[BroJoeK]

"52,000 Ton Limit Favored by Stark – 14"

Back to the great battleship debate.

The article notes eight battleships then under construction, plus two more being considered. Those would be:

• Two North Carolina Class 36,000 tons (standard)

  

• Four South Dakota Class, 35,000 tons (standard)

  

• Two Iowa Class ordered, two more under consideration, 45,000 tons (standard)

  

• The issue being debated was whether to add five more of the larger Montana Class, 65,000 tons (standard). Admiral Starke here says, "no".

  

• What's most curious, in all this discussion is lack of mention of the new Essex Class aircraft carriers, 27,000 tons (standard), of which two were authorized in 1938, and 32 eventually ordered, 24 of them completed.
  In the end, the Montana battleships were sacrificed to build more Essex aircraft carriers.
  But already, in January 1940, Admiral Starke is not asking for more battleships.
  I wonder what he knew... ?

  

[Homer_J_Simpson]

That Essex-class assembly line must have been more or less what Yamamoto was thinking about when he said he would have the upper hand in the Pacific for about six months after launching a war with the U.S.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Great pictures of BB’s and carriers, btw. I can understand how someone looking at a battleship could get locked into the idea of their invulnerablility. Compare one of those with its main battery going off to a carrier with a few planes sitting on the flight deck and it looks like no contest.

[tanknetter]

In the end, the Montana battleships were sacrificed to build more Essex aircraft carriers.

Not just the Montanas, but also the resources that would have been required to build an additional set of locks in the Panama Canal that could handle them.