Land battleships vs actual battleships

@imperious-leader

I didn’t mean the pre dreadnoughts, I meant the “heavy cruisers”.

@abworsham4

Any part of the Missouri that gets hit is going to get serious damage, as long as Gustav’s shell is not launched at less than half of the maximumcrange.

I absolutely agree with you here.  Yamato does have better range with her guns.  But I believe that PoW is better able to place her shots on target at these extreme ranges than Yamato.  Regardless, surprise is crucial for PoW.  Which is why I think the engagement would HAVE to happen at night when radar would help.

@CWO:

@jim010:

Let’s assume a chance encounter in the China sea between the two in 1942 when Churchill wanted British raiders operating the way the Germans had done in the Atlantic. � This is the only possible way I see an encounter between the two happening without other ships and carriers taking part (at least on the British side). � We’ll assume that Japanese carriers are engaged elsewhere and Yamato and other ships are hunting for the British raiders. � Low cloud ceiling, so planes can’t participate. � Prince of Wales was destined for this type of operation, so this match-up MIGHT have happened. � We’ll substitute DoY with PoW. � As the ships are identical, shouldn’t be an issue. � And PoW is most likely to have made this encounter, had she survived.

Interesting analysis, but there’s one other factor that needs to be considered: main gun range.  Yamato’s 18.1-inch guns probably out-ranged PoW’s 14-inchers; Garzke and Dulin’s books would give the exact figures, but I don’t have them on hand at this moment.  If so, Yamato would be able to open fire on PoW long before PoW could do likewise to Yamato.  Or to put it another way, any situation in which PoW is in range to hit Yamato (even at extreme range) would automatically be a situation in which PoW would be well within Yamato’s range.

On the issue of who-spots-whom-first, Japanese inferiority in radar might well be compensated by the IJN’s excellent optical rangefinders, particularly in view of the fact that Yamato’s greater size would place her optical fire-control stations (and perhaps her radars too) at a greater height than those of PoW – so Yamato might actually spot PoW first, since the horizon is further away as you observe it from higher up.  PoW did have a slight edge in speed, but in this situation the main advantage this would confer to PoW would be the ability to get away from a situation in which she was confronted with an opponent way above her weight class.  This was basically the same principle behind the Deutschland-class Panzerschiffe: with a few exceptions (these being the three British battlecruisers they might face), they were more powerful than anything faster and faster than anything more powerful…the latter point meaning that, if they encountered a fully-fledged battleship, they were supposed to run away from it.

The IIIJ has a 50mm L60. I would take that against the Valentine any day.
Might need to hit it in flank, but with the extra 10MPH I would hope I could manoeuvre around it, if my first shell(unluckily) bounced off the frontal armour.
Its puny 2 Pounder would not bother me much I suspect.

@ABWorsham:

Stug III if I get off the first shot.

If the engagement is any longer than the first shot, give me the T-34.

By the way love the question.

Me too. Sorry I did not say, Aequitas.

Yeah I voted Bismarck. :)

Counting on those lucky dice!

i like the first three us cruisers designed and build as treaty cruisers, the Pensacola class, the Northampton class, and the Portland class. these to me are beautiful ships, and represent the “best of the heavy cruisers”. they were treaty cruisers and fulfilled their roles beautifully. They packed a punch with 9-10 8"guns, 8 duel purpose 5" guns, and by 1944/5 they had a deadly AA gun compliment. plus the 5"/38 is considered to be the best duel purpose naval gun of the entire war. Their main battery was superb and they helped hold the line in the months after pearl. they were present from coal sea to the Doolittle raid. from midway to Guadalcanal. they were always there, both of the Pensacola class survived the war, the Indianapolis suffered a tragic loss in the closing months and the Northampton class lost half of their numbers. But IMO, they were the best…

@barnee

Well, the battle takes place during daytime, the most favourable conditions. I read the article in my research, and the battle really was tough to decide. Many people point to Leyte Gulf as proof of how bad Japanese battleships are. But one of the reasons for the Japanese failure off Samar was because of the Japanese using armour piercing shells, which often flew right through the unarmored American ships without exploding. Mistakes in commanding the Japanese ships was another reason for why the American fleet was not destroyed. As I said, it was really hard to decide, and it was very close. As you noted though, the Japanese has inferior radar and sighting, the Japanese had superior armour and had just so many guns that it would have eventually have hit several times, especially if the Missouri went to point blank range, like how I thought the battle would have worked out. It honestly could have gone either way.