The Navy Thread

That allows the rear most turret to turn around. You can already see the barrels are too long to allow it to transition past the middle turret so it was rotate the other way around.

That still leaves every thing aft of the superstructure, which admitantly is a hanger, but I don't see why it couldn't have something mounted there as well, or why it is so fat and wide.

Those big turrets take up a lot of space under the deck, so it could be due to the design of the interior spaces.

I thought turrets went straight down through the bevels?

Do they actualy mushroom out below the deck instead of taper off? that would explain a lot actualy.

edited 15th May '18 10:32:33 PM by Imca

That and swinging around those large guns means they need a lot of clearance. There just isn't a lot of deck room between barrel height needs and the deck.

As for the aviation deck even small plane operations take up a fair bit of space for launch and recovery. The deck space is empty but mostly for a reason.

For the width it was less "Why is there no guns to the sides" but "Why was the design as wide as the yamato we got" did 16 inch guns weigh as much as 18 inch guns? Would she still need to displace the same amount of water dispite being 10,000 tones lighter.

It just seems weird to not put her on a diet and narrow her down, if that makes sense.

edited 15th May '18 11:08:11 PM by Imca

And now you know why the Iowa class BB was the pinnacle of battleship design.

I'm just thinking that doing all three turrets in the front, but without all of them superfiring seems to defeat the purpose of an all-front arrangement. The French all-front battleships could bring their full firepower to bear while also presenting the smallest possible profile and all guns could be brought to bear across a very large arc. Nelson didn't have this advantage, but by having the C turret the other way around (back to the superstructure, rests pointing at the B turret), all three turrets could be brought to bear across most of the forward arc, while Izumo's arrangement would seem to place greater restrictions on the firing arcs of the turrets.

Not really. There is a lot of internal material inside the ship like noted earlier and wider ships tend to be more stable.

Thats a funny way to spell Yamato Tom, In a flat out slug fest Iowa would loose, sure she has her radar and her speed, but battleship tactics did not include "Kite the enemy" and her crew was green any way.

Once the distance closed to the engagement ranges dictated by battleship tactics, Iowa looses yo Yammers in the resulting slug fest.

Plus Iowa wasn't exactly smaller, while she was thinner then Yammers she was also much much longer, and didn't exactly bring the same firepower into combat, just speed and accuracy (not range, Yammers wins there too, but at long ranges Yammers has a 2% deviation on the main guns, where as Iowa has 1.5%)

Gotcha.

I can actually see one advantage in that layout, and that's that it looks like you could feed all the turrets from the same ammo rack, if you use nelson's turret layout the rear most bevel is even farther back which prevents it..... so maybe it was an attempt to feed all the turrets from the same spot, while trying to copy nelson?

I really cant say I know what the deisngers were thinking.

On even terms, the Iowa has the edge. Quality of munitions, fire control, engagement range, speed and damage control all heavily favor Iowas.

Factoring in crew quality, supporting ships and the general chaos of the battlefield makes it a tossup.

Not in the slightest at the average battleship engagement range of 25km, even factoring in construction quality that Iowa wins out at, Yamato has an easier time penning Iowa then Iowa does Yamato at that range, with only Yamato's cheeks, and decks being able to be penned at those ranges, where as Iowa can be nailed in any place not a turret.

As the range closes, the scales tip further and further to Yammers, because Iowa's big edge is her fire control, low gun deviation, and speed.

Her secondary battery and hull thickness are both much lower lower.

At knife fight ranges though it does become a tossup again, since on a flat trajectory Iowa's guns can pen every thing that isn't a turret on Yammers.

Under ideal circumstances Iowa would win because it can kite, and levrage its better ranges, but under the realities of war, the edge goes to Yammers.

Edit: Though under full war conditions, both meet 300 planes and get sent to the bottom before they can even see each other.

edited 16th May '18 2:00:40 PM by Imca

The design of Japanese armor piercing shells was vastly inferior to the US designs. Japanese shells did their damage by virtue of being packed with more explosives but their penetrating qualities were unreliable. That basically comes to a tie, and depending on range and how lucky the gunners were could go to the Yamato as its top-attack shells were incredibly effective, but difficult to get on target.

US radar fire control was highly effective, tests showed it was able to hold a firing solution while executing high-speed maneuvers, and it was able to maintain accuracy beyond 30km. The US demonstrated this capability several times, and it's probably the single biggest advantage the Iowa has. It's a massive leap over the optical systems the Yamato used, as it worked at night and wasn't blocked by weather or smoke.

The armor on the Yamato is thicker, but as was reported when it was torpedoed its armor seemed to be of poor quality, with bad welds. The Iowa also has better belt armor and damage control systems. The Yamato wins in terms of sheer quantity and thickness of armor, though.

In a one on one fight the Iowa would be able to win, in a massed battle it really could go either way. The Iowa definitely represented the cutting edge of battleship technology though.

Immy: You have that backwards. At range the Iowa compares favorably to Yamato but at shorter ranges Yamato has the superior fire power. It was because of an odd quirk of ballistics in very similar US development of 18" guns that led to them going with 16" guns instead. Also the Yamato has to drop below 25km to pen even the Conning Tower of the Iowa. The Belt would have been even harder to pen being layered spaced angled armor. Unless the Yamato can fire at the Iowa from underwater it isn't ever going to get a clean hit on the belt.

The Yamato is similarly hard to pen through the belt for roughly similar reasons.

We all know it is the Hellcats and Avengers that win that match.

Besides, the real match here is the Yamato vs escort destroyers and escort carriers.

The thing I found interesting is both the Iowa and Yamato had somewhat similar armor schemes in terms of the belts. I mean in more general designs. But they both took advantage of slopped from the bottom to the top of the belt armor. Which makes even incoming angled fire less effective because of relative directional slant of impact relative to the armor belt. In order for the ships to realistically start punching through the belts they would have to close the distance to reduce the strike angle and improve overall shell penetration. Never mind for any ship to even be able to reliably hit the other ship at all.

As for kiting actually yes warships did dot hat including Battle Ships. The idea is to avoid coming close because many ships were also packing torpedo's and even the heavily protected battleships could take notable damage from even a single torpedo hit. The average battleship engagement range is also notably less thank 25km. 25km is the max effective range for the 16" guns and the big 18" guns could add about another 3-5km of effective range. Both weapons systems relative accuracy at that range would be shit but they can reach out that far.

^ With the radar at the time, accuracy beyond 25km was possible for Iowa. I think she took out Katori at Truk at 26,000 meters. I might be in error on that though. (Katori didn't stand a chance either way, she was outranged and outgunned.)

EDIT: Re-referencing, it was 14,500 yards. Which was range enough for Iowa to hit Katori with just about ALL of its armament.

edited 16th May '18 6:07:06 PM by MajorTom

By range I ment that on paper, Yammers had a a longer firing range on its main guns, I said in the same post it is actualy inferior at range fighting dispite having the better range due to the lack of radar.

Basicly it can hit further out, but its accuracy at those ranges is worse, yeilding the advantage to Iowa.

Which is exactly what I was saying, and why Yammers has the advantage in the reality of war. Iowa yields advantage at ranges of less then 25km, where Yamato's thicker Armour takes over for the gun accuracy starting to overlap.

Iowa does its best against Yammers when both ships are dealing with shite accuracy, but Iowa can leverage having slightly less shite accuracy.

13km is right within Yamato's killzone of ideal ranges Tom, between 25k and until it drops to a flat trajectory advantage falls on Yammers. >25 it is Iowa's, and at a close range it is a tossup since both ships forfeit there advantages.

edited 16th May '18 6:12:30 PM by Imca

The max range on the Yamato's Type 94s is around 25km, the Iowa's guns have a max range of around 30-40km.

If we're talking a full-on battle situation there's no way to say whether one ship would be better than the other, since tactics can level even the most uneven playing field. I'd put the two ships as pretty much equal in that scenario, since they both fill the same effective role.

Archon: The Yamato tops out at 42km the Iowa at about 38km max for possible gun elevation limits firing high velocity AP rounds. We don't see anything better until after WWII. Neither ship will likely have any sort of meaningful accuracy at that range. Their max effective range is below the max range. Tactics can't make up for serious deficiencies like notably reduced accuracy compared to your opponent. The Japanese made some weird decisions regarding the targeting equipment for their weapons batteries. I say weird because they could have possibly installed better systems.

Immy: The Iowa starts getting regular hits at 18km against broadside battleship targets about 1 or 2 per volley at most. They start hitting relatively near flat trajectories at 16km. By the time you hit 13km they are pretty close to 1 of every 3 shells being a hit. Yamato's comparatively poor gunnery kit and performance won't net it the same outcomes. Regardless of range until you get to the point where it becomes effective suicide for either craft the Iowa retains an edge because it is far more likely to land a hit.

At knife fighting ranges around 5km its effectively moot as both ships will be landing hits and penetrating each others citadels. It would boil down who can dump the most fire into the other guy before they go down and who takes the worst hits first. That is pretty much suicide fighting.

edited 16th May '18 7:16:43 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Iowa can't pen any thing but Yamatos decks and cheeks at 16km, and your right that at that point they are falter but not compleatly flat, which is why Iowa looses out at those ranges.

She still hits more, but she can't pentrate because the trajectory is too shallow to plunge in, yet still too steep to get any thing but the cheeks, it's not until about 10km she starts to get reliable side penetrations.

@ Archon: See above post, I don't know where you got 25km from, the 18 inches can fire up to 44km out, vs 38 on the 16s, neither will hot reliably though until much closer.

edited 16th May '18 7:37:28 PM by Imca

Maybe if you're using old ammo from the 30s. The 2700 lb (~1200 kg) super AP round fielded in 1945 was known to break pretty much any armor of the war. That ammo is why the proposed Montana class didn't up-gun. It didn't need to.

No Tom, bluntly your waifu does loose out in the armour department she has 307mm of belt armour, vs yamato's 410, even though Yamato was built to worse specs, that only effectivly hindered the armour by 10% compared to amercian armour.

That's still 369mm vs 307mm, which translates to a wider margin that Yamato is impenetrable, even if you assume 100% identical gun properties.... which isn't the case, since the type 94 was more destructive if it wasn't plunging.

The super AP will go right through once it isn't angled, but it won't go through the belt at range

edited 16th May '18 7:46:26 PM by Imca

Those are maximum combat ranges. Outside of that the shells tumble or deflect and can no longer reliably inflict damage, or reliably hit targets. The gap in ranges is typically attributed to the higher-quality rounds and powder charges the US used.

Absolute maximum ranges don't mean too much, it's easy to loft a round a long ways but the range it can actually inflict damage inside is limited.

edited 16th May '18 7:50:46 PM by archonspeaks

And effective range was never the argument, at EFFECTIVE ranges Iowa leads out, at maximum possible ranges it goes to Yammers.

That has been the statement since the begining.

Yammers can fire 44k she won't get hits, Iowa can fire 38 she won't get hits, the range that they start getting hits favors Iowa.

Especialy when you compare the 1.5% deviation on Iowa to the 2% on Yamato.

Iowa is a sniper and Yamato is a slugger in so many words, and each holds the advantage in there own range bracket.

edited 16th May '18 8:01:34 PM by Imca