British M class submarine of WWI (only a 12" gun, but the principle is the same). Worked about as well as might be expected (and nowhere nearly as well as was expected).
And the French boat: a couple of 8" guns, nothing special.
Posted on 04/15/2005 2:27:55 AM PDT by Zero Sum
"There is no weapon system in the world that comes even close to the visible symbol of enormous power represented by the battleship." -- Retired Gen. P.X. Kelly, USMC
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Those words of the former Marine commandant resonate with me. In 1969, gunfire from the battleship USS New Jersey (BB-62) saved my rifle platoon in Vietnam. During her six months in-theater, the USS New Jersey's 16-inch guns were credited with saving more than 1,000 Marines' lives. The North Vietnamese so feared the ship that they cited her as a roadblock to the Paris peace talks. Our leaders, as they did so often in that war, made the wrong choice and sent her home. Now, 36 years later, Washington is poised to make another battleship blunder.
(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...
British M class submarine of WWI (only a 12" gun, but the principle is the same). Worked about as well as might be expected (and nowhere nearly as well as was expected).
And the French boat: a couple of 8" guns, nothing special.
My point was not which type of ship did the sinking, merely that those vessels were sunk. And they were sunk just as much by surface ships and surface ships carrying aircraft as much as they were by submarines.
The other point was that even in sub-infested waters, surface ships and surface ships carrying aircraft managed to neutralize the submarine threat.
The argument was made in response to the poster's contention that surface fleets were a useless anachronism. The conditions that prevailed in 1940-1945 are still factors in naval warfare today.
For anyone who's still interested, here's a list of battleship actions in World War II:
North Sea (Apr 9, 1940) The German Scharnhorst and Gneissenau exchange shots with the British battlecruiser Repulse. minor damage to both sides, the battle is inconclusive.
Denmark Strait (May 24, 1940) - German Bismark sinks HMS Hood and damages HMS Prince of Wales. Later that day Prince of Wales and Bismark trade further shots, with no effect. The Bismark escapes.
North Atlantic (May 27, 1941) Bismark is finally brought to heel by HMS Rodney and HMS King George V. Neither battleship can sink the German ship, which was either scuttled by the Germans or sunk by torpedo from a british cruiser, depending on who you believe.
Mers El-Kebir (July 3, 1940) - British Hood, Valiant, and Resolution attack French fleet tied up at their piers. The French lose the battleship Bretagne, suffer damage to Provance and Dukerque. The French Strausbourg escapes without a scratch. No damage to the British.
Calabria (July 9, 1940) Italian Julio Ceasare and Compte Di Cavour slug it out against HMS Warspite, Royal Sovreign and Malaya. The action is indecisive, but both Italian battleships are damaged.
Cassablanca (Nov 8, 1942) - The USS Massachusetts beats up the French Jean Bart, which is tied to a pier and missing half it's guns.
Guadalcanal (Nov 14-15, 1942) - Kirishima vs. USS South Dakota and Washington. Kirishima takes 9 16-inch hits and is so badly damagedit is scuttled the following day. Wahsington is moderate damaged.
North Cape (Dec 26, 1943) HMS Duke of York sinks the German Scharnhorst after a running fight.
Surigao Strait (Oct 24-25, 1944) - American squadron of Mississipi, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, California and Tennesee, sink Japanese squadron including the Fuso and Yamashiro. The battle was over so quickly that Pennsylvania never fired a shot. Five of the six American battleships had been salvaged from the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Actually you do know how the decision is made: you have programmed the computer to recognize and translate this or that jumble of ones and zeros as "m" or "w". All computers have this symbolic translation capabilty and it was put there by human beings. The machine did not 'reason' out that 11000110 = "m",for example (btw my assembler is rusty so I don't even know if that statement was actually mathematically valid!), someone told it that should recognize it that way and it does. The machine did no autonomous 'thinking' of it's own would be incapable of doing so unless someone told it how to think.
Since we do not know exact mechanics of thinking, we can only approximate it by the application of logic, which is not thinking,per se, but merely the result of the thought process. Therefoe, until we understand the mechanics of thought, AI is only a dream, held back by human failing. Until we no longer have this shortcoming, we cannot create an autonomous machine, Star Trek notwithstanding.
I read the report when it came out. Part of the blame was the condition of the powder. A similar explosion from the same causes had happened aboard a heavy cruiser a few decades before.
I stand corrected.
I grant all your points (regarding superiority of Iowas over Yamatos); minor quibbles over relative technical minutia don't change the vulnerability of tube-based naval firepower, compared to the standoff capability of a carrier.
I believe the Brits got her with a single topredo.
Pretty good. Here's an intersting tidbit, vis-a-vis the Yamato:
In the years prior to WWII, the US Navy had developed an armor plate which provided 25% more protection per inch than older materials of similar weight. The Iowa's armor plate was not as thick as the Yamato's, but was at least as strong with lighter weight.
In addition, the Yamato ws torpedoed by a submarine sometime in 1943. Repairs revealed that the armor belt had seperated fromthe ship's frame. Rather than repair the joints properly, the Japanese merely added another 5,000 tons of armor belt, welded it in place and pretended nothing happened. When struck again at Okinawa, it is entirely possible that the entire section of 'repaired' armor plating promptly fell off, taking the additonal 5,000 tons of armor plating with it. This meant the Yamato had virually no armor protection in that area at all.Had an Iowa and the Yamato slugged it out, the same could be reasonably assumed to happen, leaving the largest battleship in the world with no armor.
AH yes , a serious semen stain on an otherwise fine thread.
Did I read that right? They welded the new armor to the old armor that wasn't firmly attached to the frame?
Okay, one more time. A carrier is merely a transport for aircraft, which it expends like ammunition.It has virtually no defensive and certain no offensive firepower of it's own.
A Carrier with a fouled deck, broken catapults or without planes, or even a carrier with planes but without aviation fuel or ordinance, is little more than an expensive ferry. I spent 8 years on three carriers and while I have great appreciation for Naval Aviation, it's not the ultimate weapon. Carriers, even in today's world, can be caught short. Just ask the guys on the Kitty Hawk about six years ago when they got buzzed by the Russians, and they didn't have a plane in the air. Airplanes do break and do require regular maintence. They do not fly 24/7/365.
It's a great weapons SYSTEM, but not a weapon in and of itself.
Yep, you read that right.
Yes, good distinction between level, dive and torpedo bombing...
I guess the leap to artificial intelligence isn't as wide as we'd like to think...
Artificial intelligence or whistling past the graveyard?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.