Comments by "Bk Jeong" (@bkjeong4302) on "World's Worst Warships - Book Review with Drach (Part 1 of 2)" video.
-
13
-
9
-
7
-
6
-
6
-
6
-
5
-
5
-
4
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
3
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
Green Flag Racing
Fair point about the problems with trying to match specific ships. But it really is a myth that Germany always intended the Bismarcks as commerce raiders; remember that prior to the Fall of France the Nazi leadership was very concerned about whether they’d be able to challenge France and win. Only after France actually fell without a naval engagement did the Kriegsmarine seriously consider using battleships (as opposed to panzerschiffen or armed merchant cruisers) as raiders. This is actually pointed out in the Bismarck-class video on this channel.
Also, I already agreed that using surface ships as commerce raiders is stupid. You don’t need to keep yelling at me about that.
As for the effectiveness of Allied battleships:
Battleships were NOT necessary as fire-support or anti-aircraft vessels. The reason American and British battleships ended up in these roles isn’t due to them being able to do these roles better than other ships, but the same reason the German capital ships were forced into the commerce raider role; their original purpose became pointless, so they were repurposed for a role in which they were inefficient.
You don’t need a battleship’s main battery for AA, and if you don’t need the main battery, you can skip the giant hull and stick the DP and AA guns on a larger number of smaller hulls, which can be made in much larger numbers, provide more flexibility, and importantly for AA purposes, it allows for an extensive layered defence that proved more effective for stopping airstrikes. Drachinifel has actually covered this in one of the Drydock episodes, where he points out that if you’re going to build an anti-aircraft battleship you could just make two light cruisers for the same amount of money and get a better return on your investment.
Similarly, although battleships saw a lot of use as fire support vessels, they didn’t really shine in this role compared to smaller, cheaper surface ships. It’s striking to note just how important destroyers were during some of the most notable amphibious operations of the war. During the Sicily landings it was cruisers and destroyers that provided vital fire support by halting the advance of two tank columns. At Salerno multiple Royal Navy destroyers were crucial in taking out Axis artillery positions. At Tarawa, two US destroyers provided cover for marines by bombarding Japanese positions form the lagoon side of the island. And at Omaha Beach destroyers did almost all the work disabling German positions with direct fire. In all, the conclusion seems to be that if you want to provide fire support and take down enemy land positions, you can afford to skip the battleships, and instead use that money to build a squadron of gun-heavy destroyers.
As for surface engagements; in all but three of the battleship surface engagements during the war, a carrier would have done better than a battleship in dishing out damage while remaining safe itself. The three exceptions are Second Guadalcanal, North Cape and Surigao Strait. Surigao was between WWI-era battleships, which I haven’t even mentioned because they were built long before battleships became obsolete. North Cape was caused by the Germans using a battleship as a commerce raider, which both of us agree was stupid, and thus relied entirely on one side holding the idiot ball for the engagement to even happen. And night surface engagements between capital ships were just too few and far between to justify the expense of battleships.
And the idea of using fast battleships to defend carrier forces against might attack? A carrier force shouldn’t ever BE aim a position to be attacked by surface units at night to start with, but instead maintain distance from any potential enemy force at all times. That role was unnecessary.
The bottom line is that even if WWII-era battleships were used to provide AA or shore bombardment, they were still a strategic drain. Why? Because that AA or shore bombardment could have been carried out more cost-effectively if the resources spent on those battleships had been used to build more light cruisers or destroyers. So it is still fair to say literally every single WWII-era battleship was unable to justify her costs in practice. If you end up using your battleship as a gigantic destroyer, which is what happened to the Allied battleships, you’ve wasted a lot of money.
And I’m not saying this because I think the Bismarcks were particularly well-designed (certainly their incremental armour and bad turret protection count as major points against them in terms of design capabilities). I am saying this because making battleships from 1930s onwards was strategically stupid, regardless of nationality.
1
-
Green Flag Racing
You seem to be completely missing my point here.
My point isn’t that the Bismarcks were particularly useful or well-designed, or that they made sense as raiders. My point is that they ended up being forced into the raiding role they weren’t intended for (your source on this topic is rather dated) and more importantly, that WWII-era battleships in general were bad strategic choices.
Yes, battleships make impractical raiders. But how many things were battleships ever practical at during WWII? Absolutely nothing! Why? Because raiding was not the only role that other ships could do better than battleships. That applies for literally every single role a BB was physically capable of participating in. I already pointed out that much smaller, cheaper surface warships could and did carry out effective shore bombardment and air defence, at a fraction of a cost. The bottom line is that you could only force battleships into roles that would better be filled by other warships, whether t be raiding, shore bombardment or AA. In other words, making any battleship for any purpose in WWII was a stupid move.
Should the Bismarcks have been broken up and replaced with more U-Boats instead of trying to force them to do things they were impractical for (raiding in their case)? Arguably yes, given that U-Boats were better raiders. But by that logic I could make the argument that the KGVs or the Yamatos should have been broken up to build more aircraft carriers which would have been far more useful at countering enemy capital ships. Or that the Iowas should have been broken up to free up steel and men for more light cruisers and Fletcher-class destroyers, which would have been more cost-effective at air defence and shore bombardment.
Re: fuel shortages, literally nobody here is arguing that fuel shortages didn’t cripple the Kriegsmarine surface fleet. You didn’t need to bring that up and pretend we didn’t take that into account.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
ashesofempires04
The Iowas and Alaskas weren’t close to completion when the USN started looking at carriers seriously (Iowa was only commissioned in 1943). There was plenty of time to cancel them. So you can’t just go “hindsight bias” for these two classes. And even if hindsight bias really was applicable, that doesn’t change the fact these two ships really weren’t needed for the roles they ended up in.
I never said surface ships in general were useless in WWII, only battleships or specialized large cruisers/battlecruisers. The Solomons campaign contained plenty of surface actions, but only two of them involved battleships (and one of them saw a battleship be mission-killed by cruisers and destroyers). Most of the work on both sides was done with cruisers and destroyers. So the naval battles around Guadalcanal in no way prove that battleships had a place; what they do prove is that smaller surface units operating at night could attrite the enemy.
If the Japanese used their battleships more aggressively, it would still not make the Iowas more useful; the Yorktowns and Essexes would (and eventually did) have done a far better job at sinking the Japanese vessels. Carriers are just plain better offensive capabilities-wise as their reach and accuracy far outclasses any battleship. If you were trying to counter Japanese battleships in 1942 (which was when America shifted towards carriers as the arbiter of naval power), you should go with more fleet carriers, not battleships of your own.
I honestly don’t understand your last point. What battleships ended up doing in WWII were mostly things that could, and should, have been done better with other, cheaper or more effective warships. AA and shore bombardment were things that destroyers and light cruisers did quite well in WWII; using a BB to do these tasks is using that BB as a giant destroyer or light cruiser, which is definitely a waste of resources. Using a battleship to sink destroyers in a fjord when a cruiser could accomplish the same task at less cost is also a waste of resources. As for Bismarck’s final battle, it was Ark Royal that really stopped her getting back to France, and it would honestly have been far more effective to launch further airstrikes from said carrier to send her down. Massachusetts engaged an incomplete, immobile enemy battleship that could just have been bypassed or bombed to submission (and eventually was bombed, successfully and more effectively)
There were really only three battles in WWII that demanded the use of a battleship: Second Guadalcanal, North Cape and Surigao Strait. Surigao involved much older, pre-existing battleships, and thus isn’t relevant in this discussion as we’re talking about whether it was a good idea to build battleships in the leadup to WWII. And two battles honestly don’t justify the buildup of a large battleship fleet in the 1930s. Not to mention that all three BB night engagements took place when the outcome of the war was basically inevitable due to superior Allied economy and logistics.
1
-
ashesofempires04
The fact that perceived need for a big surface combatant existed in 1942-1943 is a problem in itself. Agree to disagree on this, but if you still think battleships are necessary after seeing aircraft disable (Cape Matapan, Bismarck’s demise) and even outright sink capital units (PoW), there’s a problem.
By the time of the Solomons campaign (in fact, arguably from PH onwards) the strategic edge always went to the US. Sure, the IJN could have gained dominance off Guadalcanal and shut down Henderson Field, stopping the Allied offensive. They’re still facing an enemy that can outbuild them and have enough money to afford developing new weapons technology, including superweapons. At some point the IJN was going to get demolished from weight of numbers alone (and that’s disregarding the fact late-war American designs were far better than early-war designs). The question was when, not if.
In theory, firepower and range should allow battleships to have a tactical edge at shore bombardment, but in practice there were many cases where the much smaller guns of destroyers proved critical at fire support. And even if you did need battleships for shore bombardment, why not just use the standards or even the two previous fast battleship classes instead of building any new BBs? It’s not like islands move.
By 1942 the first Fletchers were being commissioned, and I don’t think we need to specify their AA capabilities plus the fact they were produced in very large numbers. By the time any of the Iowas were ready to be deployed the lack of smaller units with heavy AA was becoming increasingly less of an issue.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
kevin hasch
For the KGVs I would actually argue that, while they are definitely good designs in terms of capabilities, they were one of the battleship classes built right when battleships were becoming obsolete, so were strategically a bad idea. Aside from the Battle of North Cape they didn’t accomplish anything that required their existence (Bismarck’s sinking should really have been done with more airstrikes)
But that applies to all of their contemporary battleship classes (and most of them had it even worse than the KGVs), so.....probably a better idea to just put every single battleship built during the 30s and 40s on the list. The Axis ones are already in this book, and I know that Yamato at least was included mostly due to being a strategic failure, but if we’re being objective we have to include every single WWII-era battleship, even Allied ones, as none of them ever came close to justifying their expense, making every last one a strategic failure.
Then again, this all hinges on whether you consider a ship bad due to being badly designed, or whether you consider a ship bad due to being pointless.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
Let’s break down the "design flaws" to see how many of them hold up....
Armour quality: it is true that Japanese armour quality was a lot lower than others, especially the British. But in naval design armour layout matters far more than steel quality. A warship with well-designed armour made of low-quality steel will survive enemy fire better than one with badly designed armour made of high-quality steel (cough Bismarck cough). Yes, the weakened armour quality does lower the ship’s protection to below on-paper stats....but even after that this is still quite a well-protected ship. And while we’re talking about armour, American armour steel quality was significantly lower than that of British or German armour, though not to the same level as the Japanese.
“Slow” speed of 27 knots: while a 30+ knot warship would have been more useful, there are plenty of BBs that aren’t considered bad in WWII that couldn’t make that speed. If a 27kt top speed is such a problem, you also have to argue that the SoDaks and North Carolinas were bad at their intended role as they had the same top speed.
Lack of FC radar: this really was a genuine problem, as it greatly hampers the ship’s ability to operate in low visibility.
Overly complex, inefficient fire control computer: again, this actually was a problem, though probably not as big a problem as the lack of a FC radar. However, it is NOT true that Yamato didn't have mechanical fire control at all, as some sources like Combined Fleet appear to claim.
Turret rotation: I’ve not seen any sources indicating turret rotation on Yamato was particularly slow. Links?
Slower rate of fire: if you look at how the few post-Dreadnought battleship engagements played out, you’ll find that in most cases the interval between salvoes is over a minute, in order to attain visual/radar confirmation of where the shots landed. So this isn’t really a problem in practice. Also, 45 seconds between shots isn’t really that bad.
Excessive fuel usage: this needs to be seen in the context of Japan always being short of oil. Some place like the US would be able to afford to field Yamato (if there were no carriers, that is)
Relative short cruising range: the original IJN plan called for a big fleet engagement in the western Pacific, until Yamamoto decided to go for an offensive war against the USN for no reason. If you’re not going to be fighting on the other side of the ocean, there’s no need to have a very long cruising range.
Bad AA (especially terrible low-caliber AA): a genuine problem. A lack of medium-caliber AA, and the 25mm being a bad AA weapon, really didn’t help the ships.
In short-the ship does have several significant problems that limits her usefulness, but is far from a complete design failure. She could still have been of good use if not for carriers rendering the entire battleship concept pointless and obsolete.
1
-
The main problem with Yamato was that she was pointless due to the rise of naval aviation. But that actually applies to WWII-era battleships in general.
Remember that the reason battleships even existed was sea control. By the Late 1930s carriers and naval aircraft had gotten to the point where they could carry this role out better than battleships; the carrier’s range advantage not only allows the carrier to directly attack battleships without being attacked itself, it also means the carrier exercises control over a far larger area.
The problem for battleships is that due to their costs, once they’re stripped of their sea-control role they are cost-ineffective at everything else. Whatever they could do, other, cheaper warships could do more cost-effectively. Yes, you can put a ton of AA on a battleship and use it for fleet air defence....but for the same amount of money you could build multiple light cruisers or destroyers and put the same AA guns on them, providing the same amount of AA coverage alongside greater tactical/operational flexibility and better coverage. Yes you can use a BB as a convoy raider....but submarines make far more effective merchant raiders (yes, I am aware of the extreme attrition rate for U-Boats or subs in general, but they still caused more damage than every battleship ever combined). Yes, you can use battleships for shore bombardment, but WWII has plenty of cases that prove destroyers were more than capable of providing vital fire support during amphibious operations (Sicily, Salerno, Omaha Beach, Tarawa, etc.), and at a much lower cost. In short, once naval aviation displaced battleships from their primary role it became impossible to use battleships in a cost-effective manner.
So, while I would consider Yamato a terrible investment, I would also consider every other battleship designed at around the same time or later to be terrible investments, since the money spent on them would have been better spend on other, more relevant warships.
TLDR: if we are going to call Japan out for making a battleship when battleships had become pointless, we need to do that to everyone else to be objective.
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1
-
1