Yamato would have blown the Bismarck skyhigh. And possibly the Iowa too. She took a dozen bomb hits and torpedo hits when she was actually sunk and at a time she was defenceless.
That says it all.
Well where else would you sink her to? 
re: American battleships being on the slower end of the scale: The line of thought was that any new battleships would have to be integrated alongside the older battleships, so it made no sense for them to have that extra speed they would never use in a line of battle. Instead they had beefier armor, IIRC.
Well, I’m not sure I’m reading the same page you are, as it shows Bismarck a full 1 point lower overall gun rating. Also worth noting is the “total weight of broadside” number: Bismarck threw 14,112 lbs. vs Yamato’s 28,971 lbs. and Iowa’s 24,300 lbs. Admittedly Bismarck’s guns cycled in 2/3 the time…I’m not sure how to weigh that advantage.
I haven’t seen that. Is it really plausible?
Here I will differ from some posters in this thread. I don’t particularly think Bismarck’s overall performance was all that impressive. She sank a clearly-outclassed battlecruiser and chased off an unfinished battleship with teething troubles, then was crippled by a biplane and sunk by two older battleships without hurting them. Is that a fair summary of her career?
I wouldnt say so. King George V was brand new for a start, and the British were really awfully lucky with the Swordfish.
Starting a 2 to 1 fight (+ 5 destroyers and 2 heavy cruisers) at 7 knots listing to port isnt exactly your ideal combat scenario.
Edit Oh and unable to steer.
Otara
So in addition to the previous, it’s fair to say she was unlucky for her entire career as well? 
As far as the Bismarck’s faster cycling rate for her guns, maybe measure it over a period of time in addition to the “Instantaneous Weight of Broadside” or however we’d call it?
Cite please. I don’t think you are understanding armour penetration curves and the geometry of shell hits fully. The effective thickness of an armoured plate is a function of the angle of fall of the shell and the horizontal angle the shell strikes at. Simply turning the bow or stern towards the enemy increases the depth of armour that must be breached. Yamato’s 16" belt is effectively 22.6" thick if the shells are striking at an angle of 45 degrees (that is realistic, accounting for angle of fall, Yamato’s inclined belt and angle of fire). Incidently, this is why barbette and turret face armour needed to be thicker than the belt, as shells would strike them at an angle closer to the perpendicular.
Here is a detailed analysis of the loss of HMS Hood, a ship with much weaker armour than Yamato. The conclusion was that the fatal hit could only have penetrated Hood’s main belt after she commenced her final turn. Prior to that, the angle was too shallow, and shells would have glanced off. Note that the evidence matches the theory. When the wreck of the HMS Hood was discovered, the rudders were found to be set to starboard.
No, what matters is scoring damaging hits, there are numerous examples of this. Hood was destroyed by a single hit to the magazines. At jutland, 3 british battlecruisers exploded. However, another battlecruiser, HMS Tiger, received about 18 heavy shell hits without suffering any serious damage. They all hit non-critical areas or were kept out by the armour.
If armour was ineffective and larger guns were unneccessary, why do you think ship designers bothered with them? If shells couldn’t be kept out, investing in a larger number of small guns would be sensible. Instead, there was a steady progression towards larger ships with bigger guns and more armour, as each new generation made older ships obsolete, until economics and the Washington treaty intervened. Armour clearly did work, the wreck of the Bismarck has been surveyed. There are numerous dents on the belt where 14" shells simply bounced off.
The Prince of Wales scored one important hit on Bismarck, putting a shell through the unarmoured bow, causing fuel leakage and sea-water contamination. This forced Bismarck to abort the raiding cruise (the whole point of the operation was to attack merchant shipping), and to reduce speed to conserve fuel. If not for that, she may have escaped the search.
Although the technology is much older, Dahlgren shell guns developed for US monitors during the American Civil War came in diameters as large as 20 inches. Note that these guns were shorter-barreled, and used much less effective propellant, and were thus much lower in muzzle velocity and hitting power than the guns we are talking about. And they were huge for their day. But they were larger than 18.1-inch bores, if that counts. They did not see combat, but “smaller” Dahlgrens (15-inchers) were used successfully in combat, notably tearing the ironclad CSS Atlanta apart with only a few hits.
Gah, I thought KGV was a bit older than Bismark. But you’re right. Both were commissioned in 1940, it turns out, and Bismarck was “older” by about about a month.
Eh, if your proponents want to claim you will beat the pants off the Yamato, you’ll have to take on odds like this. Price of being a super-battleship and all that.
HIJMS Mutsu exploded and sank while at anchor in the Inland Sea. The cause has not been conclusively determined, but fire in or adjacent to the number three magazine remains a distinct possibility.
Other spontaneous explosions: HMS Vanguard (1917)
HIJMS Kawachi (1918)
If talking about the hit on the rudders, that’s more Murphy’s Law in action than “luck”, as the triple screw/rudder arrangement was inherently less manueverable than a 4x4 would have been, and the stern was weak structurally (and indeed it broke off after she sank).
The USS New York (and Texas) were both commisioned one year before the Queen Elizabeth classes.
The USS Wyoming was even older than that. :dubious:
That’s why I said “in action”.
And what was designed at Oak Ridge, & tested at Alamagordo, made this discussion moot.
Battleships are no more than rubber duckies in the bath, after Hiroshima.
Most famously for our American audience: USS Arizona (1941)
Somewhat less famous, USS Maine (1898), though not a battleship in the sense that we typically picture one (pre-Dreadnought style)
Not true. A BB can be used in to bombard shore targets and even engage eneny naval vessels in any conflict which is not against a nuclear power, or in a conflict in which you do not want to use nukes. True, no one would build one today, they are too expensive and outmoded for what they can still be used for.
We used BB’s as recently as 1991, some 45 years after the advent of the Atomic age. The var Iowa class BB’s proved to be of enormous use for support and bombardment long after WWII, they also escorted ships.
Noones trying to gain international credibility as a military power by building battleships any more though, its nukes first in that area.
I think thats more what was being talked about - you werent seeing any BB vs BB fights even in theory once WW2 was over.
Otara
ok, let’s clear things my way. i won’t need cites to prove my main points about armor.
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main belt and deck armor, being horizontal, are most vulnerable to hits coming at close to verical. then of course, there is range. most main belts are not likely to be breached from a distance greater than 35,000 yards, even by steep hits. of course, main and deck armor will not likely be damaged by horizontal hits at any distance. NB: battleship engagements ussually start at around 25,000 yards.
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from 0 to 25,000 yards, we start discussing armor performance. i’ll clear my overmatch principle in a simplified illustration to make it easy to visualize. you have horizontal armor plate 3 inches thick. it’s hit by a 6-inch armor-piercing shell from vertical. result is it will likely be penetrated. now supposing the 6-inch shell hits from an angle less than 45 degrees. from the shell’s point of view, the armor appears to be more than 6 inches thick. will it penetrate? not likely, it will just glance. but will the armor survive this shallow hit? NO. that’s because the kinetic energy (more correctly momentum) of the 6-inch shell will, as you can imagine, provide overmatch to the armor which is really just 3 inches thick. so it will not penetrate but will likely smash the armor and that’s almost as deadly as a penetration.
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let’s cite examples. in the mediteranean, the pre-bismarck hood engaged the french battleship dunkerque at a range too far and an angle too shallow to penetrate the thick barbettes. a glancing on hit no.2 turret bounced the 15" shell. but the turret was cracked and gauged sufficiently to kill the crew and put that turret out of action.
for the hood herself, the bismark was also shooting at an angle too shallow to penetrate even hood’s main and deck armor. but the glance, regardless of how the hood was turning or rolling in the ocean, was enough to smash the armor.
they should have studied remnants of the main and deck armors. were they penetrated, gouged, or cracked?
how about that fire in one of iowa’s turrets in 1989 (or was it 1990?) oh well she survived.
the hms warspite was certainly one of the most illustrious warship in history. but i still think the uss new mexico was a lot meaner. note to our british friends: “meaner” is not necessarily a good thing.