HUGE, FAST VESSELS PROJECTED BY NAVY (1/9/39)

Microfiche-New York Times Archives | 1/9/39 | No byline

[Future Snake Eater]

Lets contemplate what enemies we will face in the next 50 years and design a ship best suited,

Well, if we keep fighting in the desert, we'll need some of these!

[skeeter]

Yes they are instruments of war but the designers put a touch of art in them.

I've always thought the WWII battleship were physically reflective of their cultural identity - the superstructures of British ships are reminiscent of castle turrets and those of Japanese ships have a distinct asian flare. German ships appeared to be efficient and modernist, while Italian ones looked like the nautical equivelant of sports cars.

US ships radiate practicality & innovation.

[PAR35]

The Montana Class was never built.

Of course. But they were provided for in the 1940 program. They were all cancelled July 21, 1943 before any of the keels were laid down. They were authorized in July, 1940 (funded in 1941). The Montana name was assigned in December of that year.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/bb-67.htm

The first Iowa class ships were ordered in 1939 (July 1), not 1940, and would have been authorized in 1938. While the last 4 Iowa class ships were ordered in 1940, the class would have predated the new 1940 design mentioned in this story.

[BIGLOOK]

I've always been fond of this shot.

When I was in Boot Camp at Great Lakes, most of my company was assigned to the recommissioned USS New Jersey. USS Iowa and Missouri were also brought out of mothballs for duty in Viet Nam. (Correct me if needed.)

[Non-Sequitur]

No, the 1940 ships were Montana class.

The Montana class were designed with 12 16-inch guns. The article says these had only 9. I think they're talking about the Iowassince they wer laid down in 1940-41.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The Iowa Class dominated the 1940s, not the Montanas. If there were Iowas (the Kentucky) parked for parts through the late 1950s, then the Montana design had already been tagged as pointless.

[PAR35]

If there were Iowas (the Kentucky) parked for parts through the late 1950s, then the Montana design had already been tagged as pointless.

Check the date of the story. In January 1939, no one expected that battleship production would be abruptly ended in 1943.

[PAR35]

The Montana class were designed with 12 16-inch guns. The article says these had only 9.

Yes, and the displacement is a closer match for the nominal displacement of the Iowa class. But the timing of the story isn't right. At that point, they'd have been talking about the last of the Iowas, not the first, if they weren't talking about Montanas. And they are treating these as a proposed new class for authorization in 1940, not a class already past that point. And weren't the last two (of 6) Iowas originally planned as what became the Montana class?

[CougarGA7]

I was working a project at the ATC a couple of years ago and when the artillery range was going at it we would hear the shells roaring overhead. One co-worker was getting pretty unnerved by it since he had never heard that “whistle” before. I told him, “Don’t worry, you wont hear the one that gets you”.

[CougarGA7]

The timing works. The first Iowa class (the Iowa) was ordered in July of 1939 and the keel laid in June of 1940. Here's a pretty good website about the Iowa U.S.S. Iowa

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The Illinois and Kentucky were not any different than the first four Iowas. The Illinois keel was laid January 12, 1945, canceled August 12, 1945, her hull broken in place at the Philadelphia Naval Yard when the project was 25 percent complete.
Kentucky was authorized July 19, 1940, keel laid December 6, 1944. There was a launch "event" at Norfolk on January 20, 1950 even though work had been "suspended" on February 17, 1947. There is no record I can find of a christening. The BB was 72 percent complete. She was struck from Navy lists June 9, 1958 and sold for scrap to Boston metals Company of Baltimore, Maryland October 31, 1958. She was the last battleship ever made.
One last item; the Babcock & Wilcox steam turbine and boilers from Kentucky went into the Fast Combat Support Ship Sacramento (AOE-1) and her sister, Camden (AOE-2) that were in action during Desert shield in January, 1991.

[Eye of Unk]

The Zumwalt-class destroyer (DDG-1000, previously known as the DD(X) program) is a planned class of United States Navy destroyers, designed as multi-mission ships with a focus on land attack. The class is a scaled-back project that emerged after funding cuts to the larger DD-21 vessel program. The Zumwalt-class destroyers are multi-role and designed for surface warfare, anti-aircraft, and naval fire support. They take the place of the battleships in filling the former congressional mandate for naval fire support, though the requirement was reduced to allow them to fill this role. The vessel's appearance has been compared to that of the historic ironclad. [3] The DDG-1000 is planned to feature the following: a low radar profile; an integrated power system, which can send electricity to the electric drive motors or weapons, which may someday include railguns;[4] a total ship computing environment infrastructure, serving as the ship's primary LAN and as the hardware-independent platform for all of the ship's software ensembles; automated fire-fighting systems and automated piping rupture isolation. The destroyer is being designed to require a smaller crew and be less expensive to operate than comparable warships. It will have a wave-piercing "tumblehome" hull form whose sides slope inward above the waterline. This will reduce the radar cross-section, returning much less energy than a more hard-angled hull form. The lead ship is named Zumwalt for Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, and carries the hull number DDG-1000. Originally 32 ships were planned for the class, this was progressively cut down to 2,[5] it now looks like three will be built. The Navy expects each ship to cost nearly $3.3bn.[5]

[J Aguilar]

A comparison of the armour disposition in the top battleships that fought WWII:




All thickness in millimeters

British Prince of Wales still fulfilling the 35,000 ton limit of the naval treaties. Bismarck showing a classic German disposition "full-armour", with even upper decks protected. Yamato and Iowa made use of modern tilted belts (10% less weight for the same protection) and light top armoured decks in order to detonate the airborne bombs and low speed long-range shells before they could reach the main armour, which would contain the shock wave.

Armour was a significant percentage in the weight of a battleship (around 45%) and a resource consuming luxury that few nations could afford. You have to add to these belts and decks the turrets, guns, armoured pasages down them and the shooting control system, also well protected.

It is said that Hitler's battleship program (four super Bismarck's even better armoured) would have carried to the brink of collapse Germany's steel industry

So much resources spent when an aircraft carrier could launch its planes to attack objetives at +250 nm whilst a battleship could fire its guns just at 25 nm (with enough accuracy to hit a moving target: 15 nm).

Thus before WWII it was already known that in an open battle, battleships would be sunk before they were able to get the aircraft carriers within its range, since well armoured, BB's could not hold full protection under the waterline down to the keel for weight restrictions. This area was the target of airborne torpedoes equiped with already existing magnetic fuzes.

However, incorrect use of carriers by the British led to the sunk of the Glorious, retreating from Norway, in the summer of 1940. The world had to wait for the sinking of the Bismarck, one year later, to see how planes did what the best battleships of the Royal Navy were not able to do. Unfortunately, the British learnt it after losing 1,800 men in the sinking of the Hood.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Great job on the WWI naval discussion. All I can do on threads like this is to admire and pick nits. Here is my nit: In WWI Austria-Hungary was NOT landlocked, since the port of Trieste and all of the Croatian coast (Dalmatia) was part of it's Empire. As you may remember, Baron von Trapp, sire of the musical Trapp family, was an Admiral in the old navy, and was out of a job after Austria became landlocked in the WWI peace settlement. After the anschluss with Germany the Nazis wanted him to join the German navy, which is why his family fled.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

How about the French ships that Churchill sank at the beginning of WWII?

[skeeter]

The Bretagne (sp?) was a kinda funny looking upgrade of an old WWI BB, but the modern battlecruisers the french had there, of which only the Dunkerque suffered significant damage, were elegant looking ships.

Don't think I could describe them as uniquely french looking though, although IMO in some ways they resembled contemporary french capital ships.

[skeeter]

One co-worker was getting pretty unnerved by it since he had never heard that “whistle” before.

On one of the Bismark documentaries a surviving German crewman described the effect of a heavy caliber round passing close overhead at 3k feet per second... he said pressure wave literally 'rips a scream' from your lungs and the sound is incredible.

[Right Winged American]

It's always tickled me that the Zoomie class ships at 14,000 tons disp. are technically bigger than Tico class cruisers.

My main discomfort with Vertical Launch Systems (hot launch) is that they cannot be reloaded at sea. I think it's a critical weakness, being subject to shooting your escorts dry.

I also wonder at the lack of RAM's for medium- to close AAW.

The Gun systems are a stopgap, cause she'll shoot herself dry pretty quickly in her land attack role. I'm leery of the 65 nm. range of what is essentially a 155mm gun, regardless of it's cycle time. On the other hand, when the bugs are out of the Rail gun, she'll be a lot more useful.

Especially if the Integrated Power System lets her mount something like some form of laser, down the line.

Besides, I think she's really purty!