Comments by "Bk Jeong" (@bkjeong4302) on "RN Littorio - Guide 045 - Part 1 of 2 (Human Voice)" video.

I mean.....how many battleships built around this time actually got to do anything to justify their existence? Only twice (Second Guadalcanal and North Cape). Any then - modern battleship that wasn't Washington or Duke of York never did anything other ships couldn't have done better.
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Brett Mitchell Did you even see the argument? We are comparing ship designs. If it's not a design feature it's not a factor. So no, it is NOT irrelevant, because the poor accuracy was NOT caused by bad design, so has no bearing on design comparisons. By your logic Bismarck was a better-designed ship than Iowa (when it's the other way around) because Bismarck sank a peer opponent due to luck and Iowa never did. Also, that hit you mention was a lucky hit (pretty much all hits/near misses at that kind of range are), the engagement was inconclusive, and Giulio Cesare was also showing competent gunnery in that engagement.
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Brett Mitchell That was a shell quality issue not a design issue.
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Agreed: one of the most underrated battleship designs of WWII. The fact they proved to be pointless doesn't really detract when all of their competition had the same fate.
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The Italians used RN.
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@AdamMGTF except that from WWII onwards (and in some cases even before that) you didn't need a battleship even for deterrence. Also, most battleship engagements in WWII took place in situations where battleships were NOT the best tools for the job.
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Would add Iowa to that collection. Also an utterly useless collection of warships. I would probably use them as museum ships and fill them with explanations of why they should never have existed.
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They’re a far more capable design overall.
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Brett Mitchell That opening comment is about ship design, in case you somehow missed that. In terms of design the QEs ARE outmatched by these ships.
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@Fiddling_while_Rome_burns daylight engagement where a carrier would have been more efficient.
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Brett Mitchell The problem was that the shell quality was inconsistent, not that they were always bad; on the rare occasions where all the shells in a batch were good, Italian shell dispersion wasn't any worse than that of any other navy. Also, given the speed advantage the Italians can simply disengage without having their brains beat in if they end up with bad shells. Finally, you're STILL not getting that the original comment was about ship design.
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@CH3TN1K313 I mean that these particular ships were useless, not history in general. There are many other warships far more deserving of being turned museum ships.
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On the rare occasions the shells worked the Italians would have an advantage, not just "stand a chance". You seem to have totally missed the point of the OP. OP's point is that this class of ships is wrongly assumed to have been badly designed because of factors that weren't actually related to design.
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Nguyen Johnathan That's leaving aside German armour layout being a lot worse than everyone else...also these ships had a lot more firepower than the Germans.
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Due to inconsistent shell quality in manufacturing, nothing to do with the ship itself. So while you could say it's technically accurate, it's also quite misleading.
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Brett Mitchell So you would take the chance that the particular batch of shells the Italians have is defective?
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@qaterdargon4041 Being able to keep up with carriers (and even then, some WWII-era carriers were faster) is NOT enough the make the Iowas useful. They could keep up with carriers, but they still were unable to actually attack the enemy at the same time as carriers. Carriers launch airstrikes from hundreds of miles away while keeping out of gunnery range….meaning the Iowas attached to the carriers were always out of position to even fire a shot. They were restricted to performing supporting roles (that other ships could do more cost-effectively). The reason battleships never got that chance WAS because they were pointless and obsolete in a carrier-dominated setting, when they simply couldn’t attack the enemy because the carriers (both friendly and hostile) would start and end the fight before they got anywhere near the action. The fact battleships never got that chance SUPPORTS my point, because that was a result of their own shortcomings. As for shore bombardment, battleships were nowhere near as important for this role as often assumed: in most cases even destroyer-grade firepower was sufficient, and there were cases where destroyers proved more useful than battleships for shore bombardment even against heavily fortified positions, like Omaha Beach. White Plains was an escort carrier, not a fleet carrier (like the carriers that the Iowas were attached to), which was why Yamato was even able to get close enough to shoot at her; escort carriers were much slower than fleet and light carriers. If the carriers at Samar were fleet carriers, or even light carriers, they could simply outrun Centre Force and not even get hit.
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Monarchist Dixielander One was useless and the other was never built because she would have been useless.
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Technologically a lot better (design-wise). In terms of strategic sense, no.
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Regia Nave.
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@Johnnycdrums fire control was decent, though they only ever got search radar later in their career. Not that this matters because other weapons would have killed the enemy before they got to do anything. Also, even with proximity fuses I doubt any battleship would have survived sustained air attacks without air cover.
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@Fiddling_while_Rome_burns I know Germany didn't put a carrier in service, but I find it very questionable (in the least) that a carrier would need a battleship escort to make it to Denmark Straits. The whole point of a carrier is that it stays out of reach of enemy shellfire, and even in the North Sea, this is perfectly feasible as long as the officer in charge knows to keep CAP up.
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@ralphkerr6809 The same applies to the Iowas....
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@neutronalchemist3241 I never said anything was wrong with the guns (because there wasn't), I only talked about their shells; and if you're right then these ships are even more underrated than I thought they were.
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This is a full-on battleship....
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@6jordana Entirely because of officer’s idiocy of not sending up patrol aircraft in good weather.
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@phoenixjz4782 So Italy did the same thing as everyone else and had some never-built super-BBs planned.
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GodBAINS Yt . 6.1M views North Cape, yes, but only for the British. The Bismarck chase didn’t need to involve battleships on either side: for the Germans, because using battleships as commerce raiders is strategically and logistically idiotic, and for the British, because most of the relevant engagements (the exception being the encounter between Bismarck and the British cruisers prior to Denmark Straits) that happened during that chase took place in weather good enough for carrier operations. Richelieu and Jean Bart weren’t even complete when American battleships shelled them, meaning they were largely inconsequential; and they could easily have been dealt with via airstrikes (and in the end, Jean Bart did receive airstrikes which was what sealed the deal). So Duke of York would be the only vessel among those you listed that I would actually consider justifying herself in an engagement.
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@phoenixjz4782 actually, the American ones (or that of anyonr else) were also pointless, because the problem was that carriers increased engagement distances to the point no battleship could actually attack enemy capital ships, regardless of survivability. So the Iowas were in a position where they could fend off air attacks relatively well, but were still unable to engage enemy warships due to American carriers being far better at that role. So they got used as gigantic AA cruisers, and in that role a lot of actual AA cruisers would have been better strategically. The battleship died because it could no longer attack, not because it was vulnerable. Carriers can be sunk by aircraft or submarines too, but they are far more offensively capable than a battleship so aren't obsolete.
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@phoenixjz4782 Even IF there were enemy battleships to fight the battleship would have still died (because they weren't needed to kill each other). WWII showed that even in a situation where both sides have battleships, neither side actually got their money's worth out of them and would have been better off without them. The Japanese situation in 1945 has more to do with lack of trained pilots than anything else. American air defence was the best of the war, but it was far from impenetrable, and even as late as the Battle of Okinawa CAP was about twice as effective as anti-aircraft fire in defending against air attack. Not a good argument for battleships having a place in the fleet, then; Japanese battleships can't attack anyways because of carriers (and the Japanese knew this, Ten-Go was never expected to succeed), while the American battleships aren't cost-effective enough to have a place in the fleet. The bottom line is that while naval airpower may face a challenge dealing with an enemy force at long range, a battleship flat-out can't attack the enemy force at long range, so you are still better off with carriers.
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@phoenixjz4782 One really has to wonder why that perception even existed postwar despite WWII...even if there were still doubts about airpower and submarines, the awful performance of both Allied and Axis battleships in the war should have convinced them to find another solution.
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Brett Mitchell No, but doesn't change the fact that there was nothing about the design that led to troubles with accuracy.
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@ralphkerr6809 The reason the Essexes were better investments is BECAUSE the Montanas would have been useless. The same also applies to the Iowas, but they failed to get this for some reason.
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If battleships do get adde they should be shown in WWII-ERA maps as the liabilities they really were at that point.
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@Ushio01 IMO everyone went overboard the moment they decided to build battleships after they were obsolete.
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Thwre is an entire book on this class written by Italians that's considered the defining work for these ships.
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None of the Axis had DP secondaries; the secondaries and AA guns were separated. This was not a good idea due to carriers rendering anti-ship secondaries obsolete, but then again, carriers rendered the entire battleship concept obsolete so even the Allied BBs with DP secondaries weren't worth their cost.
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@seeleagent Except that in the case of battleships they were outright obsolete in their intended role even if you wanted to use them (since carriers did it better), while we have nothing that makes nukes obsolete.
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Yet another pointless battleship class....
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@anceldesingano8687 Which would actually be a far better investment for any nation in WWII than a battleship.
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@battleshipfan3435 Even at the start of the war, where aircraft were much less capable, carriers STILL had an insurmountable advantage over battleships: they could maintain distance and launch aircraft without having to worry about being fired upon.
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