We all know that battleships were generally shit in WW2, but

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Battleships weren't shit, Carriers were just OP and needed a nerf

>>32097751

This. We went from Wright bros to moon landing in a handful of decades.

Battleship design never got the funding it needed to stay modern

>>32097839
Not to mention the US just re-purposed the Iowas. They were in and out of service up to 1992. 16-inch guns shooting a shell that weighed as much as a 90's civic comes in handy sometimes.

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>>32097735
>but what about heavy cruisers

It's a problematic question because heavy cruisers were defined by treaties as cruisers carrying 8" guns, and more hamstrung by these treaties than battleships were. Interwar designs adhering to the Washington and London Naval Treaties like the New Orleans were both lightly armored, and lightly armed in terms of AA- generally they were real compromises.

Comparatively, wartime designs were better thought out and with the lifting of treaty restrictions, greater tonnage meant that they could fit better AA, armor, sail further etc.

The real question is whether the added expense of an 8" gun armed ship is really worth it over potentially more 6" gun armed ships ("light" cruisers). "Heavy" light cruisers such as the Clevelands, which had greater displacement than prewar heavy cruisers were very effective. The British ended up focusing entirely on light cruiser production, however postwar American experience shows that Clevelands were almost as expensive to operate as Baltimores anyways.

Either way, cruisers as a concept were more successful than battleships because they provided cost-effective escort for carriers, while still bringing substantial shore bombardment.

>>32098246

First, I congratulate you on an interesting and informative post.

Next, I once saw it claimed that 8" guns in WW2 were only marginally more effective than 6" guns of the same era. Any truth to that?

>>32097735
>heavy cruisers
All the disadvantages of battleships without their advantages. 2 cruisers cost as much as a battleship but could not dominate a surface battle or bring as much fire power. Only reason heavy cruisers were built was because nations were forbidden to build more battleships.

>>32098246
>a well thought out post on /k/

Either we have actual discussion for once or you posted in the wrong place entirely

>>32098469
>All the disadvantages of battleships without their advantages
Except that two cruisers could be in two places at once. And since battleships no longer dominated surface battle it was more important to keep the carrier safe from enemy aircraft and submarines than to defeat surface combatants.

>>32098246

Alaska had 12" guns.

Did aircraft carriers gain superiorly over battleships because of treaties???

Treaties limited the fuck out of BBs but CVs didn't get hit hard by treaties at all.

Holy shit.

Treaties killed the battleship, not obsolescence.

>>32098989
>Did aircraft carriers gain superiorly over battleships because of treaties???
It accelerated the carrier development, but the long-term effect would be the same. The carrier simply has a longer-ranged and more versatile main weapon than the battleship.

The development of modern AShMs is challenging the supremacy of the aircraft carrier in the same way today; I hope our own navy will finally come around to see that the carrier is no longer the exclusive ruler of surface combat and diversify accordingly.

>>32099037

Battleships have a bigger advantage over AShMs than carriers.

More space for CIWS and anti missile battery's, ARMOR, etc.

Being a hard target means the AShMs the enemy uses have to be large as fuck, which means they have to carry less of them, and they are bigger targets for the defences.

Battleships have a few good advantages.

>>32099097
>More space for CIWS
Which kill the target at such close range the incoming missile will still hit the ship.
>and anti missile battery's
Can't; the big guns' blast shakes their guidance systems to pieces.
>ARMOR, etc.
So your ship can keep floating long enough to be struck with more missiles. Air-defense systems, gun fire control systems, radar etc. are all unarmored.

>Being a hard target means the AShMs the enemy uses have to be large as fuck
Nowhere near the size of a battleship's guns or an actual aircraft.
>which means they have to carry less of them, and they are bigger targets for the defences.
But these can be distributed to more vessels than a battleship's guns or a multi-role naval combat aircraft

>>32099249

>oh noes pieces of a destroyed missile might hit MUH ship
>nobody bothered conceiving a way to armor radar or cover it when it's in danger so it must be impossible
>an Iowa class could throw more weight in an hour than 50 B1 bombers but a single aircraft is superior to it in every way

Yea I think your argument is done.

Its just obvious aeronautics got all the funding. Artillery and armor hasn't changed in a hundred years but aircraft today are unrecognizable and orders of magnitude better than their early counterparts.

Well, anyway, the era of great navies is over. We can't have big ships and Jew billionaires at the same time.

>>32099249
Dude,

Iowas were in service in the 90s- they had CIWS, tomahawks, harpoons, 5 inchers and the 16 inchers. They were stupid capable

700mi range with tomahawks
70mi range for harpoons
20-30mi range for 16 inchers
2-3mi range for CIWS
Speed matching current DDGs

ASMs of a size that will evade CIWS will do nearly nothing to it. Its just too expensive to maintain a 60 year old ship, and since our navy focuses on distribution and projection of power, our tactics just decide having 5 DDGs is more useful than one BB.

If we were to ever scale back and homeport more in the states, a couple BBGs would be very useful. Nearly untouchable when in a strict defensive stance.

>>32098964
Alaska was a Large Cruiser, not a Heavy Cruiser. It was pretty much designed to be a small BB for bullying post-treaty cruisers, which is why it got the 12-inchers and the armor. They were meant to go toe-to-toe with the Deutschlands and kick their asses.

>>32099037
What do you think the Burkeswarm is for?

>>32099569
>armoring radar
AHAHAHAHAHA oh wait you're serious
The big issue with that is most things tend to reflect radar, which is why ships show up on radar. Stuff that's radar-transparent tends to be not very sturdy, so unless you consider fiberglass to be armor you can't exactly protect it.
>cover it when it's in danger
You kinda need it active when the missiles are coming in to target your counter-missile missiles. And covering radar with BB armor would be a pain in the ass, because you're gonna need to move sheets of multiple-inch-thick steel plate rapidly from a standstill in a handful of seconds between "missiles away" to "getting hit".
>an Iowa class could throw more weight in an hour than 50 B1 bombers but a single aircraft is superior to it in every way
>what is range
>what is accuracy
>what is deployability
wew lad

>>32099684
>We can't have big ships
[CARRIER NOISES]

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>>32099037
> I hope our own navy will finally come around to see that the carrier is no longer the exclusive ruler of surface combat and diversify accordingly.

Well, we got the development part of it right.

>>32098246
>>32098391
>>32098474

Well, problem is that he is wrong. There were Treaty Cruisers that were hamstrung by their low displacement ceiling, but the New Orleans class was not one of them.

New Orleans was the penultimate in a long line of US heavy cruisers. The first two classes, Northampton and Pensacola, were lightly armored in order to fit under the displacement limit. This was improved in the Portland class, which had heavier armor over limited parts of the hull, and upgraded again in the New Orleans class. Expensive development of high pressure and high efficiency turbines allowed the designed to make the engine section more compact, shortening the ship, reducing the length of the armored citadel, which freed up more weight for armor.

Pound for pound, the New Orleans class were some of the best protected cruisers in WW2, matched only by the Italian Zara class (which got by with very small fuel tanks, since they were not expected to leave the Mediterranean), and the unique Wichita class.

The New Orleans class are every bit the match for their IJN "treaty" cruiser counterparts that often ballooned to 15,000 tons. They also proved to be very tough ships, able to soak up tons of punishment and limp back to port.

>>32099894
>covering radar with BB armor would be a pain in the ass

Considering that aircraft carriers can rapidly move much larger and more delicate assemblies from a standstill in a matter of seconds, I don't think moving plates of armor are going to challenge anyone who wants to build such a thing.

>You kinda need it active when the missiles are coming in to target your counter-missile missiles
Not necessarily though. You might use targeting data from other platforms to direct your defensive weapons. That's what US doctrine is moving toward in many ways - whether a radar is not emitting because its trying to avoid detection or because its covered in armor doesn't really make a difference.


You're quite right that when it comes to missile based navies the cost and deployability benefits of multiple small ships alone makes them a superior choice to large heavily armored ships. But an effective modern battleship is hardly impossible because of technical limitations, there's just no navy that could both use and afford one.

>>32100340
If you're being targeted by missiles you're going to want your ship doing the targeting. What if the ship data linking to you gets hit mid-swarm?

As for your quip about the 50 B1s. Those B-1s could engage dozens of targets with e very high probability of a kill. A battleship might miss.

>>32100429

A battleships guns are more accurate than you are with yours. And that's with analogue aiming.
I asked an anon to do the math and scale down 16 inch guns and range measured in miles down to a pistol caliber at a gun range.

They could fuck shit up and were accurate as fuck 70 years ago. Today the range would be better and more accurate.

I already said, artillery and armor have been NEGLECTED AS FUCK while aircraft get ALLLL the funding.

And if serbs can shoot down F117s what makes you think our planes are impervious to a richer more advanced nation?!

WE SHOULD INVEST IN THE REST TOO, not just MUH PLANEZ

>>32099839
It cost the Navy about 58 million 1990s bucks per BB to keep them in service during the Reagan 600-ship push and into Gulf 1.

Costs a shitton. Would cost less per annum if they modernized and automated, but the Navy figured it'd cost them about 220-230 million buckos to do so per ship, which was not fiscally feasible.

>>32097735
Actually a common misconception, OP. The carrier only ruled in daylight and good weather, when it could operate aircraft. The battleship, especially US and UK battleships with good radar, ruled the seas at night.

>>32101280
How stupid are you? Are you American? BB's guns can only shoot areas near the shore. In range of anti ship missiles, mines, shallow water. Planes can go anywhere. That stealth fighter the Serbs shot was stupidly flying predictable routes. And only one shot down. Battleships, like gliders are outdated. Sure by all means, love their aesthetics or history but trying to force this meme will get you laughed at.

>>32098938
>Except that two cruisers could be in two places at once.
Which conferred no benefit whatsoever since cruisers rarely operated alone.

>And since battleships no longer dominated surface battle it was more important to keep the carrier safe from enemy aircraft and submarines than to defeat surface combatants.
And battleships were better at AAA cover for obvious reasons. 1 BB >>> 2 CA.

>>32098989
Carriers were arguably more gimped. Carrier numbers were also limited by total tonnage and shitty conversion allowances. This led to shitty carriers that were too flimsy to be of any use. Part of the reason why so many carriers were sunk.

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>>32100305

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>>32099097

>Battleships have a bigger advantage over AShMs than carriers.

Not really. A battleship has to get much closer to a potential target to engage it, whereas a carrier can sit outside of missile range and rely on aircraft to engage targets. Also, armor is completely useless against missiles.

>>32100429
>If you're being targeted by missiles you're going to want your ship doing the targeting. What if the ship data linking to you gets hit mid-swarm?
A good point, I'm merely pointing out that if you're developing a platform that you know will be drawing a lot of fire, armored radars are not a completely ridiculous idea, they're just an idea with drawbacks.

Also, I would think disrupting your datalinks would be the primary concern with not using your own radar. A swarm of antiship missiles is not going to hit f35s or mq8s or whatever offboard targeting assets you are using.

>As for your quip
You have me confused with someone else. I can imagine very few scenarios where 50 strategic bombers are not more effective than a fucking battleship.

>>32101280
Anyone shooting at your battleship is going to be using missiles, not guns, so I'm not clear on why the relative accuracy of the guns is relevant.

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>>32102466
>armor is completely useless against missiles.
Armor is not useless, it's just that armoring all the fragile stuff necessary for modern surface combat is next to impossible so why bother? Intercepting the projectile is a more reliable way to resist damage (something CIWS has never successfully done).

>>32101843
At night, in bad weather, and in close contact. See the battles of North Cape, Surigao Strait, the sinking of HMS Glorious, and others.

>>32102557

>First ship with full air-conditioning

Comfy.

>>32102557
>uss newport news website had audio recordings of a bombardment mission in vietnam
>the links are all broken

so hard to get good media of large caliber naval guns firing

>90 8 inch shells per minute

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>>32102665

>>32097839
>>32097922

From the moment they came into existence their actual uses were limited. Sure they could take a beating from naval guns but they were so expensive to build and maintain they were a giant liability and you didnt want to just throw them around because losing one was a huge blow. One destroyer that gets close with a few good torpedos and its game over for a battleship. Your better off building the 5-10 cruisers or even more smaller ships than the battleship. This isnt even taking into account carriers and torpedo planes.

Bigger does not mean better just more expensive and a larger target to eliminate.

Another and far larger issue with any battleship is traditional guns arent that good when you compare them to missiles or guided bombs. The shorter range means your giant billion dollar rubber ducky is right inside bombardment range of basically anything even most third world countries would have. You can just fly a plane or zip missiles instead to hit key targets and be done. The age of leveling towns with carpet bombing and arty is over. Even when the ships were used in vietnam and the likes to supply arty from offshore the results were far from ideal. It just wasnt very effective overall.

>>32102792

Admiral Marc Mitscher believed that the ideal composition for a naval task force was 4 fleet carriers, 8 cruisers, and 24 destroyers plus an appropriate number of auxiliary ships.

>>32100429

>If you're being targeted by missiles you're going to want your ship doing the targeting.

True, but to your point we already have independent targeting radar for defense. It's not a far stretch to have protected, redundant systems, or standalone radar for each CIWS. Or a BB with an escort.

>As for your quip about the 50 B1s. Those B-1s could engage dozens of targets with e very high probability of a kill. A battleship might miss.

With a ship built in the 1940s yeah. I don't have a hard on for the return of an armored ship, but the idea of a nuclear powered battlecruiser with modern artillery/railguns, a shitload of AA, and missiles does give me wood. We're capable of vastly better accuracy and range than 1940s state of the art strawman that gets targeted in these threads.

I get that it's niche and expensive, but jesus christ so is our massive amphibious invasion fleet. If we're going to maintain all that, I'm ok with a couple large ships that can provide high volume naval gunfire or serve as escorts. /k/ gets a boner for the Zumwalt, which is close to what I'm talking about, and it gets written off as a test bed.

>>32102792
>One destroyer that gets close with a few good torpedos and its game over for a battleship
Name one battleship that was killed by a destroyer torpedo in WW2. Hint: there isn't one. Destroyers have a snowball's chance in hell of getting close to a battleship and battleships can and did shrug off one or two torpedoes regularly.

>Your better off building the 5-10 cruisers
Except 10 cruisers would cost as much as 5 battleships to build.

Despite all the memes about battleships, heavy cruisers were the worst and most inefficient boats of WW2.

>>32103542
>We're capable of vastly better accuracy and range than 1940s state of the art strawman that gets targeted in these threads.
And it still won't hold a candle to the range and accuracy of a missile, either ship or air-launched.
And once you pack in the range boosting and guidance whatsits, it'll be just as cheap to chuck a missile or JDAM at the target as it would be to bombard it from a battleship.

>>32103542

Arty always has a margin of error you cant control. It is the nature of dumb projectiles since once they are fired they are not controllable. Missiles and modern bombs are fully capable of at least a moderate amount of controlled guidance so even if their initial release was wrong it can generally be corrected to hit the correct area. With dumb arty you will generally have to blanket fire an area and hope for the best as you cant control shit like correcting for error from outside forces. Untill you can drop a shell from arty in a house with a margin of error of a few feet that has the power equivalent to a missile or bomb its just not going to be as useful of a tool. The simple fact that it cant be a precision tool means that if you want to actually use it you have to be DAMN sure you want whatever your aiming at and anything within a few city blocks MINIMUM leveled to rubble. The technology required to make an arty piece with those kinds of specs is wasted money as we already have that capability in current missiles and bombs. Its fucking retarded to spend all that cash on tools to fulfill the same purpose and eliminate all of its benefits in arty being cheaper to field per round and sustaining fire easier. Currently no army in the world needs a floating close range arty boat. Thats why battleships are not a thing. Anything they do smaller ships already do cheaper and better.

What your doing is exactly what the germans were doing in WWII. It was a flop and in all ways impractical. A giant waste of time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_VIII_Maus

A tank so large and so heavy it was nigh invulnerable from enemy tanks. Too bad it couldnt go anywhere or do anything productive. You would also have to protect it from aerial attacks as one somewhat large bomb delivered by plane would destroy the fuck out of it.

>>32103554

>Name one battleship that was killed by a destroyer torpedo in WW2.

Name a battleship that was sunk in combat by another ship with naval guns which is the PRIMARY reason that battleships existed. Im not going to do the research but im fairly certain there were only one or two engagements in the entire history of naval warfare between two battleships and both instances didnt result in a sink. The fact is battleships were figureheads and status symbols and had no practical value. Same thing goes for heavy cruisers but to a lesser extent.

And the destroyer torpedo example was just a point that a single ship that costs many times less could cripple or destroy a battleship fairly easily. A U-boat or other sub is a much more likely scenario to actually land a kill but the point stands. And sure you could argue that the battleship would have an entourage guarding it but then your spending a retarded amount of cash on a useless ship AND a group of ships to babysit said useless ship that adds nothing to the combat effectiveness of the group. That is why battleships are not a thing.

>>32103687
>Name a battleship that was sunk in combat by another ship with naval guns
Kirishima after getting buttfucked by Washington.

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>>32101280
>battleships guns are more accurate...
I'm not firing guns at it, I'm firing missiles or bombing it from stealth aircraft. YOU might miss due to any numbers of factors, but I know I'm going to hit what I'm aiming at.
The Serbs got lucky, even the battery commander admits that him shooting down the F-117 was a one in a million chance. Not only that, but the stealth aircraft we have now are even more advanced and can carry standoff weapons that are stealthy too.

>>32102485
You're even dumber. You can't think of any situation where 50 stealth aircraft that are able to penetrate hundreds of miles into enemy territory to hit C2, airfields and units not at the line would be more effective than a boat that sits offshore pounding targets with unguided ammunition that can't be more than 90 miles away. OK, man. They are a ridiculous idea, if you're under attack and armor it up it can't work. Whats the point of having a radar in the first place if you're not even going to use it, even in self-defense?
>>32103542
CIWS radars are fucked up by the blasts from the guns and took hours to get back in operation. The issue there is that many enemy attacks will come after you've begun your engagement, so now you have inbound missiles and no way of shooting them down yourself. We have anphibs because 1. they provide a quick response force should be need to intervene somewhere and 2. Because they have the ability to carry various aircraft, which can support the troops. You seem to have this idea of US Marines hitting the beach under fire, that won't ever happen again. Why would you put the landing force (and therefore the invasion) at jeopardy to satisfy some politicians Naval Gunfire Support wet dream. It would be easier to identify the various pillboxes and other emplacements, hit them with air power, then bring the troops ashore.
You can't put all that shit on a boat and expect it to do well.

>>32103554
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Yamashiro

>>32103687
Hey, battleships were extremely useful.

At Jutland.

>>32099894
>They were meant to go toe-to-toe with the Deutschlands and kick their asses.

that could be done with a 8 inch gunned heavy, or a couple of 6 inch gunned lights

>>32103687

>> Im not going to do the research but im fairly certain there were only one or two engagements in the entire history of naval warfare between two battleships

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_naval_battles_between_battleships

>>32098391

Depends.

5 and 6 inch shells could NOT take down any hard targets.

During the Battle off Samar 5 inch guns were used against one of the strongest IJN task forces of the war, and they didn't manage to do shit except scare the commanders.

If they had 8 inch guns instead they would have fucked up the IJN

For shore bombardment and hard targets bigger caliber is better

>>32104789

There were lots of battles where both sides had battleships present but actual exchange of fire between the two is a different story. Many of the cases in that list were battleships engaging groups of other ships or where the battleship was sank or crippled before engaging another battleship. Most countries were so paranoid of losing their flagship they treated them like golden geese and kept them as far out of harms way as possible.

>>32103542
>If we're going to maintain [amphibious ready groups], I'm ok with a couple large ships that can

>provide high volume naval gunfire
LHA/LHD already provide this via their attack helicopters and STOVL attack fighters, and they do it at ranges that make actual gunnery laughable by comparison.

>or serve as escorts.
Those exist already, they're called Arleigh Burkes. In addition to protecting the ARG against anything that flies, floats, or swims, they can contribute to the fire support equation via TLAMs. All without doing retarded things like closing to gun range.

When did the US start making submarines. I never see them mentioned in regards to ww2, only German U-boats.

>>32104973
The US submarine program against Japanese shipping was actually much more successful than the German campaign against American shipping.

It isn't talked about as much, because logistics is boring, but the US essentially sank the entire Japanese merchant fleet. If the US hadn't rushed in food aid immediately after the surrender, there would have been a North Korea tier famine on the home islands.

>>32104992
Interesting. Thanks.

>>32104973

The US started making submarines before they won independence lol

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>>32100305

>New Orleans was the penultimate in a long line of US heavy cruisers.

Technically speaking, the New Orleans was designed as a light cruiser due to her thin armor, just like the Portland and Northampton, and then reclassified to adhere to the London Naval Treaty.

>Pound for pound, the New Orleans class were some of the best protected cruisers in WW2

"Pound for pound" doesn't matter. They were only well-protected when compared to other treaty designs- which only the US and UK adhered to in any case. If you want to argue "they were the best protected treaty cruisers of WW2", sure, as long as you acknowledge that all treaty cruisers were dogshit first.

10 000t displacement just ended up being too small for a ship that was to mount 8-9 8" guns. Wartime or non treaty designs all ended up in the 15 000 - 18 000t range for good reason.

>>32102792

Then why are we moving away from building more destroyers and instead crafting dreadnought-sized battlecruisers like the Zumwalt (naming conventions aside)?

Bigger ship=more room for ASW/Fire Control Systems/Radar Equipment.

>>32103687

That makes no sense. A 19th century torpedo boat could sink a modern Burke that is literally over a 100 times its cost if it closed the distance and managed to score a hit on the hull, but it wouldn't because that scenario is as retarded as your destroyer sinking a battleship.

>>32103752
Shooting fish in a barrel doesn't count. If a destroyer faced off against a battleship, the destroyer would lose 100 times out of 100.

>>32105803
>>32105834

It's sort of beside the point since whether torpedoes actually sunk battleships or not, their threat meant battleships couldn't simply close range and shoot the shit out of everything.

>>32103734
>You're even dumber.
Really? Because you're the one with poor reading skills. Try reading what I said again, dipshit.

>>32105888
Eh no, destroyers don't keep battleships away because battleships can just shoot them and kill them.

>>32105834
If you are counting pre-dreads, HMS Cyclopes was sunk by a Ottoman torpedo-destroyer.

>>32106000
>HMS Cyclopes
Uh, Goliath.

>>32098989

>Did aircraft carriers gain superiorly over battleships because of treaties???

It was inevitable that carriers would have surpassed battleships, with or without treaties being involved. However, there is no doubt that the influence of treaties reduced the prominence of battleships to a large degree. If not for the treaties, there would have been far more battleships available to participate in the war, and they would be larger, more ambitious designs.

>>32106052
Carriers were limited to a higher degree in tonnage and numbers than battleships were.

>>32105770
What has this got to do with anything? Why are you equating size to class? How is the Zumwalt anything at all like a battleship?

>>32106129

He's comparing the Zumwalt to a battlecruiser in terms of size, which actually isn't that much of a reach. The Zumwalt is fucking huge. Over 200 meters long.

>>32106167
That's nice, but it's a complete non-sequitur.

>>32106129

If you make a >50k ton armored ship meant to attack surface targets that has a hundreds of VLS cells, is that not a battleship just because it doesn't have large cannons?

>>32106052
There were far more battleships available at the start of the war than carriers precisely because of treaty limitations.

>>32106271

If such a ship were ever constructed, it would probably be classified as a BBG. However, it is unlikely that such a vessel would ever actually get built for a number of reasons, both practical and political.

>>32097735

Why did so many countries keep using the (4 x 2) set-up instead of the clearly superior (3 x 3) design? It seems like the USA is the only country that ever fully committed to (3 x 3) despite its obvious advantages.

>>32106358
The QEs (and Hood) and the Rs used 4x2 because the 15" guns were two heavy to fit into a tipple turret , USN ships of the same age used 14"s, the first 16" armed ship went back to doubles.
HMS Vanguard used the double turrets because they were surplus (taken from the Outrageous class carriers) to save on build time.
The unbuilt G3 and Lion classes would of used 3x3 16" while the N3 used 3x3 18".

>>32099097
fewer of them

>>32105985
>Eh no, destroyers don't keep battleships away because battleships can just shoot them and kill them.

Just like at the Battle off Samar, right?

>>32106718

Bad example. The Japanese commander got cocky and didn't form a proper battle line.

>>32106916

Yeah, or gunnery wasn't very accurate in general, and hitting small ships at ranges where capital ships would be safe from torpedoes wasn't really practical.

>>32107121

Focusing their gunfire with a proper battle line would have mitigated that, but the Jap commander wanted to go after the escort carriers.

>>32107167

If they took a battle line they would have had greater risk from the aircraft present.

Regardless, it says much about Japanese gunnery that they were able to close to within 10 000yds before sinking any escort carriers. Quite obviously destroyers were even harder targets, and it was the threat of torpedo attack that turned the Japanese formation away.. proving my point.

>>32107267
it was the threat of torpedo attack that turned the Japanese formation away.. proving my point.
It was the damage from and further threat of aircraft attack that turned the Japanese formation away, disproving your point.

>Quite obviously destroyers were even harder targets
Actually you are wrong again, to no one's surprise. Escort carriers were harder targets because they were behind the smoke screen laid by the destroyers. All the destroyers were hit and 2 of 3 sunk.

>>32105928
well shit, i misread your comment

>>32106129

The Zumwalt is identical to a heavy cruiser in size and role; between shore bombardment, acting top of the line of battle in ASW, and functioning independently from carrier groups, it is decidedly very un-destroyer like.

>>32104992
The main reason for that was the mining campaign you dunce, not the murriclap subs

The US Airforce mined the fuck out of any part of japanese waters that was used by ships to deliver stuff from A to B and that was by far more effective than any bombing campaign, in fact it was so effective the atomic bombs were not necessary because Japan was on the brink of starvation thanks to the mines. Even now a good lot of those mines are still in japanese coastal waters and straits.

>>32108141
>It was the damage from and further threat of aircraft attack that turned the Japanese formation away, disproving your point.

Yamato was literally forced to turn away by torpedoes launched by USS Heerman. On the larger scale, Kurita withdrew under the perceived threat of American reinforcements.

>All the destroyers were hit and 2 of 3 sunk.

Maybe this has something to do with the fact that the Destroyers moved to engage the Japanese force at nearly point blank range to sacrifice themselves for Taffy 3. Despite this they managed to continue fighting for almost 3 hours until the Japanese withdrew.

In any case, Samar only illustrates the effect that destroyers could have, even when operating outnumbered and without cruisers or battleships to provide more firepower. You can of course look at Surigao Straight to see what the outcome looked like if the situation were reversed- Fuso, Yamagumo, Michishio, and Asagumo were all sunk by destroyer-launched torpedoes before American battleships were able to join the fight- mopping up Yamashiro which had been damaged in the same torpedo attack.

>>32098084
kek but true

File: Italian_cruiser_Montecuccoli.jpg (457KB, 1387x827px) Image search: [Google]

457KB, 1387x827px

>>32111958

Other than carriers, destroyers really were the kings of WW2 surface vessels.

>Cheap, expendable, and plentiful
>Small and fast, makes it hard for planes to attack them
>Able to punch above their weight via torpedoes
>God-tier for killing submarines
>Difficult target for battleship guns

The ideal WW2 surface fleet would probably consist of carriers, destroyers, and light cruisers armed with lots of 6-in guns specifically designed to counter enemy destroyers.

>>32102792
>The age of leveling towns with carpet bombing and arty is over.
>the age of arty
>being over
>ever
Fee-fi-fo-fum I smell the blood of a chairforce scum

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>>32111973
Try reading the thread before you post, it actually has been a decent thread about battleships vs. cruisers and others in WWII. Most of the 'battleship autists' in the thread have been people such as yourself, who see the world battleship and flip the fuck out.

>>32112047
>Try reading the thread before you post, it actually has been a decent thread about battleships vs. cruisers and others in WWII
Actually it was a shit thread full of misinformation and factless assertions. It still is. Read a book if you want to learn something. If you want shitposting and hugboxing, continue to post on /k/ as usual.

>>32103554
>Despite all the memes about battleships, heavy cruisers were the worst and most inefficient boats of WW2.

Well you have to factor in the main advantage and purpose of a cruiser.

While its true you could build a battleship for the cost of two heavy cruisers, that battleship can only be in one place at a time.

A heavy cruiser is basically king of the seas anywhere that there is not a battleship. Think of heavy cruisers as 4th rate lineships. They are kind of crap, and after a point people stopped bothering to even use them in battle lines, and some frigates (light cruisers in this analogy) came close to matching their firepower, but they were still ships of the line, and they could use their brute weight to overwhelm and frighten smaller ships more effectively than a frigate could.

So when you have vast expanses of territory to cover, placing a heavy cruiser with a few escorts in some out of the way place thats not really that important but you need to defend from a small group of enemies just waltzing up and claiming it, a heavy cruiser provides the central rock of power projection in the area.

I would agree that building heavy cruisers just to hang out within a battle group is a bad idea. light cruisers and destroyers make for much better escorts, 8 inch guns are redundant and not needed when you have actual battleships in the area. But if you are in a small destroyer squadron of say, 3 DDs and one destroyer leader type CL, operating in an area with some enemy ships changes a lot if the enemy ships are just a few DDs and a CL or two themselves compared to one of them being a CA.

>>32105985
You do realize that DD evolved out of craft specifically designed to threaten battleships, yeah?

>>32112041
This.

Rounds from ground guns have right of way in the battlespace, airspace deconfliction sop be damned.

>>32112358
Destroyers evolved out of craft specifically designed to protect battleships from torpedo boats. You do realize that, yeah?

>>32112358
>>32105985

>You do realize that DD evolved out of craft specifically designed to threaten battleships, yeah?

This person is wrong.

>Destroyers evolved out of craft specifically designed to protect battleships from torpedo boats. You do realize that, yeah?

This person is correct.