The Navy Thread

Put it on a destroyer like Shimakaze and she'll become an impromptu submarine every shot.

You mean for its first and last shot.

The awful things he says and does are burned into our cultural consciousness like a CRT display left on the same picture too long. -Fighteer

Just build the deck with a flush deck like on a carrier, with a set of rails traversing the length and the gun on the rails. Let it recoil along the length of the ship with each shot.

I kid you not, for some reason this immediately made me imagine the eponymous shipgirl from Kantai Collection trying to prove that she can lug around and use Yamato's massive weapon-rig just as good as said battleship girl can, only to meet the same fate you described when she fires the main guns.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Ford Class Of Supercarriers May End After Four Ships, Navy Eyeing Smaller Carriers.

I think the idea of smaller carriers is better, both economically and practically speaking. The current generation carriers carry half their air wings they did in the 1960s in terms of planes and yet they're still built as if they can carry and launch 100+ F-18's. The Ford-class isn't any different.

Better to save upwards of 40,000 tons of weight and just downsize the ship to carry the 50-60 planes it does now.

Even better, for close to the same weight as a Ford, just put two 65,000 ton carriers or so per battlegroup instead of one giant-ass ship.

It's all some of the same problems battleships of World War Two had compared to their World War One dreadnought counterparts. The dreadnought-era had upwards of dozens of battleships built but they were a fraction of the size (and cost) of an Iowa or Yamato or King George V class and for not much different in terms of main armament. Destroyers have also had that issue. If we had ships of the same displacement as World War era destroyers (both wars) we'd be fielding over a thousand ships for less weight than the current Arleigh Burke inventory.

Yes I'm well aware with the battleship comparison, smaller ships for those may very well mean reduced capabilities across the board. Anything an Iron Duke could do an Iowa does better, anything a Fletcher can do an Arleigh Burke likely does better.

I had assumed the air wings had gotten smaller because the planes got bigger, but I'd never really looked into it.

And yeah, generally speaking, WWI dreadnoughts did not compare well vs WWII fast battleships beyond being already in service. The New York-class dreadnoughts carried 14 inch guns which could launch a 1,500 pound shell a max range of about 33 kilometers. In comparison, the Iowa-class battleships could send a 2,700 pound shell towards a target about 39 kilometers away. Admittedly, I don't know how much of the difference was due to the Iowas benefiting from Cold War-era upgrades after the WWI dreadnoughts were all mothballed or put in museums.

Either way, throw in the later battleships' superior speed and the widespread use of radar, and it was unlikely that a WWI dreadnought would come out very well in most fights.

Edited by AFP on Mar 9th 2020 at 3:42:04 AM

Neither could hit a target beyond 15km, and were trained to close before engaging but the shell weight is correct.

The guns could fling a projectile the distances you listed but hitting something was another mater.

As for planes your correct, the reason for the reduced airwing size is that planes have gotten significantly larger.

^ The planes have gotten larger relative to the 1950s but compared to the 1980s, they've stayed close to the same size, retained the same size (there's still a few original run F-18's the Marines use) or actually gotten smaller (for all the flak the F-35 gets, it's smaller than the F-14 by a noticeable margin).

I know one part of why air wings on carriers seems underwhelming these days compared to previous is the Navy is deliberately keeping them lower. A Nimitz class could easily carry and use 80+ Super Bugs or F-35's but it's limited to around 50 or so. I believe most of the reason for these deliberately downsized loads is called budget. In which case, supercarriers are no longer affordable under any circumstance.

So the Navy is relieving the Captain of the aircraft carrier who blew the whistle about a Coronavirus outbreak on his ship of command.

"Yup. That tasted purple."

Wow, an officer does th right thing and gets the wet big green weenie.

Who watches the watchmen?

That's usually what happens. Whistleblowers of any stripe are typically a Doomed Moral Victor, emphasis on doomed.

x-posted from the mil thread:

"Navy relieves captain who raised alarm about coronavirus outbreak on aircraft carrier"

Eh, no one gets it. Jumping the chain of command and screaming like he did was disrespect to his commander and the Navy.

An enlisted sailor who did that would get some harsh punishment.

You may not like it but that's how the military works.

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

Yeah, no. He sent the letter through official channels broader than needed but the spread of a common disease is not classified info. The navy is just fucking him because they got butt hurt with embarrassment for fucking up...again.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Apr 2nd 2020 at 10:41:56 AM

Who watches the watchmen?

Eddie Gallagher went on Fox News and talked trash about his chain of command and got to retire and keep his Trident. So the Enlisted don't always get it worse.

Also he got one heck of a sendoff from the crew.

Especially since the acting SECNAV has admitted they can't prove he's the one who leaked the letter.

"Yup. That tasted purple."

• Laughs in 18" Mark 1*

The 16" Mark 7 was selected because the existing superheavy shell was incredibly effective and retained ammunition commonality with the shorter Mark 6 guns. The 18" Mark 1 L/48 gun (tested as the 18" Mark A after being lined down to 16" as the Mark 4 L/56 due to the naval treaties, reduced to L/47 as part of the process of removing the liner and threading) with its 3,850 lb superheavy shell was the most powerful naval rifle ever built and tested in terms of muzzle energy. I wouldn't be surprised if the navy would have elected to use them on the Iowa class over the Mark 7 guns if the true size and armament of Yamato had been known known at the time (remember that at the time, Yamato was not realized to be a 70,000 ton monster or to have 18.1" guns and was rather believed to have 16" guns).

It was way more involved than that. The performance difference between 16" and 18" was too small to make or break for the gun in terms of armor penetration. The ships would mount fewer guns of the heavier 18" guns, roughly 6-7 depending on how they worked the layouts. The munitions would have been harder to handle in general. The mountings for the 18" were also a lot heavier and required more serious equipment to operate turrets that would have held them. And the larger guns would have had a slower rate of fire.

I doubt they would have used the 18" given their experience with testing pre-WWII. All the factors that made them choose the 16" in the first place were still in play.

Who watches the watchmen?

We actually came to a similar conclusion with 460mm vs 500mm, it was 9 460mm mounts, or 6 500mm mounts... the loss of additional shells in the air were not seen as worth the marginal performance increase the 500mm offered.

The "only marginal improvement", as far as I can tell from navweaps, was based on early standard AP tests and was reached prior to the development of superheavy AP (a major complaint about it before superheavy shells was also its poor performance against deck armor, which is decidedly not true of its characteristics with the slower and heavier superheavy shells, and the gun was rejected in 1938, while as far as I can tell, Mark 8 superheavy shells weren't approved until 1939). Based on the superheavy data, 18" superheavy penetrated 6.25" of deck armor at 25000 yards, while 16" superheavy fired from the Mark 7 gun only penetrated 5.12" of deck armor at the same range (note that this is also the only range navweaps actually has penetration data for 18" superheavy shells), which crosses a break point where several ships would have at least some zone of immunity against 16" but none against 18", and at least to me seems like the kind of difference that could significantly increase how large a range the guns could threaten a ship like Yamato with plunging fire (I can't find data on its performance against belt armor, so I will refrain from commenting on that).

The biggest strikes against the gun were a lack of perceived need - 16" was working fine and no known ship in existence or development would challenge that, that it was a clear violation of the naval treaties in place (even with the Escalator Clause activated, 18" guns were still illegal and the Iowa class was at least nominally compliant with the Second London Naval Treaty following the activation of the Escalator Clause, which permitted ships up to 45,000 tons and with up to 16" guns), and later on, that aircraft carriers were rendering battleships obsolete anyway.

It was almost certainly still Awesome, but Impractical, but there were quantifiable advantages to the larger gun, especially with superheavy shells.

A super-heavy shell would have only compounded several of the existing issues for the gun in regards to its shells and rate of fire and increased difficulty in handling along with the still modest improvement. The distance to have any immunity against a 16" gun firing super heavy is quite a long-range to the point that scoring even a single hit was a low probability. The US had an advantage in terms of accuracy at range and entered effective range far sooner than pretty much all their opponents and that was with WWII gunnery. Which was another factor in keeping their 16" guns.

The comparative performance with a super-heavy out of the 18" is still very modest at a mere 1.13 inches. That is not a huge leap in performance at all. If we were talking more substantive improvement 3-4" or more that would be a different story but that isn't the case. Just over an inch is the difference in a dead-on hit and an off-angle.

They would have quite likely kept the 16" regardless if they knew everything about the Yamato or not. It worked better overall, was easier to handle, easier to build, easier to maintain, got more shots off per minute, got them off more accurately, and allowed more guns per ship. There were almost no quantifiable advantages that the 18" offered over the 16" beyond another inch of penetration. Add in all the other factors and it becomes a pretty simple and clear choice. Namely the 18" wasn't going to cut it.

The 18" guns face the same problem as pretty much all very large-caliber guns and super guns. They are nowhere near as effective as their calibers or paper stats suggest. They wear out far faster than their smaller caliber cousins, frequently lack comparable accuracy, have far more difficult logistics trains, are slow to fire, and ultimately harder to handle requiring significant crew presence to operate them.

Impractical is the right word for 18" guns.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Apr 4th 2020 at 1:54:32 PM

Who watches the watchmen?

Okay, the Data Vampires got me the first time, but there are some things I want to point out.

1.13 inches against the deck at 25,000 yards is actually quite significant, as that's measuring a near worst-case for a deck hit (and crossing the threshold be being able to penetrate the deck armor of Iowa, South Dakota, and King George V's armored citadels where the 16" gun would fail to do so). At that range, most naval rifles, including the 16" Mark 7 and 18" Mark 1 are hitting at around 70 degrees of obliquity. Closer than that and at flatter angles than that and you normally don't even seriously consider the possibility of penetration at all, and 1.13 inches is greater than the difference between Iowa and King George V at that range and about equal to the difference between Iowa's 16" guns and New Mexico's 14" guns. If it's not a "huge leap in performance", then neither was Iowa's own armament over that of battleships 20 years older. Also, due to how plunging fire works, this difference tends to grow as range increases and penetration increases due to the steeper angle the shells start falling at reducing the effective amount of armor they have to punch through. To get the same deck penetration, the 16" Mark 7 would have to fire nearly 5000 yards further out.

The 3-4 inches you talk about at those angles of obliquity is on the level of how the Army demanded a 100% improvement over the M16 in the Advanced Combat Rifle trials in how absurd a leap in penetration it is (okay, so it's "only" about a 60-80% increase, but that's still an insane increase in penetration you're asking for). The 16" Mark 7 can't even post that large an improvement relative to Scharnhorst's 11" guns at that range, despite the huge difference in size and an entire ton of additional shell weight. To gain 3-4 inches of deck penetration over its 25,000 yard performance, the 16" Mark 7 would have to fire from nearly 10,000 yards further away (which also shaves about 16 degrees off the obliquity).

On that note, an advantage against deck armor would mean that superior rangefinding would favor the 18", not disfavor it, as the gun's advantages in plunging fire would only grow more dramatic as range increased.

I don't have any data on belt penetration by the 18" Mark 1 beyond the Bureau of Ordinance's estimation that "a ship with 16-inch (40.6 cm) side armor and 6.25-inch (15.9 cm) deck armor would have no immune zone whatsoever from the "super-heavy" 18" (45.7 cm) AP projectile." (from navweaps by way of U.S. Battleships: An Illustrated Design History), so I'm not commenting on that in detail, besides to note that Yamato had a 16 inch belt.

I'm skeptical of your claim that the superheavy shell would affect loading times as the 16" guns retained their 30 second firing cycle with both superheavy shells and lighter high explosive shells. I am similarly skeptical of your claims of inaccuracy of the guns, as for all the real complaints the navy had, I can't find mention of unacceptable dispersion.

There were real advantages to the Mark 7, including the greater barrel life, greater rate of fire, simpler logistics, ability to mount more of them, and that it was actually legal under international laws that the US was party to when the Iowa class design was finalized while larger guns were prohibited, and these are enough that you don't have to speculate new ones. I also agree that thinking rationally, it was the better choice, even with knowledge of the true capabilities of Yamato, but I'm also not convinced that full knowledge of Yamato's capabilities would provoke a fully rational response, especially from a US Navy that wasn't yet fully convinced of the advantages of naval aviation over traditional battleship warfare (remember, nobody was at the time) and still believed that large surface combatants would remain a major part of naval operations for the foreseeable future.

Edited by Balmung on Apr 5th 2020 at 4:01:37 AM

Your right that 18 inch is a notable improvement over 16, but what the problem is is that for the Amercians it would have cost them the trimounts since there battle wagons had to fit through the panama canal.

At the end of the day your trying to strike a balance between rifle effectiveness, and the amount of shells in the air, and 6 shells is just way WAY too few.

Battleship guns had between 1 and 2 degrees deviation from machining and tolerances, and while that might not sound like much... that did mean at long ranges they could miss a ship even while being dead on... those extra 3 shells are an extra 3 chances to hit, and to get good hits at that.... that's a 50% increase in chances infact.

That 50% boost in volume of fire just isn't worth the extra penetration and explosive mass.... An extra gun mount in each turret > 2 extra inches of gun size.

Edited by Imca on Apr 5th 2020 at 2:02:19 AM

Again, I agree that from a rational perspective, 9x 16" Mark 7 guns was better than 6x 18" Mark 1 guns, but that not all these decisions are necessarily purely rational, especially when they're being made by navies that still believed battleships would remain major parts of naval operations for the foreseeable future (because remember, these decisions were being made in 1938, not 1943) and perhaps even more especially not if they were confronted with a rival that was actually known to be mounting weapons so much larger than anything on their own battleships. And perhaps it wouldn't be seen on a hypothetical alternate Iowa, but instead perhaps it would lead to an alternate armament for Montana and Montana actually being laid down. Which again wouldn't be a rational decision, especially with hindsight about the value of aircraft carriers over battleships, but that was something the world's navies were about as resistant to as Europe's cavalry branches were to the the coming dominance of artillery and machine guns in 1912.

Also, oddly, the navy apparently believed that it was possible to mount 6 or 7 where they could mount 9 16" guns, and I'm really wondering how they would have planned on doing that extra gun if they had tried to go through with it, and whatever they'd do with it, I'm sure I'd like it even less than the weird two-gun turret KGV had alongside its quads because Britain realized they'd accidentally made it too heavy with the originally planned three quads and didn't want to make like everyone else and pay only the minimum lip service to the naval treaties.

Edited by Balmung on Apr 5th 2020 at 4:29:34 AM

To be entirely fair there were good reasons to believe battleships would still be viable in 1938, we have hindsight looking back, which tints glasses.

Reminder that the Army in 1938 was absolutely convinced that heavy bombers would be better at sinking ships then the naval ones, and that sinking warships was one of the B-17s intended roles, so much so that it caused a pissing match with the US navy who did not want the army sinking ships.

B-17s managed to sink a grand total of 1 warship under live fire, because turns out that in actual combat warships move... and shoot back, exactly what was thought was going to be the problem for naval bombers as well despite the often quoted "tests" where naval aviation sunk a warship... the arguments that it did so only while overloading itself beyond the testing limit which wasn't just some arbitary number but what was assumed to be practical to carry into a combat zone and still be able to manuver.... adding to being agianst a non moving ship that didn't shoot back HAD merit....

They were just also wrong as we can tell looking back at history.... But that doesn't mean that they were irrational.

Edited by Imca on Apr 5th 2020 at 2:47:47 AM

I hate losing a post to the net going wonky. It's like your thoughts being eaten up.

Since the context is if the Yamato's actual specs had been known one inch more still isn't cutting it especially when you talk about a target having up to 9" of deck armor. So no it is not significant considering you would need more than an additional 3" of penetration to make it a perforation to get fully effective behind armor effect from the shells.

At 25,000 yards the fall angle is closer to 20 degrees relative to the target give or take a few degrees in either direction depending on the gun. Similar data from Yamato's guns come pretty close so chances are good we can expect something similar for the American 18" had they bothered to use it. This means the shells are falling on a roughly horizontal armor surface at about 20 degrees +/-.

The 3-4" I stated is nothing like the armies demand by any stretch of the imagination. It is what you would need to reliably defeat Yamato's deck armor across the hard spots that protected vital components. You need some overmatch to get behind the armor not just penetrate into it. Neither gun would be sufficient at that range to defeat the deck armor with plunging fire. At 25,000yards both the 16" and 18" have on average overmatch against Yamato's belt at the waterline. To defeat the deck both would have to push out to ranges that make long-range gunfire impractical to begin with, because of a lack of accuracy at those ranges from gun aiming systems in use at the time.

There would be no real advantage against deck armor given neither gun system had the penetration from relative angles at ranges in which either could expect a reasonable chance of landing a hit in the first place. They both would suffer from the paradox of less accuracy but better plunging fire penetration at longer range vs more accuracy but less plunging fire penetration at a shorter range. Like you said the angle of fire notably impacts the performance. At ranges, the average US battleship achieved some reasonable accuracy they would get better performance hitting the beltline.

The Yamato's Belt could have been perforated by both 18" and 16" at 25,000yards with at least an inch of overmatch penetration minimum. Closing to a range where even 10 percent of shells fired would likely hit would give a hit on the beltline that would give notable over match. Its vertical penetration at those ranges isn't that great for either gun as the high angle shell fall becomes increasingly more shallow for their impact angles the closer they get.

The heavier shells are simply harder to handle. We have pretty consistently seen this happen with increasing gun calibers across multiple systems. You have a shell type heavier and overall bulkier than the other. That inarguably leads to it being harder to handle. This is especially true when gun systems of the era still required human handlers and heavier shells were harder to manipulate even with the aid of machinery. We consistently see a decrease in time to fire with increasing gun caliber and an increase in shell and propellant weight in every gun system afloat or ashore. Also, the difference in weight between the two heavy AP shells is at least a half-ton for just the shell whereas the difference between lighter shells in either is a few hundred pounds lighter for the shells alone. Even assuming parity of load and fire times volume of fire still favors the more numerous 16" guns especially given the limitations of gunnery targeting systems meant you needed some volume to improve the odds of a hit in the first place.

Accuracy is something we have pretty detailed examinations of relative gun accuracy. Better yet we have it for numerous weapon systems naval and land-based including battleships from that time frame. To even get a relative 10 percent chance to hit a broadside the same dimension target of an Iowa, fired from an Iowa was around 20,000 yards. Its average belt penetration at the range was 20 inches. It was well under the guns max possible range and well under its best plunging fire penetration chance. That wouldn't change very much with the 18" as it would be fitted with the exact same technology used to aim the gun. You would find its effective range would be far less than its max possible range and the same for its plunging fire. At that range, both 18" and 16" are putting shells through the belts of their targets. We don't get to see any notable improvements in big-bore gun accuracy on naval ships until the '80s. That is the limitation of gunnery technology of the era and the US, in general, was doing better than most in Naval gunnery at the time.

I seriously doubt they would have changed their minds on gun caliber even with the full knowledge of the Yamato class. Given the class was limited to a mere two battleships and a converted carrier and that was it. Especially given they already made the call to go with the 16" in the first place. Even then the Yamato was far from untouchable by the 16" guns. The 16" guns the US fielded outmatched pretty much every armor scheme fielded in the era including the vast majority of the Japanese fleet. The few that could challenge its performance in some limited fashion were more vulnerable in others. If we use plunging fire as the metric it still stands as the bulk of warships including a number of battleships had deck armor often thinner than what either gun system could defeat at 25,000 yards. If the armor was too thick for plunging fire the belts were often appreciably too thin relative to the guns penetration capabilities. That is including allied ships the vast majority were way too thin to seriously oppose even the power of the 16" inch guns. Even Yamato's belt was vulnerable to the 16" gun starting at 25,000 yards.

As for the belief in naval aviation, before the first Iowa Class even left the docks the US had received a rather notable example of just how effective Naval aviation was. There were something like 7 or 8 other battles that demonstrated the capability of airpower that all occurred before the first Iowa's launched some before Pearl Harbor even occurred.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Apr 5th 2020 at 2:57:55 PM

Who watches the watchmen?