Comments by "Bk Jeong" (@bkjeong4302) on "Aircraft Carriers - The Fleet Aircraft Carrier in the Interwar Years (1929-1939)" video.
-
93
-
19
-
19
-
15
-
15
-
12
-
10
-
8
-
8
-
8
-
5
-
5
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
4
-
3
-
3
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
@alanstevens1296 That AA could have been fitted on subcapital units at much less expense for a similar level of AA protection for the carriers. Building two Atlantas gets you similar levels of AA capability as an Iowa, while also being much less costly. Especially seeing as late-war American AA doctrine favoured a larger number of smaller vessels (to create a layered air defence and to act as pickets).
Opportunities to detach the Iowas from the carriers for surface action rarely happened, especially considering that unless it was night/bad weather it would be just faster to send another airstrike. The only time the Iowas ever got to fire at enemy vessels was at Truk; said vessels could easily have been sunk by carriers (Spruance had to intentionally spare them just so the Iowas could get involved), were nowhere near threatening enough to justify bringing in any battleship (two damaged destroyers and a damaged training ship), and the whole thing actually REDUCED Japanese losses because one destroyer escaped, when had Spruance just let the carriers make another airstrike she'd have been sunk as well.
The Iowas did see some use in shore bombardment in WWII, but subcapital units and Standards did far more of it and the Iowas were completely unnecessary for that purpose. I find it questionable that a Standard bombarding Japan wouldn't be as demoralizing as an Iowa bombarding Japan (not to mention enemy morale is a nebulous and uncertain factor in judging the value of a weapon).
Washington was an exception to the rule, the only American fast battleship to actually face a peer opponent in a situation carriers couldn't have done the job. She was lucky she got that chance (though the fact she won once the fight began is less surprising, given that she was shooting an older, less capable opponent at point-blank range).
In the ideal scenario, Task Force 34 wouldn't even be necessary, because ideally Halsey wouldn't fall for the Japanese bait and the fast carriers would be there to strike Centre Force again without a surface engagement. Task Force 34 only makes sense if Halsey is stupid enough to fall for the bait but not stupid enough to leave San Beradino Strait unguarded.
And while the Iowas did start construction before PH, they only entered service well after that point, when putting new battleships into service was no longer justified. Someone should have considered leaving them unfinished and building much more useful vessels instead.
2
-
2
-
2
-
@michaelpiatkowskijr1045 A lot of misconceptions there.
- the Iowas were NOT built as carrier escorts. They only got used as such because they ended up being obsolete upon launch. And they weren't strategically that good in there carrier escort role either, their big guns being utterly pointless (because the carriers the Iowas were attached to would never come within shooting distance of the enemy) and the AA guns being something you could put on much more cost-effective warships (Two CLAAs = one Iowa in terms of AA defence, and at less expense).
- It was Kirishima that was sunk by Washington while shooting at South Dakota (Hiei had been sunk by that point). In addition, there were only three battles in all of WWII where using a battleship was actually justified (because those were the only three battles that happened at night, where carriers weren't an option, and involved sinking enemy battleships, since a battleship is overkill for anything else).
- Carriers (other than escort carriers, which are much slower and thus can't maintain distance) do NOT need battleship escorts, because carriers can just stay away from enemy battleships using their superior mobility, detection radius and range. A fleet carrier is going to find a battleship before the battleship finds the carrier, and then kite it endlessly. Any battleship operating alongside a fleet carrier is never going to get into a fight with enemy battleships. Which is why the Iowas have dismal combat records.
- Samar only happened the way it did because CVEs are a lot slower than normal carriers. Fleet carriers could have just maintained distance and not get caught or take a single hit. Thus Samar is NOT a good example of a fast battleship being a useful carrier escort, since the only carriers slow enough for enemy battleships to catch are too slow to need fast escorts anyways.
- It was actually air attacks from the CVEs that did the most physical damage to Centre Force (no, it isn't true that they didn't;t have anti-ship weapons). And they could do far more than harass the Japanese-there were actually three Taffy groups involved, and together they represented about as much airpower as the airpower involved in the entire Battle of Midway. They're the ones that killed a good chunk of the Japanese cruisers involved.
2
-
1
-
@RedXlV Actually the 16"/50 had similar penetration as the 18.1", though you're correct that the 18.1" will do more damage thanks to the greater bursting charge.
Montana's faster than Yamato by only a knot, not a major speed advantage there. I do think Montana wins, but that has a lot more to do with having more guns.
As for the H-41 matchup: agreed that the German ship gets torn apart by either the American or Japanese ship, but not as to the range at which this happens. At 30,000+ yards even American fire control couldn't hit reliably (as tests done in the 1940s with Iowa showed), and I doubt the Japanese can either (yes I know Yamato had that near miss at a greater distance, but that's probably a one-off). So the engagement will happen at 25,000 yards or less....except that H-41 is still outgunned and outarmoured by Montana or Yamato (turtleback armour is actually worse even at closer ranges, as it's generally not as thick as AoN armour and doesn't protect vital electrical cables), so it still loses.
1
-
1
-
1
-
@alanstevens1296
They were NOT as useful for shore bombardment as you make out to be. Aside from the fact building a battleship just to do secondary roles is strategically unsound, there are plenty of case studies that reveal cruiser-grade or even destroyer-grade firepower was usually more than enough for shore bombardment, even against fortified enemy positions. Ask the Italians and Germans at Sicily, the Germans at Omaha Beach or the North Koreans during the Incheon Landings, because those were cases where battleships either weren't present, or (for Omaha Beach) they were but the destroyers ended up actually doing meaningful damage.
And even in the rare cases battleships were needed for shore bombardment, why build the Iowas when the US already has more than enough old battleships for the job?
And when missiles came along, those missiles could just be put on DDGs for the same effect.
The bottom line is that while the Iowas did do things, every one of those things could have been accomplished without an Iowa. They never were all that useful, and had people known how they'd be used when they were laid down, they would have cancelled the entire class because that's not why the ships were designed and ordered or things that justify new battleship construction.
1
-
1
-
1
-
@alanstevens1296 Yes those classes also deserve similar criticism in terms of actual usefulness (as do other battleship classes built in other nations at around this point in time, both WAllied and Axis). Washington might get a pass due to Second Guadalcanal, though she was lucky the Japanese gave her that chance to do her job.
The main reason behind the American fast battleships wasn't to keep up with carriers. It was to chase down enemy fast big-gun capital ships that the Standards were too slow to catch. The Iowas in particular were designed with this in mind, designed to run down stuff like the 29+kt Kongos (which were weaker but also faster than the NorCals and SoDaks, let alone the Standards).
Furthermore, the whole idea of "battleships that can operate alongside carriers" only looks at speed, and ignores one huge issue: different ranges between their armaments. Having a battleship that can keep up with fleet carriers doesn't make battleships and carrier operations somehow compatible. The very nature of carrier operations (which requires keeping a distance of over a hundred miles or more from the enemy and launching air attacks when possible) is incompatible with battleship operations (which require you to get much closer-30,000 yards in theory, but based on live-fire tests done in 1944 20,000 to 25,000 yards is needed to score hits reliably). So how is a battleship that sails attached to a fleet carrier force supposed to use its main guns?
Even if people didn't realize that carriers were better capital ships than battleships in 1940, they should have (and maybe did) at least understood that carrier operations by their very nature are incompatible with battleship operations, regardless of the speed of the vessels involved. Any battleship attached to a carrier would never get to open up on enemy vessels, defeating the whole point of the battleship.
Then the reality of WWII, of battleships no longer being viable in their intended role except in poor visibility (and too expensive to be strategically justifiable for anything else), struck. And yes, some vessels were already through sea trials by this point. But they should at least have considered not commissioning these ships when it was looking increasingly likely they wouldn't do anything other types of warships could do better or more cost-effectively. We're talking about mid-late 1942 here, a point in time after Force Z happened, after carrier battles had become a thing, when it was increasingly clear that big guns just didn't have the necessary range to compete with squadrons of naval aircraft. You don't have to complete and commission a ship that you're almost certainly not going to need (and is going to take up a lot of resources and manpower to operate).
As for putting the Iowas into service in case the NCs and SDs were lost, why do you need the Iowas to replace the NCs and SDs when the carriers and subcapitals are doing the work anyways and you know it?
1
-
@alanstevens1296
Again, your arguments that “we thought the war would go on for longer” and “everyone else was building battleships” really aren’t valid.
Even if the war lasted another two years, it would still be that battleships would only continue to be used in secondary roles that failed to justify the massive investment involved in their construction and operation. It would actually make more sense to invest even more into carriers and subcapital units and stop working on battleships if you thought the war would extend into 1946 or 1947. By 1944, it was blatantly obvious that battleships were obsolete and the odds of another gunfight happening were minuscule. This was no longer something that couldn’t be predicted.
And yes, everyone else was also building battleships, and they were also all making the same mistake. The WAllies should really have let the Axis weaken themselves by wasting resources on battleships, while focusing on much more useful naval units (and many narratives actually claim they did this). That would have given them even more of an advantage in WWII than what they historically had. Instead the WAllies made the same mistake as the Axis and also wasted resources on battleships. The Allies still won, but they could have won more easily had they not repeated their enemy’s mistake.
The US did have lots of carriers already, but they could easily have had more (and have the extra manpower to operate them) by skipping the battleships.
As for the argument that battleships still saw use in secondary roles in WWII, I already explained why they fail to justify new battleship construction (because they could have been done just as effectively by subcapital units or the Standards, without having to invest money building a new battleship just to use it as a pointlessly large destroyer or CLAA). And I also already explained that providing surface protection (at any time) to fast carrier task forces was pointless, since a fast carrier task force was never going to be anywhere near the range of enemy surface units. Even if it’s night and the carriers cannot launch aircraft, that doesn’t mean they’re vulnerable to attack. Unless they somehow got close to the enemy surface units before nightfall (which would require serious human incompetence to happen), the fast carrier task force still has a major head start (a couple hundred miles or so) on the enemy surface force and is a moving target; at that range it’s going to be hard for enemy surface ships to even locate the fast carrier task force or predict its movement.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
@alanstevens1296 What’s this obsession people have with the long careers of the Iowas? Even leaving aside that they never achieved anything other ships couldn’t have handled better, most of their postwar career was spent in reserve, specifically because they weren’t that useful. They were a classic case of “we’re now stuck with this thing so may well keep it in storage and try to get some mileage out of it”. Their longevity is NOT a testament to their value.
The Midways never saw major engagements, but if one had occurred they were basically guaranteed to play a critical role. This doesn’t apply for the Iowas, which entered service after that opportunity has passed. It doesn’t help them that they were built for calmer sea conditions and had chronic seakeeping problems in foul weather, meaning they were ill-suited for fighting in the winter nights of the Arctic/North Atlantic, where the conditions rendered carriers less viable and gave other battleships the edge (indeed, the only battleship vs battleship match that couldn’t have been decided by airpower in the European theatre of WWII took place under exactly this condition-North Cape, 1943).
As for a hypothetical Samar with TF34, I would probably be lamenting that I don’t have a squadron of fleet carriers to handle Centre Force with impunity, rather than be glad I have my own fast battleships for a gunfight. Yes, having TF34 at Samar would have been good. But if the steel used for the battleships of TF34 had been instead used for building more carriers, and had those carriers been part of TF34 instead, it would be MUCH better.
1
-
@alanstevens1296
A battleship’s intended role is to gain sea control by engaging other capital ships (or, if there isn’t a major war going on, be able to do such if and when a war erupts). So yes, that is indeed why I think of the Iowas (and most WWII-era battleships in general, from both sides) as massive strategic failures. A weapon that was designed and built to do one thing, but is not able to and ends up forced into roles where other weapons are strategically more justifiable, is a bad weapon.
I question the idea that people couldn’t have foreseen the lack of battleship engagements in 1942 or 1943. We’re no longer talking about 1940 here. We’re talking about after the new paradigm of long-range carrier strikes has been demonstrated.
Samar was fought during the day, in weather good enough to allow for air operations. The idea you needed battleships at Samar because fleet carriers wouldn’t be able to fight there is.....no just no.
The Iowas were NOT theoretically able to fight in the Atlantic “nearly any day of the year”, not when their seakeeping wasn’t well-suited for rougher Atlantic conditions. They really needed better seakeeping if they wanted to operate in the Arctic and North Atlantic against German capital ships (which were themselves a stupid idea for Germany, and also should never have been built).
The Iowas being kept in commission postwar is, again, not really a good indicator of their usefulness. This is like saying swords were useful and not obsolete by WWII because some people used swords in WWII as weapons.
The missiles the Iowas used during the Gulf War could easily have been fired by DDGs rather than being placed onto the Iowas with a costly refit. The Iowas really aren’t the most sensible counters for Kirovs either, short of removing the entire main battery (which is useless against a carrier or a missile cruiser) for even more missiles. (A supercarrier would also make for a better counter against a Kirov than an Iowa would)
1
-
@alanstevens1296 The argument that fast battleships were needed to defend carriers against enemy battleships was a common but ultimate flawed idea.
The issue is that while carriers couldn’t attack battleships in poor visibility, this does NOT equate to carriers actually being vulnerable to battleships in poor visibility and thus needing their own battleship escorts.
In order to actually pose a realistic threat to a fast carrier force via attacking it during poor visibility, the enemy battleship would already have to be unrealistically close to the carrier before poor visibility set in. Otherwise the carrier would still have a head start of hundreds of miles away from the enemy battleship, and it would have to find AND catch up to the carrier (which is going to be much harder than it sounds, especially considering that poor visibility will cause problems for scouting floatplanes as well and that WWII surface-search/surface targeting radar wasn’t able to scan stuff for hundreds of miles). And it has to do it without alerting any of the carrier’s cruiser and destroyer AA/ASW escorts (because if they picked up on the enemy battleship, they could alert the carrier and it could just run). That’s a pretty tall order, and the window of poor visibility for getting the drop on a carrier is relatively small in most parts of the world.
The issue with the ideas of carriers being ambushed by battleships at close range is that unless we’re talking about major human incompetence (i.e. loss of Glorious), or CVEs that a battleship can simply outrun, there is no reason for the carrier to be at such close range to a battleship in the first place, regardless of whether it could launch air operations at the time.
So no, this really wasn’t a mutual relationship. The carrier didn’t need the battleship to defend against surface attack, even in low-visibility conditions where it couldn’t launch its own aircraft.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1