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If the Yamato/Musashi or Bismarck/Tirpitz survived WW2 do you think the Allies would have kept them, updated/refitted them for service or made them into museum ships right after the war?
Of course we did use some older captured ships like the Nagato and Prinz Eugen for nuclear tests, but would the pride(s) of the IJN or Kriegsmarine have suffered the same fate?
I think the Yamato/Musashi would have been used at Bikini as was also done with the battleship Nagato. The final disposition of the prize U-505 as a museum vessel was very fortunate and a submarine is more portable and less expensive to maintain than a BB. U-505 was also captured in combat whereas the other vessels were meekly surrendered post-war.
Regarding DKM ships there are Soviet and UK war spoil apportionments to consider. I think Bis/Tirpitz would have been scrapped by the Brits if they were the receiving party after technical testing as was their custom and or Bikinized if part of US spoils as with PE. The Soviets would never have been allowed to receive modern BBS; they only received two elderly modernized WWI Italian ones. VV and Littorio were allowed to rot away in a Suez backwater and then scrapped.
Regarding refitting for active service, there was a surplus of modern warships available after WWII available from the USN with considerable spare parts inventory to allow them long service lives. The manpower absorbed by a battleship when the aircraft carrier was the decisive naval surface weapon of WW2 would not allow any justification.(France refurbished Richelieu and rebuilt Jean Bart but they had no mission and were gone by 1960) There were a number of USN fast battleships which were decommissioned quite soon after the war. The RN also quickly demobilized their heavy ships. Neither Yamato/Musashi nor Tirpitz/Bismarck would be an improvement over the KGV or S.Dakota/North Carolina class and especially the Iowas. I suppose spare parts would have been very difficult to source considering the extensive bombing of facilities which occured.
I wonder how the war in the Atlantic would have went if that torpedo plane hadn't hit the rudder or if the Bizmark had made it back to France for repairs before the Brits got to it? That one battleship along with the U boats could have made it very difficult for the American forces.
I bet the ships listed would have been scraped. Why would we want a enemies ship to display after the war and we certrainly wouldn't have given them back to them. If not scraped then probably sunk with much fanfare for the Allies.
I think the Bismarck would have just been sunk later on, probably while she was at port. I wonder how different it would have been if Bismarck sailed with Tirpitz, Prinz Eugen and Scharnhorst together though (as was the original plan). The 4 ships could have really made a mess together.
I do think it's interesting that so many WW2 US battleships were kept and are now Museum ships today though... Now every single Iowa class is one.
Prinz Eugen was merely a heavy cruiser and probably had little impact in the Bismarck/Hood/Prince of Wales shootout in Denmark Strait; ironically she remained afloat after the Bikini atoll atomic weapons tests, but sank after being towed to Kwajalein due to failure to repair a slow leak. Her remians, like those of the Arizona, will likely endure for centuries.
As an aside, can anyone here inform us as to whether any capital ships of the Second World war era have been preserved by Great Britain?
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 02-16-2013 at 06:09 AM..
HMCS Haida, a Tribal class destroyer, served from 1942 to 1962, and was decommisioned, and spent many years as a tourist attraction, in Toronto 's Ontario Place park. She underwent a hull refit, about 5 years ago, and is now located at Hamilton, Ontario's harbour front. She is a designated Canadian Historical site, and is maintained by Parks Canada.
HMCS Sackville is the other RCN ship that has been preserved. She was one of the Corvette class, the most numerous class of ship in the RCN in WW2. Small, but tough, they were the backbone of the escort force that protected the convoys going from the USA, and Canada, to Great Britain. Sackville is located in the harbour in Halifax , Nova Scotia, which was universally know to RCN sailors as "Slackers " reffering to the shore side sailors that "never went to sea " .
At the beginning of the Second World War, the RCN had only six ships, which were old and out dated. By the end of the war in 1945, the RCN had grown to 426 ships, making it the third largest navy in the world, behind the USN, and the RN. The RCN became the leaders in anti submarine warfare and they developed a number of unique weapons and tactics to comabt the U boats.
The Battle of the North Atlantic was the longest campaign of the Second World War, and it was the deciding factor in the Allied forces ability to mount the OverLord operation, to invade France, which led to the eventual defeat of the Nazis. Remember that every Canadian and American service member, who served in the European theatre, with the exception of a few air crew, got there on a ship, that was escorted by naval ships.
I think the Yamato/Musashi would have been used at Bikini as was also done with the battleship Nagato. The final disposition of the prize U-505 as a museum vessel was very fortunate and a submarine is more portable and less expensive to maintain than a BB. U-505 was also captured in combat whereas the other vessels were meekly surrendered post-war.
Agreed. At the time, there simply wasn't much thought to historic preservation of these vessels. From what I recall reading, it was a bit of a fight just to get the U-505 used as a museum piece.
I checked all the UK ones and no capital ships were preserved. There was an effort to preserve HMS Vanguard as it was the last battleship built (officially launched August 1946). In 1947 she also became an official Royal Yacht taking the family of George VI to South Africa. After that she served in some roles with NATO and then was placed in reserves. She was sold for scrap in 1960.
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As for the OP, I think the answers already given are the ones that would have applied. The ships would have either been used in testing or broken up for scrap. None of them represented anything unique or worthy to be kept in service in a post war world.
Prinz Eugen was merely a heavy cruiser and probably had little impact in the Bismarck/Hood/Prince of Wales shootout in Denmark Strait; ironically she remained afloat after the Bikini atoll atomic weapons tests, but sank after being towed to Kwajalein due to failure to repair a slow leak. Her remians, like those of the Arizona, will likely endure for centuries.
As an aside, can anyone here inform us as to whether any capital ships of the Second World war era have been preserved by Great Britain?
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
If the Yamato/Musashi or Bismarck/Tirpitz survived WW2 do you think the Allies would have kept them, updated/refitted them for service or made them into museum ships right after the war?
The war demonstrated the complete obsolescence of battleships in favor of carriers. They wouldn’t have been refitted.
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