Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > History
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 02-19-2013, 08:29 PM
 
Location: Sinking in the Great Salt Lake
13,139 posts, read 22,746,174 times
Reputation: 14116

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by tpk-nyc View Post
The war demonstrated the complete obsolescence of battleships in favor of carriers. They wouldn’t have been refitted.
I only mentioned that because the Iowa class battleships stayed in service off and on for 50 years after WW2... even up to the Gulf War. Battleships were obsolete for use against other ships, but they still had some tactical value as platforms for shore bombardment. 18" guns (like Yamato and Musashi were packing) might have worked very well for that.

Then again the #1 purpose of Battleships was actually serving as national status symbols... perhaps the greatest ships of the IJN and DKM would have had too much "baggage" associated with them to ever be used by the US or other Allied navies.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 10-30-2014, 11:18 PM
 
2 posts, read 1,637 times
Reputation: 20
We are back to the Bismark again. We had a surplus of battleships at the end of WWII. Why would we preserve a not very well designed German battleship much less refit it. Either Bikini or scuttled; because Bismark did not have the emotional impact on us that it did on the British. If Bismark had made it back to France she would have joined the other German capital ships that made the Channel dash and ended up almost out of the war locked up in the Baltic. The simple fact is that no battleship no matter how well designed could survive on an ocean with carriers on it. Also remember that the air strikes on Bismark were made by less than 15 aircraft each time. The "Stringbag" had a remarkable war but comparing it to an Avenger is a joke. 15 Avengers carrying effective torpedoes probably would have put the Bismark on the bottom. Yamato was a beautiful ship but she would have been at Bikini along side Nagato.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-31-2014, 08:04 AM
 
Location: NW Indiana
1,491 posts, read 1,611,271 times
Reputation: 2343
It is true that battleships were made largely obsolete by air power. However, battleships continue to be used for shore bombardment for decades after WWII. That being said, I doubt is would have been worth keeping such a German or Japanese ship on active duty.

Personally, I would have loved it if they would have captured such a ship and turned it into a museum, like the HMS Belfast.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-31-2014, 08:55 AM
 
91 posts, read 175,958 times
Reputation: 125
Interesting topic and I do not want to get too far off but I have one question. When the topic of naval battle in WW II is covered in books, documentaries etc. I never see any mention of the German Navies aircraft carriers. Did they have any? I see tons of material on the IJN vs USN, but nothing on Germany. Does anyone know why, I would think it would have made a difference in the Atlantic had they been coupled with the U Boats. Thanks in advance.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-31-2014, 12:04 PM
 
Location: FROM Dixie, but IN SoCal
3,484 posts, read 6,492,443 times
Reputation: 3792
Quote:
Originally Posted by 383man View Post
I dont know if I would say the Prince Eugen did not make much difference. It was one of the better 8" gun cruisers of the war. And I have heard that some still think it was an 8" shell from the Prince Eugen that hit the Hood. I read a story about that but dont know if its true. But it was a very good Heavy Cruiser. Ron
Yes, it was. Though I'm pretty sure it wasn't Prinz Eugen that struck the fatal blow on Hood, its gunnery was both fast and accurate.

Prinz Eugen was considerably larger, faster and better-protected than any of the Allied heavy cruisers. Only Imperial Japan had comparable heavy cruisers. Too, its next-generation eight-inch main battery and fire-control radar made it a fast, accurate and heavy hitter, and the guns out-ranged the Allied 8-inch naval guns by about 1,000 meters -- a truly deadly combination.

Here's the kicker. The maximum effective range of Prinz Eugen's 8-inch guns (30,000 meters) was nearly the same as that of the older 15-inch guns on Hood (30,680 meters).

By the way, its level of protection and compartmentalization was why Prinz Eugen survived the Bikini Atoll blast.

Last edited by Nighteyes; 10-31-2014 at 12:29 PM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-31-2014, 12:59 PM
 
Location: Sinking in the Great Salt Lake
13,139 posts, read 22,746,174 times
Reputation: 14116
Quote:
Originally Posted by WH59 View Post
Interesting topic and I do not want to get too far off but I have one question. When the topic of naval battle in WW II is covered in books, documentaries etc. I never see any mention of the German Navies aircraft carriers. Did they have any? I see tons of material on the IJN vs USN, but nothing on Germany. Does anyone know why, I would think it would have made a difference in the Atlantic had they been coupled with the U Boats. Thanks in advance.
The Germans had the Graf Zeppelin but I don't believe it was ever operational. Apparently there was quite a rivalry between the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe which pretty much sunk the Nazi aircraft carrier idea for purely political reasons.

In the end, the German's surface fleet was too small to be effective; after loosing the Graf Spee and Bismarck they became very risk averse with their surface navy too. Most Kriegsmarine capital ships hid out in the Fjords of Norway and were destroyed one by one as the war progressed.

I've done some more learning 'n stuff since I posted this and found out the biggest problem with claiming a foreign navy's battleship and making it your own is the maintenance nightmare you'd also get with the deal. Any replacement parts would have to be handmade for a single ship, unlike your own navy's support system with many interchangeable parts and the tooling for them already available.

For that reason alone, it would have been unthinkable to commission a captured axis Battleship into our own navy, to say nothing of a battleship's dubious tactical value in the first place.

Last edited by Chango; 10-31-2014 at 01:19 PM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-31-2014, 01:58 PM
 
447 posts, read 730,896 times
Reputation: 366
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chango View Post
The Germans had the Graf Zeppelin but I don't believe it was ever operational. Apparently there was quite a rivalry between the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe which pretty much sunk the Nazi aircraft carrier idea for purely political reasons.

In the end, the German's surface fleet was too small to be effective; after loosing the Graf Spee and Bismarck they became very risk averse with their surface navy too. Most Kriegsmarine capital ships hid out in the Fjords of Norway and were destroyed one by one as the war progressed.

I've done some more learning 'n stuff since I posted this and found out the biggest problem with claiming a foreign navy's battleship and making it your own is the maintenance nightmare you'd also get with the deal. Any replacement parts would have to be handmade for a single ship, unlike your own navy's support system with many interchangeable parts and the tooling for them already available.

For that reason alone, it would have been unthinkable to commission a captured axis Battleship into our own navy, to say nothing of a battleship's dubious tactical value in the first place.


I do know the US refitted one of the 15" gun French battleships during the war and put it back in service. I dont know what all was done but they say it was refitted in a US shipyard. Ron
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-31-2014, 02:11 PM
 
Location: Sinking in the Great Salt Lake
13,139 posts, read 22,746,174 times
Reputation: 14116
Quote:
Originally Posted by 383man View Post
I do know the US refitted one of the 15" gun French battleships during the war and put it back in service. I dont know what all was done but they say it was refitted in a US shipyard. Ron
It was the Richelieu, and she remained a French ship though she operated with the Royal Navy in the Indochina region after the refit. She didn't get USN guns either; they were take-offs from Richelieu's sister-ship Jean Bart.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-31-2014, 02:19 PM
 
Location: On the Chesapeake
45,071 posts, read 60,120,172 times
Reputation: 60651
To answer the question sort of, any German capital ships remaining would likely have been taken to Bikini Atoll and nuked. We did that with some of the remaining Japanese ships as well as our own.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-31-2014, 02:37 PM
 
Location: FROM Dixie, but IN SoCal
3,484 posts, read 6,492,443 times
Reputation: 3792
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chango View Post
The Germans had the Graf Zeppelin but I don't believe it was ever operational.
Correct on both counts. Even if Graf Zeppelin had become operational it would not have performed well as an aircraft carrier; certainly not up to American/Japanese/British standards. For one thing it would have carried fewer than 50 aircraft, largely because of the designers' false focus on surface engagements --way too much armor and sixteen (!) 5.9-inch guns.

Last edited by Nighteyes; 10-31-2014 at 02:54 PM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > History

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top