World's Worst Warships?

bruto said:
I suppose in retrospect the Dreadnought wasn't so bad, though I suspect that its original hopes were for more front-line sorts of action.
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I never understood the arrangement of the forward turrets en echelon; maybe I'm just using hindsight but it seems like it should have been obvious that that was a silly and wasteful idea.
 
Trebuchet said:
That's correct. The USN commissioned something like 56 battleships over a period of around 50 years, and had them in commission for nearly 100 years, 1895 to 1993. The total number of engagements they ever had with other battleships was three.
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Surigao Strait of course plus one of the many battles around Guadalcanal. The third being? A certain French BB that couldn't even get underway in port I think?
 
SpitfireIX said:
I never understood the arrangement of the forward turrets en echelon; maybe I'm just using hindsight but it seems like it should have been obvious that that was a silly and wasteful idea.
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Not exactly en echelon, one on the foredeck and one on each side. The USN pioneered the use of superfiring turrets after tests on an old monitor showed it was practical to fire a heavy gun over another turret without killing or incapacitating the crew.

lobosrul5 said:
Surigao Strait of course plus one of the many battles around Guadalcanal. The third being? A certain French BB that couldn't even get underway in port I think?
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Jean Bart, at Casablanca. Only one of her two quad turrets had even been installed.
 
Trebuchet said:
That's correct. The USN commissioned something like 56 battleships over a period of around 50 years, and had them in commission for nearly 100 years, 1895 to 1993. The total number of engagements they ever had with other battleships was three.
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I'd count engagements with cruisers and carriers as well.
 
theprestige said:
I'd count engagements with cruisers and carriers as well.
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I don't believe any USN battleship ever engaged an aircraft carrier*. I think a BB engaging a carrier actually only happened twice in history, Kurita's "Center Force" at the Battle Off Samar which included IJN Yamato hit the CVE's of USN 7th Fleet. And, HMS Glorious which was sunk by the Scharnhorst.

*If, only Halsey hadn't "acted stupidly" as Captain Ramius remarked, then likely they would have. Jack Ryan's conclusions were all wrong.
 
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lobosrul5 said:
I don't believe any USN battleship ever engaged an aircraft carrier*.
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Well, Pearl Harbor ; )

I think a BB engaging a carrier actually only happened twice in history, Kurita's "Center Force" at the Battle Off Samar which included IJN Yamato hit the CVE's of USN 7th Fleet. And, HMS Glorious which was sunk by the Scharnhorst.
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We were talking about USN ships, but my wonder is more general: What are the average capital ship to capital ship engagements (cruisers, battleships, carriers) during a battleship's original commission?
 
SpitfireIX said:
I never understood the arrangement of the forward turrets en echelon; maybe I'm just using hindsight but it seems like it should have been obvious that that was a silly and wasteful idea.
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It was the first attempt. What seems obvious now was not so obvious then.
It is always the way with pioneering technology.
 
SpitfireIX said:
I never understood the arrangement of the forward turrets en echelon; maybe I'm just using hindsight but it seems like it should have been obvious that that was a silly and wasteful idea.
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Superfiring turrets are rarely totally superfiring anyway as the blast from the upper turret would inevitably cause damage to the lower turret if fired directly overhead.

The arrangement on Dreadnought allowed for six guns to be brought to bear directly forward and aft, with an 8 gun broadside, which is actually pretty good.
 
theprestige said:
I wonder what the average number of surface actions is for a capital ship, during the lifetime of its original commission.

I'd also argue that successfully serving as a "fleet in being" is just as much a win as actually fighting and winning a naval engagement. Most USN supercarriers will never see a serious naval engagement. Mostly because their very existence makes such engagements unlikely. Mission accomplished.
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That's not a valuable "mission". If these vessels merely by being, but remaining unused, had averted the Great War altogether, that would have been a magnificent result, but the war did take place; millions died, but the battleships saw little action. The effect of the fleet in being was not to avert or mitigate the war, but to minimise its own participation in that war. The Dreadnought arms race one of the conflict's causes, the war killed millions, but the "fleets in being" only once came significantly to blows, and the action was inconclusive. I can't believe that was their mission, but if it was, it wasn't worth fulfilling.
 
Hubert Cumberdale said:
Superfiring turrets are rarely totally superfiring anyway as the blast from the upper turret would inevitably cause damage to the lower turret if fired directly overhead.
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That, in fact, is what the USN disproved when conducting their monitor tests. They mounted a heavy gun, fixed straight ahead in the superstructure of an old monitor -- may have been USS Wyoming although the wiki article doesn't say so. Trials proved the muzzle blast did NOT damage the lower turret or harm the crews.

British battleships couldn't do true superfiring for quite a while because their turrets had open sighting hoods, which would have been a problem. They were also useless shell traps.
The arrangement on Dreadnought allowed for six guns to be brought to bear directly forward and aft, with an 8 gun broadside, which is actually pretty good.
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Here is a plan view of Dreadnought. Firing those wing turrets directly fore or aft may have been theoretically possible but would have caused inordinate damage.

ETA: Actually USS Florida, BM-9, not Wyoming. Several of these monitors were subsequently used as submarine tenders, giving the USN submarine tenders with 12" guns!
 
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Trebuchet said:
Trials proved the muzzle blast did NOT damage the lower turret or harm the crews.



Here is a plan view of Dreadnought. Firing those wing turrets directly fore or aft may have been theoretically possible but would have caused inordinate damage.
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What, I wonder was the effect on the hull of the Chilean ironclad Almirante Cochrane, illustrated here fighting off torpedo boats https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_ironclad_Almirante_Cochrane#/media/File:Ataquechocrane.png (with her secondary armament) when (if ever) she used her main guns to fire directly forward from their position in the armoured casemate amidships.
 
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Trebuchet said:
That, in fact, is what the USN disproved when conducting their monitor tests. They mounted a heavy gun, fixed straight ahead in the superstructure of an old monitor -- may have been USS Wyoming although the wiki article doesn't say so. Trials proved the muzzle blast did NOT damage the lower turret or harm the crews.

British battleships couldn't do true superfiring for quite a while because their turrets had open sighting hoods, which would have been a problem. They were also useless shell traps.

Here is a plan view of Dreadnought. Firing those wing turrets directly fore or aft may have been theoretically possible but would have caused inordinate damage.

ETA: Actually USS Florida, BM-9, not Wyoming. Several of these monitors were subsequently used as submarine tenders, giving the USN submarine tenders with 12" guns!
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I imagine that firing forward was considered a extra, only when absolutely necessary feature, whereas the ability to fire a heavy broadside was seen as the far more important strategy at the time.
 
Craig B said:
What, I wonder was the effect on the hull of the Chilean ironclad Almirante Cochrane, illustrated here fighting off torpedo boats https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_ironclad_Almirante_Cochrane#/media/File:Ataquechocrane.png (with her secondary armament) when (if ever) she used her main guns to fire directly forward from their position in the armoured casemate amidships.
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Probably not great. But it's an older ship with far more primitive guns.

Giordano said:
I imagine that firing forward was considered a extra, only when absolutely necessary feature, whereas the ability to fire a heavy broadside was seen as the far more important strategy at the time.
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True. I think even on the most modern battleships, firing directly forward or aft would cause significant damage to the deck and fittings. During the naval battle of Guadalcanal, USS South Dakota destroyed her own float planes by firing aft. The biggest advantage of the superfiring system pioneered by USS South Carolina was getting the same broadside as Dreadnought with one less turret.

ETA: Interestingly, Huascar, the Peruvian turret ship defeated by Almirante Cochrane, still exists!
 
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Giordano said:
I imagine that firing forward was considered a extra, only when absolutely necessary feature, whereas the ability to fire a heavy broadside was seen as the far more important strategy at the time.
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Not necessary. The last naval war that had been fought involved a lot of maneuvering, and more importantly, a lot of stern chases. And that was only a few years before.

At least at the time of the design of Dreadnought there were some serious cases to be made for as heavy as possible an broadside all around.
Now. The Americans did see the writing on the wall a bit sooner than the British did, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a serious rationale concerning the lay-out of Dreadnoughts main armament.
 
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau didn't have particularly stellar careers.
 
jimbob said:
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau didn't have particularly stellar careers.
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Up until the Channel Dash, they had a relatively active and successful career. Afterwards? Not so much.

But I think they performed above what you could expect from them in the face of the might of the Royal Navy.
Up till the Channel Dash, that is.

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And the Great War versions had a very glorious, albeit equally brief, career.
Also about as much as what you could expect from them.
 
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May I extend the discussion to warship weapons? How about the Japanese 25mm AA machine gun? They obviously liked it, and produced them by the thousands, but the true rate of fire was abysmal due to the 15 round magazines and it lacked both hitting power and range for modern aircraft.
 
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