Question about WWII weaponry (1950s, army, USA, weapons)

[noetsi]

One of the anomolies to me is that, except in the battles around Gudalcanal and to a limited extent around Leyte, the battleship in the pacific rarely did what it was designed to do. Fire at other warships. It served instead for fire support ashore, as a floating headquarters and in an anti-aircraft role.

I am not sure if the New Jersey class battleships ever fired at another battleship, I dont think so.

[Angus Podgorny]

Wasnt' the Japanese battleship Kirishima the last - and only battleship in the Pacific - sunk by an American battleship in direct ship to ship action? The USS Washington accomplished that in 1942 as I recall from my naval history days.

The action is confirmed by Wikipedia, but I don't know if that was the last.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Washington_(BB-56)

[noetsi]

I dont know if it was the last sunk by a battleship, I would guess so, but the Kirishma was indeed crippled by the Washinginton. She did not actually sink while engaged, but received so much damage that she was later scuttled.

[Dane_in_LA]

Sure, we can all look in awe at the Panther or the USS Iowa, but some battles were won with decidedly unsexy gear.

I present for your consideration the Fairey Swordfish:



You'd think people should get a VC just for flying in that thing. Nonetheless, Fairey Swordfish crews whacked 3 Italian battleships at Taranto (1 destroyed, 2 damaged) and were instrumental in sinking the Bismarck. Sometimes, there's something to be said for just enough, just in time.

[Dumbdowndemocrats]

Originally Posted by noetsi

I dont know if it was the last sunk by a battleship, I would guess so, but the Kirishma was indeed crippled by the Washinginton. She did not actually sink while engaged, but received so much damage that she was later scuttled.

The Battle of Surigao Strait is the last battleship-battleship encounter according to what i have read [all capital ships had smaller screening vessels]and it was this night battle that Adm.Jesse Oldendorf in naval terms crossed the T which is that all your guns are brought to bare on the enemy.The Japanese battleships YAMASHIRO & FUSO went to sleep with the fishs, 5 of the 6 American battlewagons who helped in their destruction were at Pearl Harbor. As for the BB Washington it was with the BB South Dakota which sustained some moderate damage during that GUADACANAL battle and was commanded by RADM.Lee nicknamed Chi-Chi cause he looked like a Japanese.The SWORDFISHS success was ADM.Yamamoto inspiration to attack Pearl Harbor.

[noetsi]

Well more accurately the Taranto attack showed the Japanese that you could use torpedo planes in shallow waters. Yamamoto had considered the attack well before then.

The Swordfish was also instrumental in the destruction of the Bismark by crippling its rudder. Its said that the state of the art German AA was unable to target them effectively because they moved to slow

[skinem]

Not weapons per se, but these developments and improvements upon during WWII sure made some weapons much, much more effective.
Radar
Sonar
The above two for obvious reasons.
Development of various sighting systems also gave the allies some technical advantages--the Norden bombsight, while falsely advertised as being able to put a bomb in a pickle barrel, it was a huge improvement and actually gave some hope of actually hitting a specific target rather than just a general area. Not that area bombing was abandoned by any means, in fact, it was embraced.

There were also rudimentary computer firing systems running the big guns on our battleships, giving them some scary type accuracy. Combine with radar and you get over the horizon shooting.

Late in the war there were some fairly advanced gun sight systems on late generation P-51s and P-47s...these gave us a leg up against the Russians when we faced them in Korea with our Sabres...

So, unglamorous, yes, but important steps towards the technical weapons systems of today.

[noetsi]

There were a wide range of complex systems developed in the war. Many were developed by the Germans, who never deployed them in enough numbers to matter.

Gyroscopes on tanks (US) the first system that allowed AFV to fire on the move.
HEAT and Specialized Ammo (all sides) that allowed better pentration of tanks. The Germans developed the first generation anti-heat armor to address this.
Acoustic torpedoes and S gear. The later allowed the Germans to fire effectively when submerged to 150 feet, the first time that was possible in warfare.
The Germans developed a cruise missile that later led to Regulas as well as a remote control missile system guided by camera. One of these sank an Italian battleship.
Swept wing fighters developed, but never really deployed by the Germans.
Jet fighters, pressurized bombers (the US B-29).
Drop tanks and various fuel injection systems.
Smoke dischargers and smoke mortars on AFV.
Man portable ant-tank systems, the German Panzerfaust was the precursor to the RPG-2 and many similar systems.
The assault rifle (although one can argue if the German version was a true assault rifle).
Remote control mine clearing systems.
Balistic missiles (the V2).

They also utilized science in warfare at a disciplines and massive scale never seen before in warfare. Today we think of the Manhatten Project, but it was seen for example in the first powerful computers used to solve Enigma or statistical analysis for droping depth charges.

Much of this became far more important later, after the war.

[Irishtom29]

In the Surigao Strait Fuso was destroyed by American destroyers firing torpedos and Yamashiro was sunk by the shellfire of the old American battleships.

The Iowa class battleships never fired at an enemy battleship though if Halsey hadn't taken Ozawa's bait Lee might've had a chance to fight at least one Iowa against Kuritas battleships including Yamato.

[noetsi]

Yamoto versus an Iowa would have been an interesting duel. Early in the war Japanese torpedoes were far superior to the US in range and hitting power. The long lance torpedo was deliberately designed to be a key element of Japanese naval firepower and was used I believed by cruisers as well as destoyers. The Japanese also had reloads for their torpoedoes which the Americans did not. Japanese night fighting skills were much better as well, although later in the war radar counterbalanced that.

Its remarkable how many of the US carriars were sunk by Japanese submarines. Yorktown although first hammered by aircraft was actually sunk by submarines as was the Hornet. As many as aircraft sunk.

For an amusing story (from wiki)

Near twilight, three Japanese planes incredibly mistook Yorktown for their own carrier and attempted to land. The ship's gunfire, though, drove them off; and the enemy planes crossed Yorktown's bow and turned away out of range. Twenty minutes later, when three more enemy pilots made the mistake of trying to get into Yorktown's landing circle, the carrier's gunners splashed one of the trio.

At the coral sea