It is probably also easier to build 1 type of gun instead of 2 and probably easier for logistic to have 1 gun instead of two and the guns used as secondaries on the battleship was also used as the main guns on destroyers which should also help with logistics.
Wrong and Missing Ships: How to correct them ALL
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With PoW, there was more than a few things gone wrong, firstly Phillips did not request the Radar be fixed when he arrived in port, despite knowing it was out of order, only asking 2 days before he sailed and the maintenance crews told him it would be 5 days of work, and the AA ammunition had degraded somewhat due to the tropical heat, and Philips, for some reason we can only speculate about, did not radio Singapore for assistance once the attack started.
Still the AA system on PoW didn't partly cease functioning until the one solitary torpedo to find it's target hit the propeller shaft and tore it loose at which point the follow on damage, torn armour plates and severe flooding, disabled parts of the ships electrical systems by flooding one of the dynamo rooms, added to this the ship developed a severe list leaving the those guns still functional unable to depress low enough to target the incoming planes.
Before that the PoW's QF 5.25" guns had actually been causing a serious problem for the Japanese bombers, badly damaging several of the high altitude bombers forcing them to disengage and shooting down one and damaging several more of the first wave of incoming torpedo bombers. Without the PoW AA fire the Japanese were able to press closer on the attack.
By comparison Repulse, which had what we might term a lower tier of protection, comparatively did not have as much success, whilst she did also knock out a few bombers, and damage more, she was firing for a considerably longer period of time, long enough that some of the guns began to jam from heat and the cordite residue choking the mechanisms.
It's hard to speculate exactly what might have happened if the PoW had a fully functional Radar controller before the attack started, and less suspect ammunition, I suspect a lot more Japanese casualties, but also as the attackers were genuinely brave and extremely determined, (in fact how they finally took down Repulse was near suicidal bravery with a co-ordinated low level attack from both sides with multiple aircraft guaranteeing they would suffer some losses), I think both ships would still have been lost.
There just would have been more brave men lost for Lt. Eki to memorialize when he flew over the wrecks the next day to drop his wreaths.
Bismarck's AA was inadequate, but it cannot be overstated just how awful Richelieu's original AA scheme or Littorio's AA scheme was. Even after American retrofit fixed her light and medium anti-air, Richelieu was sorely lacking in heavy AA as the French dual-purpose guns were nowhere near as potent as American 5-inch dual purpose guns and Richelieu's 6-inch guns were never able to track planes as well as they were hoped to be able to, meaning the heavier of its two supposedly dual-purpose batteries was only effective as anti-surface secondaries.
Yes but I don't think it actually make any real difference, AA is only really effective at a certain Point, Bismarck AA could not disrupt an attack by bi-planes which proved to be fatal. To actually be considered an advantage, there must be a quite clear difference between Bismarck and the other ships AA but I don't think there actually are, Bismarck AA was probably not enough even to protect against light air attacks.
I am not usually one to take Bismarck's side, but it could and did - two of Ark Royal's Swordfish were never able to press the attack precisely because they couldn't penetrate Bismarck's anti-air fire. But just as is the case with anti-air in-game, you can never really disrupt every incoming plane, so you're going to get hit. It also bears mentioning that nearly every Swordfish from both Victorious and Ark Royal was badly perforated and simply seem to have not fused Bismarck's anti-air shells, which instead tore right through their fabric-covered fuselages without detonating.
The German 4" L63 seems rather comparable in the AA role to the US 4" L38 gun, note that the German one is actually longer. So 16 vs 20 AA guns doesn't look like a massive diffrence. Now the amunition is another story, but that's not part of the ship design.
But there is a serious diffrence between NC and Bismarck when it comes to secondary power. Bismarck should have been significantly better att taking out smaller ships quicker and at longer range.
But there is a serious diffrence between NC and Bismarck when it comes to secondary power. Bismarck should have been significantly better att taking out smaller ships quicker and at longer range.
It show more how flawed the AA was since they had not taken account for these Aircrafts, even though they was used at the time. Hitting them given their slow speed is not that difficult since speed make it exponentially difficult to hit Aircrafts.
The US gun is much larger and fire a Shell that weight around 25kg vs 15kg for the german gun.
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For starters, Bismarck proved to be unsinkable, and had to be scuttled. I will have to research this but methinks that while you are admittedly quite informed on the subject, yours is a contrarian view.
That's weak actually. Bismarck was defeated by a lottery jackpot hit of an airborne torpedo. Rodney had little to do with it.
If Bismarck had not been crippled by the hit into the rudder and thus seriously slowed down, listing and driving in circles, this highly praised Rodney museum piece would never even have come within reach of Bismarck. Even when it did and fired hundreds of shells from point blank range - it could even under the most favorable circumstances - not sink an example of a more modern generation of BBs. Rodney tried and failed to beat down a boxer who had his hands tied to the back.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Rodney_(29)#Bismarck
Bismarck's main design failure was that the jammed rudder could not be jettisoned. Otherwise she would have made her way another 150 miles under the air umbrella waiting in France to cover her.
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Dutch Soeabaja Class CA2 -> BCA1
Btw does the game let you add tech you haven't researched or should BC Armor just be moved from "Heavy ship hulls" tech to "Cruiser Armor Scheme" tech?
Also for Sweden, if Goteborg is downgraded to early DD hull then Sweden should lose 1936 DD tech.
Don't know if it's the smallest but the Norwgian Draug class is 550t, (brb adding shit tonnes of dutch escort ships and minelayers).
The US 5" 38 was arguably the most effective medium AA gun of the war, due to its rapid rate of fire and good fire control.
Regarding the secondary armament, Bismarck spent all night firing at British destroyers, without sinking any of them. So little to show for.
Bismarck was a dead ship floating when she was scuttled, and was at the same time subjected to torpedo attacks to rip her hull open below the waterline. It's like a samurai committing seppuku right as another is about to run him through and people insisting the first samurai was unkillable because he "had" to end his own life. It was essentially suicide to steal a kill from the enemy.
And you're not actually making an argument that she was actually superior to her French or Italian counterparts.
I will direct you to Federkiel and others who are more knowledgeable. As I stated, your posts strike me as erudite but contrarian viewpoints. Sorta like talking to New England Patriots fans who wil try and convince you that their team did not cheat, or if they did, your team cheats more. I do not need to look to hard to know such contrarian points should just be dismissed out of hand.
The purpose of armor is to preserve combat capability.
Bismarck's combat capability was quickly reduced, even though she remained afloat much longer. In that sense her armor scheme was optimized for the wrong purpose.
By technological standards i tend to put the battleships of all major powers being built between 1935 and 1940 into the same league. They mainly differed in elements of design philosophy or even the intended purpose. But in general they shared much mor recent insight of the time, technological advances since ww1 - simply many of their features were quite a lot ahead of the ww1 inspired ships that preceeded them and were used by some navies still.
An advantage of German designs were excellent steel (wotan weich), welded manufacturing, advanced radar, range finders and opticals. The victors of ww1 instead certainly brought in their superior experience of an uninterrupted practice in warship production and use.
An advantage of German designs were excellent steel (wotan weich), welded manufacturing, advanced radar, range finders and opticals. The victors of ww1 instead certainly brought in their superior experience of an uninterrupted practice in warship production and use.
Little to do with it, apart from wrecking her combat capability with 16" shells?
Rodney defeated Bismarck as a combat capable vessel, and left her a floating wreck.
Operation Rheinubung is a story of great fortune, both good and bad.
Bismarck had supreme good luck after her radio transmission when the British calculated her position wrong and sent their ships in the wrong direction. She had supreme bad luck when a Swordfish torpedo jammed her rudder. You win some, you lose some.
No, at that point she was still a fully armed battleship and therefore entirely combat capable. Only her maneuverability was impaired.
Her combat capability was reduced when a 16" shell from Rodney knocked out her unprotected fire control wiring, then proceeded to destroy her gun turrets. After that she was a floating wreck.
Bismarck was hardly the first or last ship to lose rudder control as a result of enemy action (though she was less able to remediate the issue than more modern ships), and once Bismarck was forced into a pitched battle, her armor was unable to protect her ability to fight from Rodney's 16" shells or King George V's 14" shells.
Again, Bismarck could not do any manouevering and it also could not fire back regularily with the list it had. The lucky hit into the fire controls added to her non-defensible situation. Rodney sneaked closer from an angle that Bismarck could not bring her main batteries to bear. After the first battery was knocked out, Rodney sailed to this spot and continued pounding from there. Eventually the whole upper deck was in shambles. There was nothing Bismarck could do about it.
It could not attack on equal terms from the beginning of the battle, had to divide it's fire against two enemy battleships (King George V was in the battle, too), it could not counter manouevers and it also could not get away. There is no glory in this, especially when you consider that. Still, two BBs were unable to bring her down..
It could not attack on equal terms from the beginning of the battle, had to divide it's fire against two enemy battleships (King George V was in the battle, too), it could not counter manouevers and it also could not get away. There is no glory in this, especially when you consider that. Still, two BBs were unable to bring her down..