Bismarck vs Yamato WW2 Battleships (America, compared, monument, strategic)

[Nighteyes]

Originally Posted by JohnHAdams

I don't think large battleships were capable of sinking large battleships under ordinary conditions.

Events tend to agree with you. Bismarck was pounded, at close range, by the British battleships Rodney and King George V. Her armament and upper decks were a shambles, yet she remained afloat and even moving a little. It took three torpedoes from the British cruiser Dorsetshire to eventually sink her.

To this very day, however, extensive doubt remains whether the Dorsetshire's torpedoes did the trick, or whether Bismarck was actually scuttled by her crew.

As far as I have been able to determine this morning,the only battleship to be sunk by another battleship during World War II was the Kirishima, a Kongo-class Japanese battleship. It was heavily damaged by the battleship USS Washington (North Carolina-class) during the Second Battle of Guadalcanal on the night of November 14-15, 1942, and sank the following morning. All the rest were sunk by aerial or submarine attacks.

Actually, even this may not be entirely accurate. You see, the Kongo-class ships began life as battlecruisers, and were later upgraded.

[Nighteyes]

Whoops! The older Japanese battleships Fuso and Yamashiro were sunk by a combined force of US battleships, cruisers and destroyers during the Battle of Surigao Straits early in the morning on 25 October 1944. Fuso was struck by destroyer-launched torpedoes, then bombarded by Admiral Oldendorf's six older battleships (California, Maryland, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and West Virginia) until she sank. Yamishiro sank as a result of being struck by destroyer-launched torpedoes.

An interesting side note: Five of Oldendorf's six battlewagons (all but Mississippi) had been sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor. What goes around, comes around...

[Jezer]

There was of course the sinking of HMS Hood by the Bimarck.

Hood was a reasonably elderly battlecruiser, but no minnow, but had a major Achilles Heel in its armour. Even so it was a cataclysmic event.



(Edit- I see that the sinking of the Hood has been mentioned earlier.)

[Nighteyes]

Yep. Hood was a battlecruiser rather than a battleship, and doesn't quite fit into the question/scenario. That's why I surfaced some doubt about including the Hiei, a Japanese Kongo-class battleship. The Kongos began life as battlecruisers and were later upgraded.

Hood was already under construction when the Battle of Jutland occurred in 1916. This epic sea battle revealed serious flaws in British battlecruiser design, resulting in the loss of three by cataclysmic magazine explosions. (When two of them exploded and sank within minutes, Admiral David Beatty calmly remarked, "There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today.")

Hood's design was modified in an effort to compensate for the exposed weaknesses. Since Hood essentially suffered the same fate as three of her elder siblings, I think we may safely conclude that the improvements were not entirely successful.

[republic7200]

Nation Size(in)-Shell weight(lb) Muzzle Velocity(f/s) Impact Speed-Time@40,000y I.S.-Time@30,000y I.S.-Time@20,000y
Japan 18-3219 2,559 40k-->1566 f/s-79s 30K-->1536 f/s-50s 20K-->1748 f/s-29s
US 16-2700 2,500 40K-->1613 f/s-81s 30K-->1569 f/s-51s 20K-->1746 f/s-30s
Germany 15-1764 2,690 40K-->1557 f/s-76s 30K-->1548 f/s-49s 20K-->1771 f/s-28s
The table above gives some convenient reference points for the main armament of Yamato, Iowa and Bismarck. For simplicity I've left off the angle of descent.

There are several items to note. Yamato's shells weighed 3,219 pounds, not the 6,000 stated previously. Iowa's weighed 2,700 pounds, closer to the 3,000 previously stated. Bismarck's are significantly lighter at 1,764. While penetration through armor depends much more on impact speed than shell weight, at ranges from 20,000 to 40,000 yards, the impact speeds of these three shells vary little, giving more significance to the difference in shell weights.

Note also the time it takes the shells to reach these ranges. Bismarck might have been able to fire a shell every 20 sec, vs 25-30 for Yamato and Iowa. While this would be slightly useful during a "mad minute" situation (firing as fast as possible without adjusting aim), it's irrelevant for longer ranged aimed fire (fire, spot impact vs target, correct, fire again) as the time of flight of the shells mean the firing ship has to wait with loaded barrels for the prior impact and corrections to be made.

Bismarck's armor scheme was designed to make it extremely difficult to get a shell into it's engineering or magazine spaces. It offered far poorer protection for everything else against battleship sized shells.

B's main gun turrets were vulnerable at all ranges, compared to Yamato's which would protect vs point blank fire. Iowa's were vulnerable to Yamato's shells at a wider set of ranges than to Bismarck's shells, which would have to be far, far closer to penetrate. As far as non-penetrating hits, Yamato's and Iowa's turrets were both more massive and better protected than Bismark's, besides facing Bismark's far lighter shells. This would tend to make Bismarck's turrets more vulnerable to even non-penetrating hits.

Unlike Bismarck, Yamato and Iowa were not designed to overprotect the engineering and magazine spaces at the expense of other critical systems. Iowa at least, and probably Yamato as well, had additional armor protection around the magazines to protect them against shells that happened to penetrate the main belt.

Both the IJN and the USN designed their battleships to fight in the Pacific, which generally provided greater visibility than the north Atlantic. Both believed it possible to hit often enough at long range to be worthwhile.

The British disagreed in general. This was one reason, but hardly the only one, why Hood masked it's aft battery for so long in order to close the range to Bismarck as soon as possible. The Bismarck held it's fire for so long, not because it couldn't fire at a longer range, but to conserve ammunition until the hit rate became quite high. B's captain was actually quite impatient with his admiral for not allowing him to open fire quite a bit sooner. His admiral held fire to conserve ammo to use later against merchant vessels, B's primary mission.

So, who would be more likely to win if either Yamato or Iowa fought Bismark? At long range (such as when Bismarck met Hood and PoW), both Yamato and Iowa have decisive advantages. At short ranges (such as at night in Iron-Bottom Sound), Bismarck would have a better chance than at long range. Even then, Bismarck would still be at a disadvantage since both Yamato and Iowa had superior armament and protection.

[Bansidhbabe]

I wonder if I might respectfully ask 2 questions?

1) What exactly is the difference between a Battleship and a Battlecruiser?

2) Weren't many of the British warships, such as HMS Hood, sunk mainly because of improper storage of the cordite. (HMS Vanguard; HMS Bulwark; HMS Barham for example?)

Sorry if the questions are off topic and kind of dumb. This is a great thread, and I don't know who had the advantage. Sometimes it comes down to the mentality of the crew and the fanatacism in which they hold their leaders. In that case they would be equal. Other than that, I don't know. Each navy thought they were superior, but the KMS Bismarck seemed to inspire more anger in the British Navy because of the HMS Hood - ignoring the fact that the Hood was built around World War 1; had spent her whole career as a flagship of the British Navy; was somewhat old and outdated; needed her armor strengthened; and there is some speculation that improperly stored cordite led to her demise much faster than the British Navy thought.

The American forces involved in the sinking of the IJN Yamato were perhaps driven by the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Kamikaze attacks on the carriers in the pacific that led to many deaths, and even stories of Japanese atrocities in their work camps.

This leads me to believe that a battle between the Yamato and the Bismarck would have been "no quarter asked, no quarter given".

But I could be wrong.

Bansidhbabe

[Terryj]

The main difference between a Battleship and a Battlecruiser was size and speed, a battlecruiser was first devoloped by England in the lates 1800's and used during WWI. Soon after WWI the United States embarked on a class of Battlecrusires called the Lexington class, Japan had the Amagi class. The Lexington class was then retasked the battlecruiser class and we then had the U.S.S Lexington and the U.S.S Saratoga aircraft carries. At the out break of WWII the U.S had a number of large Battleships and stated to devolope the Fast Cruiser (Alaska class) which 3 were built USS Alaska, Guam and Hawaii. The role of fast cruisers, light cruisers heavey cruisers changed allot as to the type of combat they got into.

[383man]

It would have been an awesome battle to see the Bismark , Yamato and an Iowa class battleships go at it. The Yamoto was the largest at over 70,000 tons fully loaded and the Iowa's were larger then the Bismark. The Iowa's were about 56'000 tons fully loaded and 45,000 tons empty. The Bismark was about 52,000 tons fully loaded and 42,000 tons empty.
The Yamoto had nine 18.1" guns and fired an 3000 lb shell.
The Iowa's fired nine 16" 50 caliber shell which weighed about 2700 lbs. And it had better guns then the South Dakota and North Carolina class battleshps had as they both had 16" 45 caliber guns. Yes they were the same size but less caliber and not as powerful.
The Bismark had eight 15" shell and it weighed 1700 lbs. All of these battleships had a range from 22 to 26 miles.

As for battlecruisers they were like a battlleship but had less armor with big guns and faster speed. Remember the Hood was the largest ship in the Royal Navy when it was sunk and it sacrificed armor for better engines and more speed and had the battleship guns. If the Hood had been a battleship history might have been different as it would have had more deck armor. Ron

[Koolest123]

I think K.M.S Bismarck would win in a fight with Yamato because Bismarck went out and sunk hood the pride of the british fleet, and disabled the new battleship Prince of Wales and put up a great fight in the end. Don't forget although Yamato is the biggest battleship ever made... her only fleet on fleet action ever was against 6 escort carriers and 7 small destroyers. The destroyers won.

Plus bismarck was more feared than the Yamato. The United States never really feared the Yamato or the Musahi because when they knew about them they had over 30 aircraft carriers. at the start of the war the british were frantic to distort the bismarck and her lesser known sister Tirpitz

[Koolest123]

As previously mentioned the Yamato had a gun range of 26 miles BUT a little known fact about Yamato is that with out her 3 reconnaissance planes she can only shoot 11 miles away. Bismarck's 2 Heinkel He 115 planes are designed to fly up to 76 miles away and shoot down bombers and reconnaissance aircraft they could've shredded 3 slow aircraft with almost no maneuverability with one 15mm cannon and to defending double barrel 7.92 machine guns.

This is kind of of topic but is the fight the Yamato class V.S. the bismarck Class? And what ocean/sea are we talk'in Pacific, North, Atlantic, or Mediterranean? and if so what accompanying ships any land/carrier based aircraft and if so how many? What is the sea like the wind what kind of crew? Are there any U-boats or submarines? What time/date is it.

AND NO ONE HAS NOICED THAT JAPAN AND GERMANY WER ON THE SAME SIDE IN WW2 AND BISMARCK WAS DESTROYED IN MAY 1941 YAMOTO WAS COMISHIONED IN DECEMBER 1941!! THERE FORE IT WHOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE TO ENGAGE, AND THEY DIDNT SO WHY ARE WE ASKING THIS, STUDY WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED. DONT WHASTE YOUR LIFE WONDERING WHAT HAPPENED BECAUSE IT DIDNT AND IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO TEST BECAUSE WE DONT HAVE THE BISMARCK OR THE YAMOTO JUST LYING AROUND SO GET OF THIS WEBSITE AND DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE WITH YOUR LIFE. YOU ONLY HQVE 1 LIFE TO LOSE SPEND IT WELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!