the German H-44 (8 20" per ship) would fight the British Lion-class (8 16" per ship.)
After Coral Sea and Midway I don’t think the U.S. or Japan would have built more battleships. Both sides realized that aircraft carriers were the future. Speaking of battleships, and in my humble opinion, the Iowa Class ships were the most beautiful ever built.
I don’t think it’s correct to say that no super battleships would have been built even after things seemed to be going America’s way. True, carriers have taken center stage but having no new battleships while your enemy is busy cranking out bigger and badder ships, and the war not likely to end for several more years is not a good thing. If you were Nimitz, you are not going to put your trust on just your fleet carriers. After the war, the US navy continued to keep the Iowas under active duty, frequently conducting exercises will all four ships up to the late 1950s.
I think one of my comments could have been misconstrued. Specifically:
“After Coral Sea and Midway I don’t think the U.S. or Japan would have built more battleships.”
To be clearer I should have said “After the battles of Coral Sea and Midway…”
The confusion could arise as there were WW II carriers with those names, although the Midway (the only carrier of the Midway Class) did not see service in WWII.
Nimitz certainly did put his trust in fleet carriers over battleships.
Taranto and Pearl Harbor proved beyond doubt the fatal vulnerability
to air strike of docked battleships, and the fate of HMS Repulse (12/10/41)
proved beyond doubt the vulnerability of battleships underway and ready
for action.
And Nimitz was right: Musashi and Yamato were both pulverized by
air attack long before coming within sight of any American ships.
Battleships have been in and out of commission since the end of WW2
without being essential any post-war military operation. Nice things to
have, yes, decisively advantageous, no.
As long as we had some battleships for nighttime fighting and shore bombardment, we weren’t going to build any more. If for some reason we lost them all, we still might have just built more destroyers and cruisers for those two roles rather than build more BBs.
And what was the HMS Prince of Wales, chopped liver? In any event the sinking of both capital ships of Force Z only demonstrated the vulnerability of battleships poorly escorted and more importantly with absolutely no air cover. The fast battleships that escorted the carriers in the Pacific made excellent flak platforms and were certainly less vulnerable to air attack than the carriers they were escorting.
The sailors and pilots who fought the Battle off Samar would like to have a word with you. There is even a photo of what is allegedly theYamato (circled in white, upper right) in the same frame as the stricken USS Gambier Bay. The circled ship may in fact be a heavy cruiser, but there are plenty of other photos of Yamato during said action.
In any event, the cancellation of the Montana and her sisters in favor of other production didn’t indicate the end of the US Navy’s interest in the battleship. BB-65 and BB-66 which were to have been the Montana and Ohio were reordered as the fifth and sixth ships of the Iowa class, the Illinois and Kentucky. Though neither was completed, construction on them began quite late in the war:
The final ship of the Iowa class commissioned also wasn’t the last capital ship commissioned by the USN during WW2, the Alaska and Guam were commissioned in June and September 1944 respectively. While officially classified as “large cruisers”, given the designation CB and official use of the word “battlecruiser” to describe them was discouraged, they displaced 34,000 tons and the main battery was 9x12/50" rifles.
I meant to single out the battleship over the much older and much less heavily armored battlescuiser, and mixed the two up.
All this is true, and in no way contradicts the proposition that the USN subsequently recognized A/C as the primary naval weapon of the Pacific war.
What would they have a word with me about? IIRC the USN won that battle with Destroyers and Escort Carriers. Therefore all the more status accrues to A/C. Another action that really proved that point occured the previous day when Musashi was sunk by aircraft in one of numerous Pacific WW2 actions where the opposing ships did not sight each other due to the tactical preeminence of the A/C.
This information does nothing to rebut the thesis that A/C were top priority after 12/7/41, rather, it confirms it: Illinois and *Kentucky *were laid down five years after being ordered, and after the commission of over 100 Fleet and Escort A/C which were not even on order 12/4/41.
I am not going to try to look it up, but I suspect she was so far along in construction that the USN decided it would be best to complete her.
Shifting goalpost fallacy: Battleships are the topic of this discussion, and the thin-skinned 12" gun Alaska and Guam would have been mincemeat against any Battleship.
Also, I never said or implied Nimitz did not want any big-gunned ships, only that he put most trust in A/C, and the fact that no battleships were laid down 1943-44 is strongly supportive.
It does however contradict your contention of the vulnerability of battleship ‘underway and ready for action’; the primacy of the aircraft was not even being discussed.
Are you serious? You said “And Nimitz was right: Musashi and Yamato were both pulverized by air attack long before coming within sight of any American ships” which is flatly untrue. They’d want a word with you about the Yamato not only coming within sight of American ships but shelling them.
I have no idea what you imagine you are arguing against. Care to point out where I stated or implied that aircraft carriers didn’t have a higher priority than battleships? How you can take the US Navy not losing interest in constructing battleships to mean the construction of battleships was a top priority above aircraft carriers is beyond me. Imagining the lag between ordering and laying the keels of the Illinois and Kentucky was unusual only displays your ignorance on such things, as does your erroneous statement of carriers not even being ordered before Pearl Harbor. The Essex-class fleet carriers commissioned during the war had mostly been ordered on July 19, 1940 as part of the Two-Ocean Navy Act, which authorized the construction of among other things:
Wow, you are actually announcing that you are arguing from ignorance. By the way, you are wrong, but hey; don’t let that stop you from not bothering to look it up before making entirely ignorant and wrong statements.
Again, how you come to these conclusions is beyond me. There was no goalpost shifting. Since you even quoted it I can’t imagine that you didn’t read it, but to reiterate what I said:
You’ll note I said the last Iowa class commissioned wasn’t the last capital ship commissioned by the USN in WW2. Regardless of what the US called them, they can accurately be described as battlecruisers, which are capital ships. The Alaskas were as large as and more heavily armed than the German Scharnhorst class battlecruisers, which by the way was mincemeat when she came up against the HMS Duke of York. That does not however, make the Scharnhorst not a battlecruiser or a capital ship.
It does not. It only means the B/S was less vulnerable than the A/C.
Musashi certainly was sunk by aircraft, in the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, the day before Samar, and without ever sighting a USN ship.
As for Yamato I was referring to her final action later during the Okinawa campaign.
Here is what I said:
(post #11)
You (speciously) contested the accuracy of the statement in blue without conceding the accuracy of the statement in red. They were both part of the same sentence and I not unreasonably interpreted your (specious) objection to apply to each. Glad to be able to say you were only half wrong rather than completely wrong.
Here you lapse again into complete error. Per Wiki re Iowa class B/S:
Iowa: ordered 7/1/39, laid down 6/27/40 (less than 1 year) New Jersey: ordered 7/4/39, laid down 9/16/40 ( 1 year 64 days) Missouri: ordered 6/12/40, laid down 1/6/41 (less than 1 year) Wisconsin: ordered 6/12/40, laid down 1/25/42 (2 years 227 days)
I did not say zero A/C were ordered before PH, I said over 100 were ordered after PH, and that is true.
After PH the USN ordered 8 more Essex-class A/C than authorized by the 1940 act, it ordered 3 Midway-class A/C, and it ordered 122 Escort A/C.
If you are trying to say that Alaska and Guam may be considered in the same general class as the heaviest ships with the heaviest throwweight, then you are the one who has gotten it wrong, and the subjective designation “capital ship” is not going to help you.
Alaska and Guam were grossly inferior in armor protection (9’ Max to 16” max) and throw weight (12” shells to 16” shells on USN B/S)
And of course the biggest A/C were at least equal to B/S in size and throw weight, superior in accuracy, and in a class by themselves in range, with a combat radius of over 1000 miles further than the that of a B/S gun-fired shell.
Scharnhorst’s 11” guns were close enough to Alaska’s to be considered on a par. Per Wiki she was heavier than Alaska, and her armor varied from about ¼” thinner to 4¾” thicker. therefore if Scharnhorst was not a capital ship then neither was Alaska.
I’d like to cut through you argument: a battleship is the toughest warship there was (best proven by the Yamato, Musashi and Bismark.) I won’t even start describing how a carrier would have handled the kind of punishment they received. You’re misconstruing the fates of Yamato and Musashi for an argument that requires something else.
That something is tactical and strategic significance. I say the US should (and did) maintain a powerful battleship force well into the 1950s.
My argument is that the Aircraft Carrier was the preeminent tactical weapon of the Pacific war, and construction orders and commissions bear out that out.
Of course the Battleships were tough, but the combat record of the toughest B/S proved they were no match for the A/C, with Taranto-Pearl Harbor constituting proof for B/S docked and numerous actions beginning with Force Z constituting proof for B/S embarked and ready for action. Also recall that the bginning of the end for Bismarck was rudder damage inflicted by A/C-launched biplanes.
As for the post-WW2 era it is no contest: The B/S have been in and out of commission (mostly out), with zero built, while the preeminence of the A/C has remained uncontested, with (excuse my ignorance Mr. Diss) I don’t know how many built, but a hell of a lot more than zero.
