Would you say battleships had more effect on WW2 as a resource/money diversion?

[krieger11b]

What I mean is that battleships had so little do contribute to WW2 in direct combat, that it's indirect effects were orders of magnitudes larger.

First lets talk about how it diverted other resources.
-They were incredibly expensive and used large amounts of steel that could have gone to other things, such as a lot more tanks, destroyers, submarines, etc. Most important would have been towards carriers.

- It's a also a good thing that the effort made for the Bimarck/Tirpitz and the Scharnhorst/Gneisenau were not put towards U-Boots. Yes the UK would have responded with more destroyers but lets face it, for the first couple years the ASW abilities of destroyers was quite lacking and I believe more U-Boots would have made a hell of a lot more difference even with more ASW to run against.

Then there is the more in direct effect of fleet in being.
-The Tirpitz in perticular tied up many times it's tonnage in Royal Navy ships being diverted to escort convoys in case the Tirpitz decided to show up. I have read this also slowed down the convoy system when they had to wait for a Battleship to arrive to protect against German surface raiders. Which the convoy system on it's own made delivery of their cargo have an overall 30% decrease in efficency compared to having them go out as soon as an individual ship leaving as soon as it's cargo was aboard. A needed thing don't get me wrong, just making a comparison from peace/wartime.

Aside from the occasional rare BB/BC to BB/BC combat, most of the direct action BB/BCs did was bombardment, which could have been handled by aircraft from carriers that might have otherwise been made in their place.

What are your thoughts, were they really worth the effort in the end? You could argue that it would not be a 1 to 1 ratio of battleship resources going to say U-Boots since there was a limitation of space at shipyards for example. Though it would be 1 to 1 with carriers.

 

[Stuckenschmidt]

What are your thoughts

Hindsight is a hell of a drug.

 

[ap08]

Hindsight is a hell of a drug.

Yes and no. The vulnerability of battleships vs. aircraft has been demonstrated in the 1920-s, and the potential of U-boats was clear already during WW1. But there is always very significant inertia at the top level, resistance to change, unwillingness to adapt to new realities, which results in new things being learned the hard way. The only solution I can see is to replace top military officers much more often, don't let them cling to their post until they are 70, and maybe WW2 would be different with less battleship sinking, more carrier action, more&better submarines, and of course armored warfare not limited to the German side (imagine, for example, de Gaulle in charge instead of WW1 veterans!)

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

US BB's saw a distinct role change in WWII. They moved away from shore-bombardment, capital fleet combat duty and relegated this to the older battleships. The newer battleships were given a new focus and equipped with enhanced communication and radar gear to serve as command and control platforms for admirals commanding fast CV TFGs. The carrier groups were reorganized with the battleship core providing tremendous AAA capability and C&C.

 

[unmerged(2833)]

Which the convoy system on it's own made delivery of their cargo have an overall 30% decrease in efficency compared to having them go out as soon as an individual ship leaving as soon as it's cargo was aboard.

Hm. From what i vaguely remember, the deliveries to UK ports fell by about 2/3 during the wartime... (iirc from 36mt to 11 or so)

 

[Amallric]

- Battleships were reasonably efficient, both as fleet in being and in actual combat when they were used properly. The apparent lack of efficiency of Axis battleships is rather due to them fighting against overwhelming odds and not to their intrinsic lack of efficiency.

- Real life is not a HoI game, you can't just seamlessly reallocate resources intended for battleships to be spent for other projects.

- No Axis nation built even one battleship during the war, all they did was to complete the construction of a small number of ships that were already laid down.

 

[Graf Zeppelin]

US BB's saw a distinct role change in WWII. They moved away from shore-bombardment, capital fleet combat duty and relegated this to the older battleships. The newer battleships were given a new focus and equipped with enhanced communication and radar gear to serve as command and control platforms for admirals commanding fast CV TFGs. The carrier groups were reorganized with the battleship core providing tremendous AAA capability and C&C.

True, all this without sacrificing anything from their traditional roles.

 

[krieger11b]

- Battleships were reasonably efficient, both as fleet in being and in actual combat when they were used properly. The apparent lack of efficiency of Axis battleships is rather due to them fighting against overwhelming odds and not to their intrinsic lack of efficiency.

- Real life is not a HoI game, you can't just seamlessly reallocate resources intended for battleships to be spent for other projects.

- No Axis nation built even one battleship during the war, all they did was to complete the construction of a small number of ships that were already laid down.

I already mentioned it's not a 1 to 1 transfer, but there was certain amount of strategic materials and money that still could have been used for other things. Money mattering more pre-war, and strategic materials during wartime.

Also the Axis made 4 extremely impressive battleships.

KMS Bismarck (1940)
KMS Tirpitz (1941)

IJN Yamato (Ten days after Pearl Harbor , Dec 17th 1941)
IJN Musashi (1942)

All of them were commision after WW2 started.

 

[Amallric]

All of those ships were laid down long before the war. They were already nearing completion when the war started for their respective country. The extreme case is the Yamato which was practically as well as finished when the war started. No further battleship building took place, as compared to aircraft carrier building(for Japan) and submarine building(for Germany) which were conducted extensively during the war. This is to say, the "conversion" you are talking about pretty much took place to the greatest realistically imaginable extent. It would make no sense to blame Germany for a ship laid down in 1936 in a completely different political and military environment and for not scraping it while it was already almost finished.

 

[krieger11b]

All of those ships were laid down long before the war. They were already nearing completion when the war started for their respective country. The extreme case is the Yamato which was practically as well as finished when the war started. No further battleship building took place, as compared to aircraft carrier building(for Japan) and submarine building(for Germany) which were conducted extensively during the war. This is to say, the "conversion" you are talking about pretty much took place to the greatest realistically imaginable extent. It would make no sense to blame Germany for a ship laid down in 1936 in a completely different political and military environment and for not scraping it while it was already almost finished.

My point was battleships being worth it in general, not if it was stupid at the time to build them.

 

[gagenater]

Part of the discussion of 'why didn't the build something else' assumes that there was something else that could make reasonably efficient use of the resources that went into the battleships. In the case of Germany there were clear alternatives that they could have used the materials for (tanks, field guns, ammunition) that they desperately needed. In the case of all the other powers that were building large naval ships, not so much. Japan needed ships, but it's battleships were nearly completed by the time it was realized they were not the best use for the materials that went into them.

For the U.S. and U.K. the calculus was much different. In their case there was no shortage of materials to build anything. There was a shortage of commercial shipping and troop transports but these were being remedied literally as fast as possible within the constraints of available places to build ships, and the time required to put them together. Meanwhile there were large slips suitable for constructing large ships like battleships and aircraft carriers. If they had failed to use that infrastructure to build something useful, then they wouldn't have been used to build anything at all. There was no shortage of tanks, or guns or ammunition - there were shortages in the ability to get them from where they were made to where they needed to be. No amount of cancelled or unbuilt battleships would aid in fixing that problem any faster. Battleships were worth building for these nations so long as they were at least marginally useful, and their construction was done at a pace and locations where it wouldn't get in the way of the production of other more critical things (which it didn't)

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

True, all this without sacrificing anything from their traditional roles.

Exactly, those 16" rifles on the Iowa's are still the best guns ever built, nothing like them.

Good to know they're still around just in case Hawaii gets occupied by Alien spacecraft.

 

[krieger11b]

Exactly, those 16" rifles on the Iowa's are still the best guns ever built, nothing like them.

Good to know they're still around just in case Hawaii gets occupied by Alien spacecraft.

Best guns ever on a ship anyways, the Schwerer Gustav was 1 inch short of being twice as large as the Iowa's guns. However the 16inch guns were a hell of a lot less stupid.

 

[StephenT]

Aside from the occasional rare BB/BC to BB/BC combat, most of the direct action BB/BCs did was bombardment, which could have been handled by aircraft from carriers that might have otherwise been made in their place.

The entire carrier air wing of a US aircraft carrier mid-war carried 37 tons of bombs. That's equal to five broadsides from a battleship. Battleships generally carried enough ammunition for at least 100 broadsides. Assuming the carrier achieves a sortie rate of four times per day, one battleship can provide as much shore bombardment firepower as five aircraft carriers - and its shells can't be intercepted and can't be shot down.

 

[gagenater]

The entire carrier air wing of a US aircraft carrier mid-war carried 37 tons of bombs. That's equal to five broadsides from a battleship. Battleships generally carried enough ammunition for at least 100 broadsides. Assuming the carrier achieves a sortie rate of four times per day, one battleship can provide as much shore bombardment firepower as five aircraft carriers - and its shells can't be intercepted and can't be shot down.

And also at least in that time period the shells would generally be more accurate and when it came to critical situations, had a larger burst radius (HE), better ground/fortification penetration (AP) than the equivalent air carried bombs.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

The entire carrier air wing of a US aircraft carrier mid-war carried 37 tons of bombs. That's equal to five broadsides from a battleship. Battleships generally carried enough ammunition for at least 100 broadsides. Assuming the carrier achieves a sortie rate of four times per day, one battleship can provide as much shore bombardment firepower as five aircraft carriers - and its shells can't be intercepted and can't be shot down.

I totally agree. As long as they're in range of the ship and/or shoreline. But what happens when a fleet in under full steam in the middle of the ocean in broad daylight, or the army moves inland beyond the 20-odd mile radius of a 16" Mark 7 rifle. Who is going to track them down then? Those airplanes move a lot faster than a ship does, their range is greater, their pilots think.

There is a reason the AAA of an Iowa class battleship was used far more often than the rifles. When they were fired, by all accounts those 16" guns were monsters to be feared. And why the number of Essex/Midway class CV keels laid dwarfed the number of Iowa's.

 

[noobermenschen]

If Spruance had been more aggressive at the Battle of the Philippine Sea, going after the Combined Fleet and leaving the landings protected by escort carriers and the bombardment fleet, you would be asking "What would have happened if the US Navy hadn't built those remarkably useful battleships?". Spruance already had his battleships far ahead of the carriers to absorb Japanese carrier air attacks, but they were perfectly placed as a surface action group to follow up a carrier attack if he had been farther west.

-OR-​

If Halsey had been more cautious at Leyte and formed Task Force 34 to guard San Bernadino Straight, same story - anyone suggesting BBs were a waste would be shouted down as being "seduced by the carrier mafia". The gunpower of the US Pacific Fleet was underutilized by the commanders there. Cunningham employed battleships very effectively in the Med during 1940-41, though CVs were in short supply at that place and time.

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

If Spruance had been more aggressive at the Battle of the Philippine Sea, going after the Combined Fleet and leaving the landings protected by escort carriers and the bombardment fleet, you would be asking "What would have happened if the US Navy hadn't built those remarkably useful battleships?". Spruance already had his battleships far ahead of the carriers to absorb Japanese carrier air attacks, but they were perfectly placed as a surface action group to follow up a carrier attack if he had been farther west.

-OR-​

If Halsey had been more cautious at Leyte and formed Task Force 34 to guard San Bernadino Straight, same story - anyone suggesting BBs were a waste would be shouted down as being "seduced by the carrier mafia". The gunpower of the US Pacific Fleet was underutilized by the commanders there. Cunningham employed battleships very effectively in the Med during 1940-41, though CVs were in short supply at that place and time.

Yeah, Spruance lost the mojo he won at Midway with that 'we have to worry about the end run' and not going full bore after the Japanese. It is probably the primary reason why he was out to sea while the lesser admirals were all on the Missouri watching the Japanese sign the papers.

 

[th3freakie]

Using the exceptional "WW2-what-if" simulator that is Hearts of Iron 2, I have discovered the following, during the AAR in my signature:

If the USSR had devoted massive resources to battleships in the pre-war years, Germany would have found itself forced to match the red naval threat, and also built more battleships and sooner. This would have been done at the expense of aircraft and tanks. Since the Soviets also sacrificed aircraft and tanks to build the Sovetsky Soyuz class, the end result is turning the Eastern Front into an infantry slugfest. In those conditions, Germany gets crushed even faster, and Red Europe becomes a reality sooner and in a larger scale than OTL.

On the other hand, US, UK and Japan also supercharge their naval build ups, to unpredictable results (i.e. "I lost the save files").

 

[Andre Bolkonsky]

Using the exceptional "WW2-what-if" simulator that is Hearts of Iron 2, I have discovered the following, during the AAR in my signature:

If the USSR had devoted massive resources to battleships in the pre-war years, Germany would have found itself forced to match the red naval threat, and also built more battleships and sooner. This would have been done at the expense of aircraft and tanks. Since the Soviets also sacrificed aircraft and tanks to build the Sovetsky Soyuz class, the end result is turning the Eastern Front into an infantry slugfest. In those conditions, Germany gets crushed even faster, and Red Europe becomes a reality sooner and in a larger scale than OTL.

On the other hand, US, UK and Japan also supercharge their naval build ups, to unpredictable results (i.e. "I lost the save files").

Russian naval engineering wasn't exactly their strong suit at the time. And I can only imagine a line of heavy warships slugging it out in the confines of the Baltic! Room to maneuver, not so much.