Moderators: Joel Billings, wdolson, Don Bowen, mogami
ORIGINAL: herwin
I think you should consider battleships taken out of action for extended periods. That's a rather long list. Sure, battleships were survivable, but all you usually wanted was a mission kill. Anchoring a heavy ship within air attack range just so the ship would be available when needed--read what I wrote--was simply asking for a load of hurt.
This actually looks like quite a list on the surface, but as pointed out, Tirpitz (and I would argue Arizona) were special cases.ORIGINAL: Nikademus
[active] battleships sunk by SAP or AP bombs alone were:
Marat
Tirpitz
Arizona
Roma
(not counting the sinkings of the inactive remenants of the Japanese fleet sitting in their harbors, nor the two greek pre_dreadnought BB's sunk at their moorings)
ORIGINAL: niceguy2005
But, I would argue that 4 BBs taken out by bombs is considerable. How many (in fighting condition) were taken out by other BBs (during WWII)?
Well, my thinking specifically was that I wanted to exclude the Bizmark as she was critically damaged long before the BBs showed up.ORIGINAL: sprior
Some of the ships listed above were not sunk by BB gunnery alone but by ship launched torpedoes too. That's why I asked.
I understood your reasoning for including Bismark. [:)]ORIGINAL: Nikademus
well you asked what BB's had been "taken out" by their own bretheren. Bismarck was most certainly "taken out" by Rodney and KGV. [:)] But yes, they wouldn't have caught up to her had she not been stopped by a torp to the rudders.
I made a boo boo though. Fuso was not taken out by a BB. She was killed by a mass torpedo attack prior to the bombardment. I'll edit accordingly. [;)]
ORIGINAL: Terminus
ORIGINAL: herwin
I think you should consider battleships taken out of action for extended periods. That's a rather long list. Sure, battleships were survivable, but all you usually wanted was a mission kill. Anchoring a heavy ship within air attack range just so the ship would be available when needed--read what I wrote--was simply asking for a load of hurt.
Then why wasn't the Home Fleet destroyed at Scapa Flow?
It's certainly true that Hood was a battlecruiser, but it's easy to misunderstand what that means. It does not imply a lack of protection, believe it or not. Really all it means, in Hood's case, is that she had cruiser-like speed. The battlecruiser term went through a spectrum of meanings; Hood herself was the ship that prompted the RN to use the term to indicate any fast capital ship. That's why you will find official RN documents referring to the early drafts of the modern KGV class battleships as battlecruisers. Terminology shifted again in the midst of the KGV design process, so she began construction as a battleship instead. Hood was arguably the best-protected ship in the RN at the time she entered service.ORIGINAL: mdiehl
Hood wasn't a BB and should not be on the list of BBs sunk by gunfire. It was a CB with that class' known deck armor weaknesses. Any of the larger bombs in the USN and IJNs arsenals could have penetrated Hood's deck armor....
And yeah, the last of those end-war Japanese BBs were not at sea. But as this thread was about whether or not a few bomb hits could do sufficient damage to a BB to sink one, I'm not sure the objection is germane. Those ships did have crews and were at action stations (and presumedly with watertight integrity and damage control teams on board) when they were sunk.
ORIGINAL: herwin
ORIGINAL: Terminus
ORIGINAL: herwin
I think you should consider battleships taken out of action for extended periods. That's a rather long list. Sure, battleships were survivable, but all you usually wanted was a mission kill. Anchoring a heavy ship within air attack range just so the ship would be available when needed--read what I wrote--was simply asking for a load of hurt.
Then why wasn't the Home Fleet destroyed at Scapa Flow?
Been there. (They remember my family, but not with love.) It was garrisoned by a large number of troops and fighter squadrons.
ORIGINAL: Tiornu
It's certainly true that Hood was a battlecruiser, but it's easy to misunderstand what that means. It does not imply a lack of protection, believe it or not. Really all it means, in Hood's case, is that she had cruiser-like speed. The battlecruiser term went through a spectrum of meanings; Hood herself was the ship that prompted the RN to use the term to indicate any fast capital ship. That's why you will find official RN documents referring to the early drafts of the modern KGV class battleships as battlecruisers. Terminology shifted again in the midst of the KGV design process, so she began construction as a battleship instead. Hood was arguably the best-protected ship in the RN at the time she entered service.
The two Fusos both sank in Surigao Strait, or Sergio Strait as Nik likes to call it. The similar Ise and Hyuga, though, were both victims at Kure. The bombs that sank them came not from B-29's but from carrier planes (Avengers?). This certainly proves that bombs could sink battleships, but I personally don't find it any more compelling than the Mitchell tests. The state of shipboard readiness was as good as possible under the circumstances, but the ships were completely swarmed, targeted by multiple dozens of bombs.
