Replies

Oh I don't know, several brave "tin cans" took multiple 14 inch shells apiece off Samar and still made 15 knots, and smoke. One of them cut a cruiser in half with its torpedos and got dozens of superstructure hits on BBs and CAs, while taking 3 14 inch and about a dozen 6 and 8 inch hits.

This idea that any ship hit is "done for" does not withstand historical scrutiny.

179 posted on 07/15/2006 11:52:07 PM EDT by JasonC

The tin cans of that era are a far cry from their modern descendants. They had actual armor, where a modern DD generally doesn't.

Also, most of the weight of a shell is the shell, not the warhead/payload. The Silkworm actually carries more explosive than a 14" shell. (Replies Nbr 180 and 179)

...

No, they really didn't have actual armor. Cruisers did, not DDs. The Fletcher class involved at Sumar had half an inch right around a few vital systems (bridge, magazines) but no belt or deck armor beyond the structural hull. As for what they were hit by, 14 inch shells carried around 500 lbs of explosive, less than a high capacity modern missile but more than e.g. an exocet. They also hit with a kinetic energy of over 200 million joules, because the round itself was 3/4 of a ton and they went over twice the speed of sound. And plain DDs took 3 of them and a dozen smaller hits and kept fighting.

---
Careful, careful.

You're mixing three (or more!) things here - so ALL your statements, while true (in a stand-alone basis!) CANNOT be used together to make a correct conclusion.

"Armor" is hardened, very thick, layered steel formed to deflect or breakup an incoming shell, and to prevent and HE blast from coming through. Structural steel - which in a very few places may have been 1/2 thick on some destroyers, was not hardened like battleship, aircraft carrier decks, or cruisers. (I don't know of any destroyer armor itself other than gun turrets, but I'll accept your statement.)

What ahappened off Samar wasthat very thin-plated destroyers (a few times) got a lucky hit from AP battleship shells that simply went THROUGH the strucutral steel and did not explode. This happened a few otehr times during the war. All of the potential (explosive) and kinetic energy (mass of shell x v^2) mentioned WOULD have been forced onto the target IF the shell hit a cruiser or battleship armor or strucutre.

More important, these were "simple" WWII destroyers with (simple) WWII analog computers and gunsites, manual loading and hoists, and elementary radar and gun-training controls.

Damage in one area of the ship DID NOT mean the rest of the ship was disabled. SO, many WWII destroyers DID survive multiple gun hits and kamikaze hits, and COULD continue fighting after the impact.

Now? It is a completely different story. In every case I've studied of some 80 post-WWII destroyer, frigate, and cruiser-sized ships that ahve actually been struck by a missile, mine, un-armed missile, dud, shell, or bomb, unexploded bomb, torpedo, waterborne explosive or anything else, EVERY ship was knocked out of effective combat IMMEDIATELY.

(This means that the target - for at lest a quarter hour, sometime permanently!) had lost power, propulsion, counter-missile ability, CIC, or weapons. If you cannot flee, fight, or detect, you are vulnerable to a second weapon.)

The ONLY ship that came closest to retaining combat ability was HMS Glamorgan off Falklands: that ship had a helo deck bomb hit, glance off the deck, and bounce through without exploding. Only power was off for a short time, but radar, CIC, and electronics came back up very quickly.

---

So, modern destroyers are very, very vulnerable after a hit. You CANNOT compare their ability (after a hit) to ANYTHING a floating during WWII.

Wrong, they were not "through and throughs" by AP, they got hit full by explosive rounds that smashed their bridges, cut their speed in half, knocked out 3 out of 5 gun turrets, started fires, etc, etc. And they fought on anyway on one engine making 17 knots firing from 2 remaining 5 inch turrets without central fire control.

The reason modern ships stop fighting when they get hit is they typically have the luxury of doing so, letting the rest of the task force carry on, treating the hit ship as a victim and a disaster zone and doing everything possible to limit losses to the crew etc. In WW II, in harm's way continually, they fought on like hellcats because the enemy was still right there, 10000 yards off, and stopping fighting was not an option, it was suicide.

On the Johnston, the captain had lost 2 finger, had broken bones, shrapnel wounds to the head back and face, standing on a smashed bridge with his ship on fire, and in the words of a crewmember "continued to fight the ship as no ship has ever been fought". He previously took his DD - alone and before any orders to do so - head on against 6 heavy cruisers in a run that brought the closing speed to 60 knots. Successfully - he crippled one CA with torpedos at 10000 yards and turned away clean into his own smoke.

It was just plain "balls of brass"...

We should really start referring to modern combatants as "ships of the line" again. Cruisers were traditionally the smallest warship capable of independent steaming, whereas destroyers required tenders or other support to operate away from their homeport.

Really, the only difference between a cruiser and a destroyer today is mission. Destoryers have an ASW/ASUW mission and cruisers have a fleet defense/AAW mission.

It doesn't make sense to compare Burke class destroyers to Fletchers.

By the way, I think decomissioning the Spruance class was a mistake we will come to regret.